The Martial Unity

“I should purchase techniques that will allow me to deal with things I currently can’t deal with.” He murmured. As far as missions went, he was incompetent at shadow-class missions and sub-par as far as hunter-class missions went.

He had long wanted to do something about that, but each time a training stage came around, there was always something or the other of greater importance. Finally, he was at a stage where he could pursue it straightforwardly.

“Alright, time to nail these two issues,” Rui murmured as he walked over to the stealth section of the Apprentice Library. It wasn’t his first time going for a stealth technique, he had purchased Blink, after all. The problem was that Blink was highly limited.

For starters, it was beginning to become obsolete at the higher echelons of the Apprentice Realm as Martial Apprentices tended to have naturally strong senses and many of them did have sensory techniques as well. He needed to use it extremely carefully else it could actually turn out to be detrimental to him.

Furthermore, as a stealth technique, it only worked to evade human evasion when there were few humans. It was impossible to use Blink to bypass even decent surveillance.

He didn’t hold it against the technique, of course. The technique had served him well and had saved him in truly desperate situations, but it was no longer adequate.

“Alright then,” He murmured. “Let’s see what we have here.”

There were plenty of techniques that boosted stealth, but what he was looking for was a high-grade technique that wholistically gave him stealth. He glanced over at a technique that caught his eye.

[Dead Step]

A technique that allowed the user to avoid the production of noise in the air by manipulating air via a coordinated breathing technique that cancels out the sound waves in the air.

He recalled seeing this technique a year and a half ago when he had purchased the Blink technique. However, back then he hadn’t cared all that much about the technique.

Although it was more alluring now, he still shook his head.

(‘I need something more potent.’) He noted.

His quality standards had risen with each training stage. He wasn’t interested in learning lower-grade techniques unless there were specific reasons for it.

He skimmed through other techniques until he ran into something familiar.

[Void Step]

He sighed. Unlike with the Mindmirror Symbiote, he had almost zero talent or compatibility with the technique, so purchasing it would be a waste of money. It was a shame, of course. He deeply desired the prowess the technique gave the user.

He moved on, shaking his head.

Yet, it wasn’t long before another technique lit his eyes up with interest.

[Shadow Step]

A downgraded version of the Void Step technique that used maneuvering-based misdirection to conceal and obscure one’s presence to a partial degree. It could only completely evade the senses of ordinary humans the way Void Step did with Martial Apprentices. It was only partially effective against Martial Apprentices under several conditions. It was less effective the closer the surveilling Martial Apprentice target was to him, and only worked if he was in the far peripheral ends of the target’s vision. Furthermore, the technique’s effectiveness decreased the greater the sensory capabilities of the target were.

“Nice.” Rui nodded. A technique that made all human surveillance ineffective and allowed him to bypass even Martial Artist surveillance with some amount of effort. This technique covered his basic needs perfectly well. His biggest issue wasn’t that he didn’t have extreme stealth capabilities that allowed him to bamboozle Martial Artists the way Kane could. His biggest problem was that he almost no viable stealth capabilities whatsoever.

The missions in the Commonwealth Duchy of Vinfrana and the Hefermaine Village would have gone far smoother and easier if he had had this technique back then.

Thankfully, it was a grade-seven technique. Which meant he could guarantee that he would master it as long as he put in enough effort.

Furthermore, although the potency of the technique was grade seven, Rui suspected his stealth would end up being greater than just what the technique would provide him. The Mind Mask technique could allow him to significantly lower his presence, which worked very synergically with the Shadow Step technique that misdirected attention away from his presence.

This was especially so since Rui suspected he likely had an extremely high compatibility with the Mind Mask technique.

He plucked the technique scroll out of the slot, inspecting it before nodding.

“Three down. Three more to go?”

He wanted to go with six techniques like last time since this would be the last time that he would be able to train a large number of techniques at once.

“What else?” He asked himself. He had solved his stealth problem.

“That leaves the hunter-class missions.” He murmured. He hadn’t forgotten about his desire to visit the Beast Domain. He had abstained from doing so because his compatibility with hunter-class missions was much lower than it was with missions involving humans.

However, with this training stage, his stealth would skyrocket, giving him the qualifications to travel the dangerous ecosystems of the Beast Domain. As long as he added solutions that were effective against Flora and Fauna, he would be qualified to enter the Beast Domain.

“I need to be able to hurt them for sure,” Rui murmured.

As far as defense went, humans were often very different from Apprentice-level creatures. One of the biggest differences was size. Because they were usually larger, their vitals were tucked much deeper within their body. Vertebrae mammals had a huge amount of flesh, fat, and fur on them that ordinary human attacks would simply not penetrate deep enough and would be dispersed.

He could punch them over and over, but the impact would be much more dispersed.

“I need a way to inflict damage on mammalian creatures despite that, otherwise taking them down will be a bloody pain in the ass.” He murmured.