The Martial Unity

"Well, for one, there are benefits to the very act of spreading your Martial Art," The Martial Minister informed Rui. "There is a reason that all these Martial Masters and Martial Sages create sects."

"Yes, I'm aware," Rui heaved a sigh, not pleased to go through this conversation. "They are able to gain inspiration and insights from the gains made by other Martial Artists making use of their field, allowing them to break past bottlenecks. But I have broken through to the Senior Realm even before I entered my physical prime. My actual prime age is going to last for a long time, my rate of growth is not slowing down any time soon."

The Minister of Martial Art heaved a soft sigh. "Your statements betray your outlook of the future, I'm afraid. It is true that your prime will last abnormally long compared to all Martial Artists in the past and present due to your prodigious speed at reaching the Senior Realm. However, you are still thinking with the psychology of a human."

Rui narrowed his eyes at those words.

"Of course, I am not admonishing you. In fact, it is expected. Most Martial Artists don't fully grasp the consequences of breaking through to the Squire Realm. Although their lifespan increases, their psychology does not instantly change to suit that, for obvious reasons," The Minister of Martial Art explained.

It made sense when Rui actually thought about it. It was not possible for a person's psychology to change drastically without extraordinary experiences. And while the Squire evolution breakthrough was certainly extraordinarily painful, it did not alter their outlook of the future on a subconscious level.

After all, they had lived with a psychology cultivated by living a certain lifespan their entire life. Changing something that had been shaped a certain way their entire life was extremely difficult.

"In your particular case, your absurdly rapid growth has played a part in making you short-sighted regarding the rest of your life. Tell me, how many times have you considered the next three centuries of life? And I mean truly having sat down, and pondered how you are going to spend those three lifetimes back-to-back?" The Martial Minister pushed on, sensing an opening. "I say this with the best of wishes and regards for your wonderful homely family, but you will far outlive them. There will come a day when all of them are dead and you will only look and physically feel like you're in your early or mid-thirties. Have you wondered what you will do then, what life would be like then?"

Unfortunately, for Rui, that question cut deep.

He was right, almost completely right. Rui knew it, too.

Subconsciously, he avoided thinking about these questions even though they popped into his head every once in a while ever since he learned that Martial Artists live longer. The prospects of living for centuries were, as much as Rui would never admit it out loud, a little scary.

It was true that his only vision of the future was limited to the next fifty years at most.

"Yet one day, you too will exit your prime and slow down in regards to your rate of growth. This is the very nature of human growth and aging. You will also one day hit a bottleneck due to plateaued growth and an ever-so-slowly declining condition. It will be too late to start that day, Senior Quarrier. This is a long-

term investment, it will bear fruits years or even decades after you begin," The Martial Minister gently explained. "The day you do hit a bottleneck and do come to need it, you may very well curse your younger self for not having taken this measure."

That was a bold statement to make, it could even be viewed as inappropriate, and discourteous, but the Martial Minister had correctly identified that Rui didn't care much about courtesy.

His words held truth, and that was enough for Rui to consider them very seriously.

"Besides, once you create a handful of foundational basic and simplified techniques from an element of your Martial Art, a good portion of your work is already done," The Minister of Martial Art told him. "Although it most certainly will not be easy, we will provide you with the necessary capital to win over constituents of the fiscal budget allocation meeting to allow you to partake in it. Once that's done, you will simply need to partake in the meeting, lobby, and secure as much of a budget for spreading your Martial Art as you can, the Martial Union will do the rest."

Rui turned, glancing at the man. "You said that there was support for spreading my Martial Art, correct? Why would I need to lobby for a budget if both the Martial Union and the Ministry of Martial Art believe that my Martial Art ought to be spread?"

"The reason for that is that while the others may see merit in spreading elements of your Martial Art, they will still fight to secure as much of the annual budget for their Martial Art when the time comes. Nobody will look out for you, you will have to fight for yourself."

"So they agree that my Martial Art ought to be spread, but none of them will actually do anything about it and instead will selfishly fight for resources themselves when the time comes?" Rui furrowed his eyebrows.

"Correct," The man noted, having a sigh. "Martial Artists are only human. In fact, it can be said that they are the most human of all. Martial Artists are comprised of the top one percent of most driven and desiring humans in this world. Greed for power is an absolute given and it normally overwhelms any other consideration."

Rui turned away from him. "The most human of all eh?"

He didn't take offense at that. In a sense, he could even concur with it. Martial Artists were indeed more human in their worldly vices than normal humans were.