"Take your stances." The supervisor instructed.
Both Hever and Kane took their regular stances.
"Begin!" The supervisor commenced the fight.
Immediately, Hever leaped, reaching the very corner of the ring.
This was the strategy that Fae had used. It had failed miserably when she tried it, however, Rui suspected Hever was different.
For one, Hever was a counter-offensive specialist, he would be able to handle invisible impacts much better than Fae did since he was quicker with his muscle memory.
Of course, this did not mean he could effectively counter Kane completely, but it was likely better than standing in the middle of the ring.
Still, Rui did not think highly of Hever's chances. His compatibility against Kane was horrible. One of the worst, in fact.
Because his prowess came solely from the Meteor Swing technique, anything that threatened to bypass the technique as a whole threatened him immensely.
Which is exactly what the Void Step technique did. However, Hever likely had some muscle memory countermeasure for strikes after they impact, so he had some minor hope of throwing Kane out the ring as long as he managed to grab onto Kane after he landed the strike. As long as he fought cleverly, which he was capable of, he might be able to pull a draw.
However, that still wasn't the biggest reason Rui didn't think highly of his chances.
Up on the ring, Kane was stationary. For the first time, he hadn't immediately activated the Void Step technique. It was a bit risky, and he did not want to give Hever's muscle memory a chance.
Instead, he put his right foot behind, and put his hands on the ground in front. Taking a stance resembling sprinter's starting position.
Rui smiled, excited. He was going to witness something he rarely did.
The Godspeed technique.
Through a build-up of energy in the muscles, the Godspeed technique allowed Martial Apprentices to obtain speeds on par with Martial Squires.
It was a technique that allowed Kane to ascend to a higher Realm for just a moment.
Its biggest weakness was that it required a vulnerable starting position, leaving Kane open to attacks that he could do nothing about while in that stance prior to activating the technique. But once that was accounted for, almost no Martial Apprentice could possibly handle that technique. The weakness was the reason the technique was only at grade ten potency, if Kane could reach Martial Squires of speed any time he wanted with no caveat, then grade ten would be too low!
Against Squire Kyrie, Rui had managed to mitigate the shortcoming. The technique was so powerful that even Squire Kyrie had to stop momentarily stop holding back to use a squire-level counter-offensive technique to defeat both of them.
Unless a miracle happened, the outcome was almost already decided.
Suddenly, the pressure escalated!
Everybody froze, wide-eyed.
Even Hever was stunned.
Both Rui and Nel simply grinned.
It had been more than a year since the former had seen Kane use the technique. Primordial Instinct was blaring loud emergency sound alarms in his head.
Kane opened his eyes and time slowed, even more than it normally did for Martial Apprentices.
The sheer velocity with which he did, cracked the barrier of the speed of sound, breaking it.
He disappeared, leaving a shockwave where he stood.
Kane stopped at the corner of the ring.
Hever had been launched flying, he bounced and skidded over to the other end of the facility, knocking over several people.
The fight had ended. It was over in an instant.
Everyone had frozen in shock.
They slowly turned with incredulity towards Rui.
"Great fight." Rui smirked. "Good idea using Godspeed instead of Void Step."
"Thanks." Kane said. "Your fight is scheduled soon, right?"
Rui nodded, glancing at Nel.
He had had only two opponents left; Nel and Kane. His two biggest hurdles.
If he could win these, he would go on to win the preliminary contest and be chosen as representative. Although his track record was a touch better than Kane's and Nel's, it was not enough to overset a loss against either of them.
Thankfully, at the very least he was able to make the best preparations he could. He had gotten his hands against an immense amount of data.
('If this doesn't work, I can rest knowing I gave it my very all.') He mused.
He had no intention of letting it not work, though.
They bantered for a bit before Rui was called.
"Apprentice Rui Quarrier, your scheduled fight is soon to commence." The staff member informed. "Please wait at the assigned ring."
"Sure thing." Rui nodded. "Alright, bye."
"Good luck." Kane wished him.
Soon, it was time for the match.
Rui had been waiting for this for a long time. Nel got up on the ring, with a wild grin and a savage aura to boot, staring hard at Rui.
"You're strong." He grinned. "I'm strong too. This is gonna be great!"
Rui smirked. He couldn't agree more.
"Hey, can I ask you something?" Rui interjected.
"Hm?" He tilted his head.
"In this entire contest, you didn't use a single Apprentice-level technique. Understandable, since it's only been two months since you discovered your Martial Path..." He paused, before continuing. "But even if you don't have any Apprentice-level techniques... Why aren't you using exploration-stage techniques?"
This was something Rui had been curious about for quite some time. Nel clearly broke through to the Apprentice Realm, which meant he undoubtedly passed through the exploration Stage. Why wasn't he using any of the Exploration-stage techniques?
Although these techniques weren't as good as Apprentice-level techniques, they were still better than fighting without techniques.
Rui remembered that until he mastered his first few Apprentice-level techniques, he used exploration-stage techniques as well.
He glanced at Nel with great curiosity.
"Ah..." Nel scratched his head.
He then met Rui's gaze and said with a perfectly sincere voice;
"I discovered my Martial Path without them."