The Martial Unity

The Umiana Trench had been quite fun and helpful to the development of his Martial Art, but ultimately it was not a place that held Rui's interest, and most certainly not a place that held Kane's interest. The two of them were more than willing to leave the Umiana Trench as they continued their little explorative voyage to the west.

Rui considered it a good sign that Chairman Deacon hadn't come looking for them yet. They hadn't met any Martial Squires that had come to the Umiana Trench looking for a black-haired or green-haired Martial Squire.

This was a good sign, it meant that the decoys that Rui had commissioned from Guildmaster Bradt were doing a good job keeping Chairman Deacon's sights fixed on the Kandrian Empire. The Martial Union was also aiding in order to make it look like ir really was them.

However, Rui was not naive, he did not think that this would fool Chairman Deacon forever, that was impossible. Eventually, Chairman Deacon would figure out the truth, either before the protection ended, or after. Rui probably still had leeway as long as the protection of his family was kept around, however, he definitely could not take too long to become stronger.

Chairman Deacon was not kind enough to wait for him to grow strong enough, after all. Furthermore, there were going to be two more guildmaster elections in the Shionel Confederation in the next ten years. Although Rui truly did not expect Guildmaster Bradt to lose in the long run, especially after he had consolidated the wealth that he gained from Esosale Suppliers and the power that he gained from being the sole possessor of a map of the Shionel Dungeon, he did not want to imagine what might happen if Chairman Deacon became the guildmaster of the Shionel Confederation.

Rui shook his head, as he put these matters aside. He had already made his decisions in that regard, and there was already nothing more he could do in regard to these issues. All he could do was do everything in his power to grow stronger.

"A destination where they don't train power, you said?" Rui asked, turning to Kane. "We can do that. Where do you want to go?"

"You remember that place with the lightning?" Kane asked with an excited grin. "Let's go check that place out. I don't know if I believe that a single valley can have a billion lightning strikes every second. That's crazy!"

"I mean…" Rui glanced at the Umiana Trench. They were far away enough that they could no longer see individual Martial Artists even with their evolved sense of vision. Thus it looked like the ocean was magically staying away from the deep trench.

"Alright fine," Kane conceded. "It isn't too crazy by these standards, still, I want to see it in person."

"We can go to Thundering Valley," Rui nodded. "I too am interested in that place. It sounds like a good place to challenge myself."

His Forestep technique had been good enough to allow him to dodge nearly a thousand root attacks at one point in the Shionel Dungeon. However, was it fast enough to dodge lightning?

It wasn't for no reason that lightning was the prime hyperbole used when one wanted to convey that something was fast. Lightning was so absurdly fast that fast things were described as lightning-fast in order to exaggerate how fast they were. There was no other phenomenon in nature that received the same kind of treatment as lightning did. From primordial times, lightning was treated as one of the primary elemental forces of the gods.

And now? They sought to challenge that very force.

Both of them possessed strengths that allowed them to be more confident than other Martial Artists.

Kane, of course, was an evasive maneuverer, the Thundering Valley was a place where he could finally be challenged on his strengths, rather than being challenged on his weaknesses like he was in the Umiana Trench. He was quite curious as to whether he would be able to evade lightning, and if he wasn't, then he definitely intended to train in the Thundering Valley until he succeeded!

Rui wasn't entirely sure whether they could succeed. Lightning moved at speeds that they couldn't achieve at the moment. It traveled from the sky to the ground in just 0.00003 seconds!

"It will be fun," Rui smiled at the thought of striving to overcome this challenge. Yet behind his nonchalant smile was a steely gaze, determined to grow stronger and obtain the power that he needed to protect his family from those that wished to harm them.

"Alright, let's get going," Kane nodded as he immediately began setting off away from the Umiana Trench, it wasn't even a second before he came back to Rui. "Er… Which direction is this so-called Thundering Valley again?"

Rui chuckled as he glanced at the sun before pointing North-west. "That way. It can be part of our journey to the West."

Rui had already plotted numerous courses that they could take in their journey to the west, away from the Shionel Dungeon. He had purposely picked locations that were to their west as opposed to any other cardinal direction so that they wouldn't have to suffer major detours and drastically delay their journey by quite some time.

Kane nodded. "Let's get started, we don't have time to waste. How long does it take to get there at a comfortable sky-walking speed?"

"It would take more than a month of near-continuous travel we sky-walked at a slow jogging pace the entire way," Rui replied. "It would take more than a week if we traveled on land."

Kane frowned turning towards Rui. "That's far! We need to set out immediately and maintain a brisk pace or it's going to take forever."

Rui chuckled at his enthusiasm, nodding. The two of them blurred out of vision as they made forth toward the direction that Rui had pointed in. It appeared that Kane had no intention of spending too much time traveling.