1545 Technique Impacts

"As long as you're aware and prepared," Headmaster Aronian nodded. "That is one matter I wanted I merely wished to bring up. On a broader note, be prepared to be approached by many powerful people, organizations, and forces even on matters unrelated to the Kandrian Throne War. There are organizations that will seek your patronage, offer sponsorships, and other agreements and transactions with you."

"I got a few of those when I was a Martial Apprentice too, shortly after becoming the finalist of the Martial Contest," Rui remarked, recalling distant memories.

He had also received such offers after becoming the seventy-

second Virodhabhasa Champion.

"What you will receive from here on out will be much greater than that," Headmaster Aronian replied. "Martial Seniors have reached a level of power where the forces that can afford to regularly commission them usually seek to gain some form of direct long-term employment, bypassing the Martial Union. Carefully consider all the pros and cons of doing so when they approach you."

Rui nodded. "I'll keep that in mind."

"I'm sure you'll be prudent," Headmaster Aronian remarked. "Moving on to more important topics that are pertinent to you. There is much to discuss about the Hungry Pain technique that you offered as a contribution four, nearly five now, years ago."

Rui raised an eyebrow with interest. He was curious to hear what the Martial Union had to say on the matter.

"You claimed that the technique aided in the creation of a Martial Body that was an entire grade stronger than the norm," He remarked. "We have since verified the effects of the technique on the Martial Squires you claimed had used it, and verified that there were indeed anomalous deviations in the estimates of the physical parameters of the subjects similar to that of your own. While this alone wasn't enough proof of the effects of the technique, it was enough to commence a set of trials to establish the effects of the technique."

"Several experiments were conducted regarding the effects of the Hungry Pain on the Martial Body, each with hundreds of test subjects, and we eventually came to the conclusion that not only were your claims substantive, you had also slightly underestimated the impacts," Headmaster Aronian explained, smiling.

Rui furrowed his eyebrows. "…Well, my affinity for Mind is much greater than it is for Body. I wouldn't be surprised if someone like Nel benefited from the technique than I did."

"He did," Headmaster Aronian chuckled. "His Martial Body started off at grade three when the norm, of course, is grade one. The mean improvement was a bit above fifty percent."

Rui smiled. "I believe mine was about thirty percent."

"Correct," Headmaster Aronian. "As you can expect, this sparked a huge uproar in the Martial Union. We have never in history made such massive improvements in our Squire evolution breakthrough procedure. And more importantly, we have certainly such improvements with a zero addition to the cost of production."

Rui smiled, proud of what his work had done for Martial Art as a whole.

"With the addition of the Hungry Pain technique to standard preparation for the Squire evolution breakthrough process, the youngest generation of our Martial Squires is, pound for pound, the strongest generation of Martial Artists in history," Headmaster Aronian smiled. "Thanks to you, the Kandrian Empire definitively has the most powerful Squire evolution breakthrough process anywhere in the continent, including the other thirteen powerhouse Sage-level and Transcendent-level nations and organizations across the continent. The Panamic Martial Federation had even made an official inquiry into the notable qualitative boost in the Kandrian Martial Union's youngest Squire generation. We, of course, refused to share the method, it would be foolish to do so without securing massive concessions at bare minimum."

"It turned into a bigger deal than I had expected," Rui murmured with interest. "Then again, I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

"I don't think you'll be able to keep it secret for too long," Rui remarked. "Martial Apprentices receive the technique before turning into Martial Squires, there is bound to be a leak soon, if it hasn't happened already."

"That is accurate," Headmaster Aronian nodded. "That is why we have decided to withhold from actually divulging the technique to Martial Apprentices."

Rui frowned, confused. "Then how…?" owns this.

"We altered the technique, replacing the self-hypnosis of the technique with active hypnosis from a mentalist Martial Artist," Headmaster Aronian. "The Martial Apprentice remains in a trance where we then hypnotize him or her to not recall the effects of the training. By the time they're read for the breakthrough procedure, they have no recollection of the Hungry Pain technique."

Rui's eyes widened with surprise. "That is a rather extreme measure to take."

"It is necessary if we are to hide the technique from the spies of the various powerhouses across the continent, not to mention powerful intelligence organizations like the Beggar's Sect and Shadow Guild across the continent," Headmaster Aronian reassured. "We have taken the highest level of information security measures to ensure that it will never be leaked."

"…What about the Kandrian Empire?" Rui wondered. "Unlike all those other organizations, the Kandrian Empire houses the Martial Union."

"We have signed a highly advantageous contract with the executive government and the Royal Army where we supply them with the service of the newly-enhanced Squire evolution breakthrough procedure in exchange for an extravagant amount of gold per Squire breakthrough we perform for them." Headmaster Aronian replied.

Rui smiled wryly, it appeared that the Martial Union had truly been doing well with the technique that he had given them. "Well, I'm glad to hear that the Martial Union appreciated the technique. It had been rather easy to develop when I decided to, so it didn't really click that it would become something so significant, back then."

He had created the Hungry Pain technique within a single day. Compared to the other techniques that he had created, the effort that he had put into it was rather trivial. Still, the fact that the Martial Union came to appreciate the technique to such a degree was good news, because it meant that his remuneration would be that high.