The Martial Unity

The virologist sized Rui multiple times, furrowing his eyes in confusion. How was a Martial Squire so adept on the hypothetical symptoms of Herevan's Disease under the hypothetical that he had provided?

For a second he considered whether Rui lied about being a Martial Squire, however, his passive aura as a Martial Squire denied any possibility of Rui not being a Martial Squire.

"You mentioned that the timeframe before death would be greatly extended," Rui continued. "Would that not mean that within that timeframe, the patient would come to possess muscular output that is far greater than their baseline?"

The doctor hesitated. "Theoretically, yes, but the fact of the matter is unless the body receives continuous Myostatin treatment."

"However, Martial Squires will be able to maintain their combat prowess, correct?" Rui asked. "Martial Squires retain much more power even at low white blood cell counts, correct?"

The doctor could see where this was going. He wasn't stupid, Rui's questions all pointed in one direction.

And the direction is pointed in was pure madness.

The doctor had never heard of a Martial Art technique that involved diseasing one's own body.

"You're not wrong," The doctor carefully mentioned. "However, that will be very momentary. Once this brief period of power passes, the patient will pass away. Or at best, they will be terminally ill and will spend the rest of their life bed-ridden and in need of constant myostatin treatment."

One way to counter the myostatin-inhibiting virus was to continuously supply the body with myostatin protein to make sure that the body could stay normal. However, that meant hooking the body to tubes connected to instruments that would continuously supply myostatin to the bloodstream of the patient.

That would severely restrict the patient for the rest of their life.

"What if that same patient was afflicted with a condition where they naturally produced a surplus of myostatin?" Rui asked. "Would it not be the case that the patient would be free from shackles and would be able to live life normally?"

The doctor frowned. "That is true, however, in that case, that would be no different from being perfectly healthy in the first place, rather than having a condition counter a virus."

"What if the patient was able to control the myostatin, turning it off when needed so as to tap into the powerful muscles granted by the Herenal virus?" Rui asked with a smile.

"…" The doctor stared at Rui with an incredulous expression. "I've never heard of such a condition in my entire life."

"It does not naturally exist, no," Rui shook his head. "However, the Martial Body is far less shackled than the human body. A condition that causes a surplus of myostatin… is hardly the craziest thing a Martial Body has done, am I wrong?"

"No," the doctor sighed. "However, it would be better to go for a Martial Body that is centered around strength in the first place."

"What if you want a Martial Body centered around strength only sometimes?" Rui shrugged. "Regardless, I do wish to thoroughly discuss the details of this hypothetical…"

He spent the next few hours grilling the hapless doctor, going into the nitty gritty details about his supposed 'hypothetical'.

By the time the session had ended, the doctor looked equally excited and resigned.

"Why are you planning on subjecting your Martial Body to this?"

"I never mentioned subjecting myself to this," Rui smiled.

"…"

"Thank you for your consultance, doctor," Rui got up. "This has been most illuminating."

He did mean those words. The doctor pointed out certain minor problematic elements that Rui hadn't considered due to the lack of depth of knowledge and experience.

He wasn't upset that he missed those. It was arrogant, even for someone of his caliber, to think he could match specialists, that had dedicated the entirety of their lives to their field, in their field. He had gotten exactly what he needed, and was actually happy that the doctor had pointed out issues in the plan for the strength Metabody that Rui had cooked up.

If the doctor had been unable to discern even a single issue, then Rui would have doubted his qualifications since the probability that Rui could nail the intricacies of a field in that he had a shaky foundation at best was low.

He took his leave, gathering his thoughts on the way back. This consultancy had helped him refine the plan for the offensive Martial Body quite well. He had already developed the core of the idea of the Floating Sect but unfortunately was unable to verify or proof check the details.

Furthermore, he had confirmed with the doctor that the Seonmun Church town did in fact possess samples of the Herenal virus in containment. This meant that he could obtain it, potentially for free, but certainly for some services.

However, he had completed the theoretical framework of the strength-oriented Martial Body fully.

('It needs a name…') Rui mused. ('Hm, how about… Hypertrophic Surge…')

Rui had already exhausted all his creativity in creating a great technique, it appeared he had too little for a great name.

('Not to mention, I still need to create one more technique,') He sighed.

He hadn't forgotten that he had yet to create a defensive Martial Body technique. He had saved it for the last because he felt as though that was the hardest technique without a doubt, out of all the Martial Bodies. He had yet to figure out an idea as to how he would make the constitution of his body stronger, and it was definitely something that was going to take a lot of thought and creativity.

Regardless, it meant that he was that much closer to successfully completing Project Metabody. All he needed to do now was to find the appropriate training resources and then immediately begin training, going all out.

Rui visited the other two experts on Herenal's Disease, consulting them as well to make sure that he didn't leave a single stone unturned when it came to his new ambition technique.