Rui was pleasantly surprised to see Kane. He didn't have anybody else he could consider a friend in the settlement. Stemple and Zeyra were firmly assistants and no more, and Senior Ceeran was a friendly Senior benefactor with mutual interests.
He could not talk to anybody else too casually given his position in the settlement. Kane, on the other hand, had not changed his interactions with Rui even the tiniest bit. This was something that Rui appreciated.
"So, what was that technique you were using?" Kane asked with a curious expression.
Rui would have been more opaque and vague had anybody else asked, but he had no compunctions about being honest with Kane.
"It's a technique where I combine multiple attacks into a single much stronger one," Rui explained briefly, yet Kane's head cocked back a bit.
"I've never heard of a technique like that before," Kane frowned "Wouldn't that mean you can surpass your limits greatly to match much higher grade offense?"
"No, unfortunately," Rui grimaced briefly.
In the past few months, Rui had only come to master double superposition. It was an accomplishment he was very proud of, of course. Still, it wasn't the limit of what he wanted to accomplish. He wanted to be able to extend to a higher number of attacks stacking into a single attack.
He had been attempting a threefold superposition in his training, but it blasted violently more than half the time. He hadn't yet memorized the correct timing as he had with the two-fold superposition.
It took time, effort, and experience to slowly get better at nailing the timing. If not for the fact that he had been solving equations to help him achieve proper constructive superposition, he would have taken forever to reach where he had.
"It has many limitations," Rui sighed. "I won't be able to match high-grade Martial Squires just yet, at most I would struggle to keep up."
"Why's that?" Kane frowned. "That attack just now looked really strong."
"It's because I need to launch two attacks to form that one attack, while a high-grade long-range Martial Artist needs to launch only one attack to achieve that level of power. They can fire far more strikes of that level of power in a period of time than I can."
"Ah, that makes sense," Kane nodded. "You really have been into long-range stuff recently, haven't you?"
"I suppose I have." Rui shrugged.
It couldn't be helped, soon after creating the Pathfinder technique, he was thrown into a mission to which long-range Martial Art techniques were highly relevant.
"Hehe… Do you plan to become a long-range Martial Artist?" Kane teased him.
"Hah. No," Rui shook his head, snorting. "I will always strive to maintain my balance as an all-rounder. Once this mission is over, I will go for new projects that balance me out as a Martial Artist even more."
He had been becoming increasingly long-range in his Martial Art inclination. When he got back to the Kandrian Empire, he intended to fix that problem immediately. He even had some consideration for how to go about it.
The two conversed for some more time.
"Glad to hear that some of our Martial Squires have mastered the techniques of the G'ak'arkan Tribe," He said.
In the past six months since the deals had been signed, many of the Martial Squires had finally mastered the techniques that they were sent to obtain. Now they were simply in the process of 'giving' those techniques to the Martial Union by allowing the Martial Union to thoroughly test the techniques through and through, while also having them train the basics to several other Martial Squires.
Rui had to go through this for a brief period as well.
It was necessary to allow the Martial Union to get their hands on the technique while also having a few more Martial Squires learn the core of the training regimes so that the Martial Union could gain the full ability to spread the technique to other Martial Artists when needed.
That was how it ensured that a technique never died. By trying to ensure that they spread.
Of course, this wasn't always possible such as with grade-ten difficulty techniques that could be propagated. The Martial Union had no choice but to make do with what they had, at least, they had to strive to ensure that it wouldn't happen with other techniques.
"Which means that we'll be leaving soon…" Kane said with a mixed tone.
On one hand, he did appreciate being far from his family.
On the other hand, he also felt bored staying on the island.
"Don't look so sullen," Rui tutted. "I know you want to stay away from the Kandrian Empire, but there are other ways to do that you know, other missions. For example, I heard that a new dungeon had opened months ago. Maybe you could choose to head there."
Kane considered the suggestion. "That's not bad, though dungeons are not my specialty."
"This one is different from Apprentice-level dungeons that humans can enter and colonize like the Serevian Dungeon." Rui shook his head. "It poses too much mental pressure on ordinary humans due to its danger, thus it cannot be colonized by humans. The only ones who may enter it are… Martial Squires."
Kane's interest was piqued. If only Martial Squires could enter, then that served as a much greater degree of security than if all Realms of Martial Artists could enter.
It meant that his family was extremely restricted in what they could do if they randomly decided to use a forceful method with him.
"Also… The Martial Union won't be deploying external Martial Artists like us," Rui smirked. "You know what that means?"
"What?" Kane gave him a wary glance.
"It means that you and I would have greater freedom in how we choose to go about that mission," Rui grinned. "It's a rare chance. We don't have to follow the annoying protocols and other shit that we have to deal with missions. We can jump in, and retrieve treasure by ourselves!"
