Rui now had a unique perspective as a Martial Squire decently knowledgeable on esoteric material science. Furthermore, his background in physics also enabled him to gain a far better understanding of the ways that esoteric substances and materials could be applied in technology.
All he could say was that he now truly understood how esoteric military technology was able to keep up with Martial Art, even if just barely. These esoteric substances were capable of some truly astonishing things, and if applied and engineered properly, could provide great results.
Furthermore, these were just ordinary esoteric substances and alloys, he couldn't even imagine what the high-grade esoteric substances were capable of.
For instance, he wouldn't be surprised if there were esoteric substances out there that had the power to annihilate mountains, or perhaps even more.
Still, he was rooting for Martial Art to maintain its superiority, more than anybody else. However, he understood the potential of science, probably more than anybody else on the continent.
The human civilization of Earth did not have access to these wonders of nature. They were limited to more ordinary substances instead. However, despite these limitations, the human civilization of Earth had accomplished wonders using technology. He knew the power of technology better than anyone else, as well as the power of science.
In his opinion, it was merely a matter of time before esoteric substances and materials ceased being so 'esoteric'. The scientific community would fully understand them, and they would no longer be esoteric.
At that time, the full might of these substances would be harnessed, and technology would unleash a level of power, unlike anything that the world had ever seen, unlike anything he had ever seen.
At that time, he didn't know if Martial Art would be able to keep up. This directly affected him as a Martial Artist.
Previously, he wouldn't have been nearly as concerned. For he used to solely pursue Martial Art for the sake of Project Water.
However, ever since the fiasco in the Shionel Confederation where he had been forced to make some extremely painful decisions, he had learned the feeling of the plight of the weak in a fantastical, but equally cruel world.
He had developed a genuine hunger for power for the first time. Although he still mostly focused on developing his Martial Art and realizing his greatest ambition across lifetimes, he was more concerned with power.
He hadn't forgotten that he had a timer. It had already been a year since they had left the Shionel Confederation, which meant that he only had nine years left to go before the protection of his family was up.
Of course, he had made significant gains in the past year, and had most certainly grown stronger, it didn't mean he was anywhere near how strong he was to whatever he wanted to be.
However, he had high hopes for the Floating Sect and the Floating Ajanta Island. The sheer pressure that they put on Martial Artists stimulated a tremendous amount of growth from the Martial Artists, causing them to train like their lives were on the line.
And they were, if one wanted to continue training that was. Challenges were won and lost by death, thus every challenger duel was a death match where only one person could live unless the Floating Sect needed more slaves.
He glanced at a small book placed on the table before reaching out to grab it and give it a read. He had sort of broken the rules in the Uminana Trench and had gotten a simple warning from a Martial Senior.
Here, there were no warnings for major violations, it was simply death. That was the kind of world that he was dealing with at the moment.
The book first went into more basic information about the Floating Sect.
There were a thousand and three chambers in the Floating Sect, a thousand of which housed a Martial Squire each that served as the guardian of the chamber. The thousand guardians were divided into ten classes, each class containing one hundred Martial Squires. The tenth class contained the top hundred Martial Squires of the Floating Sect, while the first class contained the weakest hundred. The number of the class correlated with the percentile of the Martial Artists of that class relative to all Martial Squires.
Challengers were allowed to challenge any guardian from any chamber. However, they didn't get to observe the guardians ahead of time to pick and choose the guardian that they were most comfortable fighting after spending a lot of time observing them.
That gave the challengers far too much of an advantage.
Rui was mildly resentful of the rule since it meant that he wouldn't be able to prepare predictive models ahead of time but he quickly put that mindset aside.
The real world wasn't kind enough to allow him to construct predictive models before every fight. Power obtained through immense targeted preparation was not true power. Rui did not want to be selectively strong against some opponents.
He wanted to be strong against everybody and everything.
Furthermore, even if he took down a strong guardian with the help of a prepared predictive model, he would put himself in a dangerous predicament where he wouldn't have predictive models against those who challenged him.
That meant he would have to contend with a level of strength that was perhaps above what he was capable of, meaning that he would probably die.
('I want a powerful foundation and a rock solid Martial Art, not just some elaborate preparations,') Rui narrowed his eyes.
It was one thing to employ such means against the Root to complete an established goal, but it made no sense to do so even when training to become stronger, it would only get in the way of real progress.
At the moment, from what Rui could see, it was probably best for them to take on the lowest class to be safe. He didn't know how strong they were, but given how ruthless the system was, he highly doubted whether there was even a single non-high-grade Martial Squire.
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