With the offensive project decided, he still had defensive and maneuvering projects left. He quickly thought about it as many ideas flashed through his head, evaluating them with a lot of time on his hands.
'For maneuvering,' Rui mused. 'Hm...'
Frankly, sabotaging the breathing of maneuvering Martial Artists would certainly be an effective clamp on their power. The reason for this was that they too needed breathing and breathing techniques.
However, that didn't mean that this was the optimal manner to deal with them.
'More than power, maneuvering Martial Artists needed congruence between mind and body. It's the problem I currently face with Godspeed, being unable to keep up with the speed of my body.' Rui mused.
By speeding the rate of perception of time, causing time to pass faster in their perception, he could cause their own movements to be too fast to them. This way he could force them to slow down physically, negating their greatest advantage significantly.
'Furthermore, I actually have experience with the relevant image as well.' Rui mused.
He struggled with Godspeed when it came to trying to keep up with it with his reaction speed. The sensation of having one's physical speed be far superior to one's reaction and processing speed was something he was quite familiar with.
This also helped with cultivating the right image. He would be able to curb their speed quite well by using sensory-sabotage hypnosis manipulating their sense of time.
'That covers offense and maneuvering, what about defense?'
This was a little bit more troubling to discern. He could rely on sensory sabotage to greatly augment pain, and that would certainly help, but that alone was probably not enough.
'Hm, pain can work, but it doesn't actually deal damage.' Rui tutted. 'It doesn't bypass defense. Especially passive defenses.'
However, it did make the target feel as though their defenses were not working. Which perhaps was good enough?
'Hm, I'll have to revisit, maybe consult Master Zeamer.'
However, the more important part was the remarkable adaptation to his opponent using mental techniques alone. He was already able to adapt to his opponents by predicting and countering their moves, then he obtained the ability to adapt his body to his opponents, and now he possessed the ability to sabotage them by specifically using mental techniques to sabotage their strengths.
He was adapting mind, body, and Art to take down his opponent.
'It's bringing me closer to fulfilling Project Water.' Rui's eyes lit up with excitement and enthusiasm.
The degree to which he could adaptively evolve to his opponents was extreme. He had added a new layer of adaptive evolution purely based on mental techniques alone.
'I'm so glad that I decided to come here.' Rui sighed. Although he valued what he learned from Master Reina, they weren't nearly as compatible, specialty-wise. However, Master Zeamer and Rui possessed immense compatibility with each other. That was why he knew that there was little to lose by learning from him, and everything to gain.
And he was right. His affinity was so high, that it was possible to upgrade the VOID algorithm with just the sheer quality of his mental techniques.
'It is possible to create a hypnotic matrix, a hypnomatrix, that outputs the best hypnotic technique to be used against a given opponent based on their Martial Art.' Rui realized.
In a sense, he had already created a hypnomatrix that outputted the best hypnotic technique to counter a given opponent. Body-sabotage for offensive, sensory-sabotage techniques for maneuvering and defense.
Of course, this was a highly elementary matrix at the moment. But it was possible to grow the hypnomatrix until it became a complex program that inputted several variables and outputted the most perfect hypnotic technique to counter his opponent.
'This will be my first step towards the Martial Mind.' A grin sprung up on his face as he clenched his fist. 'First step since becoming a Martial Senior, anyway.'
He could hardly contain his excitement. By adding a hypnomatrix to the VOID algorithm, he would be concretely increasing the amount of thought inside it, and thus his Martial Mind.
Given his sheer ability to master hypnotic techniques, he was sure that the hypnotic matrix would grow large due to his ability to create and master more hypnotic techniques. Thus there was no concern about it not being a significant addition to his Martial Mind.
'Furthermore, that doesn't even include the manipulations of my own mind.' Rui realized. 'Adapted attacks to my opponent's minds are one thing, but adapting my own mind to suit my opponent is another.'
Rui would need to inquire more from the Hypnomaster about self-hypnosis and manipulation. Was it possible to alter his mind to be more suited towards maneuvering-oriented Martial Artists? or towards offensive or defensive Martial Artists?
He didn't know yet. He had just been introduced to mental techniques recently. On top of that, the fundamentals of the fields were not understood due to scientific limitations.
However, that was not the case for someone like him who had a much better and deeper understanding of the brain and the mind. There was always a very real possibility that he would be able to come up with some truly powerful and extraordinary as long as he applied his brains wisely, and literally.
If that were to happen, he was sure that he would be able to gather his Martial Mind over time. Although he didn't know how much empty space there was left to be filled with the Martial Mind, it was things like the brand-new Hypnotrix Project that made him certain that he was probably progressing at a rate that was nigh unprecedented. How many people came up with Martial Minds so easily and began implementing them as early as Rui was doing so?
After all, it had looked as though Ieyasu had spent the past two years working on his Martial mind, he frankly did not feel like Ieyasu had made too much progress when it came to this matter.
