The Martial Unity

"It's not the same." She shook her head. "The Martial Academy has other strong students and Martial Apprentices from my generation, I want to test my strength against them, I also want to complete a lot of missions."

"Don't you want to enter the army and join your father?" Rui asked, curious.

She snorted at his words. "The army is boring. Also, I hate following a ton of orders."

Rui chuckled.

"Are we going to start training or what?" She folded her arms.

"I was just getting to know you better." Rui calmly replied. "But yes, we can train."

"Good, let's begin right away." She nodded. "What do we do first?"

"Well, for starters. Let us spar, I wish to experience your strength before we can begin training." Rui told her as he gestured to the sparring area.

She nodded as she followed him. "By the way, I had a question."

"Hm?"

"Why don't you feel like a Martial Artist?" She raised an eyebrow. "Martial Artists feel scary, but you feel like a normal person."

"Ah, that was for your sake." He replied.

"Hmph! I don't need your help."

"Alright then." Rui smiled as he took off the Mind Mask, and the passive aura of a Martial Squire washed over her.

She stiffened but didn't say a word. Rui nodded, if she couldn't even handle the passive fear he generated in normal humans, she had no chance of cracking the first phase of the Entrance Exam which filtered out most of the applicant population with the heavy bloodlust tests that were administered to applicants.

She managed to take it well enough, though he would need to verify the extent to which her mental fortitude had been trained, it was quite clear that this aspect wouldn't be neglected by the colonel.

"Come." Rui calmly stated.

She charged forward, launching a swift powerful kick to his face. Rui stepped back slightly, and the attack missed narrowly, a gust of wind ruffled his hair. He observed her form midair as she was almost a statue in his vision, as most humans were to him in combat.

('Her form is efficient.') Rui nodded inwardly. Just from that attack alone, Rui surmised that she was well past the Martial Foundation stage which corrected an error one had one's fundamentals.

"Tsk." She launched herself after him, throwing a flurry of shorter, lighter jabs that were quicker, in hopes of tagging him.

Rui calmly redirected them as he noted her rapid striking form ('Her balance is a little off, she's a bit too aggressive.')

POW

He deflected her strike and landed a palm into her little abdomen, pushing her away. At all times, he restricted himself to human parameters, barring his durability, which he could not change. He even delayed his reactions to match human parameters.

She landed on her feet a meter back, grimacing lightly.

"Is that all you've got?" Rui calmly taunted her. "I'm barely breaking a sweat here."

"Tsk." Her eyebrows furrowed in irritation as she launched herself against him.

An hour later, she was slammed into the ground with an over-shouldered Judo throw, exhausted.

"Let's take a break for now," Rui suggested as he sat beside her.

"How did I do?" She asked, in between her pants.

"Not bad. Not bad at all." Rui calmly replied.

Her eyebrows furrowed at his less-than-stellar evaluation of her capabilities. However, Rui simply ignored her reaction. While it was true that given her age, she was quite impressive, it was also true that given what she wanted to accomplish, she wasn't nearly as strong as she needed to be. If she gave the Martial entrance exam currently, she most likely would not be able to pass. At least Max and Mana had each other to rely on, she would be fighting alone.

"I'm going to be whipping you into shape in the upcoming months."

"I'm not out of shape, ok!" She insisted. "First of all, I-..."

Her voice faded in the background as he considered how he ought to go about training her. Just simply sparring and giving her combat training wasn't going to be particularly helpful, it was nothing that others couldn't give her.

Instead, he was going to leverage his specialty to help her grow stronger.

The VOID algorithm allowed him to create a fighting style that countered his opponents, he needed to create that style, but rather than just straightforwardly leveraging it against her, he ought to train her to become aware of her weaknesses, flaws, and shortcomings. He could help her gain a greater degree of self-awareness of her own fighting style in combat with the help of highly specialized training, he could even copy her style to a certain degree and use it against her, helping her get a third person perspective on it.

All of this would no doubt increase her rate of growth beyond what almost any other trainer in the Kandrian Empire could help her with. Shoring up her weaknesses would definitely do her good in the long run. He could also train her to develop a tactical mindset that would no doubt be just as important to her when she attempted to crack the Martial entrance exam, but also in the future beyond that when she sparred and fought against the other students of the martial Academy.

Of course, Rui wasn't sure how useful that would be to her if she didn't discover her Martial Path and break through to the Apprentice Realm, but it certainly wouldn't hurt. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything he could do to help her become a Martial Apprentice. The best he could possibly do was ensure that her development trajectory was constantly facing upward. It was also paramount to instill into her an inquisitive mindset that would be useful when she enters the explorative phase in the hopes of discovering her Martial Path.

"Hey! Are you listening?" She folded her arms as she peered at Rui suspiciously.

"Of course, I am," Rui replied calmly.

"Then what did I just say?"

"..."