Chapter 4021  Waking Sages

"How much more time do you anticipate this will take?" Rui raised an eyebrow.

"Most likely half a day," Ru promised. "Your influence and your Transcendent figure loom over their heads, so they will not waste too much time, but will do their best to ensure that they aren't disenfranchised."

"Just throw negatron matter at them if they disagree, and they'll probably eat it up," Rui grumbled. "Let me know when it's ready."

"What do you plan to do now?" Ru raised an eyebrow. "You've been conspicuously absent at the throne of this empire, you know?"

Rui was simply too big to merely be the Emperor of Kandria, even he knew that. As a Martial Transcendent, every moment he spent had great ramifications for the future of the entire world. That didn't mean he intended to neglect the Kandrian Empire by any means.

Rui shook his head. "The empire doesn't need me at the moment. But…"

He turned in a specific direction, gazing through the walls of the palace. His Transcendent eyes bore deep in that direction, resting upon a specific place.

The Kandrian manifold.

In the past, it was not something that he could detect even with his senses. But now that he was a Martial Transcendent, he could see right through it like it was glass. His vision into the information dimension was so deep that not even a complete wind-up of space and time reality itself was enough to keep his vision out.

Within the depths of the manifold, he spotted the thousands of Martial Sages of human civilization.

They had woken up.

Exhausted from the excessive abuse of the Realms of power, they had slept for more than a day within the manifold, only having just woken up.

WHOOSH

He teleported to them in the blink of an eye from outside the manifold.

Teleporting through manifold would have ordinarily been impossible for him in the past. But upon Transcendence, just access to the information dimension alone was enough for him to achieve the impossible.

STEP

He arrived before a large congregation of Martial Sages who had each woken up from their sleep, getting up groggily across a large series of bed within a single facility meant to accommodate Martial Artists of the Upper Realms.

There were too many to give each of them their own rooms, so a large facility meant to have all of them sleep in one single joint dormitory. Hardly fitting the comfort and luxury that they were accustomed to receiving, of course, but the strategic benefits of recovering fourteen times faster was too much.

The very moment he arrived before them, his Transcendent presence bore down on them. Martial Sages together bore a tremendous presence and a great weight upon the world around them. Even if the average quality of Martial Sages had gone down, a Martial Sage was still a Martial Sage. Together, they had so much power that they could destroy all life upon Gaia collectively.

And yet, before the might of a single Martial Transcendent, they felt like flames before the might of the sun. The sheer amount of power that Rui was able to project without so much as even flexing a muscle or even a cell was unfathomable. His power radiated across the information dimension, making everything infinitessimally more like Water at the very root of their existence. The very flow of causality seemed to bend before his immense might. Authority over reality itself vastly outstripped any amount of physical force and material strength.

For many of them, he was the first Martial Transcendent. And only then did they realize that the Transcendent Realm was different from the other Realms in that it wasn't simply just an order of magnitude of two stronger than the Sage Realm.

The prior proportional gaps between Realms were extremely small compared to the gap of power between the Sage Realm and the Transcendent Realm. Even before breaking through, Rui's power had crossed the echelon of power where he could be classified as a Martial Artist of a higher Realm above the Sage Realm.

But now, he was so far beyond them that they couldn't even perceive the gulf that existed due to its extraordinary magnitude.

It was a staggering and humbling realization.

And it changed their behavior.

After the Transcendents had completely disappeared, Martial Sages had naturally grown more arrogant, as they had been before the Martial Primordial broke through to the Transcendent Realm. After all, they were the top dogs once more. Even if Rui had subjugated the Martial World with law and order, it didn't change that they were the strongest class of warriors for all practical purposes.

Now, however, beholding a Martial Transcendent before them made them realize just how foolish that psychology was. Martial Transcendents were far, far beyond them.

It made them envious.

It made them wish they had this power. "Y̶̢̢̨̢̹̙͚͓̻̊͋̎̈́̍͛́͋̕ṑ̴̧̬̰̠̮͎̳̳͔͚̏̃̍̐̕͜͠ư̷̺̔͊̆̒̕,̴̩̯̭͚̦͈̲̻͕͔̉̎̀̄̀͊̚̕͘̚͝͠ ̸̬̟̲̹̹̦̽̊͋͘͜͝ţ̸̛̠͈͙̈̾͆̓̉́̀̾̏͌̀̿͛ͅǫ̸̧̘̤͓̽̂̇̑̓̌̓́̄̏̉̂͘ǫ̸̱̜̟̻̭͒̄,̵̢̛̭͕͍͙͔̟̝̪̄̈́̈̈́̀͛͂̄̈́̈́̾̊ ̷̪͙͎͛̋͘ c̷̼͋̒̅̔̇̌͋a̷̟̖͖̰̣̪̺̥̪͉̲̹͋͐̋̃ņ̶̰̩͚̼̻̼͎̝͈̬̍͂̿̈́̽̉̊͊̽̌̓̕͝ͅ ̷̧̡͙̭̟͙͎͈̘̑͜ T̵̛̥͓̹͍́͆͗̌͠r̴̬̺̭̙͔̝̈́̆̃̄̒̀̀̈a̸̜̹̼͗̆͒͒͂̉͆̇͝͝ņ̷̧̫̳̏̑̏̓̚ș̶̺̏͒͋́̇̑͐̽̐̇̈́̉̄͌͘c̶̻̘̤̥̜̣̞̰̹̍̏̆̉́͛͋é̵͓̙͎̰̞̯͇̮̞̻̅̀́̈̊̉̃̈́͒̅͋̏̒̕n̵̝̹̄̈́̅́̈́͑̈́́̓̓̌̆̕̕͝d̶̺͓̼̟̬͉̥̟̾̌ͅĺ."

His voice broke through the shackles of reality, permeating through past, present, and future as they reverberated in trans-temporal resonance. His voice seemed to ripple through the very fabric of reality itself, causing the entire world to water, ever so infinitesimally.

"This power can be yours," he told them with a serious expression. "So listen closely, because I will only say this one time."

It would soon be time for him to commence negotiations with the Laminar Civilization, so he wanted to get this out of the way immediately. He began describing the secret to the Transcendent Realm.

Not the way that the Martial Transcendants before him had, with mysterious riddles. But the way that he has conceptualized it consciously. He explained the existence of the information dimensions, as well as the nature of consciousness. He also explained the fundamental condition that Sages needed to focus on achieving in order to alter the very fabric of reality.

"Phenomenological uniformity."

Those words were not simple to understand, but he had conveyed them in the best way that he could.

"To find the essence of your Martial Art everywhere you look, across all of reality itself," Rui explained. "That is the key to achieving the Enlightenment of Transcendence."

With that, he had passed on the secret of Transcendence to the thousands of Martial Sages before him, inspiring them to aim for the Transcendent Realm eventually.