Kane smiled at the sight of Rui's eyes energetically swimming around immersed in deep thought. The spark of excitement twinkled within them. His feet began tapping, and his hands began fidgeting impatiently.

The moment Martial Art became the topic, he was reduced to an enthusiastic child who couldn't wait to play in the park. The moment Martial Art arrived, his heart and temperament would thaw, and for a moment, the Rui of old would come out.

The same Rui that he had known his entire life. (C) content.

"As always, Martial Art always brings you endless happiness, huh?" Kane chuckled mirthfully.

"It's the best," Rui replied, growing more vigorous. "Sometimes, I'm truly astonished that not everybody falls in love with Martial Art. How is that possible? How can you look at Martial Art and not come to love it with all your heart? Strange world, truly."

Kane stared at him, speechless.

It was an absurd statement.

Martial Art was the cause of immense suffering in the world regardless of what one personally felt about it. It had caused a lot of fear, anguish, pain, and death, much of it unjust. This was so much so that an international movement dubbed 'Non-Martial Lives Matter' was born after a Martial Sage genocided one billion human beings in the blink of an eye.

Of course, Rui was very well aware of this himself. Yet, it never emotionally registered within him. His love for Martial Art was so deep that it refused to allow him to truly understand, on an emotional level, how people could wind up hating it.

Kane shook his head. "Whatever. Let's go tell the Divine Doctor now that we have figured out a plan."

"No, not yet," Rui refused impassively. "That man will be a difficult nut to crack even with a seemingly reasonable plan. I know his type. He will not be satisfied with a plan as loose as I have proposed. I will have to flesh out all the details and have powerful reasons to convince him to invest in it."

Kane heaved a sigh. "So I was right ultimately. It will be a complex plan."

"Maybe." Rui shrugged nonchalantly. "It will be detailed but ultimately simple in concept. The most important part is having rock-solid foundations to convince him of the probability of success. I don't think there's any point in approaching him before I've mastered my understanding of this dungeon and all its creatures."

"…Is it going to be that hard?"

Rui narrowed his eyes. "This is a man who has little fear of death. The only question is why he hasn't killed himself and unshackled his soul so that his soul can travel to a prepared body of his or whatever the specific mechanism of the soul transference is. But despite not having done so, I didn't sense any fear. He's going to have a high bar for cooperation. I certainly would if I were in his circumstances."

Kane smiled wryly. "Right."

"On top of that, this plan is based on the assumption that this man wants to leave. If he doesn't, then I'll have to make other concessions."

"Like letting him poke around your brain?"

Rui's expression darkened. "Absolutely not. But I'll have to figure it out when it comes to it."

Rui had some ideas as to what he could offer if the man did not care about gaining his freedom. Unfortunately, due to his lack of understanding of how the soul was transferred from one body to another, he was at an information disadvantage in this regard.

It could be that he needed to suffer a natural death in order to unshackle the soul from his body and let it transfer from the dead vessel to a prepared living vessel. Rui recalled his father's description of how the man had been killed before, only to spawn in a new body that would go about elsewhere.

Not even Martial Sages could keep this man dead. It was a feat that Rui found mind-boggling.

Yet, for some reason, in the Mellow Manifold, the man was unwilling to slit his throat or throw himself into the dungeon to let himself die.

What changed?

All indications pointed to the fact that the self-looping four- dimensional space-time manifold was the reason. There was nothing else meaningful that could distinguish why the Divine Doctor's current circumstances were different, such that he had yet to kill himself. He had spent two hundred and sixteen days in this place without making any progress yet refused to die.

Rui shook his head. "…Ah well, we'll find out eventually; rather than focusing on things that are outside of our control, it is best we deal with things within our control. The value proposition of our plan needs to be rock solid; otherwise, he'll laugh at us."

Kane nodded. "Gotcha."

"I'd suggest you focus on training from here on out," Rui told him. "You don't need any more experience than you have. A dedicated two years of training to expand your skillset and strengthen your foundation will do you much better than more experience."

"What about you?"

"Well, I'll finish what I started," Rui remarked impassively. "Gather all the intelligence on all these creatures until I know this place inside out and backward front. I need to be so good that the Divine Doctor better request me to teach him. Once that's done, I'll begin my domain training and come up with new domains to create environments that are antithetical to the biggest threats in this dungeon. After that…"

Rui turned to Kane. "It'll be showtime."

"And you're going to wait until all our preparations are done before you actually even tell the Divine Doctor what our plan is?"

"Yes," Rui replied. "We will have gained a lot of clarity that he simply will be unable to refuse if he has any desire to not rot in this dungeon for the rest of the life of this particular vessel."

"…Alright, I suppose it's the only way," Kane remarked, heaving a sigh. "Life is going to get rough."

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