RUMBLE
The land around them rocked violently under the devastating power of the strike of the Martial Squire. Rui gritted his teeth as he did his best to successfully dispel the power of the strike entirely.
THUD
Squire Casen landed aside heavily, shocked at how Rui, yet again, managed to somehow make all the power she generated disappear into thin air.
Rui, on the other hand, was thoroughly pleased with the prowess of the technique he had created. The fact that a single technique was able to accomplish this much was already incredibly impressive. It would definitely become the mainstay defensive technique of his Martial Art.
In fact, he could thoroughly forget about Inner Divergence in one-on-one fights, at least. Only if his arms were extremely preoccupied with other matters would he be in a position where he was forced to use Inner Divergence instead of his new technique.
They continued sparring for a few hours, as Rui tested the performance of his new technique in the heat of battle. Thankfully, it seemed that she was quite the diverse offensive striker capable of all kinds of both simple and complex striking attacks. Furthermore, when used with each other back-to-back, they were much different than when they were used individually and isolated.
It allowed him to ensure that there weren't any chinks in the defense provided by his new technique. For instance, he got to test the technique against a double-blow combo where the two attacks were launched in opposite directions.
He also discovered that he could dispel multiple attacks at once as long as he made sure that the vector of the inherited momentum always faced downwards.
He realized that against piercing attacks that he couldn't afford to take head-on, it was best to catch the attack by the wrist and apply the technique that way, which worked just fine.
By the end of the training session, he had ironed out all the foundations and the basics, satisfied with the degree of proficiency and effectiveness the technique had.
"Alright, that brings us to an end for today's session." Rui glanced at his pocket watch. "Thank you for all the aid that you've provided over the past half year, you've helped me finally reach where I've wanted to reach."
Squire Casen stirred, understanding his message. "Does that mean...?"
"Yes, I think today will be the last training session. Frankly, I thought it might take a little longer, but I've arrived where I've wanted to be." Rui gently replied.
"I see..." She sighed. "Well, I guess this is it."
"I guess it is."
"Before I leave..." She hesitated. "I'd like to thank you."
"What for?" Rui's eyebrow rose.
"For inspiring me to take the initiative to walk my own path." She replied. "Watching you build such a remarkable technique from absolutely nothing has been enlightening. You are truly the ideal Martial Artist, and all of us pursuing our Martial Paths should take after your example. I, for one, intend to."
"Thank you, I'm glad to hear I made a positive impact doing what I love most." Rui smiled. "Good luck, and goodbye."
"Goodbye." She nodded, before skywalking away.
Rui's thoughts immediately turned back to Project Bounce.
('I need to stop calling it that.') Rui mused. ('Project Bounce has succeeded, and the technique that I will be using from now on has also been created. It needs its own name.')
Rui wanted to pick a name that did the technique justice, one that had just enough dignity to do a technique that powerful justice, while also ensuring that it was an accurate representation of the technique.
"Flux Earther."
It was a simple name, not the most straightforward, certainly, but Rui liked how it sounded. The former half of the name came from the fact that Rui essentially absorbed an influx of kinetic energy before transmitting it out to the environment as an outflux of energy. The latter half came from the earthing systems used to ground electric charges and current to get rid of them. It wasn't too dissimilar to what Rui did with the attacks of his opponents.
Thus, Flux Earther was what he chose to dub the name.
Now that he had successfully completed the technique to the point that it was deployable in combat, he felt an immense wave of satisfaction. A part of him immediately wanted to pick out a mission where he could test the technique against a real opponent that was trying to kill him.
Yet his better sense stopped him.
He still hadn't fully completed Project Sniper. It would be extremely detrimental to abandon the project when it was just one step away from completion, all he needed to do now was refine the final stages of the technique before he could achieve the degree of proficiency with that technique that he desired.
Unfortunately, he was at the stage where he couldn't shorten the process with ingenuity. He was at the stage where he needed to burn the ODA System into his mind and muscles with repetitive hard work and practice. There was a limit to how much of the conventional path to accuracy he could replace with accuracy.
The ODA System, specifically the second half of the technique, was something that had a very small window of operation. Even just one beat late would mean that his work was futile, he would need to start over. In the middle of combat, or even when assassinating a target, he could not afford to fail, thus he could not ever afford to be even a beat late.
It could mean giving his opponent just the window they needed to leap in from the great distance between them and turn it into a close-quarter fight where Project Sniper was almost entirely useless. The ODA System was useless when the target was within a certain range since Rui's inherent accuracy was good enough to be able to hit them right even without the ODA System.
"Once I'm done mastering Project Sniper, I can finally go out into the field and apply what I've painstakingly built!" A glint of excitement appeared in his eyes.
