The Martial Unity

"It's extremely difficult and takes a lot of time. And while it takes time, you will remain extremely weak, so much so that you'll be considered a quasi-Master at best. Do not go down that path, it's a horrible fate that will drive you to madness." She pointedly noted at Rui.

Rui nodded. "I have no intentions of cutting corners with my Martial Mind. It will be the most powerful Martial Mind, pound for pound, that the world has ever seen."

"Hah," She snorted. "That's ambitious. I have seen some truly powerful Martial Minds. Including my own. There's a reason I am so powerful. I have created unseen systems of thought that allow me to kill. Kill far, far better than my rivals. Hardly any of my peers are my match."

"I have a lot of respect for you Master, but I have no intention of even stopping at the Sage Realm, let alone the Master Realm. By the way, can you tell me what the truth about the Sage Realm is?"

"You wish," She threw him a dubious expression.

"How does the process of creating the Martial Mind work in practice?" Rui asked. "Are there special things Martial Seniors need to do to initiate the creation of the Martial Mind?"

"No," She shook her head. "Just create, commit to memory, and use the systems of thought that you wish to create a Martial Mind out of. Nothing else is required."

"And how do I know when I have created the Martial Mind, and only need to discover it in battle?" Rui asked.

"You don't, I'm afraid," She laughed. "That's not something you possess the ability to introspect, unfortunately. You'll need to keep throwing yourself into battle in order to ensure that if you have fully created the Martial Mind, you will hopefully awaken it."

"I see... That inconvenient," Rui murmured. "The uncertainty complicates things a bit. Could I get a Martial Sage to look into my progress?"

"yes, but it's not nearly as easy." She shook her head. "The Martial Mind is a reservoir of mental power that belongs to the Upper Realms. it is a lot more inscrutable to Martial Sages than martial Seniors like yourself are to Martial Masters."

"Hm, what about Martial Transcendents?" Rui asked, curious.

"..." She paused for a moment, before shrugging. "Having met one of them only once, I would not dare to say anything is impossible for those beings."

"You've actually met a Martial Transcendent?" Rui's eyes furrowed with surprise.

"Indeed." She nodded. "...They were beyond my wildest fathoming. Worthy of the title of Transcendent. But we're not here to talk about them."

That was true, though Rui couldn't help but be curious nonetheless.

"I suppose I've largely quelled the many questions you have regarding what Martial Seniors need to do to reach the Master Realm," She remarked. "Still, ask away."

"You said earlier that the Martial Mind needs to exceed the consciousness," Rui remarked. "Can you elaborate on that?"

"...You can think of it as filling up the side compartment of the vessel by overflowing the main compartment with water. The overflowing water with nowhere else to go naturally falls into the side compartment," She explained. "The Martial mind is similar. In the first place, you need to create systems of thought that exceed what your conscious capacity is capable of processing all at once."

"So only the overflowed water is considered a part of the Martial Mind?" Rui frowned.

"Yes, but that's just because of our terminology, don't be concerned by that. The end goal is to gain more processing power to be able to wholly apply the Martial Mind. It doesn't matter what falls where as long as your mind and Mind can take all of it together. The end outcome will be the same."

"Makes sense. What if you create more water than can be filled in either the main or the side compartment?" Rui asked.

"That generally tends not to happen." She explained. "You'd be able to cut away what you don't want and keep the best parts in such a case. That would be the way to resolve that, I suppose. Though most Martial Masters discovered their Martial Mind shortly after creating it, I don't think I've heard of anybody going way beyond the limit creating a Martial mind too powerful for even the latent untapped potential of the brain."

"Hmm..." Rui fell into silence as he processed all the information at hand. She was right when she said that he had a lot to consider. "Interesting. I can see why Martial Seniors struggle to break through to the Master Realm."

Being able to create systems of thought that were so powerful that they could elevate their combat level significantly higher just through thought or cognition alone was something that was unthinkably difficult for Martial Seniors.

In general, Martial Artists had not exercised the power of thought much, if at all. The reason for this was that the Lower Realms were primarily centered around body and movement.

It was only when one reached the peak of the Lower realms that those truly no longer had anything left to offer. The body had been pushed to its limits, and techniques, that applied the power of the body through movement, had also been pushed to the limit.

'For any soaked sponge, there is a limit to how much water you can squeeze from it. Techniques can only do so much." Rui mused. 'However, when one has mindlessly squeezed the sponge their entire life to grow stronger, they are unable to continue that growth once the sponge runs out of water.'

In other words, having spent decades, even centuries, growing stronger by exploiting the power of the body, it was considerably difficult for Martial Seniors to alter their mentality at its root and begin applying the power of thought to more than just creating individualistic and attuned techniques amidst training.

Rui couldn't help but think back to the Martial Seniors of Vilun Island. They were a highly martial set of people whose lifestyle and even combat philosophy were entirely incompatible with the mindset needed to progress one's Martial Art.