The Martial Unity

Rui found himself meditating on a large rock in the forests near the Quarrier Orphanage, absorbed deep in thought. He had recently obtained clarity about his path forward in the Squire Realm and had even fleshed out some of the conditions that he would need to keep in mind when developing his Martial Art from this point forth.

All he had to do was take the first step concretely.

('What are my most immediate needs?') Rui asked himself.

Although developing the VOID algorithm to be able to counter all Martial Art in the world was certainly important, it was much more of a lifelong ambition than an immediate objective. He thought back to his battle against the Britannian Martial Squire, analyzing his shortcomings, weaknesses, and faults.

('My lack of ability to hurt him was a pain in the ass.') Rui sighed emphatically.

Rui had been able to react to, outmaneuver, predict, and counter his opponent just fine. The only reason the fight had extended for as long as it did was that he had trouble inflicting any meaningful damage on his opponent.

('My higher-end lethality is shit.') Rui sighed.

His offense was mostly centered around Outer Convergence, which allowed him to employ power from all muscle groups at any given point in time as well as Reverberating Lance, which employed vibrations to permeate the impact of his strike deeper into the body of his target allowing him to inflict damage in the more vulnerable parts of the human body.

didn't always have this problem,

stronger as a Martial Squire than he was a Martial Apprentice, he did not possess the same

something I need to fix.') Rui

possess a wide array of tools in

the primary avenues that my Martial

needed to increase his lethality. This was especially needed against defensive opponents with a tendency to be able to resist ordinary attacks to a significant degree, such as the opponent he fought against

to increase my lethality is to obtain

piercing attack that

technique as a Martial Squire, but that no longer

compatible with me as I'd like. Furthermore, it

it was also true that it

restrictions on the number of scenarios he

Stinger is a bit obsolete in the Squire Realm,') Rui

withstand pressure and their ability to cope with wounds. The Stinger could potentially land critical wounds on his opponent if Rui aimed well or got lucky and hit a blood vessel, but the same could not be said for Martial Squires. Puncturing them was disproportionately harder, and punctures were no longer that critical of a wound unless in vital areas. Martial bodies bled less to flesh wounds and were hampered to

try to aim for a grade-eight or higher technique, it's not going to be nearly as effective as I'd like. But I do not possess the compatibility with extreme piercing-oriented techniques, thus I'd rather avoid going more powerful and extreme techniques that I probably would not be able to master as much as I'd like.') Rui analyzed. ('Thus, the solution is not piercing, or at the very least, it