The Martial Unity

THUD

The two of them collapsed to the ground, exhausted.

"Good job you two," Rui remarked with a smile. "The two of you have grown stronger."

"But we still couldn't even land a proper blow on you even though you were moving at a normal speed!" Max complained, earning a nod from Mana.

Rui had held back his movement and reaction speed to human level by deliberating delaying his movements to match those of normal humans, yet despite his raw movements being that of a normal human being, and often slower than them, they were unable to land even a single clean strike on him!

Max and Mana were dumbfounded at how Rui was able to accomplish such a feat. Their understanding of combat had not yet matured to a level where they could actually grasp the means by which Rui was able to pull off such a feat.

"I've told you many a time, have I not?" Rui chuckled, amused. "Accuracy of timing and placement matter more than raw speed."

"But what does that actually even mean?" Mana raised an eyebrow.

"I can predict your movements rather easily, I just need to evade or deflect at the right time and place that I know will be enough to deal with predicted strikes," Rui shrugged.

"Can you teach us how to do that?" Mana asked, intrigued.

the ability to predict simpler and primitive combat styles like yours after lots and lots of experience. Although

of the children sighed,

the two of you are making respectable progress," Rui

to try and give

switch your Apprentice mentor," Rui

looked at Rui with knitted

to expose you to all kinds of Martial Art," Rui explained. "It helps to broaden your perspective regarding what the two of you aspire to pursue. I'm going to be commissioning all kinds of Martial Artists with all kinds of Martial Art for you to experience. And let me

of Martial Artists, the two of them were quite excited at the

was that he wanted to hasten the discovery of their Martial Path. This required both external and internal exploration. Rui had been doing a great job of significantly hastening their internal exploration by exposing them

latter. They needed to be exposed to different kinds of Martial Art, otherwise, they would likely never come to the realization of what their affinity

that might have been the reason why Crea broke through earlier than Mana and Max despite receiving less tutelage from Rui than those two. While Rui greatly accelerated her self-awareness regarding her patterns and combat style, her strong foundation as the daughter of a Martial Senior who was also loaded, gave her vastly more exposure to Martial Art than Max and Mana, who, up until now, had only met two Martial Artists

I come to this realization earlier, they might have already broken through by now.')

Apprentice mentors full-time back when he

weren't for his debt, he would have been able to pay for

forgot about my debt.')