The Martial Unity

Once they finished conversing, the man sky-walked away. Rui considered the conversation that they'd just had. It was quite insightful, and he had learned a lot from the man.

"Now what?" Rui asked himself, having yet to get up.

In truth, he already knew the answer.

"I need to push myself to the absolute limit applying my power in the real world."

He had only gotten to use the Pathfinder technique once in a mission, and he was not satisfied with that at all. Furthermore, he had also gotten a boost to his body and thus wanted to test that as well.

"Well, off to the Martial Union I go," Rui shrugged.

Five minutes later, he had reached the Martial Union, quickly making his way through all the security check-ins before immediately heading towards the mission library. He walked towards the shadow class of missions, browsing through the missions.

Right off the bat, there were a lot of missions that would allow him to accrue more fame for his sniping capability, but Rui was looking for something more than that. He didn't want a simple elementary mission where he needed to get into position and take a shot before leaving.

He wanted a mission that would also allow him to exercise his capability as a Martial Artist.

An assassination mission that would require fighting Martial Squires would be ideal for him, while he was excited to apply Pathfinder and show the world the power of his techniques, he was not an assassin. He was a Martial Artist, first and foremost. He could already feel himself itching for a good fight where he exercised his Martial Art, and he was growing more reluctant to do simple and static assassinations.

Doing it once was fine with the mission commissioned by Fauche, however, he had no interest in doing it any further.

However, there was just one problem.

('I cannot judge whether a mission of this kind actually involves me fighting other Martial Artists, after all, it sort of runs contrary to the point of Shadow class missions.') Rui sighed.

Shadow-class missions were all covert and clandestine by definition. Fights between Martial Squires were not covert by any means. Thus, the proportion of missions that involved straightforward clashes with Martial Artists was actually quite a few.

Furthermore, it was extremely difficult for Rui to judge whether a mission would entail him fighting other Martial Artists based on the publicized information available. These descriptions only offered the basic facts of the mission, they did not offer any details that would allow Rui to judge whether he would find the real combat that he was looking for.

Rui had to make a choice out of several options here. He could try to make the best judgment he could regarding whether the mission would give him opportunities to exercise both his combat and his assassination capabilities.

It was definitely extremely difficult, but Rui had a shot at doing so.

Another choice was to simply accept that finding both of these elements in a single mission was not really practical. What was much more practical was alternating between missions that definitely gave him one of what he was looking for. He could go for shadow-class missions that would give him the opportunity to exercise his assassination capabilities, and then go for an offense class or hunter-class missions that would allow him to exercise his combat ability as a Martial Artist.

That was much more reasonable than hoping to find both in a single mission.

('That seems quite logical,') Rui shrugged, it was the best option he had. ('Since I already picked a shadow class mission last time, I'll go with an offense class mission or a hunter class mission.')

Offense class missions were generally preferable because they allowed him to pick missions where he could be guaranteed combat against other Martial Squires, especially since he was now a grade-four Martial Squire.

('Well, since my previous mission was an assassination mission, I should go for an offense-class mission.') Rui shrugged, walking towards the offense class section.

As always, the offense-class missions were either international or sanctioned by an authorized governmental entity. There were even a few authorized by the Martial Union as well, that also possessed the right to issue such missions within the Kandrian Empire.

Rui sauntered through the section in the library as he looked for a suitable mission.

[Offense-class mission: destruction mission

Client: Feruir Cerni

Difficulty grade: four

Target of destruction: Supply shipment convoy

Target location: Fruid trade route; [45.3, 24.6 to 46.5, 23.2]

Remuneration: 11,000 Martial Credits / 418 gold coins

Mission summary: The target of destruction is a supply shipment convoy from the Kingdom of Violis heading towards the Commonwealth Duchy of Vinfrana. The protection outfit assigned to the supply shipment consists of ten Martial Apprentices and a defense-class Martial Squire.]

('Interesting, a mission relevant to nations that I have already completed missions in before.') Rui mused.

The Kingdom of Violis was the nation where he had been deployed by the Kandrian Bureau of Investigation to capture Faraday Lowminer, while the Commonwealth Duchy of Vinfrana was the nation where he had been commissioned by the Martial Union itself to annihilate a hidden research facility that was researching the breakthrough to the Squire realm. It was thanks to the research data that he had procured from this mission that he had finally managed to learn the truth about the mechanics of the breakthrough to the Squire Realm.

Both of these missions were quite memorable to him, and now he had the opportunity to undertake another mission involving both of these nations.

Of course, it wasn't particularly surprising. There weren't an infinite number of nations, so he was bound to run into the same nation as long as he continued doing foreign-based missions.

('Alright, I'll accept it, why not.') Rui shrugged, it wasn't as though this didn't fulfill the conditions that he had set. He plucked the mission bill out of the slot on the shelf before heading towards the mission application counter.