The Martial Unity

Still, Rui wasn't afraid. He had grown tremendously stronger in the nearly two years he had joined that Academy as well. It was a universal fact that Rui had gained the most amount of power since in the nearly two years since they joined. Not a single student of the Martial Academy could match his growth rate! Especially not Nel, who had taken a whole two years to accomplish what Rui had accomplished in two months.

Did this necessarily mean that Nel was weaker?

No, it did not.

Nel had started out far stronger than anybody else, even if Rui grew stronger much, much faster, he had started out from a much, much weaker place. It would depend on whether or not Rui's astronomical growth was enough to close the astronomical gap.

Rui shook his head.

Speculation didn't matter. Neither did theorizing and conjecture.

Reality would soon demonstrate the truth, and Rui would be able to find out for himself whether he was stronger than Nel, or weaker.

Currently, his three biggest threats were Nel, Kane and Fae. Although there were other strong Martial Artists, like the seniors from the batch before them. Rui had sparred against them, and did not think they were in the top three threats, still he did not dismiss them either.

Soon the matchups were announced. Since there were seventy-nine, one student would be left out every time. But this didn't matter, because every student will have faced every other student by the time the month ended.

Rui skimmed through the matchups, barely able to contain his excitement, looking for his matchup.

He looked.

Looked some more.

And a little more.

couldn't

it be that his luck was so horrible, that he

for fuck's sake!" He

he would have to contain his energy and sit watching while the others

He paused. "Maybe that's not

strongest Martial Artists, especially the top three that he was wary of. Giving him a chance to grasp their prowess, and understand how strong they had grown, maybe even

make a meaningful difference, but it was better than nothing. The others had already dispersed as their matchups and assigned sparring rings had already been decided. He walked over taking a seat at a place where he could observe

lot about Fae and Kane, he even knew most of their techniques, having spent two years with them. He also knew which technique Kane had mastered in recent times. As for Fae, her mastery speed wasn't as high as his own, in the span of four months she at most could have mastered one powerful technique or maybe

was, it

He had seen Nel fight only once since he joined the Academy. That fight was so long ago, any specific piece of

Nel's fight, keeping a close eye

able to do more than just subconsciously evaluate danger. Before, strong creatures and Martial Artists left an invisible pressure on him. But now that

He didn't know how a normal

stance!" the supervisor of their match announced, drawing

covering his face. Rui frowned; this was the same stance he had taken in his

of her hands low, as they curved to the other side, all of her weight was

concluded. Her positioning of the arms were for generating as much torque for kicks. She'd placed all her weight on one leg so that her other leg would always be free to launch

lifetime of experience and research into combat psychology allowed him to evaluate his opponents far

was too weak to pose a

how overwhelmingly he beats her.') Rui narrowed his eyes as he concentrated on their fight, he didn't want

supervisor commenced

contorted as she tried her best

BAM

...