Rui flew back, groaning in pain, just bare managing to stay on his feet.
"Good, your Elastic Shift was well timed this time." Fae told him.
Today was a sparring session between the Apprentices. Rui and Fae had taken it upon themselves to spar with each other.
"It's not easy to nail the timing." Rui muttered.
"It usually takes a lot of experience to completely learn it." Fae reassured. "Actually, it's a bit intimidating you're already at this level of proficiency."
Rui shrugged, before taking his stance. "It's not fast enough, as far as I'm concerned."
Fae took an open-palmed stance as well. "My, what's the hurry?"
"There is a limited amount of time in this world, I don't want to waste an ounce of it." He replied, before taking the initiative to dash at her.
He launched a powerful front kick, throwing all his bodyweight and momentum behind it while using Vital Pressure to inflict more damage. He wouldn't fight against Kane, Kane was too agile for something as long-winded and slow as full-body kicks, he would effortlessly dodge it and exploit the opening created by the kick and put Rui down. However, Fae was not as agile or mobile as Kane was, furthermore her defense was solid, he would need to use every ounce of his power.
Yet she handily guarded with a double arm guard, before pushing aside his leg while launching a powerful palm attack to his abdomen.
Rui just barely managed to evade it with a combination of Parallel Walk and Balance Direction, yet Fae aggressively dashed after him with equally powerful maneuvering techniques, not allowing him to catch a break.
This was yet another difference between Fae and Kane, Kane fought passively and counter-offensively whereas Fae was aggressively offensive.
She quickly caught up to him before launching barrage of palm attacks, that pummeled him across his upper body.
Rui held on for dear life behind his guard as only a combination of his two defensive techniques; Elastic Shift and Acute Edge prevented him from losing consciousness.
But ultimately, they weren't enough.
Fae broke past his guard, stopping a palm attack just an inch away from his face.
"Good fight." She held out an open hand.
"Yeah, good fight." He grasped her hand standing up.
"It's really remarkable how far you've come with these techniques in merely a month and a half, or so." Fae shook her head with a rare hint of surprise flashing her facial features.
"It may be fast compared to others, but my Martial Art has greater needs." Rui shook his head.
"Your Martial Path is strange, usually, people have somewhat of a defined fighting style that is rigid to some degree, the core never changes." She explained, before turning to Rui. "Yet I couldn't sense that with your Martial Art, your combat style did not have an underlying core like every Martial Art normally does, it was constantly changing and strangely had no definition to it. A very odd feeling." She noted, before continuing.
"Even all-rounder Martial Art aren't constantly in flux like yours, being an all-rounder simply means you use all fields equally in combat, yet even that was constantly changing for you."
"That is related to the nature of my Martial Art." Rui hinted, he hadn't told her what his Martial Path was, just yet. He didn't feel the confidence and security to reveal to people what it was just yet, not until he developed it more and gained more proof of its viability as a Martial Art.
Fae nodded without pushing any deeper, A Martial Artist's Martial Art was extremely personal, it wasn't appropriate to push them to open about it.
"You've gotten even stronger." Rui sighed, recalling her fight against the Martial Squire.
She shrugged. "Everyone has, we're all working hard to get stronger."
Rui nodded. "But with how strong you are, you must be close to reaching Martial Squire, no?"
"I'm not sure, unfortunately. I haven't been told about the condition to become a Martial Squire by the Academy or my family yet."
Rui frowned, Kane said something similar too. Both of them were family of Martial Sages. Their families obviously knew exactly what it took to become a Martial Artist. So why were they and the Academy so adamant on not telling the Apprentices about the realms above them?
"Indeed, it is strange." She remarked, noticing his confusion. "But I have a lot of faith in my grandmother, I do not believe she would withhold such information unless it was truly to my interests that I do not learn it right now."
"Hmmm..." It was hard not to trust the judgement of a Martial Sage, not just one, but two of them, on all Martial matters. Especially when he was no more than a meagre Apprentice fledgling who had just discovered his Martial Path.
Martial Sages were among the greatest authorities on Martial Art, barring Martial Transcendents. It was an absurd notion they would be wrong about the matters of the lower Martial Realms.
He shrugged. He would find out one day, as long as he grew enough and expanded his Martial Art enough. As long as he did this, he had no doubt whatsoever that he would become a mighty Martial Squire!
Still, he was quite some ways away from that stage. He had only just discovered his Martial Path and had begun the Expansion Stage that all Martial Apprentices underwent in the Martial Academy.
He clenched his fists when he thought about the sheer number of techniques needed to achieve the versatility that was generally needed for the VOID algorithm.
In order to be able to adapt to any Martial Art, you had to be able to partially replicate every Martial Art, because every Martial Art was countered by some other Martial Art. Although the truth was a bit more complex and nuanced, the point still remained. The more building tools and ingredients he had access to, the easier and better he would be able to build a Martial Art that were adapted to counter his opponent's Martial Art.