The Martial Unity

One technique to go.

Rui truly had no idea this time. He had picked one offense-class technique, one maneuvering technique, following this pattern, wouldn't it make sense to pick a defense-class technique?

Rui glanced at the defense-class section, before shaking his head.

('My defense is solid enough.') He had already mastered three defensive techniques that were extremely synergetic with the VOID algorithm. He didn't feel the need to beef up his defense just yet, at the very least he didn't need to add another endurance technique, maybe he could consider adding some other form of defense?

But for now, he didn't intend to going into the defense-class section, instead, he was quite interested in another section in particular.

The miscellaneous section.

The miscellaneous section was the largest of all sections in the library because it contained many sizable sub-sections across it.

Environment-class techniques, beast-class techniques, labour-class techniques, weapon-class techniques, stealth-class techniques, sensory-class techniques. It contained many interesting techniques of various sorts.

He didn't care to go through many of these classes of techniques, half of these were far too early for him, he felt. Especially, the weapon-class techniques. Further, not all of these techniques were super-useful to him either. The miscellaneous section had some rather funny techniques as well.

[Mind Palace]

This technique effectively gave the user a perfect memory. It was a technique developed for Martial Artists who had trouble remembering the vast amounts of information that mission bills often had. It also allowed martial Artists to remember many other important pieces of information like the protocols and guidelines of different classes of information as well. Meant for Martial Apprentices who were mentally challenged to some degree.

Difficulty grade: Five.

Cost: Free

Rui almost burst out laughing. The Martial Union actually added an Apprentice-level technique for incompetent Martial Apprentices who had difficulty memorizing information that needed to be memorized for completing missions. Just how many instances of incompetency did they have, before they decided to add this technique?

They even made the technique free of cost so that Martial Apprentices would have no qualms purchasing it!

He shook his head, chuckling. He began skimming through some classes of techniques he had already visited prior in his previous visit to the Apprentice Library.

The Sensory-Class.

He had recalled some particularly interesting techniques in this section when he saw it in the Miscellaneous section. Just as he skimmed through the section, something interesting caught his eye.

[Primordial Instinct]

A technique that trained the danger evaluation intuition of the user, allowing them to subconsciously detect dangerous phenomena within a certain range.

"This..."

This was a technique he recalled seeing back when he picked out Seismic Mapping. He'd been pretty intrigued by it at the time, but eventually picked Seismic Mapping because Seismic Mapping had far greater range, whereas Primordial Instinct was a combat-oriented technique.

('That was a such a great decision, in hindsight.') Rui realized.

Had he picked Primordial Instinct instead of Seismic Mapping, he wouldn't have been able to complete the earthen basilisk mission, or the child-trafficking mission either. Mostly because Primordial Instinct wouldn't be of much use in those particular situation

However, Primordial Instinct shined in combat, in turn. While Seismic Mapping, in combat, could only be used to ascertain his opponent's position and general movements, Primordial Instinct could accomplish far more.

This was a technique that trained the human subconscious danger sensing and evaluation capability as well as the human subconscious precognition. It basically evolved his mind's capacity to sense danger and predict future instinctively and subconsciously.

Ordinarily, these mental parameters were fixed and static, and had very little room for intrinsic improvement. But this wasn't true for Martial Apprentices. Martial Apprentices possessed superhuman neurology as a result of the evolution and enhancement provided by the breakthrough to Martial Apprentice and the discovery of the Martial Path.

Unlike normal humans, the subconscious danger and predictive instinct could be improved, and had the potential to be much greater. It need only be trained in the appropriate manner.

Once mastered, the description of the technique professed that one could be able to predict their opponent's much deeper than before, and would be able to instinctively sense and evaluate danger across their surroundings in all directions to a far higher degree than before. It became drastically much harder for the user to be caught off-guard.

Rui had begun to strongly suspect that the Primordial Instinct technique had a strong compatibility with the VOID algorithm. The reason for this was because the predictive mechanism of the VOID algorithm was different from the predictive mechanism of the Primordial Instinct technique.

The VOID algorithm predicted the user's opponents by in putting variables into an algorithmic system that outputted the opponent's future moves as well as the ideal ways to counter depending on what the user wanted to accomplish. It was fundamentally founded on data science and a deep understanding about the fundamental nature of physical conflict.

The Primordial Instinct's predictive prowess instead was founded on the mind's subconscious inexplicable ability to extrapolate the future from the present.

If the two had no overlap, then they could cooperate with no friction of any kind. Rui would be able to combine the predictive prowess of the Primordial Instinct technique with that of the VOID algorithm to truly peer into the future!

Furthermore, the danger sensing ability of the Primordial Instinct technique was quite impressive as well.

If Rui wasn't wrong, the danger sensing aspect of this technique could be integrated into the VOID algorithm as an extra variable to input. With even greater amounts of information available, the VOID algorithm's results would surely be even more refined, precise and accurate!

"This could serve as the first step to adapting the VOID algorithm to the world of Gaea!" Rui exclaimed with ecstasy; he was quite pleased with this epiphany.

With all of these considerations, the Primordial Instinct technique might actually have the greatest compatibility with his Martial Art compared to the other two techniques he had chosen!

Furthermore, almost as if it was telling him something, the price of the technique was just barely within his remaining budget.

He nodded, plucking the scroll out of its slow. Adding it to pouch along with the other two.

The Stinger.

Phantom Step.

Primordial Instinct.

These would be the three techniques he intended to master. With these techniques, he intended to reach another level of power!