Time slowed down in Rui's vision as the Martial Prince nearly froze in place.
He was in a bit of a dilemma.
He just realized that he might be able to help the Martial Prince grow, substituting experience. Normally, this was something that each Martial Artist could only do for themselves, this was not supposed to be something that could be done for anybody by anybody.
That was partly why the Martial Path was solitary.
Nobody could walk it for anybody else. This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.
Yet Rui realized that he might be able to. He might have been perhaps the only Martial Artist who could walk their path for them due to the nature of his Martial Art. In particular, the pattern recognition system of the VOID algorithm was what he thought could help alleviate the prince's problem.
The reason for this was that Rui could easily copy this style if he wanted. In a manner similar to Ieyasu, although not nearly as well. Ieyasu could literally embody a person, and Rui could capture all the patterns and movements of Prince Raijun in the Mind Palace, create predictive models, and then replicate those.
He could simultaneously get rid of the imperfections and micro-flaws in the man's movements. Doing so would allow the prince to literally look at a perfected version of himself.
It would allow him to reach Squire candidacy without any experience at all.
For some reason, Rui deeply disliked that outcome.
The Martial Path was quite sacred, and the journey to power was important and valued. It should have been impossible for anyone to be able to skip or bypass the grueling process by exploiting loopholes.
Yet his Martial Art broke these rules that had been held strong for a long time. If people found out that Rui could allow Martial Artists to progress without nearly as much hard work and progress, it would not be good.
The current attention that he had attracted was reaching the limit that he could comfortably handle.
He was a high-grade Martial Senior, and that did deter people from trying to bully him. It would require Martial Masters, and that was an expenditure of power that was too much to employ.
However, with this revelation in addition to things like the Hungry Pain technique, his value would slowly start to exceed the deterrence that he was able to put out. There could be people who were starting to have dangerous ideas about how to get their hands on the treasure trove that Rui represented.
Of course, Rui's sharp mind had already put together several ideas on how he could increase the deterrence to making an enemy out of him, but that was not the core issue.
The question was whether it was worth it.
It would help Prince Raijun grow at an extreme pace, such that he would be able to break through to the Squire Realm within a short amount of time. That would substantially increase the probability that he would be able to win the Kandrian Throne War and ascend the throne as Emperor simply due to the substantially greater support he would be getting from the Martial Union.
This was an undesirable outcome since he would most likely immediately seek to change the structure of power of the Kandrian Empire with the intention of making the Martial Union the legislative entity in effect.
That would most certainly trigger at least a bit of a civil war as the diehard loyalists of the Royal Family would refuse to accept his first order. Most likely a lot of Martial Artists whose Martial drives were centered around loyalty to the Royal Family would riot in the centers of power, wealth, and influence in the nation.
The Town of Hajin would undoubtedly be a target since it hosted one of the sixteen Martial Academies.
Rui's mind swiftly processed many possible scenarios in just a blink of an eye, ultimately concluding that all of this could likely unfold if Rui decided to help Prince Raijun become a Martial Squire.
However, there was one issue.
He glanced at Prince Raijun as time sped up to normal.
"Our agreement specified that you would make an earnest effort to aid my growth as long as it did not directly directly harm you," Prince Raijun reminded Rui.
This was the issue.
Rui had underestimated how abnormal his Martial Art was. It was also unfortunate that the Martial Prince had stagnated not because of a lack of drive like Rui had thought, but due to a sheltered life and lack of experience.
Not even he could fix the former, which is why he had not been worried, but he did possess the ability to fix the latter. He would liked to have avoided the prince ever learning about it, but it was a true shame that Rui had just had the epiphany at that moment in front of two powerful Martial Masters. He probably would not be able to get away with it.
He briefly considered using a Mind Mask, before immediately recalling that Master Deivon seemed to apparently be able to see the technique itself.
He wasn't sure if he would be able to get away with lying, it depended on how good he was.
Still, worth a try.
"I was considering whether exposing you to bloodlust could sufficiently replicate a genuine life-threatening Martial battle," Rui heaved a troubled sigh. "But unfortunately, that won't work since you consciously know that your life isn't in danger. It will not bear the fruit you would need to fix the micro-flaws in your Martial Art."
The two Martial Masters glanced at him sharply with disapproving expressions. "Do not speak a mix of partial truths and falsehoods with the intention of deceiving His Highness in an attempt to violate the agreement that His Highness offered to you in good faith."
It was an unfortunate yet predictable failure.
Prince Raijun stared at Rui with a hint of hope, disregarding the fact that Rui was lying to him. "So you do have a solution then?"