The Martial Unity

“Saw you beating Milliana, good job man, she’s strong.” Kane complimented.

“Thanks.” Rui replied, before smirking at Kane. “I heard Fae came back with a fury and kicked your butt.” He playfully teased.

“I was tired!” Kane complained. “I beat her again after I came back having consumed some potions!”

Rui laughed wholeheartedly. After he left to spar with Milliana, he’d grown absorbed in his own battles, he had wanted to maintain his defender position for as long as possible. He’d heard of and caught glimpses of Kane and Fae sparring with each other for the rest of the sparring session.

Fae had come back with a fury after the initial loss, rejuvenated and healed, and beat Kane to a pulp. What Rui found amusing was that after Kane came back, also rejuvenated and healed, he repaid the favour, defeating her again. This started a petty cycle of rivalry between them, where they would each come back healed and rejuvenated after a loss and beat the crap out of the fatigued other.

He shook his head, laughing.(‘Teenagers.’)

He often forgot that the two of them were no more than kids to him, they were in their immature stage, so he supposed this wasn’t unusual, he only found it amusing and interesting. The fact that they were able to exchange wins and losses one after the other clearly implied they were truly at the same level in terms of combat prowess. The reason they lost was because one usually was more fatigued than the other.

The same could be said for Fae’s initial loss, she had already defended her position against several Apprentices prior to Kane, Rui included.

“So who got more wins?” Rui asked, curiously.

“I had one over her by the end of the session.” Kane smirked smugly. “I’m going to rub this in her annoying face when we run into each other next.”

Rui laughed, shaking his head.

“So, what are you gonna do now?” Kane asked. “Any plans?”

“Yeah, I do have some.” He nodded. “I need to increase and diversify my arsenal. The six techniques I have now barely count as a foundation but it still has gaps. My options in combat are pretty limited. I have only one offensive technique, Vital Pressure. This largely restricts my means and chances of victory. Furthermore, it’s Vital Pressure is not meant to be a finishing move, it’s just meant to increase the damage of your strikes.”

Kan nodded. Vital Pressure was one of the foundational offense-oriented striking techniques he had mastered too. His raw physical prowess was subpar, this was due to him training his body for speed, so techniques that increased the damage he inflicted were truly necessary.

“An all-rounder does need options all-round.” He concurred. “I’m heading to catch some rest. I’m reaching my limit with the rejuvenation potions and we have an academic mission coming up apparently. So catch you later.”

“Sure, get some rest, see ya.” Rui nodded, before heading to the Apprentice library, thinking about what he just told Kane.

“I truly do lack options, I have two maneuvering techniques, two defensive techniques, one supplementary technique and one offensive technique.”

Furthermore, his offense was limited to striking, meaning he could not grapple against even a half-way decent Apprentice grappler. This was also an undesirable outcome, the VOID algorithm’s effectivity depended on how versatile the user was, and how proficient the user was across the board.

Which is why he resolved to strengthen his full-contact and grappling combat prowess with the next round of techniques he was going to learn.

“One offensive grappling technique for sure, one defensive grappling technique too. What else?” He muttered to himself. “A finisher move would be nice too, ideally, it should be flexible as well. I doubt such a thing would be among the free foundational techniques though. The best would be finding a technique whose value highly depends on its utility.”

There were many variables that determined the impact of a Martial Art technique in battle. Efficiency was definitely one important parameter, but there were others as well.

Compatibility was just as important, if not even more important many a times. Compatibility between the user’s body and mindset and the technique could greatly influence the impact the technique had in combat.

A technique best meant for a light and agile body like Kane wouldn’t be used optimally in the hands of a bulky heavy-weight with extremely developed muscles, and conversely, techniques constructed for heavy-weights would not do very well in the hands of someone like Kane.

Flexibility of a technique was also important. Flexibility usually came at the expense of efficiency. The two were inherently at odds with each other to some degree. Part of how what decided how efficient a technique was depended on how well-suited the technique was for the circumstances it was meant to be used it.

If a technique was, from the very start, constructed to excel in one and only particular situation, then it would most certainly perform extremely well in that one situation; it would have extremely high efficiency. However, that technique would not be able to be used very well in any other circumstance if it was constructed purely for one particular situation; thus, it had low flexibility.

However, if a technique, from the very start, was constructed to be used any number of circumstances; then it would have high flexibility. But since it wasn’t constructed to excel in any particular scenario, it won’t be extremely effective if used in any one particular situation and its effect when used in combat was somewhat limited.

It was like the difference between a general physician and, say, a cardiologist. For all matters related the heart, the cardiologist would absolutely perform a better diagnosis and treatment, but for all other medical matters, the general physician would be more equipped to diagnose them, and thus would do a better job, even if not as good as specialists in those fields.

This was the difference between efficiency and flexibility.

It was, of course, not impossible for techniques to be extremely efficient and flexible. Just like how it was not impossible for a prodigious genius to specialize in many medical fields. But such techniques were rare, and valuable. It would certainly be difficult to obtain them.

An overwhelming majority of techniques fell in the middle, having a decent balance efficiency and flexibility, with a decent majority leaning one way or another

The Academy did grade techniques in flexibility; however, they arranged techniques via efficiency. After all, the techniques were not stored digitally where it would be easy to sort them by multiple parameters.

“The VOID algorithm works better with more flexible techniques than more efficient techniques for sure, though.” He murmured to himself.

The VOID algorithm was a manifestation to embody Bruce lee’s philosophy of flexibility. It was definitely more compatible with techniques that were inherently flexible than techniques were extremely rigid.

​ Did that mean Rui intended to forget about high efficiency and focus purely on flexibility.

Rui shook his head. “That would be foolish.”

There were scenarios were specialized high-efficiency techniques would aways accomplish far, far more than any number of flexible techniques.

“Ideally, I want a solid foundation of flexible techniques with several high-efficiency specialist techniques in every field, range and form of combat.”

This was an extremely tall order.

As of right now, Rui had a half-baked foundation that had more holes than it had substance.

Reaching his ideal would take a long time especially since it was impossible to accomplish his goal with the techniques that the Academy offered free of cost.

“Meaning I’ll probably have to complete lots of missions before I accomplish my goal.” Rui mused.

Rui intended to begin applying for missions after the next round of techniques he learnt. By then his foundation would be solid enough that nobody but the more experienced and talented Apprentices would be able to beat him, once he completely got used to those techniques.

This was because his rate of learning was far higher than his peers, while his peers would have to take a lot of rest for as many days as they consumed potions, he could spend those days grinding like a madman, furthermore his recovery was also much faster than them.

The sustained training allowed him to immerse himself in the learning of techniques. The continuous immersion allowed him to learn techniques faster. This was because the human mind was not a machine that could instantly enter into the top gear learning, it was only after expending a solid amount of mental energy would the mind reach its peak as far as learning speed went. People who spent an hour continuously learning, learnt faster than those who learnt than those who learnt continuously for in two thirty-minute sessions, who learnt better than those would learn continuously for six ten-minute sessions.

Accumulation mattered, the only reason it wasn’t recommended to spend too much time on one task was because of fatigue, but with potions and Rui’s great tolerance, this was no longer true.

He intended to abuse this advantage, after all, he wasn’t confident of fulfilling missions as he was right now.

“After I round up a bit more, I’ll definitely head to complete more missions.

Just as he enunciated this thought, he had reached the library.