The Martial Unity

"Because we charge higher rates and fees for missions whose operation requires fielding Martial Artists outside the border of the Kandrian Empire, most of the international and foreign missions we get are not from small-time bodyguard missions by singular individuals with an average occupation or anything such as that." Headmaster Aronian said. "No, most of them are missions from wealthy individuals with high socio-economic status, powerful cooperations, landowners, political or governmental figures, a large variety of Beast Domain missions and things of that sort."

"I see..."

"Your bodyguard mission in the Basara Mountains is a good example of what foreign missions are like, at bare minimum mind you. Foreign missions are regularly fraught with such danger because there are no limits to what can happen in a foreign mission whatosever. You can run into Martial Artists of higher Realms from different nations who will unhesitatingly slaughter you in an instant. Anything can happen and you're absolutely all on your own, there's no safety net of any kind, you just die from a single mistake."

Headmaster Aronian ended up convincing Rui. At the end of the day, Rui was not a daredevil who enjoyed staking his life for tasks he wasn't qualified for just yet. He didn't mind waiting half a year or so until he was much stronger after mastering even more techniques and diversifying his Martial Art.

"Furthermore..." Headmaster Aronian continued as he stroked his beard. "Although you did not win the Martial Contest, you reached the finals and you put up one hell of a fight. You have already received many commissions from specific clienteles who are interested in commissioning you for missions." Headmaster Aronian told him.

Rui's eyes lit up in interest at those words.

He had expected this beforehand, to some degree. Even if he did lose, and even he was not happy about it, the status of a Martial Contest finalist was not low. He was basically the publicly crowned number two of the Martial Artists of his generation.

Considering that the Martial Contest was extremely prestigious, there was no doubt that there would be many clienteles interested in many things.

"How many have I received since the Martial Contest began?" He asked, excited.

"Fourteen." Headmaster Aronian replied with a complicated expression. "Much lower than a finalist would receive, in all honesty."

Rui frowned at those words. "Why so?"

"Well, I can't say for sure." Headmaster Aronian shrugged. "But it probably has to do with the nature of your Martial Art. You're not just a Type I all-rounder Martial Art, your fighting style fluctuates completely depending on your opponent. It's optimized for pure head-on physical conflict. The reason elite and wealthy clienteles send commissions to the Martial Contest representatives is because they have proven their competence to be at the elite level. However, missions are generally specialized, while you're an adaptive all-rounder. Do you understand?"

Rui nodded, immediately deducing the headmaster's message. "So basically, because I'm a fluid all-rounder, I'm never the best at any one particular field. Dalen and Arjun will probably always be better than me at defense-class missions, Fae will always be better than me at offense-class missions, Kane will always excel better than me at Shadow-class missions and so on and so forth."

"Exactly." Headmaster nodded. "You excel at adapting and evolving to any opponent. Yet exactly how useful is that to missions? It's probably useful, no doubt. But is it more useful than the specialists? Can you surpass offensive Martial Artists at offensive class missions? Can you surpass defensive Martial Artists at defensive missions? Is there any class, type or even a particular mission that your Martial Art will fulfill better than any other kind of Martial Art?"

Rui narrowed his eyes at those words. He didn't like what headmaster Aronian was telling him, but there was truth to his words.

There were five classes of missions in the Martial Union.

Offense, defense, hunter, shadow and miscellaneous. Four of these classes had dedicated specialists to them, and Rui knew that he could not compete with the specialists in their specialized fields.

The Flowing Void style did not have any particular class of missions it could do much better than any other Martial Art would. His style excelled at adapting to his opponents and fighting them in the most optimal manner needed to take them down.

However, taking down singular opponents in the best manner possible, in a head-on conflict was certainly not most desired or important quality looked for in these four different clashes.

In defensive-class missions, your ability to protect your target of protections was the most valued trait. In offensive-class missions your ability to inflict harm of varying degrees on your target was the most values trait. In the hunter and shadow class missions there were so many different most valued qualities based on the sub-category, however Rui did not excel at any of those fields.

Of course, because of how many techniques he had mastered and how potent his combat ability was, he would always be relevant, but at the elite levels of the four classes, that wasn't enough. If he wanted to gain more personal commissions from upper-class clienteles, he needed to show them he could complete missions of a certain kind better than his peers. And that was an area where he had failed.

Of course, his performance was incredible and so he drew more than a dozen personal commissions anyway. But as spectacular and entertaining he was, all the upper-class clienteles went to Arjun for defensive-class commissions. They went to Mia, Vyoming, Servil and Ana for all the other classes. They were just more specialized and more suited.

Rui bet that even Ian and Fiona got far more commissions than he did despite effectively being all-rounders. Fiona was just so abysmally strong that she could compete with and surpass specialists in their own fields. Ian could also do that, albeit to a lesser extent.

He shook his head; it was what it was.

"Well, what are the commissions I received?"