The Martial Unity

The town of Rjavoi erupted in hysteria as word of an attack on the Senate Hall spread through the town. None of the citizens had managed to gather anything specific, but that alone was shocking enough. The mayor even went so far as to put the entire town on lockdown!

"Too little, too late." Rui shrugged as he crossed the border of the Republic of Mernea by the time any meaningful and coordinated investigative measures were taken once the dignitaries were secured. He had left the town of Mernea stealthily, before heading to a more remote region, he then shot off at top speed towards the shortest route without intersecting with any towns or other settlements.

While there were, no doubt, some people here and there who noticed a noisy blur in the distance, they were inconsequential.

Once he crossed the border and left it in the dust behind him, he finally loosened up a bit before indulging in his exhilaration of having succeeded.

"YES!" He jumped high into the sky. "That was perfect! Oh, how I wish I could have seen the look on Fauche's face when the assassination succeeded."

Unfortunately, that was impossible. Rui would have to be content with imagining it.

More importantly, the sheer satisfaction of actually employing the Pathfinder technique in the field and successfully completing missions in ways that would have been utterly impossible for him prior, was truly immense. He could be happy for days at how well it worked out. It was an addicting feeling, almost. Although he didn't face any combat against Martial Squires, he wasn't too dissatisfied, which was very strange for him.

"I wonder what the Martial Union is going to say to this," Rui laughed out loud as he tried imagining how shocked the Martial Union would be when they learned about what Rui had accomplished.

He was sure that their very first reaction would be skepticism. The Martial Union had, no doubt, seen its fair share of lies and exaggerations when it came to reports of Martial Squires regarding the events that occurred during missions. Although Rui had a pretty good track record of proving his unbelievable reports, such as the time he killed a Martial Squire as a Martial Apprentice.

He was sure that the Martial Union would not have believed that had he not brought the corpse of the Martial Squire with him.

The same could be said this time as well. He wouldn't be surprised if the martial Union took extra measures to verify the veracity of the report that he submitted.

After all, the Martial Union doubtlessly had an intelligence network based in the Republic of Menrea that would give them as much information as they could procure. In fact, given that the Martial Union already knew that an assassination attempt would be taking place at a given time and place, they probably had spies that were watching the Senate Hearing from any and all angles.

That should provide some degree of confirmation that his account was quite truthful. Furthermore, Fauche would also vouch for the veracity of Rui's report, if needed.

"The question is what they'll do after," Rui murmured.

It was possible that they would do nothing. Perhaps they would simply be impressed, but shrug and leave Rui alone. Rui's understanding of how the Martial Union worked was not intimate, he did not think he understood all the nuances of how the association treated such feats.

After all, they did not do anything even though he killed a Martial Squire.

"Oh, that's not true." Rui stroked his chin. "They did update the Martial Artist grading system."

He had heard over the years that that was done most likely in response to the shocking feat that he and his friends had managed to accomplish. Although he had help, the reports, especially those of his friends, made it clear that Rui was the core reason that they were not as hopelessly screwed as they ought to be.

"This time is a bit different than that time though," Rui frowned.

It was one thing for his Martial Art and Martial Path to be so potent that it allowed him to exploit an opportunity that allowed him to kill an inexperienced and unhabilitated Squire, it was another to have a singular technique that could allow him to surpass even specialists in their field.

The former was not something that could be easily obtained and replicated. A Martial Path was deeply personal and individualistic. It was impossible to universalize it completely, or even partially. At most, certain elements could be turned into universal techniques.

But a technique could be passed on much more easily than a Martial Path.

Rui would be truly surprised if the Martial Union did not take any measures to obtain the technique that Rui had created. As an organization that prioritized the interests of the Martial Artist group as a whole, collecting techniques that could be used by others was an extremely important part of the process.

Rui recalled hearing from a headmaster Aronian that roughly half of all Martial Art techniques that the Martial Union collected came from Martial Artists coming up with them. It would be rather irresponsible for them to ignore techniques like the one Rui had demonstrated in this battle.

"The question is what to do then." Rui scratched his head.

Frankly, he wasn't all that averse to sharing the technique with the Martial Union if he had an opportunity to. Unlike the VOID algorithm, the ODA system wasn't as fundamental to his Martial Path and Martial Art. He didn't feel the burning sense of possessiveness like he did with the VOID algorithm due to this reason.

As long as the Martial Union evaluated the value of the technique accurately and gave him fair compensation for his valuable contribution, he had no qualms about selling them the Pathfinder technique. He wasn't too concerned about a bunch of copycats arising from the Martial Squire population of the Martial Union. The conditions for using the technique successfully were anything but easy.