The Martial Unity

Their conversation soon ended as Master Deivon returned to his meditation while left to prepare for the journey to the Virodha Theocracy.

Which actually was remarkably brief.

He had very few belongings in the first place and had packed lightly to make traveling easier and more convenient.

He had to get some identification in order, even if it only was limited to an alias, in order to take part in the main contest.

Fortunately, he found that the administration was remarkably cooperative and helpful, providing him with an identity card that bore his alias and even his mask. It appeared that the Virodhabhasa Faith was remarkably practical about allowing Martial Squires to hide their identities.

It couldn't be helped.

There were plenty of reasons to be concerned about doxing one's self on such an incredibly high-profile stage. There were bound to be powerful Martial Squires who were not just powerful in their Martial Art but also happened to have powerful connections or backgrounds that made them really scary to mess with.

The possibility of drawing the ire of powerful third parties backing certain representatives was very real. Nobody wanted to be assassinated after the Martial Contest simply because they defeated the grandson of a Martial Sage or something like that.

In addition, the concept of patrons also made the matter even messier. Martial Artists of the higher Realms generally tended not to meddle with matters pertaining to lower Realms. It was not worth their attention and was usually too low for them.

However, that changed when they had personal interests vested in matters pertaining to the lower Realms.

Rui was not naive enough to believe that Martial Artists of the Upper Realms were all benevolent and gracious.

No.

All of them sought power to an extreme degree. After all, one could not break through to the Upper Realms unless one truly chased after power with an intense desire. Such a desire was not particularly conducive to a gracious attitude that promoted generosity to their juniors. It was simply too much to expect all Martial Masters to be like Headmaster Aronian.

That was why the choice to hide one's identity was instated, it was the only way to ensure that the Martial Contest would not be tainted by implicit threat and manipulation beyond an acceptable degree.

Thankfully, unlike his previous Martial Contest, he was not without powerful backing.

He wasn't entirely clear on how powerful Master Deivon was within the religion, but given that he was the religious leader of one of the church towns established by the Virodhabhasa Faith, it was quite likely that, at the very least, he was not low on the totem pole.

That, along with the powerful mask that Rui had gotten, was good enough.

The only thing Rui was concerned about was whether his performance would actually reveal his identity to certain people.

Given how high-profile the event was going to be, Rui had no doubts that both the Kandrian Empire and the Shionel Confederation would most certainly not be aware of it, but may very well be involved in it as well. After all, it was entirely possible for any of the thousand representatives that had been gathered across the entire continent to have connections with both states.

Even if that wasn't the case. Rui knew for a fact that the event would most certainly be documented by both states, as well as the Martial Union.

Was it possible that they would recognize him?

Unfortunately, he could not guarantee that it wouldn't happen.

This was especially true for the Martial Union. Much of his Martial Art was constructed from building blocks that came from techniques that the Martial Union sold. Furthermore, the Martial Union had the most information on his Martial Art out of all the parties.

He would be naive to think that they would not notice a remarkable statistical overlap between himself now and the profile that they had on Rui Quarrier. They were too competent to not at least do that much.

However, he was not concerned about that. The Martial Union was firmly on his side. He was the most promising rising star of the Kandrian Empire, and they had offered to fully suppress any and all intent of retaliation from Chairman Deacon. Furthermore, he had already established an understanding with the Martial Union that there would be a firm lockdown on any and all intelligence gathered on possible spotting of Rui Quarrier outside of the Kandrian Empire.

They were currently maintaining false information that served as a red herring for Rui being in the Kandrian Empire hiding from Chairman Deacon. Any real information on Rui was firmly buried deep beyond where spies or other forms of information infiltration could reach. Thus even if they did learn that he was Rui Quarrier, no one could ever possibly learn of it.

In fact, it wouldn't even be that bad if they did identify him. The fact of the matter was that they were in charge of absolutely protecting every individual member of his family from Senior-level threats. This was an extremely expensive form of protection that would guarantee Senior-level protection to all of them even if they all individually split up every second of every day for an entire decade straight. That was why he had essentially gone broke despite being a billionaire.

The Martial Union did not offer this kind of protection easily. Money alone couldn't purchase such services. After all, as an organization centered around Martial Art, money was not the most important goal of this organization.

Yet Rui had been able to purchase it nonetheless. That was an implicit statement from the Martial Union that they valued him.

By performing well in the Martial Contest, he was giving them even more reason to value him for the first time in three years. If nothing else but to ensure that his family got the protection that they deserved, he was determined to show that he was worth going to great lengths to earn the favor of.