"Urgh…" Kane groaned as he woke up on a bed in the medical bay.
"You feeling ok?" Rui asked.
"Hm?" Kane blinked a few times before he recognized Rui. "What… happened?"
"You tried Voidspeed and he shut it down, knocking you out in the process." Rui briefly explained.
"…Oh yeah," Kane sighed. "Well, I knew I couldn't beat him."
"You probably did far better than an overwhelming majority of guardians though." Rui offered, aiming to console him.
Kane shrugged. "He's not someone that can be taken down very easily, not even by you honestly."
Rui couldn't disagree. He needed to grow stronger, that was for sure.
"Still," Kane sighed. "It's not fun being beaten, but for some reason, I'm always running into the greatest Martial Artists of my generation, and of my Realm."
He referred to Rui in the former, and Ieyasu in the latter.
The latter was far older than both of them, he was a middle-aged man who was far older than both of them combined.
Physically, at least.
That meant that he had spent decades as a Martial Artist, compared to Rui's nine years. In that respect, Rui and Kane were definitely ahead. The two of them had far more potential as Martial Artists.
Rui, his rate of growth after becoming a Martial Artist was unprecedented. He had started off later than average, but he had become a Martial Squire extremely quickly after becoming a Martial Apprentice. Though he wasn't the youngest Martial Squire, he was one of the fastest growers when it came to his growth from the Apprentice Realm to the Squire Realm.
At the rate that he was going, Kane had a sinking feeling that he might break a record for the youngest Martial Senior in history.
Martial Seniors were not young, the youngest one became a Martial Senior at the age of thirty.
It couldn't be helped, forging an immense amount of individuality into one's Martial Art was extremely difficult and was not something that was very practical to be able to complete in the span of years.
This was something that could be forgotten when one spent too much time beside Rui, who was overflowing with seemingly limitless individuality. However, Kane was far slower than him when it came to innovating and developing new techniques from scratch or from other techniques.
And yet, he knew that he was far better than the average Martial Artist, largely thanks to Rui's influence on his thought process when it came to growing stronger.
The average Martial Squire struggled with individuality, largely because they didn't have the necessary life experience, both in regards to quality and quantity, to be able to apply themselves to create individualistic techniques.
Yet Rui just rolled past them and developed his Martial Art like it was an ordinary task and not something that most Martial Artists struggled with and it was the reason that most Martial Artists did not make it to higher Realms.
"Do you plan on challenging him at any point?" Kane asked.
Rui considered the question for a moment, before nodding. "He's a good standard to hold myself to. The more I push myself, the stronger I'll become. He also has an extremely exciting Martial Path."
Rui turned towards Kane. "Also, I now have the incentive of avenging you."
Kane snorted as he got up, cracking his neck. "I'm not dead, y'know."
The two of them returned back to their chambers after bantering for a bit.
Rui urgently wanted to return to his training and research. He was even more motivated to find options for the offensive Martial Body.
However, at the moment, he hadn't made any headway, which was rather disappointing. However, he realized that he had gotten pretty lucky with Forestep, Hungry Pain, and Weaving Blood.
He realized that Project Metabody was probably not going to be something that he could speedrun if he simply singlemindedly dedicated himself to the matter. It might even turn into a long-term project the way Project Water did.
This did not sit well with him. He did hope to finish it sooner than later, not only because he wanted to gain the power to beat guardian Tokugawa, but at the end of the day, he also had not forgotten the broader goals that he had in mind.
The long-term goal of gaining enough power within ten years to be able to protect his family, the sub-goal of becoming a Martial Senior well within this period, and then further sub-goals like Project Metabody came after that.
However, it was important nonetheless. He did think that Project Metabody would give his Martial Art the necessary individuality to be able to unearth his Martial Heart. With enough time, he would have achieved a body that could handle the power of his Martial Heart.
He shook his head sighing. He still had some ways to go before he finally got to that stage. For the moment, he just needed to focus on individuality and his body, everything else came second.
However, he considered taking a break from Project Metabody if it stalled too much. Unlike normal techniques, Project Metabody was not something that he could finish in a short amount of time, especially when he was restricted to a particular location that did not have the best learning resources when it came to things like esoteric substances or any of the other avenues of research that he had been looking into for a solution to be able to manipulate his body the way that he was hoping for.
('Maybe I'm not thinking far and wide enough,') Rui considered.
There was more to the world, especially this world, that he didn't know about. Part of the issue was that he was stuck on the island unable to leave it or go further beyond the information that he had.
It was a shame that the war hampered his ability to leave the island. Even if the Kaddar nations allowed people to leave, they would not allow them to rejoin.
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