The final preliminary exams took a whole entire week to finish.
Every first rate instructor in the school personally dueled the thousand new students from morning to night to morning for seven straight days.
It was exhausting for everyone involved.
Even Aurora who was a peak artist which would require over a hundred fifty first rate martial artists to beat lost sleep from having so many easy duels consuming her schedule.
“Is it over yet?” Aurora grumbled to Yousti while lying facedown.
Testing people all day was her passion as a teacher, but not her fuel.
“Yes. You finished conducting the final preliminary exams.” Yousti reassured her.
Now all that was left was for them all to assemble before Yousti next morning.
It was going to be a big event with all the people there.
Even people who weren’t apart of Sumeru Academy were going to attend this gathering just to see the famous Divine Silk Spirit.
“I get that you’ll live longer than anybody else but how will you spread qi if only you can pass on martial arts personally?” Aurora questioned Yousti.
She had brought up this issue previously when Yousti left the academy in search of enlightenment.
But that was more of an immediate ask for an immediate problem.
But this time she was asking what Yousti would do since the future of martial arts rested on his shoulders.
“Martial arts is only completed when its passed along. It’s never something that exists independent of other things. Perhaps I’ll create martial art that can pass on qi using those principles in the future. Or maybe the martial world as a whole is just immature and a solution will present itself in the years to come. What do you think?”
“You literally said martial artists who reach your stage only come once every few centuries. What do you mean the martial world is immature!?”
Yousti chuckled at Aurora’s comment.
“Things accumulate over time. At some point in the future there could be countless martial artists and maybe 5 Energies Converging at the Origin will become a lot less rare.”
“A lot of people as strong as you is a scary prospect for the world.” Aurora replied.
“By then I’ll be far stronger than any of them.”
“Yeah, you probably will be.”
Yousti used silk control to change his day clothes into sleeping clothes and began walking off.
“Get some sleep. You seriously look like you need it.” Yousti waved Aurora off.
She didn’t even retort as she rubbed her eyes with huge dark bags under them.
It was night now and Yousti looked at the starry sky as he contemplated the future and the dark fate of the world he lived in.
‘Get some sleep, because tomorrow I will try to do something irreversible.’
~
A huge crowd of people gathered around a stadium.
It was immensely crowded and the noises of people saturated the whole area.
Some lucrative people had even treated it as an opportunity to sell anything to the crowd.
The sky was cloudy and snow was everywhere so all of these people started to shiver in their academy assigned martial robes.
Aurora saw this from within the crowd.
‘We really should have a winter martial robe.’
This was one of the many problems that she had forgotten about after giving all her paperwork to Yousti.
She looked at the cloudy sky in the cold blue light.
‘I hope it doesn’t snow today.’
Countless colored strands of silk floated into the air all of a sudden.
Littering the sky like a lantern festival, each one glowing a different vibrant color.
The sky and the ground disappeared into a black void leaving only the tapestry of colored strings above them.
And upon this blanket of countless strings walked Yousti who descended from the sky as if walking down a set of stairs onto the ascended platform for him to speak.
His robe glowed a brilliant white that shined like a rainbow and his long thin silk scarf trailed behind many meters behind him tracing the path through the air he had taken.
He reached out his hand and gestured with his wrist.
All the strings in the air began rotating around him as an epicenter like a storm made of strings, with the Divine Silk Spirit as the eye of the storm.
It was a mesmerizing sight that transfixed the whole crowd.
Even Aurora, who was immune to Yousti’s aura farming felt comforted by being separated from the World Intent.
“Welcome to Martial Arts.” Yousti announced.
The glowing silk and spinning strings toned it down a notch to let the crowd focus on his speech.
“It is the path of the heart. And enlightenment made manifest. It is salvation for all.”
Yousti slowly strolled around the platform as he spoke.
“Martial Arts is meaning imbued within action. Your desire compressed and transformed into something tangible. It is a miracle that exists in the here and now.”
Yousti continued laying out his understanding of martial arts to the crowd with his speech.
He knew that there were many ways to teach people.
But he believed that the truly best way to teach is with a good story.
It had been too long since he had transmigrated to effectively plagiarize fiction.
Perhaps at a later stage his memory would complete itself once more and he would remember in detail but for now he relied on the Martial Record to find a good story.
“All martial arts begins with the Cheonji Heart Method. The most basic martial art that focuses on feeling the sensation of internal energy, nothing else. After that you learn a martial art or an internal energy method. It doesn’t even have to be something you consider a martial art. Just something with which you can refine your heart. Even a humble pottery maker could use their mastery of shaping clay to learn martial arts.”
Yousti took a breath.
“This is the heart path. You do not take from others but you build upon yourself. You repent upon your own actions. You enlighten yourself. Because this path is not just one of combat for combat’s sake but the very path of your life.”
Yousti’s voice became more passionate as he finally began using the Genesis Qi Connection Mantra as his speech had touched the crowds heart and created a significant enough connection.
“The path of martial arts is your own. All I am is a guide to this path. But always remember, it is you who walks upon the path of your heart.”
The mantra finished and the crowd began to feel an overwhelming sense of enlightenment.
They felt as if they comprehended and learned martial arts anew all over again.
They faintly felt qi within their bodies for the first time in their lives.
Over a thousand new martial artists came into being.
And now Yousti, who had performed the Genesis Qi Connection Mantra realized that he had comprehended just a little bit more of it than before at a higher stage.
The Martial Record informed him that what he was going to do would risk his life.
‘I will scatter myself with my connection.
To all of humanity!
My enlightenment and power is not enough to qualify as something that can be distributed across even just to a population of around 200 million.
But I need to do it now before the population expands in the future, otherwise it will become impossible for me!’
The feeling of enlightenment intensified in the crowd.
“But also remember that you are not just yourself. You are also your connections. You do not need to do anything to me. Just think of me within your heart as you practice martial arts. And that will be all the connection I need.”
Yousti reached within his own soul as the connections he formed caused him to resonate with the warp and found the Ancient Taiji.
It was the Martial Record, constructed of an unknown force that he couldn’t use or control.
He reached out his hand and touched the spiraling yin and yang, ‘You will be my qualification.’
Yousti succeeded.
Snow began to fall from the sky, although nobody could see it because of Heavenly Escape.
From now on all of humanity could attain martial arts if they had a connection with Yousti.
And all they needed to do was keep the idea of him within their minds as they practiced martial arts.
Yousti stopped severing the crowds perception of their environment and disappeared himself.
He had decided to leave the academy once and for all.
He had resonated to so many people that he had managed to see into the warp.
It was pure malevolence, it made the world intent that it emitted seem childish and immature in the depth and grandeur of its filth.
Aurora was leaving on her own journey of martial arts so Yousti no longer felt tied to the school with his personal feelings.
He had finished his job as a perpetual to revolutionize humanity.
Even though he was not a perpetual.
‘I have succeeded in creating the martial world and spreading martial arts.
From now on I will train in martial arts with all my life.’
And Yousti has over a thousand years of life to give.