Rui paused for a moment while his mind furiously processed all the information that he had obtained in the last ten seconds.
Someone came to greet them almost immediately after Void Step had been undone. However, given that Rui had only sensed his approach before the exact moment that the Void Step technique had been undone, it meant that they had been sensed by someone who was able to observe them despite Kane's Void Step. This was also supported by the fact that the Martial Squire noted that he was told that they were unharmed.
That was unnerving.
It was the work of an exceptionally high-grade sensory Martial Artist with powerful senses, or grade-ten sensory techniques, or more likely…
('A Martial Senior,') Rui's eyes narrowed. ('Tentative conclusion: A Martial Senior is most likely always surveilling Ajanta Island and, more importantly, its surrounding air space. However, that also means that…')
It also meant that the island almost certainly had more than one Martial Senior for it to be able to afford such extravagant protection. Rui was relatively confident that there had to be at least three Martial Seniors!
The fact that they went through the efforts to go through such measures had even more implications for their experiences and circumstances. However, Rui was more focused on the man before them.
He was exceptionally powerful without a doubt. He would have been a star had he formed a party in the Shionel Dungeon raids.
He mentioned that he was the guardian of the thirty-sixth chamber.
Rui did not know what that meant.
Unfortunately, unlike the prior places that they had visited, the information about what exactly went on atop the island was extremely scarce. This was unlike the Umiana Trench where Rui could easily dig up more information about it just by talking to the locals and the natives.
The reason for that was that no human had ever set foot atop the island, and the only ones that entered and left were Martial Squires. The ones that returned were either Martial Artists who had succeeded in joining the Floating Sect and had rigorously trained in a successful relationship with the Sect and had no desire of selling the Sect.
There were wimps who had merely stepped on the island, refused the challenge, and left.
There were none who actually lost the challenge and returned because everybody who lost the challenge died.
Victory by death, or it was a loss. Thus the defending Martial Artists were ruthless and eliminated their challengers.
That was why Rui had absolutely zero context on what the man meant by 'chamber', but he could take a guess.
('He's stronger, but he said he's the guardian of the thirty-sixth chamber. It can be conjectured that strength inversely correlates with the number, thus a smaller number would correlate with stronger Martial Artist,') Rui's eyes narrowed.
He also couldn't help but think about a certain movie that came to mind when he thought about those words.
"Uh… Thanks," Kane scratched his head. "I dunno what's going on, but what do we do to train on this island?"
Sometimes Rui appreciated Kane's approach.
"There are a limited number of training avenues on this island known as 'chambers'," The man explained. "The chambers are large and rigorously include all manners of training Martial Art of all kinds. Training outside the chamber is prohibited because it risks destabilizing the island outside of the chambers that were built to protect the island's bedrock from the power of Martial Squires."
He paused for a moment, before continuing. "Thus, if you wish to train on this island, you need a chamber. If you want a chamber, you need to officially challenge any Martial Squire occupying a chamber to a death match and win by eliminating the defender, then you may occupy their chamber after becoming a part of the Floating Sect."
Rui's thoughts were more or less on the ball.
"Come," The man calmly instructed them. "You must be wary from your travels, furthermore, this new environment must surely be jarring and disconcerting. You may stay in the outer ring as a guest of the Floating Sect. More will be explained in time.
He immediately began walking away, and Rui and Kane quickly followed him as they tried to adapt to their new circumstances.
"You mentioned a numbered chamber," Rui prodded him. "Does that correlate with Martial prowess? If it does, does that mean some chambers are better than others?"
The man wordlessly turned back as he glanced at Rui. "That is precisely correct. The infrastructure of the chambers is almost identical, however, what makes some better than others are their locations."
"Chambers that are deeper into the island are better due to the more extreme conditions of the island leading to more intense training," Rui realized.
"Correct," The man replied. "The two of you must have already realized, but the air here is more nourishing despite weighing down harder and making it harder to respirate."
The two of them nodded as they still felt incredibly rich and empowering sensations each time they inhaled.
"Our Martial bodies…" Rui realized. "Our capacity to take in air and the capacity of our blood to carry air to the rest of our body is far greater than that of normal humans. This sensation is simply our blood nourishing our body with greater amounts of oxyge-ahem, air."
"Correct again," The man glanced at Rui, sizing him up briefly before turning back. "They do not yield any net boost to our short-term Martial prowess since the greatly increased effort it takes respirate, as well as the corresponding resistive force and weight we experience negate the boost we get from the more nourishing atmosphere. But it does benefit the Martial body greatly in the long term."
That was truly alluring to Rui and Kane. At that moment, their motivation to become a part of the Floating Sect grew tenfold.
However, Rui was too cautious to get caught up in all of the hype, he wasn't committing to anything until he understood what he was getting into.
