The Martial Unity

The two of them spoke together the entire day before eventually splitting paths. Kane was definitely going to grow quite busy with offers from various parties and entities in the Kandrian Empire. While Rui's refusal to accept such deals, to the point of not even being willing to shackle himself to a sect, was well-known around the nation, Kane was not nearly as closed off to accepting such offers from patrons.

He would definitely grow quite busy in the coming weeks. Of course, Rui didn't intend to intervene; they were both fully grown adults who could handle their own business. Rui was glad that he didn't hear any suspicions about him being related to Kane's breakthrough in the news when he occasionally interacted with members of the Martial Community that he was acquainted with.

Of course, it would be rather bizarre for anybody to suspect him, considering Kane broke through in the Beast Domain while Rui was clearly here in the Kandrian Empire the entire time.

In the meantime, he continued to work on the four domain technique projects that he had come up with since then. Each of them challenged him in unique ways as he indulged in the thrill of figuring out their challenges and hurdles.

As he worked on the necessary mechanisms and the technique framework and blueprint, he gained a better idea of what they would look like when he was done, as well as their potential impact on combat.

He was pleased to discover that investing his upgraded breathing power into domains was definitely worth the investment with the sheer ROI that he was getting.

There was no better way to apply his breathing towards adaptive evolution, generally speaking, than to employ it to bend heaven to antithetically counter his opponent. It was the best way to go even further down his Martial Path. The second best option was employing different breathing techniques to augment different parameters of the body, as Ian Nepomniachtchi did with Fire Breathing, Lightning Breathing, and Earth Breathing.

'Yet even those wouldn't allow me to adapt to my opponent as well as these domain techniques would, by the looks of it.'

Of course, there were no absolutes. There probably were a fair share of circumstances where the breathing options were more desirable. In such circumstances, he would naturally adapt and use what was most fit. Rui wasn't strictly in favor of always using domains or anything of that sort.

Regardless, he was convinced in his decision to master domain techniques; he was even convinced that the three projects would definitely be as successful as they were right now.

The only project he wasn't nearly as optimistic about was Project Reverse Prophet. The difficulty was even greater than he had feared.

Detecting all vectors with a domain was extremely difficult in and of itself. But processing them and then extrapolating the past based on that data through the laws of reality.

That was a feat that, for once, not even his powerful mind may be able to cope with. The sheer depth of the degree he would need to look into the past for the technique to be useful and practical was so high that he wasn't sure if he could do it even as he constructed the technique.

On top of that, this was a heavily thought-intensive process; he would not get smoother at it with muscle memory as he would with the other domains. He could only heave a sigh and hope that things worked out in his favor.

As he trained in the four domain techniques, a week passed. The day of the inauguration of the first submarine of the Kandrian Empire had arrived after several months of preparation. The event was much larger and much more formal than either of the previous gatherings that the other two princesses had invited him to.

For one, it wasn't simply just a faction meeting with a few potential members to join the faction; it was also an event to raise support for her new naval initiative.

Rui looked forward to meeting with Princess Ranea. In fact, he was quite eager. He needed to confirm that he had made the right choice when he gave her an advantage in his deal with Prince Raijun.

Come morning, he found himself engaging in yet another round of tiresome grooming with a scented bath his mother prepared for him, a clean shave, and combing his messy hair before finally donning the one and only custom-tailored formal Martial attire that he had.

He didn't really care to go for yet another horrific shopping spree with Alice.

It wasn't too long before he had sky-walked across Kandria, heading to the port town of Farund. Instantly, he could sense the difference in the energies in the air of the port town. The entire town had an electric air of excitement and enthusiasm. He could see decorations bearing Princess Ranea's personal crest, paying homage to her. The harbors had been docked with large ships as several waves more were incoming.

It wasn't surprising, given that the inauguration of the first submarine was supposed to be a town-wide event.

Master Ceeran had invited him prior to the inauguration ceremony since the two of them would be going together.

"Ah, you look rather distinguished, Rui," Master Ceeran smiled. "As do you, Master Ceeran."

"Are you ready?" Master Ceeran asked with a hint of eagerness. "I am looking forward to this new so-called submarine. I wonder how it works."

"I am more interested in speaking to Her Highness about her political ambitions," Rui replied.

Submarines in this world may have been truly novel, but it wasn't special to him. He was much more interested in getting a better personal impression of Her Highness. Mainly, this was probably going to be the first time that he would consider joining a faction or supporting a candidate for the ruler, depending on whether she was able to appeal to him with her political ambitions or not.

His mind was entirely focused on that, and that's why he didn't share Master Ceeran's curiosity about a vessel that could travel underwater.

"The entire town is in quite the mood, you see," Master Ceeran informed Rui with a smile. "As a port town, seeing a princess be so invested in the nation's seafaring and maritime sectors is incredibly rare and good since it is something that rarely happens."