Rui recalled what Fae and Kane had told him about these two.
Heat and alcohol.
These two Martial Artists employed these two phenomena in their Martial Art.
This was something Rui truly looked forward to. How could a Martial Artist fight with heat and alcohol? He didn't even know that this was possible! There were some techniques, but to make it your entire Martial Art?
The Martial Contest opened his eyes to so much that he hadn't seen before, it was truly shocking. Yet it incredibly exciting nonetheless.
"Take your stances." The referee instructed.
Ferlicia crouched, placing her open-handed arms in front of her.
('Grappling stance eh?') He mused.
Askin on the other hand, just shifted around in one place, imbalanced.
"Begin!" The referee commenced.
Ferlicia's skin grew incredibly red, as if she was blushing madly across every inch of her body, before dashing at Askin.
It was a sight that amazed Rui. She was increasing the temperature of her own body to an incredibly high degree!
The human body was actually capable of increasing body temperature to a high degree. It was capable of this and even did increase temperature in times of fevers. Through engogenous and exogenous pyrogens, it could cause a high elevation in the body's thermoregulatory set-point. However, the reason that it did not increase temperature beyond a small degree was because the brain simply couldn't handle extremely high temperatures.
Normal human brains, that is.
Martial Apprentices possessed enhanced brains on a neurochemical level.
Rui would not be surprised if this dramatically increased the ceiling of the temperature that she could withstand, that along with some conditioning meant that this was legitimately a powerful weaponizable phenomenon!
Rui suspected that he had stumbled upon the core of her Martial Art technique.
In this case, it made sense that she was a grappler! Is her body temperature was extremely high, then grappling was a field of combat that was extremely compatible with her. It would exploit her strengths and give her far greater gains than striking would, in all actuality.
He wondered how Askin would deal with it.
Ferlicia shot towards Askin, charging to get into contact with him.
WHOOSH
He ducked so incredibly low that he would be fine even if a car ran over him!
Rui's eyes narrowed. It was a simple maneuver, but the reflexes he displayed were extremely quick. He dodged the strike at basically the very last second!
Ferlicia tutted, turning around as she lashed out at Askin who stumbled out of her strike, rolling out of the way.
She continued chasing him around, but she literally couldn't even get close.
"Hue hue." he laughed. "Can't catch me baby."
He wiggled.
Rui smiled amused. "He's drunk, isn't he?"
"Indeed he is." Squire Dylon nodded. "You can trust me, I know drunk when I see it."
"Uh huh." Rui threw a resigned look at him. "How is being drunk a Martial Art technique."
"Well Rui, I can tell you that being drunk allows you to do things that you would otherwise never be able to do. Like choosing to walk in on Kyrie while she was bathi-!"
"Shut up." Squire Kyrie's unadultered aura seeped out as she coldly cut him off, causing Rui to feel violent dreadful chills climb up his spine. The sheer force of her mind far exceeded anything he had ever sensed from an Apprentice.
"Alright alright." Squire Dylon chuckled mischievously raising his hands, completely unbothered by her fearsome aura.
They hadn't even noticed it.
Rui wiped away some sweat, shaking his head inwardly. ('I have far to go.')
He turned back to the battle, pondering about Askin, who had still gone on untouched by Ferlicia.
Alcohol impaired conscious cognition, but at the same it also consquentially ceded control of the body to the subconscious reflexive mind. Reflexes far surpassed conscious reaction speed.
Furthermore, the enhanced Apprentice brain would likely be able to mitigate the downsides of being drunk that would normally severely impair normal drunk humans.
Rui's eyes widened with interest. This meant that alcohol was potentiall more beneficial to Martial Apprentices with some rigorous training!
But did this mean the Martial Artists with alcohol had to get drunk before every fight started?
Wasn't this incredibly impractical?
"I wonder if he underwent conditioning."
"It's quite likely he did." Squire Dylon said. "There are a few niche alcohol-oriented conditioning techniques that allow the users to permanently retain a large amount of alcohol in their bodies and blood."
"What?" Rui turned to Squire Dylon, surprised.
"They condition their body to not filter out alcohol quickly." He elaborated. "Therefore they can maintain being drunk for rather incredibly longer periods of times. Just by possessing alcohol in their system, they can gain extremely high reflexes."
Rui nodded, turning back. Not even Nel had such incredible reflexes as what Askin was demonstrating, it was almost like there was no gap between stimulus and reaction. Only Kane could replicate that feat.
Eventually, Ferlicia grew frustrated. The very air was sizzling at times due to her heat, and frankly Rui felt that temperature of the Colosseum might have even increased a bit by now all due to Ferlicia alone, but she was struggling to tag Askin.
She brought her palm together. She folded all finger except for her index and middle finger, leaving a small gap between them and bringing them to her lips.
When she got as close to Askin as she could, she inhaled deeply before exhaling as hard as she could.
What Rui saw next shocked him!
She did not exhale air like any normal human did!
She breathed fire!
The flames erupted from the tiny hole of her fingers, spreading out and covering wider area than any single human normally could with their body.
This time even Askin's great reflexes could not entirely save him. He emerged from flames, with first and second-degree burns.
Rui gaped at the sight. He had thought Surman was incredible, but Ferlicia just very well might have taken that spot!
