Had he instantly figured out what kind of techniques he wanted to purchase at this point in time?
No.
But at the very least he knew what he didn't want to do.
He didn't want to focus exclusively on any one field, he was an all-rounder and that didn't change. He was previously considering taking the suggestions of his friends and dialing down and focusing on the fields that may be the most useful in the Martial Contest setting, but he decided against that.
"That is not my Martial path." He shook his head, as he entered the Apprentice Library.
It was time to make his choices.
('What is something I would really like my Martial Art to obtain in this round of training?') Rui asked himself.
Well, this question was harder to answer than before because his Martial Art did not have very obvious needs anymore, being well-rounded enough with fourteen Apprentice-level techniques.
He put aside logical deduction for one second. What was it that he truly wanted to for his Martial Art? He looked inside, trying to gauge his emotions. Staying true to himself was the key to staying faithful to his Martial Path.
It had taken him a while, but he had come to a realization.
('I wish my Martial Art had more lethality.') He realized, recalling his dissatisfaction during the hunting-class mission being unable to take the earthen basilisk down in a shorter period of time.
His offense was limited to Outer Convergence, Flowing Canon, Binding lash and Mirage Dive.
This made for a decent amount of variety, for sure. But it lacked the level of lethality he wished he had. The kind of attack that could do serious damage to his opponent if well-landed.
Usually, these techniques had a high difficulty of mastery or were extremely high-grade and thus super pricy.
But now, atleast he had an objective. Was it the best course of action for the Martial Contest? Probably not, the Martial Contest had a non-killing or crippling rule, which restricted how much lethality he could use. Was he going to change his choice even if it wasn't the most optimal choice?
No.
This was his Martial Path, not that of the Martial Contest.
He set out to the offense-oriented section, looking for various techniques. The only place he could possibly find lethal techniques would be in the offense-oriented section, after all.
There he once again came to marvel at how diverse the Martial techniques on Gaea were.
[Hypnotic Claw]
A technique where one condition the tip of one's fingers and nails to produce to be saturated with a potent venom that caused drowsiness. This was a technique that first required the user to spend months building up a strong tolerance to this venom by controlled administration of doses of the poison. Only then could the finger tips and nails be conditioned to produce this venom. Over the course of a fight, constant exposure of the venom to the user's opponent via the Hypnotic Claw would cause induced hypnosis unless the opponent's poison resistance is quite high.
Rui shook his head in disbelief. He still had vaguely mixed feelings about using poison to fight, but clearly, in this world, Martial Art had a much broader scope than the martial arts of Earth.
He might have been tempted to train in the technique anyway if not for the fact that it had downsides to it. He would be unable to train in any other technique whilst training this technique and he would need to wear gloves permanently for the rest of his life, because this technique would make put people to sleep whether he liked it or not.
He put it aside, skimming through some other choices.
He ran into many techniques that were capable of inflicting serious damage to their opponent or seriously incapacitating them leaving them vulnerable. Techniques centered around friction, body temperature manipulation, force permeation, nerve striking, flesh tearing, artery targeting, oxygen deprivation and many other absurd techniques.
Many of these techniques were extremely pricey, and were far too niche or had too much of a difficulty grade.
This was to be expected, the power to instantly defeat or kill Martial Apprentices could not be easy to obtain!
If these techniques were not super-difficult to master, then Martial Apprentices would be dropping like flies!
One particular technique was especially absurd, its very existence shocked him.
[Heart Permeation]
A jabbing technique that manipulated the impact of the jab such that the impact did not do damage to the skin, flesh, muscles or bone in the chest area, but permeated all the way inside from the outside to the heart. The impact would cause an instant cardiac arrest and would kill the target of the technique within seconds if well-executed.
"What???" Rui exclaimed. A single jab that could kill a Martial Apprentice instantly??? He had not thought it was possible. He hadn't ever gone through the higher-graded techniques in the Apprentice Library this extensively before. After all, he was still solidifying his foundation in the prior training stages, so he hadn't ever seen this technique.
This technique costed one thousand martial credits, and had a grade ten difficulty. Which corresponded to a one-percent successful mastery rate.
Only one percent of Martial Apprentices who purchased this technique had mastered it!
Even the Martial Academy didn't have that many martial Apprentices at that moment!
Rui was sure whoever mastered that technique would instantly be the most dangerous Martial Artist in the Academy.
Thankfully, it was absurdly difficult to master. He was definitely not purchasing it at this juncture.
Just as he was inspecting the other techniques, something interesting caught his eye.
[Stinger]
This was a kicking-based piercing technique that involved conditioning the first toe of the foot from merely a toe to weapon meant to blast holes in the target of the technique. The toe would be rigorously conditioned on a skeletal, flesh and epithelial level. It would effectively be re-engineered into an unstoppable bullet.
When fully completed and mastered. The Stinger allowed the user to launch swift front kicks that left a four-centimeter-long hole as wide as a toe in everything it touched!
This one move could singlehandedly win him a fight and turn the tables in losing battles.
Furthermore, this technique had a rather relatively reasonable price compared to the others because of its high difficulty. The difficulty of the technique stemming from the long, painful conditioning process of the training. It had a high potency grade despite its price for this reason. It required to perseverance.
If Rui purchased this technique, he will have gotten a huge boost in lethality while still retaining enough martial credits to purchase a few more techniques.
"Alright, I've decided." Rui's eyes narrowed with determination. "This will be my first choice."
