The Martial Unity

Rui knew that going for a pass would land him in a similar situation as she was in right now, being targeted for a pass. Not that he didn't have experience being targeted. But the quality of Martial Squires in the second round was vastly higher than that of the preliminary contest.

If he was ganged up on here, then he had a very real probability of losing. Not even he could handle so many grade-ten Martial Squires for too long.

However, being the one to attack pass-gainers also meant competing with not only them but also the Martial Artist who gained the pass in the first place.

Furthermore, they would most certainly use the storm as a shield. Since the contestants would have long passed through the storm to acquire their own passes if they could.

('Tsk, such a pain,') Rui snorted. ('Surely, there must be a way to acquire a pass without the hassle of other contestants one way or another.')

His eyes widened as he came up with an interesting idea, breaking out into a grin.

He had a plan.

He quickly began the preparations as he rapidly began building a predictive model for the tornado and the Master's training technique.

What he was trying to do was map out the corresponding outcomes of the Master's breathing patterns and the resulting tornado. He needed to focus his mind to the absolute limit to be able to detect the patterns of her extremely rapid breathing.

Thankfully, she wasn't especially trying to confound anybody with her breathing patterns, it was clear that she was simply indulging in her own training. What the training was, Rui had no idea, after all, if the tornado were what the technique was all about, then it would be a Master-level technique and they would have all long been dead.

As it was, it was equivalent to a Senior-level technique, which was an entire Realm above them, and below her. Although they were Realm below it, the reason that they weren't all straight-up dead was because the power of the technique had been distributed over an extremely large amount of area and volume. Meaning each Martial Squire experienced only a tiny fraction of the full power of the Senior-level tornado.

And the fact that getting the pass was still an insurmountable task to most of them spoke volumes of the power of the Senior Realm.

Regardless, Rui was just barely able to keep up with her blurringly-fast breathing patterns that generated the tornado. He quickly formed predictive models that allowed him to predict the future state of the tornado based on her breathing.

He got up. Yet this time, no one paid him attention.

Just as he hoped.

"Fuuuuu…" He exhaled deeply, activating the Godspeed technique. Instantly his weight reduced massively as he felt a surge of power.

His eyes were fixed forward, yet it wasn't the storm he was watching.

It was the Martial Artist producing that storm. Riemannian Echo barely kept track of her movements, but it managed. After all, this was the same technique that allowed him to sense, predict, and dodge the Root.

('Now!') Rui lashed forward at a blinding pace.

He bobbed and weaved through the narrow gaps of the storm, putting his acrobatic ability to the absolute test. He flashed forward, squeezing through narrow pockets that he predicted ahead of time watching Master Uma breathe.

It was quite unnerving because he wasn't even paying attention to the winds.

He couldn't afford to.

Had she generated sound instead of wind currents, then he would have been able to use the ODA System to predict how it would all unfold. Unfortunately, he could not do that, thus he had to restrict himself to analyzing the source of the storm to see through it.

He simply trusted in the predictions he made, without so much as faltering, one misstep and he would get blown away with ease, especially with VOID Forestep.

The other Martial Squires noticed the powerful technique in play and immediately prepared themselves.

It appeared that there was another who could come to possess a pass very soon. Since that was the case, they intended to pounce on him the second he appeared!

Squire Meera heaved in respite as her burden lightened with some of her attackers choosing to wait for Rui.

Everybody held their breath in anticipation for the second pass-holder to appear.

It had become quite evident that Squire Meera was impossible to steal from. She kept muttering something about being ugly and had managed to protect her pass with remarkable success.

If she was too much, then they would have to settle for the next one. They definitely had no intention of letting Rui as well as the few others that had been able to overcome the storm and gain a pass.

They waited, poised in action for Rui to appear.

They waited, impatient.

They waited, frustrated.

And they simply kept waiting.

"Where did he go?!"

If he had been blown away, he would have appeared outside by now. If he got a pass, he would have appeared by now. What other outcome was there?

"Their perspectives are too limited… Wouldn't you agree?" Rui remarked, smirking as he clutched his pass, turning his head towards the woman seated midair right before him.

The two of them were in the only pocket inside the tornado that was devoid of winds. The immediate area around Master Uma inside the ring table.

She opened her eyes, sharply paying attention to the young man who was grinning at her, sitting right opposite to him. She simply studied him with her piercing eyes, continuing her breathing technique all the while.

Suddenly, he heard her voice.

She had but one question.

"What are you boy?"

Rui raised an eyebrow as he realized that she hadn't opened her mouth. She had manipulated the winds to produce a sound that identically matched her own voice verbatim!

That was an extraordinarily fine manipulation of the air, but it was the words she conveyed that held his attention.