The Martial Unity

They spoke for a bit more, and Rui was cheerful and relieved that the Martial Contest would go on.

Inwardly, however, he had already begun sweating.

He wasn't stupid. Perhaps other Martial Artists would have continued on about their day, but he had already realized something was wrong.

The first thing off was Master Deivon's tension. He did not look like someone whose heritor had yielded him good things. If anything, it felt like the opposite. Rui felt like he had gotten him in trouble, almost.

It was a pity that he didn't have any evidence to work with aside from the way Master Deivon presented himself.

Rui had also noted that the man had yet to congratulate him for winning the first and the second round.

These were small things, but Rui's sharp and keen eyes hadn't missed them. This was particularly odd for someone like Master Deivon who absolutely would have gone to at least uttered a few words of encouragement and congratulations.

He also didn't mention Rui's feat of surviving an attack from a Martial Senior. Almost as if it wasn't worth mentioning or was something that had already escaped his mind.

One reason that would be the case was if something even more important had happened. Given the timing, the probability wasn't low that it was related to Rui. If it was related to Rui, then the probability that it had something to do with the Martial Contest was actually quite high, since Master Deivon was doing just fine before the contest had begun.

Another elementary deduction one could make was that if it had something to do with Rui and the Martial Contest, then it had to do with Rui's matches. That would imply that something related to Rui's match had caused the tension that Master Deivon was experiencing.

He felt a wave of dread as he immediately realized what the only three possibilities were.

Of course, he realized that he couldn't actually dismiss his surviving a Martial Senior's attack as a possibility, however, that was not something that would cause Master Deivon to display the behavioural traits that he was displaying at the moment. He had seen how exceptionally powerful Martial Squires like Meera were treated. When Rui had outperformed Meera in two rounds of the Martial Contest yesterday and indicated that he was potentially above her, Master Deivon had not batted an eye. He had welcomed such a development.

found it particularly odd

Senior's attack.' Rui's intuition

That left two options.

gain an understanding of what happened during the first and

Martial Masters were much more impressive

everything okay, Master Deivon?" Rui asked straightforwardly.

for a moment wordlessly, before sighing. "Yes... you're correct. I have been dealing with

at him impassively. He went so far as to effectively create a quasi-predictive model on the man's behavioural patterns. He wanted to know more,

headache related to me perhaps?" Rui asked straightforwardly

resigned. "I suppose that can't be

related to what happened in the first and the second

took was

Rui needed to know that he was right. If someone didn't know what he was talking about, then the first match was the most mundane

single glance into Master Deivon's knowing eyes told him that he was on the

the confirmation that he

people know?"

"..."

my

man sighed. "About four people. Myself, and the three Martial Masters overseeing the

raised an eyebrow. That statement alone told him a lot about the political landscape of the Virodhabhasa Faith. It appeared that the political cohesiveness within the

have the four of you come to think about the first two

other Martial Squire, he wouldn't have even bothered gracing that question with a

of us