Rui found himself meditating on a large rock in the forests near the Quarrier Orphanage, absorbed deep in thought. He had recently obtained clarity about his path forward in the Squire Realm and had even fleshed out some of the conditions that he would need to keep in mind when developing his Martial Art from this point forth.
All he had to do was take the first step concretely.
('What are my most immediate needs?') Rui asked himself.
Although developing the VOID algorithm to be able to counter all Martial Art in the world was certainly important, it was much more of a lifelong ambition than an immediate objective. He thought back to his battle against the Britannian Martial Squire, analyzing his shortcomings, weaknesses, and faults.
('My lack of ability to hurt him was a pain in the ass.') Rui sighed emphatically.
Rui had been able to react to, outmaneuver, predict, and counter his opponent just fine. The only reason the fight had extended for as long as it did was that he had trouble inflicting any meaningful damage on his opponent.
('My higher-end lethality is shit.') Rui sighed.
His offense was mostly centered around Outer Convergence, which allowed him to employ power from all muscle groups at any given point in time as well as Reverberating Lance, which employed vibrations to permeate the impact of his strike deeper into the body of his target allowing him to inflict damage in the more vulnerable parts of the human body.
However, against Martial Artists that were highly resistant to impacts, he may as well have no offensive capabilities at all. He didn't always have this problem, when he was a Martial Apprentice he had a versatile offense that allowed him to inflict all forms of damage against his opponent.
However, while he was vastly stronger as a Martial Squire than he was a Martial Apprentice, he did not possess the same kind of versatility that he did back then.
('That is something I need to fix.') Rui sighed.
His Flowing Void style needed to possess a wide array of tools in order to counter a wide array of Martial Art and opponents.
('I should note down all the primary avenues that my Martial Art is lacking the most.')
He needed to increase his lethality. This was especially needed against defensive opponents with a tendency to be able to resist ordinary attacks to a significant degree, such as the opponent he fought against at Fort Zurtun.
('The simplest way to increase my lethality is to obtain piercing attacks.')
In the past, as a Martial Apprentice, he had faced a similar issue, his solution back then was to obtain a piercing attack that allowed him to inflict flesh wounds on his opponent. Purchasing the Stinger technique had increased his lethality to a satisfactory degree.
Ordinarily, he would have been satisfied with remastering the technique as a Martial Squire, but that no longer was the case.
('The technique isn't as compatible with me as I'd like. Furthermore, it has zero individuality since it isn't something I created.') Rui sighed.
The Stinger was useful, but it wasn't nearly as flexible as Rui would have liked. While it was true that his toe had effectively become a bullet that he could puncture his opponent with, it was also true that it required a tremendous amount of momentum to do so. Every time he needed to use it, he needed to use all his offense-supplementary techniques, and strike as hard as he could with as powerful a kick as he could.
This added all kinds of limitations and restrictions on the number of scenarios he could comfortably use it in.
('Furthermore, the Stinger is a bit obsolete in the Squire Realm,') Rui sighed.
The reason for this was that Martial bodies were vastly superhuman in their ability to withstand pressure and their ability to cope with wounds. The Stinger could potentially land critical wounds on his opponent if Rui aimed well or got lucky and hit a blood vessel, but the same could not be said for Martial Squires. Puncturing them was disproportionately harder, and punctures were no longer that critical of a wound unless in vital areas. Martial bodies bled less to flesh wounds and were hampered to a lesser degree by such wounds.
('Unless I try to aim for a grade-eight or higher technique, it's not going to be nearly as effective as I'd like. But I do not possess the compatibility with extreme piercing-oriented techniques, thus I'd rather avoid going more powerful and extreme techniques that I probably would not be able to master as much as I'd like.') Rui analyzed. ('Thus, the solution is not piercing, or at the very least, it is not piercing alone.')
Maybe he could derive or create a technique that possesses more than just piercing, or two separate lethal techniques based on two different mechanisms that worked well together.
('It would be nice to add another element to a piercing technique. Something that is synergetic with piercing and can work well together with it.') Rui pondered the different possibilities. ('Heat maybe?')
Heat was a very niche and esoteric field in Martial Art, but it would certainly go well with a piercing technique and increase the degree to which the attack damages his opponent.
('But heat also cauterizes wounds.') Rui sighed as he shrewdly detected a drawback of this idea. If heat cauterized the wound, it would bleed less, removing one of the primary lethal elements of piercing attacks. ('Also, heat is no doubt extremely difficult to master. Probably more so than a powerful piercing attack. I need something with greater synergy and less impedance.')
His mind scoured through several problems as he finally came up with a potential solution.
('Should I... include a poison element?') Rui wondered as he opened his eyes.
Incorporating poison into the technique would most certainly increase its lethality as poison was especially effective when administered directly into the body as it would in the case of a piercing attack.
