The Martial Unity

"Alright alright, that's enough." He broke the two apart. "Are all of them descendants of Martial families?"

"Yep." Kane replied.

"Figured." Rui sighed. "Atleast, that makes reconnaissance easier. What can you tell me about them?"

"Honestly, not much." Fae sighed. "It's been two years, the information we have is extremely outdated. Look how much all of us have grown in two years, after all."

Rui nodded. "I understand that. Just tell me what type of Martial Art they have."

"Sure." Fae agreed. "I know Fiona and Ian the best, so I'll begin with them. Fiona as I told you is an extreme all-rounder with immense mastery in all aspects of combat with her sheer talent and affinity for all fields. Ian on the other hand is much more specialized."

"Specialized in what?"

"He specializes in breathing techniques."

"Interesting..." Rui's face flashed with intrigue. He hadn't heard of a breathing technique specialist before, there certainly wasn't one in the Academy.

"He had mastered breathing techniques incredibly quickly at a young age. I have no idea how strong he is now." Fae said. "But given his talent and his age, he should have an incredibly solid Martial Art. I would suggest being careful with him."

"Will remember that." Rui said. "Anybody else?"

"Ferlicia was a heat technique user, if I remember correctly..." Kane pondered aloud.

"Right, though she had only mastered two techniques when we'd last met." Fae said.

Heat techniques. Yet another type of Martial Art Rui hadn't seen before. He had seen temperature-based techniques in the Apprentice library, of course, but he wasn't familiar with them. He wondered Ferlicia Ernand would be capable of.

"Arjun Erigaisi is an extremely strong defensive fighter. He's unbelievably tough." Kane pointed out.

"Even I had trouble hurting him back then." Fae agreed. "Mia is a sound-based fighter, by the way. I don't know her personally but I've heard plenty of her."

"Oh, you have to be wary of Byron." Kane said as he went down the list. "He's a nerve striking Martial Artist. When he hits your nerves, they really fucking hurt and he can do all kinds of things."

"A nerve striking Martial Art." Rui

"Vyoming fights with vibrations." Fae said, earning a confused look from Rui.

"Vibrations huh?" He said with interest. "I'll have to look further into that, what else?"

"Well, Esfand if I recall correctly..." Fae and Kane went on to divulge everything they knew on all the other representatives.

In the end, it didn't amount to much. However, what little he had learnt was extremely interesting and exciting.

Every single one of them was colourful and special.

Poison, heat, breathing, vibrations, nerves friction, sound and many other techniques of esoteric nature.

In some ways, Rui should have expected this, how could they possibly reach at the peak of their respective Academies if they were ordinary and normal.

It simply wasn't possible. Out of the five people in the Hajin Academy who all had a chance of being chosen as the representative, none of them were ordinary!

They were all deviants in their own ways.

The question was how well Rui would do against the other representatives.

That was a difficult question to answer. These Martial Artists had Martial Art that deviated from the norm quite significantly. He had no experience against many of these Martial Art and techniques at all before. Furthermore, he wasn't sure he had the tools to defeat many of these Martial Art.

Furthermore, the VOID algorithm was certainly ill-equipped to face many of these Martial Art techniques, even if he was being generous to it.

This had to do with the fact that the VOID algorithm was not adapted to Gaea-based Martial Art yet, making it less affective. Rui had already long recognized this shortcoming, but he had yet to overcome it, though he had taken a few steps.

Unfortunately, the further he went, the more he realized how difficult this ambition was!

How was he supposed to incorporate solutions for such almost magical Martial Art techniques? IT was truly confounding problem. Furthermore, it wasn't one or two or even handful of difficult techniques, there many of them.

Although many of the fundamentals and the core of the algorithmic system were still entirely useful, it still became quite difficult to use the secondary portions of the algorithm. Then there was the fact that Rui still hadn't fixed the viability problem of the VOID algorithm.

Originally the algorithm simply wasn't possible to master, it was too complex, too difficult. Too mentally intensive. It essentially only worked when it was run on a literal high-speed computer.

Thanks to the cognitive boosts he had received from his second cognitive growth stage and the breakthrough to Martial Apprentice, he was able to master a portion of it, but he still had some ways to go in that regard.

Perhaps his Martial Art would reach Martial maturity only when he overcome this problem somehow. That was the worst-case scenario.

He had many hurdles before him.

Regardless, his fights against the representatives were not going to be easy. He lacked to much information to make judgements on how his fights with them would unfold, or whether or not he would win or lose. But the one thing he could confidently be sure of that his fights with the representatives of all the branches of the Martial Academies was going to be extremely tough and rigorous.

Even against the average representative, he would probably be unable to hold back. Against titans like Fiona and Ian, he wasn't sure he would be able to win even if he used every ounce of power he had and every resource he had.

And yet...

He couldn't help but smile.

He would be testing his Martial Art against the best of the best.

How exciting!

Rui grinned when he read through his notes. He was so excited he could barely even wait for the Martial Contest.

He immediately got up, walking out.

"Where are you going?" Kane asked.

"Back to training."

He said, leaving the two behind.