The Martial Unity

[Mindmirror Worm

Grade: 10

Difficulty grade: 10

The Mindmirror Worm is an extremely rare worm that inhabits the Beast Domain. It infiltrates a potential host's system via ingestion or inhalation while it is still in the spore form before entering the bloodstream. It is one of the only symbiotes that aids the most vital organ in the human body: The brain...]

Rui's eyes widened at those words. The brain was an extraordinarily fragile organ, and Rui didn't understand how an invasive symbiote could not only not damage it but also somehow benefit it.

He continued reading on interest.

[The spore attaches itself to the bottom of the temporal lobe and the frontal lobe before it gathers the genetic information of the host through the blood and begins reproducing the brain cells known as 'neurons' in the gap between the brain and the skull plates below the brain. It saturates the gap, forming a small organ made up of neurons that are intimately connected to the host's brain.

It effectively forms a secondary brain that serves as an additional lobe for the brain. This secondary lobe is capable of boosting reactions and aids with mentally strenuous and time-consuming processes. It's an incredible boost that greatly enhances mental faculties.

Its downsides are that it increases nutritional expenditure and mentally burdens the brain to an extremely high degree, increasing the need for sleep, and causing the brain to need to sleep for an extra fifty percent without potions. It exceeds ordinary human parameters in so far as the mental stress it puts on the brain. The symbiote is also sentient and inherently power-hungry and does attempt to take over the brain of the host. Often succeeding in the cases of Martial Apprentices without powerful enough brains and minds.

All of these heavy drawbacks are the reason that the difficulty grade of the technique is grade ten. It is estimated that only someone with extraordinary mental parameters can possibly master the Mindmirror Symbiote.]

He was completely blown away by the symbiote. The drawbacks sounded incredibly scary, but the benefits were almost irresistible. Martial Apprentices were significantly above baseline human parameters because of their cerebral augmentations. This symbiote was effectively providing a boost that was not too far from the boost that Martial Apprentices gained thanks to the discovery of the Martial Path.

"No wonder the potency of the technique is grade ten." Rui sighed. "But the difficulty is equally high. Just the fact that there are high stakes at risk, for failure to master the technique alone means that it's game over. An easily grade-ten technique."

Normally, Rui ignored grade-ten techniques. They required extraordinary talent and extreme affinity for there to even be a reasonably-high possibility of mastery. Rui wasn't conventionally talented; one of his biggest advantages came over from inheriting an already-developed mind and the consequences of it undergoing a second round of cognitive growth.

However, he had come to realize that in the context of this technique, he might actually possess the 'talent' needed for it; extremely high mental parameters. He also had an affinity with it because the core of his Martial Art was a mentally intensive system of fighting; the VOID algorithm.

"Is this the reason this is literally at the very top of the list?" Rui wondered. He most certainly had not missed the glaring oddity it was to place a grade-ten technique at the very top of a list for someone who had merely expressed interest in symbiotic techniques. That was a conscious decision made for a very clear reason.

"Is the Symbiotic Sect thinking what I'm thinking?" He wondered out loud.

It was far from a secret that Rui's mental parameters were far above baseline Martial Apprentices with the same amount of experience and time in the Apprentice Realm as him. The Martial Academy had carefully recorded and documented his feats and oddities.

If Squire Grillogan had the authority to look into the data the Martial Academy had on him, then Rui could see why this particular Symbiote had been put to his attention.

If it really took someone like Rui to succeed in mastering the Mindmirror Symbiote then there were probably no Martial Apprentices in the Kandrian Empire who had mastered the Mindmirror Symbiote.

Rui pondered the matter carefully. The benefits and demerits were extremely clear.

If he mastered the symbiote, the viability issue of the VOID algorithm would not only be completely and entirely gone, but his mastery of it would skyrocket. The sheer amount of information he would be able to promise would be far greater than he currently was able to.

His current usage of the VOID algorithm was just barely satisfactory as far as proficiency went. The Mind Palace technique allowed him to store and process data at a far higher rate than would normally, especially with his mastery of it. But now, he could become incredibly masterful in his execution of the VOID algorithm. His overall combat prowess would skyrocket.

If he mastered this technique, he could very well become the strongest Martial Apprentice in the entirety of the Kandrian Empire.

The downsides were that his mind would be taxed more, understandably so. It would be receiving a constant influx of neuron impulses from the secondary lobe of the Mindmirror Symbiote and would need to process that.

"My rate of mastery of techniques would reduce," Rui murmured unhappily. The brain needed an increased amount of sleep due to the burden that the symbiote placed on it. Even if that wasn't the case for Rui due to his brain's superhumanly high mental capacity, he strongly suspected that he wouldn't be able to use potions to gain an extraordinary amount of training time.

His brain could either handle the symbiote, or the strain of no sleep for long periods.

But even his incredible brain and mind likely would not be able to handle both burdens at the same time. Which meant he would only be able to choose one of the two.

If he chose the symbiote, his training speed would no longer be extraordinary. If he wanted to retain his training speed, then he would not be able to obtain the symbiote.