The Martial Unity

"Let me guess," Kane raised an eyebrow. "You're going to come with another technique in less than a day, and figure out a way to overcome this?"

Rui turned to him with furrowed eyebrows. "Unfortunately, no. That technique was something I already had all the necessary tools for. That's why I was able to deal with it so quickly. Otherwise, coming up with a technique that quick is normally impossible. In this case…"

He turned towards the rain of lightning pouring down on the valley. "In this case, I just don't have all the tools necessary. I'll need to truly start from scratch."

His thoughts immediately turned toward the Raiju. Watching it had given Rui some inspiration on the spot.

Watching its form alone had given him some ideas, let alone the lightning attack that it launched. Rui wondered what the principles behind that were. It was possible that it simply directed an immense amount of charge at Rui, and the potential difference between Rui's neutrally charged body and the immense negative charge from the raiju's body caused the negative charge to bolt toward Rui.

Though he wasn't entirely sure, regardless, it had given him some ideas.

Unfortunately, many of his more ambitious ideas weren't something he could work on by himself in the middle of nowhere. He needed access to resources that he would have had at the Martial Union.

It was at moments like these that he recalled the benefits of Commissioner Reze's deal. He wasn't foolish enough to think that there were no upsides to the deal. Being an internal subordinate of the Martial Union meant that he could access these resources any time he wanted.

The Martial Union's training resources were so comprehensively vast and wide that these alone were quite a big plus to accepting the deal.

Still, he didn't regret his decision all things considered.

The Martial Union was a shackle to him at this stage. Although they wouldn't do something as stupid as antagonize him, he could think of himself as a bonafide slave to their interests for the most part. A handsomely compensated and rich slave, but a slave nonetheless. The very thought of it made him want to puke.

He shook his head, putting aside such thoughts, focusing on the situation at hand.

He had what he had, and not what he wished he did. He needed to make do with what he had and make the best use of it.

('The biggest issue is that I have absolutely no fathoming of the trajectory of lightning,') he tutted with frustration. ('It's truly painful because I cannot make use of my Martial Art fundamentally.')

His Martial Art was fundamentally centered around adaptive evolution, which was his Martial Path. He fought by making motions and movements that were perfectly well-timed and placed on his opponent.

Having insight into what his opponent's movements were, one way or another, was extremely central to being able to counter them, it was almost impossible to be able to make the perfect counters in real-time when reacting to one's opponent after they had already begun moving, there simply wasn't enough time to process what the best option was after the movements he was trying to react to had already begun.

That was why the VOID algorithm incorporated a predictive model function. Predicting one's opponent was necessary when it came to being able to counter them well.

It was rare that Rui was in a situation where his predictive model was ineffective, but unfortunately lightning had no patterns that he was able to discern, none that weren't on the quantum level anyway.

('Does that mean my Martial Art just doesn't work against opponents that wield lightning?') Rui wondered as he considered the raiju that they came across yesterday.

That was unacceptable. He felt strongly about that in his heart, due to the fact that it meant that any opponent with this particular method of attack might very well be able to evade his predictions was something that he found unacceptable.

He could not let there be a means of attack that eluded him to such a degree.

('I need to find a way to predict, or at least gain more insight about the motion of lightning,') Rui's eyes narrowed as he considered the various option at his disposal.

In a way, the fact that he didn't have as many options meant that there were few ways in which the answer could even possibly lie.

('Being able to develop some sort of algorithm to sense lightning is most likely beyond me at this moment,') He sighed, shaking his head.

Not only were the factors that dictated the trajectory of the lightning bolt small, as in small on the quantum scale, but he also simply lacked the means to perceive them and process them.

Had he been able to do that, then he would be able to predict them. After all, lightning was dictated by four rather simple equations in Maxwell's theory of Electromagnetism. He didn't even need to use all four in order to predict the path that lightning would take.

However, the issue was that he knew that quantum senses were something beyond him at the moment. The sheer amount of information that he would get from such a sensory technique would instantly make it grade ten. That level of detail surpassed even the few grade-ten techniques that he had come across.

This was different from the Riemannian Echo as well, that technique had great range and was difficult to sabotage, but it was not good at being applied in combat, and did not have great detail either. Rui had to make do with what he had against the Root.

('Such a technique would take far too much time too, it's far too ambitious,') Rui sighed. He knew that this technique would probably take longer than Riemannian Echo did, which took around nine months. He didn't want to spend that much time on a solution to gain better insight into the trajectory of lightning.