The Martial Unity

A similar circumstance had occurred in the preliminary contest, where he was grouped with his competitors ahead of time in a single big room.

For some reason, he had a feeling that the organizers just liked drama.

Regardless, he did not intend to indulge in drama.

He simply ignored all of them before heading grabbing himself a quick meal from the luxurious buffet that had been arranged for all of the contestants.

While he did not bother making eye contact with any of the contestants, but inwardly had already begun monitoring them with his senses.

That was true for most of them, with their senses, they did not need to make any overt gestures indicating surveillance. At their level, most of them had pretty decent sensory techniques. Furthermore, the Martial body possessed inherently powerful senses to start off with.

Rui possessed particularly powerful sensory capabilities with his many sensory techniques, even a grade-ten technique, and he intended to put them to good use.

The most important sense that he had at the moment was his Primordial Instinct which allowed him to get a good gauge of the power levels of his opponents.

He had long applied a Mind Mask to his true power, just like he had during the preliminary contest. The difference, however, was how much he lowered his strength. Back then he had nerfed his aura to that of a grade-eight Martial Squire, but that was too low here. He would actually draw attention for being that weak.

Instead, he reduced himself to a grade-ten Martial Squire. That was just strong enough that he would blend in without drawing too much attention.

In the meantime, he had already begun conducting scans on all of them. The average level of the Martial Squires was so high that he long realized that he could not be as carefree as he was in the preliminary contest after unveiling his strength.

In the preliminary contest, he knew he would be fine no matter what once the initial phase had passed. He was simply too strong, and he had correctly estimated that not even the three grade-ten Martial Squires together would be able to overcome him.

However, that was not the case here.

There wasn't just one, two, or even three grade-ten Martial Squires.

There were hundreds!

It was truly an eye-opening circumstance. Although he had expected this to be the case, it was actually another thing experiencing the sensation of being in a room with so many powerful grade-ten Martial Squires. It was an unprecedented experience for him.

He had been in places where the quality or quantity of Martial Squires exceeded the norm before. Vilun Island had an abnormally high Martial Artist breakthrough rate from normal humans due to how war-obsessed and martial their culture was. 

The Shionel Confederation became the gathering haven for more than ten thousand Martial Squires at its peak, each of them partaking in the intense competition for the treasures found within the dungeon.

Even after he left the Shionel Confederation, he ran into places that attracted lots of powerful Martial Squires to them such as the Umiana Trench and Ajanta Island. 

However, none of them compared to the quality of the warriors that the main Martial Contest of the Virodhabhasa Faith attracted. The weakest Martial Squire that he could detect was a particularly powerful grade-nine Martial Squire. That was the floor of the contest; a Martial Squire who could easily waltz into the first class of guardians of the Floating Sect.

Even if he was stronger than many of them, he needed to be careful, because if they identified as a threat, he would not be able to overcome the numbers that they had. 

He had managed to pull a victory against three grade-ten Martial Squires. But if he had faced four, or five, it probably would have been game over. Not even he could guarantee victory under such dire odds. That was why he was inclined to take prudent measures to hide his strength to ensure he didn't draw extra attention.

('Extra attention unlike that old woman,') Rui spotted an elder lady with long flowing white hair and wrinkled skin. 

She looked like an ordinary grandma, if not for the ever-flowing sense of peril she emanated. It appeared that the other contestants shared his opinion as they eyed her warily. She was definitely in the upper echelons of the tenth grade, for sure. He could instantly tell that she was stronger than any of the three grade-ten Martial Squires he faced in the preliminary contest.

He could also tell that her power came from the sheer amount of experience that she had as a Martial Artist, and as a Martial Squire particularly. He definitely admired her persisting for many decades, but couldn't help but wonder how someone like her hadn't become a Martial Senior yet.

Of course, the conditions for becoming a Martial Senior were difficult. Just the individuality aspect was quite challenging. Rui had become uniquely aware that he was far from the norm when most of the Martial Squire contestants were middle-aged men and women at the youngest. Many had salt and peppered hair that clearly indicated that they were not in their youth anymore.

Forming enough individuality to reach the Martial heart was an incredibly difficult process for an overwhelming majority of Martial Squires. One could go their entire life trying to reach it, and simply never would. There was a reason that only ten percent of Martial Squires discovered their Martial Hearts.

It appeared that this granny was not among them. Yet despite that, one glance into her eyes told him that she was not resigned to her fate despite her age. 

That was something that earned his respect and admiration. He hoped that his fortitude would match hers if he ever ended up at her age stuck at a bottleneck that he had failed to overcome in many years.

She wasn't the only Martial Squire that drew his attention, the entire contest was filled with warriors that were monsters in their own right.