Five months passed away quickly, quicker than Rui had noticed. With his potion tolerance, once he immersed himself into training, time passed way far too quickly. It got so bad sometimes that he wasn't able to tell the difference between hours and days sometimes!
Rui had spent the five months doing nothing but training the Stinger, Primordial Sense and the Phantom Step techniques. His estimates had been remarkably on point, he had wisely set apart one month after the initial four months of training to ensure he had properly integrated the three techniques he had mastered into his Martial Art and fighting style smoothly.
He had done this with the Apprentice and Squire instructors of the Martial Academy, rather than his peers. He didn't want to reveal his cards too early, since he knew that anything he showed would become common knowledge to the descendants from the Martial Community if he won the preliminary contest and became the representative of the Hajin Martial Academy, giving them an unfair advantage in turn.
Rui had thoroughly familiarized himself with the way the Martial Contest held by the sixteen martial Academies functioned.
Across the span of an entire month, each Academy would put their Martial Apprentices through a battle against every other Martial Apprentice in their entire Academy. The Martial Apprentice with the best score would be chosen as the representative of the entire branch.
The possibility of the top score being achieved by Martial Apprentices existed, however this would be resolved by looking at the outcome of the matchup between the two Martial Apprentices, since all Martial Apprentices would face off against all others, this matchup would undoubtedly occur. The outcome of this fight would decide which one of them would be chosen as the representative of their branch. In the worst case, if the top scorers with equal scores tied against each other in a matchup then the Martial Apprentice with the upper hand would be chosen as the representative.
One of the things he had learnt that had initially surprised him was the combat arena in which the battles would occur.
It wasn't the straightforward big square or circular arena that one would expect for these kinds of events. It was actually a multi-environmental arena, meant to cater to all kinds of Martial Artists.
The Martial Academies weren't stupid. Having a wide-open arena would obviously benefit certain types of Martial Art more than others. Stealth-oriented Martial Art, environmental Martial Art and more niche Martial Art would be quite unfairly disadvantaged in such a setting.
Thus, the Martial Academies had constructed a giant multi-environmental colosseum that catered to a large variety of Martial Art, such that not a single Martial Apprentice was unfairly advantaged or disadvantaged.
This system existed in the Martial Academy sparring sessions as well, Martial Apprentices were allowed to fight on platforms that catered equally to both Martial Artists contending with each other. It was just that for Rui and most Martial Apprentices this meant they would fight on ordinary rings, since that was neutral for most Martial Artists.
The Martial Colosseum, as it was known, contained multiple environments and topographies cramped within it, making it look very bizarre and oddly beautiful at the same time. It had many other features as well, like devices that recorded the fight and displayed it such that normal humans would be able to perceive them with, at the very least much better clarity than if they were watching with their naked eyes. They could enjoy the high excitement of some of the strongest Martial Apprentices fighting while still being able to understand what was happening.
The Martial Contest was a national event and one of the highlights of the Kandrian Martial Festival. The winner would gain many benefits. The sheer amount of exposure would mean that winning the Martial Contest or even performing well would result in a huge number of clienteles making exclusive offers to either retain the winner as their own personal Martial Artist, or as regular customer. The Martial Union allowed for clienteles to direct commissions to specific Martial Artists within the Martial Union for an extra fee, though the acceptance and refusal of those missions was upto the Martial Artist question
This meant that the winner would be flooded with highly profitable missions and remuneration pays from many, many interested clienteles! Even if one-percent of the regular clienteles of the Martial Union decided to try and have the Martial Champion retain them as a regular clientele, that would result in hundreds of lucrative offers of all kinds!
It would be a permanent boost to their careers for the rest of their lives.
This was because the tiny proportion of the populate that comprised of the wealthy and influential clientele had enough capital to start caring more about the quality of the undertakers of their precious commissions, so much so that they didn't mind splurging an immense amount of cash to get the best of Martial Apprentices to undertake their commissions.
If Rui won the Martial Contest, he would probably be able to clear his student loan debt with the martial Academy with a single mission or two, that's how incredibly lucrative it would likely have ended up being.
Still, he wasn't too concerned about the money. He simply wanted to fight against the best of his generation of Martial Artists. The fact that the Kandrian Martial Festival occurred once every five years meant that the sixteen representatives from the sixteen academies would truly be among those who have reached a certain peak in their Martial Path and among their peers.
Whoever won the Martial Contest would undoubtedly be the best of the best, the undisputed number one.
Reaching that height would validate every ounce of his being. It would validate his ambition of two lifetimes and the dream that he gave everything and more to achieve!
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