The Martial Unity

Before Rui fully accepted the patronage of the Master, he had several issues to clarify.

"You mentioned something about me being a seed of the Virodhabhasa Faith. Can you please clarify that? I am very paranoid about getting deeply involved with a powerful religion for reasons I'm sure you can understand. I hope you can clarify what this is all about"

"Of course," The Master nodded understandingly. "As you are aware, the Divine Mission of the Virodhabhasa Faith is to find the Virodhabhasa before the occurrence of the Great Catastrophe. However, while the religious zealots of this religion are very motivated, it is quite the tall task to find the so-called religious deity."

Even for the Virodhabhasa Faith, the continent was too large to make such a task anything short of herculean in difficulty.

"Even when we limit our search for our deity to Martial Artists, it is almost impossible to do a comprehensive search through every Martial Artist, for obvious reasons. Martial Artists do not take kindly to being thoroughly scrutinized, and our quite secretive about their Martial Paths and Art. That is why we take a more hands-off approach."

He paused for a moment. "The head of the religion may be a sincere devotee, but he is not stupid. He has created an incentive structure for the many leaders within the religion to find candidates that can potentially be the Virodhabhasa. They are known as Virodhabhasa seeds. The condition for being known as a Virodhabhasa seed is to have a Martial Art that is roughly speaking equally effective and successful against all Martial Artists. The more seeds that a religious leader like myself finds and patrons, the greater the appreciation from the religion."

He grinned. "Of course, that appreciation does manifest in material gains."

Rui understood what was going on.

The religion was essentially leveraging the desire for material gains and other resources of the religion to make the leaders of the religion like Master Deivon actually out effort into finding the Virodhabhasa Faith.

('Interesting, that means the Astral Deity is truly serious about finding the Virodhabhasa.') Rui mused.

It appeared that the Astral Deity understood that simple religious devotion was not enough to push the leaders of the religion to their very best to find the Virodhabhasa. He understood that simply faith was ultimately hollow. If he wanted leaders to exert themselves, there needed to be concrete benefits and incentives to get them to go all out.

This was especially true for the Martial Artists that were not as religiously motivated, such as Master Deivon.

Yet the fact that Master Deivon was fulfilling his duty showed that the incentive structure in place was working.

('That isn't the important part though,') Rui narrowed his eyes. "I want to know how this affects me. What does it mean to become a Virodhabhasa seed? How will my life be impacted by this?"

Rui was very nervous about being restricted by the Faith due to his status.

"Relax young man, becoming a seed does not mean you are halfway to being accepted as the Virodhabhasa. It's not even ten percent of the way. Hell, it's barely one percent of the way, if not being a seed is one billionth of a percent," The man explained. "It just means that your Martial Art is appreciated by the religion as holding a very minute amount of potential of being what the Virodhabhasa Faith is looking for. There are many, many seeds in existence. Thousands in the Apprentice Realm, hundreds in the Squire Realm, and dozens in the Senior Realm. There are too many to make a fuss every time a new seed is discovered. You do not need to be worried that your life is going to be derailed. All the other seeds have gone on their own way and are living lives untouched by the Virodhabhasa Faith. The religion merely hopes that the seeds will naturally bloom, that's all."

Rui relaxed a bit more. If he was one of the few seeds or something like that, he would definitely be more apprehensive about this development. But if even half of what the man was saying was true, then he probably didn't have much to be worried about.

"I want proof," Rui insisted, narrowing his eyes. "I cannot take your word on this.

He observed the Master's demeanor.

"It's all public information," The Master shrugged. "You can find proof as well, we have had publicized events featuring them."

This made Rui even more relieved. He would not utter such a lie if it could be disproved with contemptuous ease. He intended to fact-check it nonetheless, but he was inclined to take him at his word for now.

"One more thing," Rui was not done. "A Virodhabhasa seed is merely someone with a Martial Art that is supposed to be equally effective against all fields, right? Then how do you know that I am, or could be a Virodhabhasa seed? How can you even have a basis for suspicion if you do not know what my Martial Path or Martial Art are?"

Rui had not revealed any information about the nature of his Martial Art. He did not confirm that he was a Virodhabhasa seed. Thus he was curious about why the man concluded that he was a seed.

"The techniques you submitted," The Master smiled wryly.

"Ah…" Rui immediately understood. "The techniques I sold were varied across many fields. It can be inferred that I am a very diverse Martial Artist."

"Sharp," The man nodded.

Is that the basis for your concluding that my Martial Art is equally effective against all fields? That's a bit contrived."

"Perhaps," He did not deny Rui's words. He turned towards him, smiling knowingly. "But I have a strong feeling that I am right to suspect you as a seed. Do not underestimate the instinct of a Martial Master, young man."

Rui duly noted that. It appeared that while Martial Artists of the Lower Realms were mostly blockheads, the same could not be said for Martial Masters.