The Martial Unity

"Now then, let us get to the principles of domain techniques," Master Gurren continued. "The principles of manipulating the heavens are very different from manipulating earth."

He exhaled heavily before him as his hands were poised, ready for action. They began moving in slow, delicate movements, curling, shifting, and flowing, which in turn impacted the wind currents, sound, and pressure gradients, causing their vectors to change as he pleased.

"This is how we manipulate the heavens. We bend breath. We bend its force to, in turn, bend the heavens," Master Gurren explained. "This is known as heaven bending. The quality of your heaven techniques is dependent on the proficiency of your heaven bending."

Rui's eyes widened. "I see, that's incredible!"

There were many forces in this world that determined atmospheric and air factors together. Gravity from the planet and the moon, the forces from the Coriolis Effect, exposure to sunlight, the composition of air, topography, and ecology all acted on the atmosphere, resulting in the outcome.

Heaven techniques, a sub-field of domain techniques centered around the heavens, relied on turning the powerful force of breath of the user into the dominant force acting on the atmosphere around the user, allowing them to impact it.

"Of course, the quality of heaven techniques is also dependent on your understanding of the flow of heaven," Master Gurren informed him. "The flow of the heavens is not one of chaos. There are rules. Laws. Principles. Of course, theoretical scholars have yet to gain anything more than a minor understanding of the order that lies underneath the seemingly chaotic surface. While scholars attempt to codify the order of heaven on paper with strange symbols that they insist are scientific and mathematical, we Martial Artists are left with no other means but our instincts, intuition, and experience. The latter hones the former, improving our subconscious understanding of the world."

Master Gurren paused, raising an eyebrow. "What are you smirking about?"

"Nothing."

"Hmph, you are arrogant through and through, arrogant brat."

Rui did his best to suppress the excited grin that was threatening to completely occupy his expression. He couldn't help it, of course. Master Gurren's words inadvertently highlighted the massive advantage that he held over all his peers.

He possessed the scholarly understanding of the flow of heavens that Master Gurren insisted that Martial Artists couldn't have. Fluid dynamics, Classic Wave Theory, Sound Dynamics, Thermodynamics, Kinetic theory of gases. What were these, if not the order of heaven, codified into scientific theories?

"In all my many years of peering into the depths of heaven, I have yet to uncover more than a portion of the depths of the order of heaven," Master Gurren heaved a sigh. "Anyone who uncovers the truth of the heavens will possess truly heavenly domains. Regardless, that's enough about the heavens. Let us talk about earth."

STEP

He pushed his foot down to the ground.

RUMBLE!

"We manipulate heaven with our steps," Master Gurren remarked. "With each step, we supply the earth with power. We bend earth to our will using pressure, sound, and heat. Like so."

STEP

The ground around Rui moved up faster than he could react, wrapping around him before solidifying into solid rock. Instantly, he was trapped inside a mud boulder.

"I liquified earth using vibrations and then relied on force to displace the earth around you and then ceased the vibrations," Master Gurren explained. "Earth bending tends to be more powerful for one's body is stronger than one's breath alone, but it is also far more limited in versatility and application and tends to be easier to evade. It is also less vital to the battle since land can be avoided, but the heavens can't. It, too, has an inscrutable order that we have yet to understand. Regardless, we can only do our best."

Once again, Rui had a hard time suppressing his smile. He had yet another advantage that he couldn't wait to exploit.

"Together, we create techniques of heaven and earth," Master Gurren explained before exhaling heavily and striking the land with his food.

RUMBLE!

WHOOSH!

A tremendous tornado enveloped them while the land began shaking violently.

"Woah…!" Rui exclaimed, excited.

"And that brings us to the introductory session," Master Gurren replied. "You can forge your own path across heaven and earth after you have mastered heaven bending and earth bending."

"I see," Rui furrowed his eyebrow, deep in thought.

His goal in mastering domain techniques was to develop techniques that adapted the environment to his opponents. Obviously, it was impossible to immediately find a way to adapt to the environment against all Martial Artists right off the bat. But he could start by adapting to the three primary fields of combat.

'Hm, but I already am able to adapt to the primary fields of combat extremely well…' Rui realized.

He had the pattern recognition system; of course, he also had the metabody system and the Hypnomatrix. All of these, as they currently were, were geared toward the three primary fields of offense, defense, and maneuvering.

Perhaps he should consider creating domains that adapt secondary fields in addition to the primary fields. Or maybe he could focus more on secondary fields, too. It remained to be seen. While he would want to adapt perfectly to everybody and everything, he was still very far from reaching a stage where he could disregard everybody else as he adapted to them. The three primary fields of combat were the most common fields that he was going to be facing in combat, so he couldn't just ignore them.

"Oi, are you listening?"

"Hm? Oh, sorry, Your Mastery."

"Hmph, arrogant brat."

"You were saying?"

"I was saying that I'm going to have you start training on heaven bending and earth bending with the best training methodologies that I know," Master Gurren remarked. "And then you simultaneously start developing the the stargazing technique that you promised me using heaven and earth bending. Only then will you have fulfilled your end of the bargain."

Rui nodded. "Don't worry, you'll get what you want and more."