In truth, he did not need to spend much time searching for the perfect technique for his Martial Art that fit the criteria he had set. He had already long set his eye on a technique.
This technique was one of the core techniques of Fae's Martial Art.
It was a technique that allowed the user to strike with the power of all muscle groups in the body. Normally, this was possible to do in only a handful of positions. But Outer Convergence took it a step further and made it universal.
The technique was based on the principle of additive torques.
A bullet shot by a normal gun moved around the speed of sound.
However, what if the man firing the gun was sitting in a bus also moving at the speed of sound?
Then the speed of the bullet to someone outside would be the speed of the bullet plus the speed of the bus. The total speed of the bullet would be twice the speed of sound.
However, what if the bus itself was standing on top of a plan moving at the speed of sound? Following the same logic, the net speed of the bullet would be thrice the speed of sound. The bullet essentially got boosted by the added speeds of the bus and the plane.
The Outer Convergence was a technique that boosted speed and power equally, that functioned similarly to the bullet analogy.
The fist was the bullet in this case, and the various muscle groups were akin to the bus and the plane.
By moving in a manner that ensured the force and acceleration generated by each muscle group would cleanly sum up and funnel into the strike ensured that the power of the strike was vastly higher than if the strike was thrown merely with a portion of the muscle groups across the entire body.
Fae had partially mastered this technique during the Entrance Exam, and had gone on to fully master it once she entered the Academy, allowing for her power and speed to have surged remarkably.
This was a technique that would kill two birds with one stone, fixing his two biggest shortcomings.
He winced when he glanced at the price. ('four hundred martial credits, oof.')
Thankfully, the technique was justifiably powerful, furthermore, he truly needed the technique to increase the foundational formidability of his Martial Art. So, he put aside his compunctions about the matter
He also had seven hundred and fifty-three martial credits left.
He walked over to the defense section of the Apprentice library, skimming through the technique scrolls slotted in the shelves.
A successor to both Acute Edge and Elastic Shift. It added muscle relaxing techniques that further made collisions elastic, dramatically decreasing the damage inflicted on the user.
('It effectively makes the user a bouncy ball, hard to actually damage with blunt force.') Rui mused. This was a solid candidate, furthermore as a successor to techniques he had already learnt, he would be able to get a hang of it much quicker than other techniques of the same difficulty.
But the price was a deal cutter for Rui.
('Four hundred and twenty martial credits.') He flinched. ('I'm good, for now.')
He did not intend to overcompensate for his defense. He glanced around, eying the closest techniques with interest.
The extreme opposite of Elastic dispersion in principle, it aimed to make the user harder than the opponent's attack for a brief moment by executing an extreme momentary blood-rushed flex of the muscles, thereby inflicting damage onto the attacker rather than the user. It was effectively like trying to punch a steel wall, no matter how hard you hit, your fist will always break before the steel wall, every time.
Still, it was an extremely high-grade technique, with immensely high efficiency and flexibility. This meant it was extremely expensive proportionately.
He moved onto some of the lower-graded techniques which were much less exaggerated in their effectivity and of a lower grade too.
This was a technique that allowed the user to defend against attacks much more effectively by ensuring the impact travels parallel from one end of the bone straight down to the other end.
Bones were much easier to damage and break if force was applied at the mid-point of the bone from outside, they were much more difficult to damage and break if the force was applied through the bone from one end to the other, by an entire order of magnitude!
Rui recalled reading research that bones could be sixteen times more durable through the bone end-to-end vs against the bone at the mid-point.
However, he had never thought that that fact could be applied such a manner!
This was a technique the focused on general all-round body conditioning. Improving the toughness of epithelial tissue; skin and flesh, as well as the durability of the skeletal and the muscle systems using very specific recurring patterns of strenuous micro-damaging and healing procedures.
This technique was a technique that strengthened the joints through rigorous conditioning. The joints were just as important as the bones. In clashes, an immense amount of stress was put on the joints. The one with stronger joints, experienced less damage, ultimately allowing their durability to increase significantly.
('Hmmm...') Rui was quite impressed by these techniques. They were simple and effective, and got the job done.
He was quite impressed by his creative some of these techniques were. They applied simple biological and physical phenomena and facts of the human body and nature in resourceful ways to achieve significant results. Rui hadn't even considered many of these, despite being well aware of these facts and phenomena.
Not that it was due to his lackluster imagination or creativity, but many of these would straightforwardly be entirely impossible for normal humans. It was only due to the cognitive boosts provided by the discovery of the Martial Path that allowed for Martial Apprentices to master such potent techniques.