The Martial Unity

Had he instantly figured out what kind of techniques he wanted to purchase at this point in time?

No.

But at the very least he knew what he didn't want to do.

He didn't want to focus exclusively on any one field, he was an all-rounder and that didn't change. He was previously considering taking the suggestions of his friends and dialing down and focusing on the fields that may be the most useful in the Martial Contest setting, but he decided against that.

"That is not my Martial path." He shook his head, as he entered the Apprentice Library.

It was time to make his choices.

('What is something I would really like my Martial Art to obtain in this round of training?') Rui asked himself.

Well, this question was harder to answer than before because his Martial Art did not have very obvious needs anymore, being well-rounded enough with fourteen Apprentice-level techniques.

He put aside logical deduction for one second. What was it that he truly wanted to for his Martial Art? He looked inside, trying to gauge his emotions. Staying true to himself was the key to staying faithful to his Martial Path.

It had taken him a while, but he had come to a realization.

('I wish my Martial Art had more lethality.') He realized, recalling his dissatisfaction during the hunting-class mission being unable to take the earthen basilisk down in a shorter period of time.

His offense was limited to Outer Convergence, Flowing Canon, Binding lash and Mirage Dive.

a decent amount of variety, for sure. But it lacked the level of lethality he

a high difficulty of mastery or were extremely

best course of action for the Martial Contest? Probably not, the Martial Contest had a non-killing or crippling rule, which restricted how much lethality he could use. Was he going to change his

No.

was his Martial Path, not that

The only place

marvel at how diverse the Martial

[Hypnotic Claw]

the tip of one's fingers and nails to produce to be saturated with a potent venom that caused drowsiness. This was a technique that first required the user to spend months building up a strong tolerance to this venom by controlled administration of doses of the poison. Only then could the finger tips and nails be conditioned to produce this venom. Over the course of a fight, constant exposure of the venom to the user's opponent via the Hypnotic Claw would cause induced hypnosis unless the opponent's poison resistance is quite

but clearly,

unable to train in any other technique whilst training this technique and he would

aside, skimming through some other

to their opponent or seriously incapacitating them leaving them vulnerable. Techniques centered around friction, body temperature manipulation, force permeation, nerve striking, flesh tearing, artery targeting, oxygen deprivation and many

of these techniques were extremely pricey, and were far too niche or had too much of a difficulty

defeat or kill Martial Apprentices could not be easy

to master,

was especially absurd, its very existence

[Heart Permeation]

impact did not do damage to the skin, flesh, muscles or bone in the chest area, but permeated

He had not thought it was possible. He hadn't ever gone through the higher-graded techniques in the

costed one thousand martial credits, and had a grade