One of the ways that the Kaddar Region could make life harder for the Floating Sect was by greatly reducing the number of initiates and reinforcements they gained from Martial Squires interested in training under the special circumstances of the floating Ajanta Island.
Rui hadn't received any information on this matter, however, he keenly analyzed the circumstances of the Kaddar nations and evaluated the probability of the nations taking measures to prevent more Martial Artists from joining the Floating Sect to be quite high.
"In other words, the test to join the Floating Sect probably begins even before we enter the island," Rui murmured.
From patrolling Martial Squires to long-range Squire-level artillery weapons poised to shoot down any floating figure that was ascending to the island, Rui could easily gain a good grasp of what they were dealing with.
What amused Rui, even more, was that he highly doubted that the Floating Sect was particularly irked about it either. In fact, there was a good chance that they welcomed it. After all, the Martial Squires who were unable to get past a patrol, or were too scared to even try were simply not material for the Floating Sect. They would never be able to become a member of the Floating Sect even if they did everything in their meager power.
It made their lives easier because it probably reduced the number of challenges they got at any given time, making managing challenges to be easy.
However, it was not enough to stop Rui and Kane, not even close.
"It's time to use Void Step once more," Rui remarked, turning to Kane.
"Easy peasy," He smirked.
He put his hand on Rui's shoulder as he breathed deeply, activating the technique. Rui couldn't help but marvel at the technique each time he saw it. As amazing as Kane's Fulminata technique was, his Void Step technique was what was truly sublime in Rui's opinion. It could essentially erase them from everybody's eyes and did not have a limit to the number of people it could affect either.
Since Kane wasn't actively manipulating people's minds, he was misdirecting their attention with his movements in the opposite direction of the direction that they were traveling, making people who saw it completely miss him subconsciously.
The two of them straightforwardly sky-walked towards the island. While Kane focused on the technique, Rui focused all his senses outwards, extremely alert. The sheer range that he gained from Riemannian Echo and Tempestuous Feel was great, furthermore, his Primordial Instinct was at its peak alertness.
He was looking to see if he could sense any Senior-level threats. His senses were extremely sharp, and it was too impossible for a patrolling Martial Senior to somehow miss his triggering all kinds of alarm bells in his head.
What he did find was what he had expected; multiple Martial Squires patrolling the skies. He hadn't spotted them when he was on the ground because he was too far from the island, but they were actually easy to spot. They weren't trying to hide at all, in fact, they were making sure to display themselves more openly.
('Deterrence is a far better option than ambushing,')
Deterrence minimized the amount of Martial Squires that joined the Floating Sect without incurring too many losses, however, ambushes would most certainly cost more as the rate of conflict would be near one hundred percent.
The island grew larger as the two of them got closer to it, it was roughly the size of a large town or a small city, with a flat surface while the side facing the ground was roughly hemispherical.
It made Rui incredibly curious as to how the island had come to float, but that was not something he wanted to ponder at the moment.
His Riemannian Echo began picking up extremely interesting readings from the island.
('Incredible…') Rui's eyes widened. ('The space curvature around the island is extremely abnormal!')
It was as though the island curved and warped space only in part, on its surface. It was as though all the gravitation force that it experienced from the planet had all been absorbed and then used to create an enormously dense gravitational field atop the surface, where the space curvature created a titanic amount of gravitational force!
The force grew stronger at the center of the island than it was in the distant edges, Rui suspected that that meant that training at the center of the island was more sought after. He wasn't sure.
Soon enough, they had reached.
The two of them appeared out of thin air as they finally completed their travel.
And they could already sense it.
The world was different.
They felt as though they had gone back to being normal humans again, almost.
It was as if shackles had wrapped around their bodies, pulling them down. It was as though they were carrying the weight of the sky.
The air was extremely heavy, it stung their eyes and burdened their bodies. Every breath was laborious, they felt as though they had to pump air into their lungs.
Yet their eyes widened when they inhaled.
An incredibly fulfilling and uplifting sensation had passed through their body. A feeling of deep satisfaction permeated through their body with every labored breath they undertook.
It was almost addictive.
Before Rui could even gather his thoughts, a person had appeared before them.
A Martial Squire.
Of course, it was a Martial Artist, for even the strongest of humans would die before their brains could even begin to process it.
"Ho…" A deeply masculine voice reverberated through the ocean of air. "Not a single scratch on either of you like I'd heard. Impressive."
His body was diminutive, contradicting the image that his voice painted. Yet Rui was quite wary of him. Just a single glance, a single feel with his senses was enough for him to know.
This man was a grade-nine Martial Squire.
"It seems we have promising initiates," He remarked as he walked over.
"…You are?" Rui narrowed his eyes.
"I am Squire Veenioen," He replied. "The guardian of the Thirty-Sixth Chamber of the Floating Sect. The Floating Sect welcomes you to Ajanta Island."
