The Martial Unity

It was definitely much more pragmatic and alluring than the previous technique, without a doubt. One of the greatest allures of the technique was the fact that Rui was already intimately familiar with the technique. So much so that he could probably adapt the Apprentice-level version of the technique to the Squire Realm by himself if he wanted.

Furthermore, theoretically, it could have the range he was looking for depending on the shape of the wind attack. If he made a smaller but concentrated attack, it would last much longer than it normally would.

“Hm, I’ll consider it.” Rui plucked the scroll off the shelf as he continued on with his inspection. There were numerous techniques of all sorts. He saw several techniques that he had run into in the past, such as the arm extension attack. There were many techniques that were also compatible with one particular kind of Martial body.

[Elastic Whip]

This was a technique that compatible with only the rubber body Martial body. Rui was surprised to see this here considering the last time he saw it was in the hands of a Britannian Martial Squire.

(‘Then again, I guess most super-nations probably have similar variants of the same technique.’) Rui guessed.

He walked past it, there was no point in even considering the technique, considering that he didn’t have the right Martial body for it.

He continued examining the existing techniques one by one until he ran into something that drew his attention.

[Sonic Bullets]

This was a technique that generated discrete pulses of high-intensity sound that traveled forth at the speed of sound. The sound was generated by a combination of conditioning of the larynx and a specific breathing technique.

Rui’s eyebrows rose with interest.

Sound was very persistent in the atmosphere compared to gusts of wind. The reason was simply, while techniques like Tempestual Ripple launched pockets of condensed air through space, sound traveled using the atmosphere as a medium. Techniques like Tempestual Ripple experienced immense resistance from the atmosphere, however, the same wasn’t true for sound.

The reason sound had a range limit was only due to a dilution and loss of energy in the ever-expanding wavefront.

(‘However, in a concentrated sound pocket like the Sonic Bullet technique, the dilution of energy would be significantly lesser than a normal sound wave.’) Rui realized.

He recalled that another representative in the Martial Contest had employed sound attacks. Her attacks did not have extremely limiting ranges, from what he could tell.

(‘Furthermore, sound is much harder to detect than wind-based techniques like Tempestuous Ripple.’) Rui noted.

This was because sound did not generate any phenomena that could be used to detect its arrival. It was hard to ‘perceive’ sound before it arrived. It was not the same as physical objects or living organisms that could be detected via light and sound. Sound was used to detect others, but detecting sound itself before it arrived was an extremely difficult task. Rui suspected nothing short of specialized aerial sensory Martial Artists would be able to detect the launching of highly concentrated and compact sound bullets.

This meant that his Sniper Project technique had inadvertently gained an element of stealth to it if he did choose this technique to function as the projectile-firing mechanism of his technique.

(‘This might just work out perfectly.’) Rui felt a surge of excitement.

Of course, he had no doubt that he would need to modify the technique before it could truly work out the way he hoped it would. But that was already part of the plan, a necessary inevitability even.

(‘Alright, I’m going to master this technique even if it kills me!’) Rui was extremely determined. He didn’t think it would be easy, given that it was a grade-seven technique. He didn’t know how good his compatibility with sound-based techniques was. However, as long as he had even decent compatibility with it, enough effort would allow him to obtain sufficient proficiency with the technique.

This was unlike poison where Rui was decisively quite incompatible with them because of the Mindmirror Brain. He had no hard impediments of the sort when it came to mastering sound-oriented techniques.

He plucked the scroll from the shelf as he set back the Tempestuous Ripple scroll. He found it a shame that he wouldn’t be remastering an old technique which would certainly occur much quicker than mastering a new technique from scratch.

(‘Alright, I need to get a long-range aerial sensory technique.’) Rui nodded as he immediately headed to the sensory technique section.

This wasn’t the first time he had visited this technique, he even recognized many of the techniques, having seen their Apprentice-level equivalents when he shopped to purchase the Seismic Mapping and Primordial Instinct.

[All-Seeing Eye]

Rui sighed, recalling the grade-ten sensory technique. It was an extraordinary technique that functioned by the same mechanism that radar did and more. It allowed the user to not only map the environment to a far greater range and quality than his Seismic Mapping did, but it also allowed them to observe their opponent even on a microscopic level. It was a technique in the same tier as Godspeed and Void Step, one that could only be mastered if one had immense affinity and talent.

He shook his head, moving on. He came across several more techniques of various kinds.

[Heat Vision]

This was a technique that functioned through the perception of infrared radiation, allowing the user to perceive through barriers via the heat signatures on the other side of the barriers.

Rui considered it. It could bypass physical barriers which was definitely a desirable trait. He wasn’t sure that he could possibly sense targets over a large range very accurately, but it was worth considering. He simply moved on, for now.

[Tempestuous Feel]

This was a technique that functioned by sensitizing the user to sound and fluctuations in air pressure, allowing them to map all objects that came in contact with the atmosphere within a certain range.

(‘This might work out.’) Rui’s eyes twinkled with interest as he plucked the scroll from its shelf.