One after the other, Martial Artists of both sides came forward to demonstrate the techniques that the other side wanted to obtain. The demonstrations were different, as none of the techniques were too similar, and they had different parameters that made them impressive.
Rui watched with interest as they came up one by one, executing their techniques. It was one thing to read reports and analyses on them, it was another to actually witness them in the flesh.
He realized there were many nuances that he had missed prior.
For one, despite their lacking of impact power in their attacks. They were not necessarily less lethal than the Longranger Martial Squires of the Martial Union by a great degree. They had a surprising amount of lethality through means besides impacts.
There were many ways to inflict damage on a person. Impacts through strikes or wind-based projectiles were just the most straightforward and easiest ways to inflict damage on people.
In reality, there were entire fields of Martial Art that were dedicated to inflicting damage on people through unusual and non-standard means. The most significant ones that came to mind were poison-oriented techniques. These techniques were lethal in ways that did not involve inflicting more than a bit of a wound. Sometimes, no wounds were required to be inflicted at all.
Of course, these techniques of the G'ak'arkan Tribe did not operate on the same principle as poison techniques, but they also inflicted damage through non-standard ways. Thus, despite not having techniques that exerted powerful impacts, they possessed techniques that were just as damaging as powerful impacts, and sometimes even more.
One of the techniques that Rui had come across caused debilitating damage to ear drums through directed sound waves. Another Martial Artist used techniques that caused a rapid vacuum around their opponent spontaneously, causing the internal pressure generated by the body to momentarily exceed skin durability for just a brief moment caused by the extremely rapid shift in pressure. The enhanced durability of Martial Squires prevented this from happening under ordinary circumstances, however, the rapid pressure shift allowed for internal pressure to surpass the durability of outer flesh such that it could cause flesh to tear, inflicting wounds on the body using its own pressure.
Another technique suffocated their opponent with vacuums, which was a form of inflicting damage that was radically different from impacts, yet quite dangerous. If the target spent too much time affected by the technique, the lack of oxygen would quickly weaken them, causing them to lose the strength to leave the technique's area of effect and eventually causing them to die.
Rui could even understand how the G'ak'arkan Tribe had come to discover this technique in the first place. It was most likely because Martial Artists, in pursuit of individuality, came up with newer means to harm their opponents than just by standard impacts or tears.
This wouldn't have happened if the G'ak'arkan Tribe did not hyper-emphasize the individuality of Martial Artists, and encouraged all of them to pick their own unique paths from the very start of their journey down their Martial Path. Had they not done that, then Rui highly doubted that any of the Martial Artists would have gone so far off the beaten path.
After all, if they were not encouraged to find new ways to hurt their opponent, then they would have straightforwardly inherited and mastered existing long-range projectile techniques that allowed them to rely on existing paradigms to inflict damage on their opponent.
Rui wondered if this demonstration proved that there was merit in the Martial Union adopting the approach that the G'ak'arkan Tribe had taken with its extreme pursuit of individuality. If this little tribe was able to generate so many unique techniques that even the Martial Union chased after, then perhaps it would make sense for the Martial Union to adopt the same, or at least a similar approach to encourage and foster more individuality, even if it was difficult with no immediate benefit of power to the Martial Apprentice.
If these techniques were interesting to Rui, then there were several that really interested Rui.
THWOOM!
A thin potent sound bullet moved at an incredible speed as it pushed through the atmosphere.
Rui widened his eyes as he watched it cover nearly a kilometer in less than a second. He had read about this technique in the reports but realized that there was more going under the surface than he had realized.
('That's an attack made of sound.') He frowned. ('Yet it moves faster than the speed of sound by a huge degree.')
This was generally not possible unless…
('Unless the pressure that she's exerting far exceeds atmospheric pressure.') Rui noted. All sound waves were restricted at the speed of sound due to several factors, such as atmospheric pressure. The pressure that the atmosphere had on air molecules that served as the medium of sound largely decided, when other factors were constant, the speed at which sound propagated through the air.
The pressure constrained the speed and rate at which air molecules bounced at each other, and only in special circumstances could this be changed.
Among these, were ensuring that the pressure of the sound wave exerted that of the shackling atmospheric pressure by a large degree.
('Is that why her attack is so small?') Rui glanced at the bullet-shaped crater that her attack had made on her target wall.
By reducing the size of the projectile, she was increasing the energy density of the wave and thus the pressure that launched the wave forward.
Allowing her to break the threshold that allowed the sound wave to propagate forward. With this, she was able to launch incredibly speedy projectiles that were extremely difficult to dodge.
('This technique… There is so much potential in this technique.') Rui realized.
It could potentially make life a lot easier for Rui, he had to admit.
('There is worth in mastering this technique…') Rui's eyes lit up in interest as several ideas for a new technique flashed through his head.
*****
Author's note: I will be adding more priv chapters, as for what form that takes, that remains to be seen. Also, there will be a mass release in the month of May.
