However, Rui changed the game. He had cooked a clever escape plan that allowed them to get away tracelessly. What had been impractical before became quite achievable with his insights.
"How strong do you need to be by the time the protection of the Martial Union runs out?" Kane asked out of the blue.
"…I don't think just being an ordinary Martial Senior is going to cut it, I'm afraid," Rui sighed. "He has more than one Martial Senior on retainer. I need to surpass the Martial Seniors assigned to protect my family. If he happens to get a Martial Master on retainer in the next ten years, then I'll need to be even stronger."
Rui had no illusions about the difficulty of his task. He was going to try and achieve the Senior Realm at what was most likely going to be among the youngest ages at which a Martial Squire has ever become a Martial Senior. But he did not intend on letting that stop him.
He clenched his fist at the thought of how helpless he was when his identity was exposed. It showed him that his success in the Shionel Dungeon was far from true power. They were targeted solutions that possessed an immense amount of affinity with the circumstances of the Shionel Dungeon. The moment he stepped outside of the Shionel Dungeon, he was just another ordinary high-grade Martial Squire. Granted, he could become far stronger if he had an immense amount of time for observation and preparation, but that was meaningless against opponents against whom he didn't have such generous circumstances.
And, in the real world, he didn't have such luxuries. Most opponents weren't like the Root, which would sit tight in place, allowing Rui to observe them and gain data on their movements and allowing him to manipulate them into fighting who he wanted, and choosing when their battle would begin.
He needed to obtain the power he had against the Root in general, in all circumstances.
('I need far more than just that level of paltry power,) Rui recalled the one and only fight between Martial Seniors he had witnessed in his entire life. The sheer amount of power that the two Martial Seniors of the K'ulnen Tribe had displayed was shocking, yet the power that Senior Ceeran had displayed had truly shaken Rui. Up until that point, he hadn't known how strong Martial Artists could get. His understanding of the limits of Martial Art was shallow and paltry.
He yearned, from the bottom of his heart, to reach that level of power. If he was as strong as Senior Ceeran was, he would have much more confidence in his ability to protect his family. Senior Ceeran was definitely a high-grade Senior who could defeat most Martial Seniors.
In order to reach that level of power, he would not develop his Martial Art to an incredibly high degree. Thankfully, the Shionel Dungeon had given him a lot of inspiration for many things. The limitations that he had were laid bare against a creature like the Root, although the Void Forestep technique was powerful enough to mitigate the difference between them, it had too many drawbacks and requirements.
What he needed was to strengthen Martial Art's very foundation. He needed to develop powerful techniques with an immense amount of individuality and affinity with his own Martial body and Martial Art in all fields. At the moment, he had to admit that his Martial Art was probably leaning more towards long-range techniques than it was close-range. The Void Forestep technique was a supplementary technique that could be applied to all other techniques, although it tended to be more impact when paired with close-range techniques.
He intended to balance out the mild imbalances that existed in his Martial Art at the moment. He also intended to incorporate more fields into his Martial Art than just the fields that he possessed at the moment. There were plenty of fields of Martial Art that he did not possess a strong affinity with, but were still necessary if he wanted to build a Martial Art that was capable of adapting and evolving to anything.
On top of that, he felt he was finally ready to upgrade the core of his Martial Art; the VOID algorithm. In the past few years, he had avoided touching the VOID algorithm himself because he didn't feel like he was ready to embark on such an ambitious venture, but he felt that he had matured enough as a Martial Artist to take this step. It was time for him to take the first steps in truly adapting the VOID algorithm to the world that he had been reborn in twenty years ago.
He wasn't sure about exactly how he'd go about it. The VOID algorithm was a complicated system of protocols that were centered around advanced statistical techniques and methods and scrupulously detailed and rigorous empirical data collected on the best counters to all human movements.
One thing he was aware of was the fact that he did not know what it took to become a Martial Senior, the breakthrough to the Senior Realm was a complete mystery to him. He had been informed of the traits necessary to fulfill some of the conditions necessary to become a Martial Senior, but the actual nature of the breakthrough was unknown to him.
All he knew was that it was a spontaneous event, given that Senior Ceeran had once inadvertently let it slip that he had broken through in the middle of a battle, which was impossible if it was an artificial man-made breakthrough like the evolution breakthrough process to the Squire Realm.
This was good news for him, it meant that he likely didn't need to depend on the Martial Union or any other entity in order to break through to the Senior Realm. It would be incredibly inconvenient if he had to rely on external parties to provide him with the key necessary for becoming stronger in the long run.
