The Martial Unity

Their mental fortitude wasn't quite there yet. At the level they currently were at, they wouldn't be able to pass the first stage. Building up the necessary mental fortitude would take months. Thankfully, months, they had.

The only problem was that Rui wasn't always going to be around. In fact, he planned to leave once the Quarrier Orphanage had completed all the required preparations for winter. He had stalled long enough and had taken enough of a break. The best he could do was commission a Martial Apprentice to continue their mental fortitude training.

And soon enough, the time had come. Rui bade his family farewell before he set out for the Martial Union. The time to strengthen and elevate his Martial Art to the Squire level had come. He could barely suppress his grin as he ran at an incredible pace to the Martial Union, reaching them in no time at all.

The more time he spent on his Martial Path, the further he walked down it, and the lesser time it took for him to cross to travel to the heart of the town of Hajin from the orphanage. He recalled a time when it took him around an hour, now, he crossed it in a minute, without any exertion at all.

Soon enough, he had reached the heart of the town of Hajin. He quickly provided his license to the security check-in before they allowed him in. Before he knew it, he had already reached the Squire Library, finally pausing.

It's not that he hadn't considered what he wanted to re-master first, it just wasn't an easy consideration. He had mastered thirty techniques as a Martial Apprentice, he most certainly wouldn't be able to master all thirty in a single training phase.

He needed to pick and choose wisely.

The only real condition there was to the choices he made was that his Martial Art needed to be as well-balanced as possible as far as the techniques he would be mastering and the weightage they added to his Martial Art.

('Since I have effectively zero techniques at this moment, let's go for the maximum and purchase six. Can't really be trusted to go on Squire-level missions with fewer.') Rui noted.

He opened up his Mind Palace, another mental technique that worked exactly like it did when he was a Martial Apprentice. He skimmed through all the techniques he had ever mastered.

first training phase that he

Pressure, Elastic Shift, Helical Breathing, Acute Edge, and Balanced Direction. One offensive technique, two defensive techniques, one offensive, and one maneuvering technique. They were foundational techniques that, individually, were relatively weak, but

quickly sorted all the techniques into

Offensive techniques:

Flowing Canon (striking), Mirage Dive (grappling), Stinger (striking), Reverberating Lance (Striking), Tempestuous Ripple

Defensive techniques:

Divergence, Acute Edge, Adamant Reforging,

Maneuvering techniques:

Walk, Blink (also

enhancement), Flame Breathing, WInd

Counter-offensive techniques;

Binding Lash, Flow Flux.

discounted the mental techniques for obvious reasons. The same could be

strongest combination of techniques while also ensuring that they constituted a well-balanced Martial Art that was

was easy enough, all he needed to was pick a reasonable selection of diverse techniques. But that wasn't satisfactory to Rui,

rule out the

After all, he didn't have the capital to purchase any worthwhile technique at the time, he had to choose among the

he had only six slots or so, he was