The Martial Unity



Rui had to admit, that that combination did sound overpowered. He hadn't even considered the fact that the two techniques were highly compatible with each other. He hadn't even considered that they could be used together.

"Nigh Senior level movement speed, and imperceptibility," Ruj shook his head. "That shouldn't be allowed. No Martial Squire can possibly handle that."

"Except you," Kane huffed as he turned towards Rui.

Rui did not deny that. Even if Kane combined those two techniques and used them simultaneously, he could not defeat Rui. Void Step was fundamentally useless against Rui, and he had already beaten Godspeed. Using them together would not allow him to change those individual outcomes.

"I'm probably the only one, and only because of extremely unfortunate compatibility disadvantages for those techniques of yours," Rui placated him.

He couldn't think of a single other Martial Squire he knew that could handle the combination.

"If not for the fact that it can only be used against a singular opponent, you would be so much more of a threat," Rui remarked. "It's actually interesting because your peaks are so much higher than the rest of your Martial Art, that makes you harder to gauge."

These two techniques made Kane more of a threat than the rest of his Martial Art did, considering that they were grade-ten techniques.

However, Kane did not spam Godspeed because of its drawbacks, and while he did use Void Step regularly, it was the reason he was even evaluated to be a grade four Martial Artist at all.

It was too easy to take him down because his defenses were no different from paper for a Martial Artist of Rui's caliber. Any high-grade Martial Artist could kill him with even a fraction of their power. The reason for this was because of his Martial body was weak as far as durability went, and his defensive techniques were lacking. He had yet to create a single defensive technique.

"They're so difficult to create," Kane complained. "How do you have even make original defensive techniques."

The two of them chatted as they returned to their lodgings, proceeding to wolf down gigantic meals that looked like it wouldn't fit inside their body.

Rui already felt more energized half a day later.

His digestion was more potent. He was rather certain that his stomach acid was concentrated rather than the dilute version that normal humans had. A day later, his body felt entirely normal, like all of the body mass that he had expelled was finally replaced. The two of them fully recovered from all their exertion, before heading out into the dungeon.

"How many floors are left in there anyway?" Kane asked. "Feel like we should be done, honestly. The dungeon is huge but ultimately finite. It's been two years since it was first opened, and ever since, we've been making tons of progress, and all Martial Squires travel super deep into the dungeon to have any hopes of finding a new floor."

"We've gotten most of them," Rui told him. "Considering we're nearing fifty floors. That's a huge amount of area within the dungeon, and will probably close to the limit. I suspect we have several more floors to go and then that's that."

"And then we reach the floor below the dungeon," Kane said what Rui was thinking.

"Right,"

Kane already knew that he wasn't participating in such a conflict. It was simply too much for him. He could die of the environmental side effects of fighting with a floor guardian like the one that Rui had described to him.

"Look," Kane began. "I know your technique is super powerful and all, but it's not enough to win, right? In the first place, you created that technique to not die, not as a path to victory. So what do you actually have in mind for actually defeating the Root?"

Kane had a very valid point.

It was true that Rui had created the Void Forestep technique to survive and combat the speed of the Root, but that wasn't the same as winning.

"It's not like your trick of the Senior level Mind Mask can work here given that you're facing a singular opponent, and not an entirely hostile army surrounding you as you did in the Serevian Dungeon," Kane told him. "You can't direct the roots at an opponent, only at yourself."

"I know," Rui nodded. "I have an idea, but I'll need to flesh it out by getting more data on the Root."

"And how do you intend to do that?" Kane sighed. "You've been observing it for months, correct?"

"Yeah, but this time, now that I have completed my training, I intend to invest more into the matter than I did before," Rui informed him. "I need more data, and that is part of the reason that we're heading into the dungeon today. We're going to find ways to come up with more data."

"So we won't be looking for dungeon floors?" Kane tilted his head.

"We will," Rui replied. "It's a shame we finished all of the floors that I discovered that day."

In the past half year, the two of them had cleared almost all of the floors that they had discovered in the past, and now they were back to ordinary adventuring. Of course, with Rui. It was anything but ordinary. With his enormously wide sensory range, they merely needed to go for a walk, and he would gain a deep awareness of the entirety of the surroundings within a radius of several kilometers of their position.

The two of them quickly reached the dungeon with Void Step, before heading into its depths. Even ordinary Martial Squires no longer felt much danger from the upper-most levels of the Shionel Dungeon that had long been swept clean by the many Martial Squires that had traveled through its tunnels, the monster had been sighted in any of the upper levels in recent times.

Everyone knew that the real adventure could only be found in the greatest depths of the Shionel Dungeon.