The Martial Unity

“Ah, shit.” Rui sighed.

The moment he had gone home, he had gone through the results of the poison compatibility tests that he had undertaken. More than enough time had passed since he undertook the test, thus the results would have undoubtedly been processed and sent to him.

Unfortunately, the results weren’t what he was looking for at all.

(‘My compatibility with the Serinflow Powder is too low.’)

Serinflow Powder was the poison Rui most hoped to master out of all of the other low-grade poisons that the Mindmirror Symbiote wasn’t incompatible with. However, based on the results of his test with the poison, it became evidently clear that he wasn’t compatible with the poison.

(‘Shitty luck.’) Rui shook his head.

There was nothing he could do about it. The problem at hand was the fact that compatibility wasn’t something he could alter, it was innate. With poison, it was a bit different because compatibility was marked by the degree to which the body was able to tolerate and flourish despite the introduction of a new poison, rather than it being a mental problem like it was for other fields, where compatibility related to the affinity one had with the field.

He could not change the degree to which his body was able to inherently tolerate the Serinflow Powder poison, so he could forget about trying to master the poison. At best, he could look at the poisons he was compatible with to at least a decent degree and consider them as candidates to employ in Project Severer.

(‘Problem is…’) Rui glanced down at the list. (‘They aren’t particularly optimistic either.’)

Gangaer Drop, Hurndrum Nectar… These were the poisons that he didn’t see as much value in mastering. Should he try to forcefully incorporate them into the technique and try to make it work? Or perhaps, should he try to reinvent the concept of the technique?

He wasn’t sure.

The whole point of the technique was to help him increase his lethality, perhaps as long as it solved that problem, it didn’t matter what form it took.

(‘That sounds wrong.’) Rui frowned. Was a technique truly synergetic with him like he had decided he wanted his to be if it didn’t have any other conditions asides from them being lethal?

In that regard, perhaps he had been wrong about how he went about Project Severer in the first place. While it was true that the concept he had come up with was not weak, how synergetic was it with his Martial Art and Martial body?

…

(‘…Not at all.’) Rui realized.

After all, he was struggling to find a poison compatible with him that was also quite useful. All the ones that he truly desired were incompatible with him. It wasn’t synergetic with his body, and Rui was starting to see that it wasn’t synergetic with the core of his Martial Art either.

Unlike Project Sniper that concretely made use of his strengths in systematic analysis and calculation in order to potentially result in revolutionary long-range accuracy, Project Severer did not offer anything of the sort. It was just a powerful tool that would no doubt be put to good use in Rui’s hand, but it didn’t use his strength to become even greater as a technique.

Individuality was important, but he needed to make sure that the techniques born out of that were also synergetic with his Martial Art and Martial body, taking his strengths and using them to produce even greater outputs than just the sum of the parts.

With that condition in mind, Project Severer was lacking. It did not particularly resonate with the VOID algorithm with Rui’s personal strengths or his Martial body.

(‘If that is the case, then Project Severer was a failure from the start.’) Rui sighed. He had simply gotten excited with the technique, but now that he had realized its greatest flaw, he no longer felt any desire to develop it.

At least, he made this realization somewhat earlier than later. It would have been best to realize that now than months later after he had already made a lot of progress in developing the technique.

(‘Should I… try to create a replacement project?’) Rui wondered, before shaking his head. Ensuring the success of the two ongoing projects was more important than creating a new third project. As long as he completed those two projects, it would give him a measure of understanding of the difficulties of creating one’s own techniques.

(‘In that case, I need to do everything I can in my power to ensure that Project Sniper and Project Bounce succeed.’) Rui was determined.

Project Bounce’s lack of progress was worrying him a little. He had gotten a bit of an idea prior, an idea that he may be able to convert into actual progress.

(‘I’m going to need to test my ideas out in some way.’) Rui realized. (‘Should I go back to the Martial Union?’)

He could purchase Squire sparring services and get one of the Martial Squires of the Martial Union to help him flesh his technique out.

(‘Nah.’) Rui shook his head.

It was too expensive, and although he certainly had funds, he could not spend them too ostentatiously.

(‘It’s cheaper to commission a low-grade Squire to be my training partner.’)

This was because purchasing Squire sparring services from the Martial Union required purchasing their sparring facilities as well in addition to the price of commissioning a Squire. While it would be nice to train in a training facility, he didn’t particularly need it this time, and as such would rather save his money.

(‘Well back to the Martial Union anyway.’) Rui sighed as he headed back to the Martial Union to make a commission himself. He intended even add a small fee that would speed up the process as much as possible. Thankfully, he didn’t need a high-grade mission either, the mission would be a grade-one mission that would allow him to pick up a newbie the rates for whom would be cheap.