The Martial Unity

"Did you take a rejuvenation potion?" She asked, tilting her hair squinting her brown eyes with curiosity. "You did mention you had some."

Rui shook his head. "Those were for rejuvenating the mind, negating the need to sleep."

Bella nodded, well familiar with mental rejuvenation potions herself. "How do you have so much stamina?"

"It comes from honing my stamina through strict intense physical training, and also from an Apprentice-level Martial Art technique called Helical Breathing." Rui explained. "It saves increases efficiency of energy consumption, allowing you to accomplish the same results with less effort."

"Hmmm..." Bella nodded. "Must be nice to be a Martial Artist. You have so much power, you must feel incredibly secure and confident."

Rui thought about her words. It was true to some degree, unless his opponent was a Martial Apprentice, there wasn't much that ordinary humans could do. However, it wasn't something he really thought of. He never began his voyage down his Martial Path in order to obtain more physical power. His goal was to practice and develop his Martial Art forever, just that alone gave him true elation and fulfillment.

The physical security was ultimately just a good bonus, it was not his motivation or his goal.

Furthermore, having spent most of his time in the Academy since he became an Apprentice, he hadn't experienced much of the sense of increased security. Since as soon as he broke through to Martial Apprentice, he was immediately booted out of the Exploration Stage and shipped to the Apprentice section. He was immediately surrounded by Martial Apprentices who initially all much stronger than him.

There were, of course, the Martial Apprentices of his batch, who were all stronger than him. Then there were Martial Apprentices of the senior batches who had accumulated more techniques and experience than the Martial Apprentices of his own batch.

It was not easy to feel physically secure when all of your peers were stronger than you.

had spent outside the Academy was when he went home for the winter break, but that was incredibly brief, he hadn't really had much time to actually introspect on how the world appeared to

As a Martial Apprentice, realistically only another Martial Apprentice could threaten him, and this mission would be, at the very least, a grade four on the difficulty scale if there were other Martial Apprentices were

Martial Apprentice, but that was extremely unlikely given

sense of security

little envious, this catastrophe has shown

are helpless, like all humans." Rui straightforwardly affirmed. "But once you consolidate your position within the Hier Industries, your power would far exceed mine. There is more than one kind of power, I pursue Martial Art because I love Martial Art, and not because of the power

"You didn't strike

"That's because this is a mission, I'm

Bella asked, with just the slightest hint of playfulness

Rui shrugged.

with her to lift her mood up slightly, but he didn't

rested her chin on his shoulder. "The past few days have been

Rui

for the most part. Rui traversed through obscure routes and paths through district fourteen,

huff... huff..." Rui

was tired. After considering his situation, he decided to take one of the rejuvenation

planning

"I think if you had a more nuanced understanding of what Martial Apprentices were capable of, you would have reduced the

"How so?" Bella wondered.

from the Martial Academy was well above