The Martial Unity

Rui wasn't sure, yet he didn't bother asking for clarification, it had already been made quite clear to him that nobody who knew the truth would reveal it so easily. Fae and Kane had both not been told about the breakthrough to Martial Squire, and Squire Dylon himself had refused Rui the truth, being purposefully vague and unspecific.

Still, Rui wasn't too bothered by this, he knew he would learn about the truth and even experience it himself as long as he traversed down his own Martial Path.

Once the event ended, Rui remained in the facility, looking for others to spar against.

Although he had tentatively mastered each individual technique alone, he hadn't fully gotten used to using all of them in combat. He'd decided he wanted to get more experience with them, it was better to refine it in the same environment of the Academy where he could afford to make mistakes than do so in the middle of a dangerous mission and lose his life as a result.

Especially so since the Academy had upgraded his Martial Apprentice grade from grade three to grade five. Meaning, from now on he could routinely take on missions that posed some degree of a threat, albeit not much, all by himself.

He would have only himself to rely upon.

The first course of action he wanted to do was test himself against different Types of Martial Artists, with different specialties. This gave him a wider dataset for him to evaluate how well he used his newly mastered techniques

He had already tested himself against an evasive maneuverer of Kane, and had been reasonably satisfied with his performance. Now he just needed to fight as many different types as he could. He could fight Fae for an offensive striker, Dalen for a defense-oriented Martial Art, Milliana for a stamina-oriented Martial Art. Felix for a grappling-oriented Martial Art.

He didn't particularly have anyone else he was acquainted with.

He shrugged, approaching other Martial Apprentices who had also stayed behind looking for anyone who was interested in a spar.

The sparing match he had gotten into now was just that.

stances." The

towards his opponent, while tucking his right fist at his ribs. It was

the absolute limit, as though she was trying to crush something in between her forearm and bicep, while raising her elbows, while crouching with bent

This alone suggested to Rui that her Martial Art was a super close range Martial

supervisor began the

gap between them, something that was within his expectations. She wouldn't be much of a super-close-range fighter if she didn't close

Rui did not intend to cooperate peacefully, he immediately dashed backwards, maintaining the distance

surprised him was that she was actually faster than he was, which meant she had invested a lot into mastering maneuvering techniques to bolster her

Art and repertoire remarkably well.') Rui thought. He

was people with greater range who could attack her from outside her range while

come up with this strategy as long as they thought hard enough. Rui was relatively certain that she had encountered this strategy many times until she chose to significantly bolster her maneuvering prowess so that she could close the distance every time they tried to open it, and force them to

her in super-close-range combat. Still, he didn't feel any threat or fear,

calmly stopped running away and instead ran

look of surprise flashed across her face, as this was the last thing she'd expected him to

BOOM

impact let loose a huge gust of wind and that drew the

the explosive noise was Rui standing nonchalantly with an

flat at his feet,

open as they realized what had happened. Those who had already