“Martial Sects?” Rui tilted his head in confusion.
What were those? Certainly not something he was familiar with.
“Hmm.” Headmaster Aronian nodded. “Well, take a seat. This might take a while to explain.”
Rui sat down opposite to Headmaster Aronian, waiting for him to explain.
“The Martial Union is a commercial organization; this is one of its core functions.” The headmaster revised. “There is an enormous market for Martial services from countless consumers and clienteles willing to pay for hiring Martial Artists for various services. The Martial Union serves as liaison between these consumers and the Martial Artists themselves, allowing for an incredibly smooth and regulated exchange of commissions and Martial services between the two sides.”
Rui nodded, being quite familiar with the way the Martial Union functioned.
“As you know the Martial Union takes a fifty-percent cut of Martial commissions.” Headmaster Aronian. “The reason for it being entitled half of the commission is because the services it provides to Martial Artists and clienteles and consumer is indispensable. Without the Martial Union, there would be no avenue for Martial Artists to easily be able to easily access countless commissions that the Martial Union receives, processes, stores and organizes in an extremely user-friendly manner. This would be utterly impossible without a highly bureaucratic organization handling the immense documentation processing as quickly and smoothly as the Martial Union does. Furthermore, the intelligence and difficulty grades that are also indispensable to Martial Artists all require immense amount of funding.”
Rui nodded, agreeing. The Martial Union made life very convenient for Martial Artists. Without the Martial Union. Martial Apprentices would struggle to be able to access the commissions from clienteles and consumers of Martial services, there would be no extensive way for either side to contact the other. Furthermore, although not perfect, the intelligence and difficulty grade evaluations of the Martial Union were extremely useful, it minimized risk and maximized efficiency. Rui did not think that the Martial Union taking a hefty cut was particularly unfair, the services it was offering in return were quite substantial.
“Naturally, acquiring such a hefty cut from all commissions inevitably means that the Martial Union accumulates an enormous sum of money every year.” The Headmaster continued. “The question is… what do we do with all that money?”
Rui began understanding the direction this was going. “Paying the work and labour force of the Martial Union, the many staff members and the many other employees the Martial Union has hired. I imagine a sizable chunk of funds goes into the maintenance and repair of infrastructure too, stocking of supplies and other essential things that are needed to maintain the functioning of the Martial Union.”
“Correct.” The headmaster nodded. “Running the Martial Union is more fund-intensive than you can possibly imagine, no doubt more than half of all funds are expended into the necessities that you mentioned.”
“The questions is…” He continued. “What do we do with the remaining funds?”
Rui could feel the attention he was paying him, evidently the old man was finally getting around to the point after rambling on like old men generally liked to.
Rui wasn’t sure, there were a number of obvious answers, he just wasn’t sure which on headmaster Aronian was looking for.
“Do we primarily store all those funds in a treasury?” Headmaster Aronian asked. “Do we primarily invest those funds in side businesses? or perhaps we primarily invest those funds in territorial expansion?” He paused, throwing Rui an inquisitive look. “Do Martial Artists care for such things? What do Martial Artists care about the most?”
Rui didn’t need to even think about this answer. “Power.”
“Correct.” The headmaster nodded approvingly. “Martial Artists are generally not money mongers. We respect one thing between each other; power.”
Power was the very foundation of a Martial Artist, without it they were no different from normal humans. No, without it they were even worse. A Martial Artist without power was incompetent fool unworthy of the title of Martial Artist.
“Power is what we seek.” The headmaster continued. “Money cannot buy everything, but it can usually help with most things.”
“So the Martial Union spends its remaining funds on acquiring more power?” Rui asked. This made sense. The Martial Union was fundamentally drive by Martial Artists, who were driven by power. Power was indeed one of the most important pillars and interests of the Martial Union.
“Indeed. And Martial power, specifically.” He continued. “We invest a tremendous sum of funds every year into acquiring Martial power. In the form of research and development of Martial Art and combat.”
Rui’s eyes widened at those words. To think that his career in his previous life was in such high demand to the Martial Union.
“All those countless Apprentice-level techniques that exist in the Apprentice library of the Martial Academy today.” He said. “Did you think they fell from the sky or grew on trees? No, each one of those technique and trainings have been rigorously researched and developed by the research and development department of the Martial Union after many, many years and funds. The Martial Union places a great amount of importance in this avenue. Only by investing a large amount of funds and research manpower into developing Martial power can the fundamental and foundational level of Martial Artists improve.”
This made a lot of sense to Rui. If not for this initiative, Martial Art would not grow stronger as generations passed. It was extremely difficult for this to occur naturally, because unlike technology, development of Martial Art was purely individualistic. One could not gather a bunch of Martial Artists and have them all collectively focus on developing one Martial Art. No, each Martial Artist developed their own Martial Art. This meant the development of Martial Art in the hands of Martial Artists alone was quite slow.
“However, research and development is an extremely wide field in and of itself.” Headmaster Aronian remarked. “There are many large avenues even within the field of Martial Art that can be researched. However, not everything can be researched, and some things are clearly more important. So how does the Martial Union conduct the decision-making process for the research and development fund allocation? How do we decide which avenue of research gets how much money?” The headmaster paused, before continuing. “This is where the Martial Sects come in…”
Rui’s eyes narrowed. The old man had finally gotten to the point!