Rui found that point of view to be quite interesting. It was not how he normally thought of Martial Art.

Every Martial Artist knew that Martial Art was a solitary path. No one else could walk one's path for another. The further Martial Artists walked down their paths, the more their paths diverged from each other. They grew increasingly different and distanced. owns this.

Furthermore, to progress, conflict between them was necessary. Sparring was not good enough, genuine life-or-death conflict was what was necessary to yield the fruits of experience that would refine one's Martial Art.

Thus, not only was Martial Art a solitary path, but it was even an antagonistic path.

However, Prince Raijun brought up an interesting point in regard to it. It was true that Rui had benefited from the contribution of countless Martial Artists before him, contributing things that would go on to become highly ubiquitous and almost necessary fields of Martial Art.

Of course, Rui knew that he had already contributed to Martial Art with the Hungry Pain technique and his other grade-ten techniques. He wasn't exactly drowned in debt considering the sheer impact that he had already made and was bound to make in the future.

The two of them spoke more before their conversation eventually concluded.

"You're an incredible, Rui Quarrier," Prince Raijun shook his hand. "I look forward to gaining your tutelage and training. I'll have the paperwork sent to you as soon as possible."

Rui nodded, smiling. "I look forward to offering my services."

"Well then, I have already kept you for enough time after having you dragged away, until next time. Farewell, Senior Quarrier."

Rui heaved a sigh after he found himself back in his carriage, having departed from the Royal Manor after bidding the Martial Prince farewell.

The discussion with the Martial Prince did not deviate too much from his expectations. Although the grace that the prince decided to shower him with along with the training commission was out of his expectation.

Yet he was received and treated in a manner that was probably reserved for Martial Artists of the Upper Realms. Only they had enough personal capital to hold their head high even in the presence of the Royal Family, barring the Emperor.

He had come away with a better impression of the prince.

He immediately shed his royal and aristocratic bearing to better facilitate a smoother interaction.

'He most likely took my lower-class background into account and decided to adjust his attitude and expression,' Rui mused. 'It was a good calculated decision. On top of that, he had effective rhetoric and understood what my personal interests were when he made the offer to prolong the protection that the orphanage had.'

On top of that, he was clearly quite powerful and had accrued a lot of wealth in addition to Martial capital. He readily accepted prolonging protection that was going to cost hundreds of millions of gold annually, which was enough wealth to buy a low-class nation.

'He's trying to create an association between himself and me, to send out a message,' Rui mused.

He did not strictly mind. The protection was too powerful an incentive for him to possibly ignore for such a light reason. He had earned at least that much with his extravagant measures.

Of course, Rui doubted that this would stop the other princes or princesses from making their own attempts to gain his support and favor.

All in all, his final evaluation of Prince Raijun was that he was a level-headed and intelligent man who had demonstrated a good understanding of the state of Kandria and the nature of the Kandrian Thone War. Rui did not think he would be an incompetent ruler as long as he had a qualified staff and administration.

The only misgiving was his political ideology, placed far too much power in the hands of Martial Artists as far as he was concerned. He was hoping that one of the other princes or princesses had a stance that would be in favor of the common citizen.

But asides from that, he didn't have any compunction with the Martial Prince.

He was much more driven to ensure that certain princes or princesses didn't get crowned as the ruler, than to support any one particular prince or princess was elected.

The Communist Princess and the Corporate Princess were each highly distateful to him purely based on their stances and the power blocs supporting them.

The Military Prince had some extreme policies regarding war, he probably the type who believed in a mandatory draft for the citizens. Just the idea of people from Quarrier Orphanage being deployed to war was a nightmare to him.

There was no need to even talk about the Underworld Prince. Rui had already seen the depths to which the Carnil Mafia was willing to go to lobby support.

Those four princes and princesses were highly disagreeable to him. The Martial Prince, the Seafare Princess, and the People's Prince were the only three he didn't strongly dislike. He had already disqualified the former due to a policy that disenfranchised and hurt the average citizen a little too much for Rui's taste, but the Martial Prince did extremely well in appealing to Rui personally, to his Martial Artist identity.

In fact, if not for Rui's determination to ensure that the orphanage did not suffer even the slightest disruption to their lives, he would have gone with the Martial Prince.

He heaved a sigh, shaking his head. He just hoped that the candidates he was most hopeful for would pan out and be just perfect for his needs.

Though he was hopeful for that, he maintained grounded expectations.

Politics was an icky muck, there was almost never an ideal choice and many a times people were forced to choose the lesser of two evils. Although Rui had seven candidates in front of him, most of them were so poisoned that it wasn't even funny.

"I'll just have to impact this cold war in a direction favorable to me as best as I can."

Fortunately, he had some ideas in regards to how he could go about that.