The Martial Unity

"Not everyone agrees on how to allocate the budget for research and development." Headmaster Aronian continued. "Different Martial Artists in the Martial Union have different ideas on how these valuable funds ought to be allocated. Whether it be based on what they believe is best for Martial Art as a whole, or whether they desire a specific allocation because it benefits their Martial Art the most in the long run. Regardless of their intentions, not everyone agrees."

Rui nodded, understanding. An offense-oriented Martial Artist would want a disproportionate amount of research funding to be allocated to the research and development of offense-oriented techniques. A defensive Martial Artist would want the same for defense-oriented techniques and so on and so forth. This was quite a natural outcome. Human beings were naturally self-centered.

"The fund allocation is decided after immense deliberations and a voting session on the matter by the highest echelons of the Martial Union. Now, if you were one of them and you wanted to push for a specific allocation in these meetings, what would you do?" The headmaster asked.

This reminded Rui an awful lot of political discourse and engagement that occurred in governmental structures. Politicians often engaged in a lot of measures to try and push for certain direction policy making.

Following that route of analogy...

"I would find like-minded others who agree with me and band together to fulfill our mutual interests in regards to the allocation of funds." Rui answered.

"Exactly." The headmaster nodded approvingly. "That is what has already long happened. Those groups have already been formed long ago, and continue to exist to further their own mutual interests in regards to the allocation of budgets. These groups are known as the Martial Sects."

Rui understood. Martial Sects were no more than lobbying groups banded together to cooperate to ensure the fulfillment of their mutual interests in regards to the allocation of

although he appreciated the contextual breakdown, couldn't the old man have plainly

field." The headmaster continued, unaware of Rui's complaints. "The Fire Sect is the Martial Sect that advocates for offense-oriented Martial Art research, The Lightning

his explanations, the entire matter was extremely interesting and yet quite foreign to him. When he was a researcher, getting funds for combat research was quite difficult. But the combat researchers of

envy. If he received such luxury in

of course. The Sun Sect is a Martial Sect centered around supplementary techniques. The Wind Sect specifically focuses on a smaller subset of maneuvering techniques centered around evasion. The Breathing Sect focuses on breathing-oriented techniques, the Poison Sect focuses on poison techniques and so and so forth." The headmaster explained. "These Martial Sects

"One of those activities is roping in unaffiliated Martial Artists, particularly the newer and

promising Martial Artists of the

eyes narrowed as he understood why headmaster Aronian had even brought

their Martial Sect. They offer Martial Art techniques of their Sect at discounted prices, attracting unaffiliated Martial Artists to informally join their sects and learn and use their techniques. The reason they do this is to increase the number of Martial Artists using the techniques of their Sect. By doing this, they can demonstrate a greater need for research and development of the techniques of their Sect. After all, would you rather research Martial Art techniques that only a hundred Martial Artists use, or Martial Art techniques that ten thousand Martial

This made sense. The greater the number of Martial Artists there using a certain type or field of techniques, then the greater the benefits of researching that particular type or field of techniques, since a greater number of

talents like yourself, hoping to rope you in."

"I see..."