His grandmother smiled gently at the confusion that had clearly manifested itself on his face.
"There is a saying…" Her voice grew soft. "…Power does not change a person, it only reveals who they are. People are capable of stooping to hell if they have the power to get away with it. Inability to act is mistaken for the choice not to. People mistake themselves as good-hearted and kind when, in reality, they simply are unable to do the things that they think they are choosing not to."
"Power does not change, but merely reveal who one truly is…?" A hint of understanding finally dawned on Rui. "So the more powerful one is, the more one can understand who they truly are because their power revealed who they truly are."
"Precisely, my grandchild," she nodded with approval.
The mechanics of how self-understanding somehow resulted in a massive power boost for Martial Sages was still beyond him.
He still couldn't fathom how simply knowing 'who you are' could result in such a massive boost in power.
However, he gained a slightly better understanding of what it took to reach the former.
"In all previous Realm, power had very little correlation, if at all, with progress to the next Realm," she continued. "However, that pattern breaks in the Master Realm. The strongest Martial Masters are those who are the closest to answering the question 'Who am I?'"
"That's…" Rui grew engrossed in her words. "That's very different from the Lower Realms."
His grandmother nodded approvingly. "Indeed. That is why there is division in most Martial philosophies between the Lower Realms and the Upper Realms. There are too many differences in many aspects in addition to the ones that I have mentioned. Even in the Silas Martial taxonomy that the Silas Clan subscribes to, Pathforthers and Bodyforgers are also categorized separately from Mindforger and Soulforgers."
Rui's eyes widened as he heard her name the Sage Realm in the Silas Martial philosophy. "Soulforger…?"
"Indeed, I am a soulforger."
"…Is that what the answer to the question 'who am I?' is considered to be?" Rui's eyes sharpened. "The 'soul?'"
Matriarch Nephi did not miss the tightening of his muscles, the gritting of his teeth, and the other physiological shifts that indicated that she had touched a nerve.
She had absolutely no idea why he reacted this way to the mention of 'soul,' but she didn't wish to pry.
He was not a child of any age or in Realm.
He would have to overcome his own challenges with his own personal strength; otherwise, he would not be qualified to enter the Sage Realm.
"Do not fixate on the nomenclature. It is not a 'soul' as conceptualized in theology. Different philosophies call it different things." She remarked. "Moksha. Nirvana. Bodhi. Satori. Prejna. Kensho. Shaman. Vimukti. The Third Eye. The Union. The Essence of Tao. The Harmony of Self etc. You may pick among the various philosophies that exist around the world. For the sake of simplicity and uniformity, the various constituents Panamic Martial Federation has collectively designated it as the 'Martial Soul,' as a flexible placeholder that can be substituted with any of the aforementioned philosophies."
Rui stared at her, stunned. "The Martial Soul? A placeholder?"
"Correct," his grandmother patiently nodded. "That is what is tentatively used to refer to the power of the Sage Realm and the answer to the question that all Martial Masters must strive to answer."
Rui grew engrossed in everything that she had divulged to him. This is from .
It was a lot to take in.
"…I am not accustomed to facing such uncertainty in the established path forward," Rui admitted. "There was universal agreement on the Martial Body, the Martial Heart, and the Martial Mind. But here, no one seems to understand what the so-called 'Martial Soul' is."
"It is not that nobody understands it," she explained. "It is that it cannot be conveyed. Those who understand it also understand that it cannot be described in words. It is information that cannot be conveyed through words, language, or even hypnosis and non-verbal communication. It is an ineffable qualia that only I and my fellow soulforgers are able to understand and experience."
A qualia was an experience within consciousness that could not be conveyed. Experiences of colors, sounds, odors, inside the mind could not be directly conveyed in its essence. No one could ever describe what the experience of red at its very essence was beyond merely pointing at the color red and uttering 'red.'
"That is even more true for the soul," she remarked with elderly wisdom. "It's not just that it cannot be conveyed. Even among those of us soulforgers who do understand it, we do not necessarily agree with each other what it is. Soulforgers like myself call it the soul and conceptualize it as our inner self. Other Martial Sages believe that it is a form of internal harmony. Some believe that it is an existential potential that stretches from the mind across the very fundamental material of the being. And so on and so forth. The experience can not only not be conveyed in a scientific manner, but it also cannot be agreed upon as to what it is even among the vague metaphorical language that is often used to describe it."
"…" Rui stared at her with amazement and awe. "That feels like the Sage Realm is still being explored. As if it's still a mystery waiting to be solved."
"…That's not too far from the truth," she resonated with his words. "The Upper Realms are where the theoretical considerations and scientific exploration of Martial Art by research scholars are highly limited. In the first place, the qualia of mind is a domain where science may categorically be obsolete. Where science stops, the philosophy begins, and only we soulforgers can explore its depths."
Rui had so many questions that he wanted to ask that he was simply unable to decide, he had just begun to touch at the very highest echelons of Martial Art and it was already more vast than he had ever imagined.
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