The Martial Unity

A few hours later, the two of them were flat on the ground, exhausted.

"Man… Huff… We couldn't land a proper strike on you even after we became Martial Apprentices!" Max complained.

"That too… Huff… He was moving slower than us… And we still couldn't even touch him," Mana panted. "How is that even possible?"

Rui, who was enjoying the rare pleasant weather of spring, smiled at their words. "It's a matter of timing and placement, my cute and adorable siblings."

"What does that even mean?" Max furrowed his eyebrows. He was much bigger than he was before, and he disliked being treated like a child. Unbeknownst to him, Rui found this part of him to be the most adorable.

"I can evade everything you throw at me because I can see it coming, and because I pick and choose the right evasion move in response," Rui replied. "Which is why even if I delay my response and reaction time to be slower than yours, I can still handily evade you with ease for the most part. I see your attacks coming sooner than you realize, thus I make the necessary preparations to avoid them sooner."

"Does this have anything to do with your Martial Path, big brother?" Mana asked, curious. "Your Martial Path was… adaptive evolution, correct? Are you adapting to us? Allowing you to do what you just described?"

Mana had always been smarter of the

what I did now is not an application of

grown to a level where he could easily see through their moves even without using predictive models of those two. This wasn't particularly shocking or surprising. Any decent Martial Squire with enough experience would be able to do that more or less.

stared at

of the admiration that they were showering him with. "When

more amazing than

not even all that special in the Squire Realm at this very moment," Rui shook his head, trying to downplay himself. He didn't want them to have an over-inflated view of their brother. When they joined the Martial Academy, they would come to learn that their big brother was a bit of a celebrity in the Martial communities of the Kandrian Empire. Currently, Rui had come to find that almost all the people he had come to interact with within this community had heard about him, directly or indirectly. Fame from being the dark horse finalist of the previous Martial contest more than five years ago, fame from his win streak in the Martial Games, fame from

so blatantly and because it did not truly matter. But now that the two of them would be going to be passing the Martial Entrance Exam that was less than a month

progress and have become remarkably strong… remarkably quickly." He said that with a proud smile, but inside he was absorbed deep in

to breakthrough at the age of thirteen?') Rui couldn't help but wonder. In reality, he more or less knew the answer to that

was unfortunate, but they were above average as far as talent went. Yet, they broke through to the Apprentice Realm earlier than Fae had. Fae herself was a renowned talent,

favorable prospects since they broke through nearly five years

changed? They hadn't shown dominant talents for combat from a young age, yet now they had broken through to the Apprentice

already had a strong suspicion as to