The Martial Unity

In the Martial Academy, Martial Apprentices were given an immense amount of freedom on how they wanted to spend their time and what and how they wanted to train. The Squire instructors merely took the roles of guides, rather than teachers. This had done the Martial Apprentices well, and without it, they likely would not make as much progress with the individuality and maturity of their Martial Art, thereby reducing the number of Martial Apprentices that achieved Squire candidacy.

If Rui were her, he would immediately begin arming himself with many lethal offensive techniques that could inflict greater damage with every attack. Of course, this alone was going to be a long and difficult journey that would likely take Crea several years to truly complete. In his opinion, she ought to also increase her passive defense and endurance.

If she was going to abandon active defense and go all out on offense every time her opponent attacked, then she needed to ensure that her skin, flesh, muscles, and bones were all tough. Otherwise, she might very well lose the fight in one exchange.

He also felt that she ought to purchase endurance techniques that allow her to mitigate the damage she ended up suffering.

But he didn't mention any of these recommendations, he was pretty sure colonel Geringan would not be pleased even if he did try.

They conversed for some more time before another matter interrupted them.

"Young miss Crea." An employee of the family addressed her, bowing.

"Hm?" She turned towards him, knitting her eyebrows.

"I'm afraid you need to begin preparing for your evening appointment now, or else you will not be able to make it in time."

Her expression drooped. "Later."

"Crea." Geringan gave her a measured look.

"Tsk. Fine." She rolled her eyes before looking back at Rui. "Bye-bye teacher. Thanks for everything. I will never forget how much you helped me."

She turned around and ran before Rui could even respond. "Well, there she goes."

"Indeed." Rui sighed. "Well, then I ought to take my leave."

He got up, prompting Geringan to do the same.

"Ah, one more thing." Geringan paused. "I'm holding a party to celebrate Crea breaking through. I'm inviting you to it, as her trainer."

Rui caught his intentions, he was pretty sure that there would be a heavy presence of members of the Merger faction.

"Ah... Unfortunately, I'm extremely busy actually." Rui smiled apologetically. "And I also have to look after the training of my two siblings as well, they didn't manage to clear the exam, unfortunately."

The colonel was actually aware of this, which is why he avoided asking about it. "That's a shame, but it can't be helped. Once again, thank you for your phenomenal service. If you ever need anything, be sure to give me a call."

"Thank you, that's generous of you." Rui smiled.

The two bade each other goodbye, as Rui left the residence. However, he didn't head in the direction of the Orphanage when he took off into the air. He headed straight for the Martial Union.

('Time to grind through and finish those two techniques as soon as possible.') Rui noted.

He felt a sense of urgency because his source of income; training Crea was now gone. Of course, colonel Geringan had been more than generous with the proposed hourly remuneration rate, allowing Rui to accumulate enough wealth to sustain his expenditure for some time without needing another source of income. He intended to finish the two techniques that he had purchased from the Martial Union before that happened, which would get rid of one of his biggest liabilities and would allow him to develop Project Bounce and Project Sniper peacefully.

Once he learned the two techniques, he didn't need the Martial Union anymore. He could do most of the work by himself just like he was currently doing with Project Bounce.

('Everything is going well.') Rui nodded.

He was pleased with the progress he made with both projects, especially Project Bounce. Soon, he would be able to almost entirely absorb the power of the incoming attack and turn it into kinetic energy of his entire body harmlessly.

Once that occurred, he would immediately move on to the second phase; Getting rid of all the accumulated kinetic energy harmlessly.

He had given this part a lot of thought, and he had come up with potential solutions.

('I need to somehow discharge the inherited kinetic energy into the environment; either the land or the air. There is no realistic way of getting rid of it otherwise.') Rui sighed.

He had considered harnessing that power and using it to empower his own attacks, but that was no longer an objective as much as it was a magical pipe dream. He wasn't even sure if such a thing was physically possible at all. For now, he discarded the idea.

The most straightforward way to get rid of energy and impart it to the ground was through friction. That was how most people got rid of their kinetic energy when they wanted to slow down or stop. There was only one problem with that.

('Friction has limits, it cannot bleed away all my power before I have already moved more than a hundred meters from my original position.')

The friction of an object experienced on any given surface was entirely dependent on the roughness of the surface and object, measured by the coefficient of friction, and the weight of the object pushing down on said surface. The product of these two quantities determined the maximum amount of frictional force that there could be between the object and the surface.

Thus, friction was not a viable solution.

('Another potential solution is through an inelastic collision with the ground.') Rui noted. ('If I can somehow channel that energy and ground it, or release it into the atmosphere through a hard enough collision where I pass on the kinetic energy in the same that my opponent's power was passed onto me, then I might be able to harmlessly get rid of all that energy on the spot.')