The Martial Unity

The staff that had been monitoring him had long prepared high-grade potions and other esoteric first-aid treatments whose goal was solely to keep him alive no matter what. The staff did not know why Rui was so confident about surviving, but for some reason he was. Even if he did survive, they were certain that he would at the very least be gravely injured.

That was why their jaws dropped when they saw that the only wounds he suffered were superficial blunt-force flesh wounds. It was as though his flesh was able to reflect all of the pressure that the training facility had subjected to him.

“This…” The staff head murmured in shock.

Only now did he understand why the Martial Senior that they had been serving prior had been replaced with this Martial Squire.

“He’s a monster…” The man murmured. 

To think that a Martial Squire could actually justify the decision to place him in this training facility. The man had heard of the Martial Squire that caused the small incident in the Squire complex by being too strong for the facility, but to think he would be this far out of the norm.

“Sir?” One of the assistants assigned to his team broke him out of his reverie. “He isn’t gravely injured, but we should still do a check-up on him.”

“Ah, right,”

It wasn’t long before Rui walked out of the training facility refreshed, taking a break.

“I’m finally done with constructing all the techniques needed for Project Metabody,” He sighed. “Man, it’s been a rough few years.”

The total time spent on the project was weird to estimate because he conceived of Project Metabody far later than he did the initial technique of the project. It would have been a little under two years since he conceived of the first technique, and it would have been four years since he created the first technique that became part of the project.

(‘Actually, even longer if I consider that the stamina metabody was basically using two old techniques simultaneously,’) He mused.

Regardless it was done.

Hungry Pain.

Void Forestep.

Weaving Blood.

Hypertrophic Surge.

(‘Ah, I need to come up with a name for the new technique.’) He realized, sighing.

He wished he could hire someone for this part because he sucked at giving names.

“How about… Nemean Blossom?” He muttered.

He had derived inspiration from Greek mythology, specifically the tale of the Nemean Lion that Hercules fought and defeated. The Nemean Lion was said to be a beast with a hide that was absolutely invulnerable to all weapons. Even Hercules had allegedly had immense difficulty fighting the beast.

It was as good a name as any.

(‘Nemean Blossom it is,’) Rui sighed.

Unfortunately, his work wasn’t entirely done yet. He still had two smaller steps to take, which was mastering the simultaneous partial triggering of two metabodies. He definitely needed to find a way to be able to partially empower two parameters as opposed to greatly empowering one parameter because a lot of Martial Artists would be most optimally countered by a combination of two fields, as opposed to one.

That was managable and Rui had already laid the seeds for that in the triggers that he had developed, ensuring that it was possible for his body to be trained to activate two techniques to a minor degree.

The final step was coming up with a way of knowing exactly what the best configuration of techniques to counter a given Martial Artist. He wasn’t foolish enough to go with the brain-dead oversimplification where he automatically activated the Nemean Blossom every time he was facing an offensive Martial Artist, or the Hypertrophic Surge every time he faced a defensive Martial Artist.

This was a sub-optimal application of the techniques.

(‘Ideally, the best way to apply them would be to seamlessly magnify the anti-styles that the VOID algorithm develops.’) Rui mused.

Every time he used the VOID algorithm, he developed an anti-style that was designed to counter his opponent. This style was usually not an all-rounder style equally focused on all parameters. It was usually slanted in the direction of one or two fields of combat. Like primarily maneuvering and speed, and secondarily offense. Or primarily defense, and secondarily endurance.

The best way to apply the Metabody System was to amplify those fields of the anti-style. Thus he would use Hypertrophic Surge if the produced anti-style was a pure offense-oriented style, or Nemean Blossom if the resulting anti-style was purely defensive. Or both, if the resulting anti-style was equally defensive and offensive.

At the end of the day, the Flowing Style was a Martial Art that was centered around adapting to one’s opponent. He needed to use the Metabody in a manner that corresponded with that as well.

(‘Well, in that case, only truly powerful Martial Artists can possibly force me to use it. Nothing short of a grade-ten Martial Squire.’) He sighed. Furthermore, the only reason that the pattern recognition system may not be enough on its own was that grade-ten Martial Squires were Martial Squires who had spent many years in the Squire Realm accumulating many powerful techniques over a good chunk of their lifetime. Rui’s base Martial Art was actually far inferior to their highly solidified and well-developed Martial Art. 

The pattern recognition system of the VOID algorithm bridged that large gap and the Metabody System allowed him to surpass that gap massively. It meant that the only Martial Squires that could defeat him were the true pinnacle of the Squire Realm.

That was depressing.

It wasn’t as though he wanted to show off. It was actually closer to the desire that a child might have for a brand-new toy that he or she had been desperately begging his parents to get for years.

Still, it wasn’t that bad, because if powerful Martial Squires were what it took to force him to go all out, then the Virodhabhasa Martial Festival was probably the one place that he would find what he was looking for.