The Martial Unity

Rui still recalled to this day the sensation of passing away.

Unlike anybody else, he knew what the sensation of death was like having experienced it once himself.

And now, he was being assailed by a sensation that was quite similar to it, for the first time in his entire life.

(‘Shit,’) Rui cursed mentally as he felt the energy of his body dripping as his consciousness began to blur ever so slightly.

His vision began darkening.

His muscles began relaxing.

His thoughts began flailing around as mustering up conscious resistance became even harder.

It felt strangely comfortable, as death had.

But instinctually, he knew that this was not something he ought to be allowing to happen. Thankfully, the muscle memory he had burned into his body in the past many weeks kicked in.

FUUU. FUUU. FUUU.

The breathing technique kicked in as he began breathing at an extreme frequency, almost like he was panting. His exhalations were forceful and remarkably powerful, more powerful than he had ever done them in his entire life.

The vigorous and aggressive breathing technique that kicked in almost entirely due to muscle memory sent a jolt across the entire body.

A ripple of power spread from the lungs across his entire body. A surge of energy woke Rui up from his stupor.

He narrowed his eyes as he pushed even harder with the breathing technique, achieving a level of intensity that he hadn’t achieved yet. His body began to feel more alive as his breathing technique fought back against the influence of his drug, forcing the cells of his body to kick into action and push back.

The energizing effect of the breathing, now that he was pushing himself to levels of intensity that he didn’t even know he could achieve, was overwhelming the effects of the drug, causing him to feel more active.

“Great,” Kane nodded. “It’s impressive you managed to succeed with overwhelming the lowest dose on your very first try. You must have powerful breathing.”

Rui had actually gone through a strenuous training regime when training for the Mighty Roar Flash Blast technique from the G’ak’arkan Tribe. Part of it had involved strengthening his lungs considerably. Thus he wasn’t surprised that he was able to do well with resisting the Franmalth drug in his system trying to show down his power generation.

(‘This drug must be some kind of substance the mitochondria somehow,’) Rui concluded as he became able to resist the drug with increasing ease, although his lungs were growing sore.

“Now you need to expel the drug,” Kane informed him. “You’re doing well in resisting the influence of the drug, but you don’t have endless stamina. Use the exhalation breathing form I taught you to expel the drug that you ingested, through your lungs.”

Rui nodded as he packed in more force with his exhalations. He felt as though he was squeezing his blood dry of every ounce of the drug like twisting a drenched piece of cloth to squeeze out water.

“Nice,” Kane nodded as Rui expelled a purple gas from his nose. “You’re doing just fine.”

Rui continuously exhaled the substance as his breathing grew increasingly laborious. He knew that he wasn’t supposed to be able to have this much trouble, yet he realized how heavy the drug was in the first place.

(‘It’s like a dense liquid, it’s like I’m trying to pump out water with my lungs alone,’) Rui gasped for air as he finally pushed out the last bit of Franmalth Venom from his body.

He instantly felt much lighter, as though he had just taken off some weights from his body.

“Great job man,” Kane nodded approvingly. “I forgot how good you were with breathing techniques. I can’t believe you nailed both on the first try.”

“Yeah…” Rui panted. “It’s a shame that won’t be enough to master the full power of the Godspeed technique.”

“That’s correct,” Kane nodded. “Your strange affinity for breathing is definitely going to help you get further than I expected you would, but the breathing technique exists for speed and agility, which you do not have enough affinity or talent for. However, I do think you may have the chance to master this technique to probably around forty-to-fifty percent of its grade-ten potency. Which is still quite impressive, really impressive.”

“I’ll take what I can get,” Rui sighed getting up once he caught his breath. “You said that this was the lowest dose, correct?”

“Yep,” Kane nodded. “The most dilute version where the drug is still effective.”

“To think it’s going to become substantially harder,” Rui shook his head. “You’re the amazing one for being able to completely master it.”

Kane shrugged. “I’m too good, what can I say?”

Rui chuckled, yet inwardly he wondered if his Forestep technique would allow him to beat someone like Kane head-on. He knew that he would probably become more competitive with Kane in combat when it came to speed and agility, what he was curious about was whether he could actually surpass Kane when it come to speed, agility, and maneuvering.

Rui grew more excited now that he had a better inkling about where his current training was leading him to go.

The training of the Godspeed technique was appearing to be more promising than he had initially predicted. On top of that, his insight into his target had grown in the past month and a half, increasing the quality of the predictive model he could build on the Root.

He had spent a good amount of time observing its movements, ascertaining the patterns that existed between physical cues that occurred with specific kinds of motions ahead of time. He had spent quite a lot of time memorizing these passive patterns that all existed within the movements of the Root.

But unfortunately, he hadn’t yet gotten a chance to observe the active patterns that the Root had in combat. He hadn’t seen any other living interacting with the Root in any kind of fashion to trigger a conflict that he could use to collect data.