The Martial Unity

When Bodhisattva Maitreyi learned of Operation Lightfury, she seemed amused.

"Amitabha, I may be strong, but I'm not that strong," she remarked with a calm tone of voice, brewing two cups of tea; one for herself and the other for her grandson-in-law. She turned around with the two cups in her hands, gazing at the Emperor of Water who was seated on the ground at the table in her little cottage.

She placed one before him, sitting down opposite him. He had come wearing his royal attire, indicating that he was here on business. But more than the attire, she admired the transcendent nature of his power. Ever since he broke through to the Transcendent Realm thirteen years ago, his very being had gained an unfathomable luster that the Bodhisattva was unable to parse.

It was a level of power that she herself was a step away from achieving, at least on paper.

"That's what I said," Rui replied, taking an appreciative sip of the green tea. "But the operation entails the use of a photonic phase induction catalyzer, which is a form of technology that will make it easier for matter to turn into light. That will significantly make your task easier."

"Mmm…" she sipped her tea with a calm, wise expression. "Very well, I shall do my part in defending human civilization, meager as it is."

"It is not meager," Rui gently cajoled her. "You are among our civilization's greatest warriors. And also our civilization's greatest hopes."

He was referring to her candidacy for Transcendence, of course. The old woman was amused at how much the Transcendent sought more peers. Then again, from what she had heard, human civilization desperately needed any help it possibly could get its hands on.

"Not everybody can achieve Transcendence as quickly as you did," Bodhisattva Maitreyi spoke with a profoundly thoughtful tone, sipping more of her green tea. "I have been alive for a very long time. I don't feel the urge to grow stronger at this altar in life. I would have even retired, if not for the perils of this new Era of Expansion."

Rui turned to the window to his side, gazing at the Gen Temple outside with a knowing expression.

It hadn't changed in the past eighteen years. It was still the way it was, as if preserved in amber where time didn't flow. A detached, immaterial life with every little technology, if any.

It was a dying way of life that hadn't thrived in the Era of Expansion. Yet, Bodhisattva Maitreyi seemed at peace with that. She seemed at peace with her own power. Internally, Rui didn't think very highly of that, since they needed more Martial Transcendents. But he could respect it. She truly had been through a lot.

He still decided to try one last card.

"Your granddaughter and great-granddaughter would be much safer if you could break through to the Transcendent Realm," he remarked.

She simply smiled at him with a hint of amusement. Although she loved both of them greatly, she was not the kind to fret over their safety. She believed in the natural flow of causality and its inevitability.

"Amare has dedicated herself to a long period of isolated training in order to become a Transcendent, has she not?" Bodhisattva Maitreyi remarked with a knowing expression. "I am certain that her effort will not go to waste."

Rui wasn't so sure about that. As much as he loved Amare and wanted her to join him in Transcendence, she was still struggling to completely divorce herself from a Genist worldview that was impeding her own diverging phenomenological uniformity. It was one of the reasons that she had gone through isolated training; she wasn't training her body, but was meditating in a very delicate but deep meditative trance.

The reality was that only a portion of Transcendent Candidates could become Martial Transcendents. But the good news was that there were more Transcendent Candidates than ever before.

"Why don't you ask one of the other seventeen Transcendent Candidates?" Bodhisattva Maitreyi asked quietly.

Once Rui divulged the secret to the Transcendent Realm and created a crutch Realm to help familiarize Sages with the information dimension, the number of Transcendent Candidates rose at an unprecedented rate, with a new candidate or two emerging every year in the Era of Expansion, and that rate had only risen ever since.

"They're too immature as Transcendent Candidates. They haven't had enough time," Rui remarked. "The manifold doesn't help with the journey to the Transcendent Realm nearly as much as other Realms, if at all. This will naturally take time."

"What about the other races, then?" Bodhisattva Maitreyi asked with a calm expression. "I believe there was one Mother of Nature among the elves who was very close."

"You mean Mother Maeria," Rui remarked. "Unfortunately, she disappeared."

Shortly after the Era of Expansion commenced, the Mothers of Nature of East and West Genora reported that the oldest Mother of Nature among them had disappeared.

"Ah…" Bodhisattva Maitreyi murmured. "I recall. Did they ever find out what happened to her?"

"Unfortunately not," Rui simply replied.

"Mothers of Nature are big trees, are they not? How does a big tree simply cease to be there?"

"From what I understand, the tree itself is still there, but the mind and the consciousness of the Mother disappeared," Rui calmly explained. "To this date, we don't know what happened to her."

The elderly Bodhisattva found it odd that he seemed at ease with that explanation. From what she understood, he had developed a working partnership with Mother Maeria; shouldn't he have investigated, as a Transcendent, just what had happened to her?

Regardless, it wasn't her business.

"There are other pathwalkers in the other races; you could help them reach Transcendence as well, could you not?"

"I have shared the secret of Transcendence with the other races," Rui remarked. "Taught them about the information dimension and the Transcendent Realm. I know the Martial Path better, which is why I can help Martial Artists better. But the other Paths will need to figure their own stuff out for themselves. I can only offer my knowledge and insights, which I have."

"But not to all of them, am I right?"

"…I suppose not."

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