The Martial Unity

While the territory and esoteric natural resources of the island were of interest to the Kandrian government, the Martial Union had grown a lot more interested in the discovery of a primitive civilization entirely distant from the Panama Continent that also happened to develop Martial Art.

Rui also got access to confidential analytical reports of the Institute of Martial Anthropology regarding the Martial Artists of Vilun Island as well as the transcripts of the internal moderated caucuses of the Martial Union regarding the situation.

The fact that Vilun Island was many thousands of kilometers away from the Kandrian Martial Union made the plausibility of Martial Art existing independently on the island quite interesting. This was plausible.

After all, the breakthrough to the Apprentice Realm was entirely a natural phenomenon. It wasn't implausible that the Martial Tribes of the Vilun Island independently discovered the Apprentice Realm.

After all, these Martial Tribes lived a life of conflict. They engaged in a drastically disproportionate amount of physical conflict that far exceeded that of nearly any society on the Panama Continent. Furthermore, unlike that of human civilization on the Panama Continent, the Martial Tribes of Vilun Island did not develop excessive reliance on technology to augment their warfare.

This meant that all of the physical conflicts were conducted with their physical bodies. Rui was sure that this was, no doubt, the reason that the first Martial Apprentice of Vilun Island came to be. It was probably the case that the first Martial Apprentice of Vilun Island was a particularly skilled fighter who had dedicated themselves to increasing their combat prowess by training before finally discovering their Martial Path and becoming a Martial Artist.

The first several Martial Apprentices of the Martial Tribes of Vilun Island must have set a precedent and facilitated the coming generation of their tribes to develop the mindset, body, and approach to combat that was conducive to them discovering their Martial Paths.

Over time this process must have become significantly refined and an increasing number of Martial Apprentices would go onto blood from each generation.

The analytical report of the Institute of Martial Anthropology speculated that this hypothesis was the likeliest explanation when one only considered the breakthrough to the Apprentice Realm. However, this hypothesis became much less likely when one considered the fact that the Martial Tribes were discovered to have also discovered the breakthrough to the Squire Realm and also the Senior Realm!

This discovery made the then prevailing hypothesis that the Martial Tribes of Vilun Island became Martial Artists independently of the Martial Martists of the Panama Continent much less credible and likely.

This was because the breakthrough to the Squire Realm was an artificially constructed product of science and not a natural phenomenon.

The original evolution breakthrough that gave birth to the first Martial Squire was developed by a researcher. Although it was absolutely true that this breakthrough procedure was highly crude, unsophisticated, and primitive compared to the modern evolution breakthrough process that the Martial Union currently employed, it still was the origin of the Squire Realm.

The Martial Artists produced by that original process, while far weaker than that of modern Martial Squires, were still bonafide Martial Squires.

This was not something that could be accomplished without a technological foundation.

This was something that the Institute of Martial Anthropology found puzzling. But as an institute that extensively documented and studied the history of Martial Art and Martial Artists and their impact on society and civilization, they had managed to come up with an alternate hypothesis.

While it was true that Vilun Island was separated from the Panama Continent by thousands of kilometers, that was by modern standards. According to historical records as well as modern extrapolations of geography, climate, and the environment used to be like in the past, it was entirely possible that Vilun Island was connected to the main continent by land for a brief period in history during the birth of the Age of Martial Art due to elevated land and lower sea levels.

This meant that the Martial Art that currently existed on Vilun Island may very well be a strange mutation of a relic inherited from the Panama Continent.

Of course, this was just a hypothesis. There was no proof that this was actually the case. Ultimately, the history of the Martial Art of Vilun Island was nebulous and unclear to this day. Not even the diplomatic endeavors with Vilun Island had managed to shed light on this mystery.

Part of it is due to the failed diplomatic endeavors on setting up cooperative and mutually beneficial trade between them and the G'ak'arkan Tribe as well as the other tribes. Another part of it was certainly due to the fact that the natives themselves did not have sophisticated documentation and recording in their culture. What history and heritage they seemed to know about were vague legends that had been passed down by word.

If there had been any specific details surrounding the birth of Martial Art on Vilun Island, they had long been stripped, leaving uselessly ambiguous tales that did not clarify this puzzle.

Of course, it was not particularly important, all things considered.

At the end of the day, who particularly cared about how Martial Art originated on Vilun Island? Once the initial speculation hit a dead-end, it was forgotten about. The Institute of Martial Anthropology, an institute founded by the Martial Union, never received too much support in its proposal to uncover this historical mystery above other matters.

Rui was the same, to an extent. Of course, he was curious about the truth, but he cared much more about the actual Martial Art of Vilun Island!

He moved to the files that contained the reports detailing the Martial Art techniques that the Martial Artists of Vilun Island, and specifically, the G'ak'arkan Tribe employed. These were not only much more interesting and valuable, but also much more relevant to his mission. In fact, it was the driving force behind why this mission had even been created in the first place!