The Martial Unity

BOOM BOOM BOOM

Rui and Fae exchanged powerful blows with each other. Fae pummeled at him with palms while Rui returned the offense with fists.

Rui had spent a lot of time sparring with Martial Apprentices who had mastered the techniques he was training with currently. While he did have trouble initially with Blink because there was no one in his immediate friend circle or acquaintances was a stealth-oriented Martial Artist, he had no trouble with finding someone to train his Outer Convergence technique with.

Fae had grown to be a close friend of his in the past year, and she had even helped him with training offense-class Apprentice-level techniques before, so going to her was a no-brainer decision.

Unlike the sparring training with Dalen, their combat was a lot less restricted. They only limited offense to Outer Convergence, while using only one technique for the other aspects of combat.

This was because Outer Convergence could be dodged in real fights and Rui needed to forge experience in dealing with evasive defense and counters to Outer Convergence in real fights.

Of course, they had decided to limit the number of techniques they used for defense and maneuvering because otherwise Rui had too much of an advantage.

Limiting striking offense to Outer Convergence hurt Fae far more than it hurt Rui since a little over half of Fae's Martial Art was comprised of striking oriented techniques, while Rui had only three, including his rough partially-learnt Outer Convergence.

WHOOSH

He sidestepped a weighted palm from Fae, before launching a right hook to her jaw. Fae unhesitatingly deflected the strike with an elbow, redirecting Rui's hook while simultaneously launching a hand jab technique with her finger tips.

BAM

Rui grimaced as he skidded back.

"That's new." He glanced at her with a curious look. "Elbows? Hand jabs instead of out ward palm attacks"

It wasn't the usage of elbows that was surprising. After all, Earth had martial arts where elbows were dominant features. Martial arts such as Muay Thai, a traditional martial art from Thailand, and Silat, a traditional martial art from Myanmar, used elbows more than they used the hands.

Muay Thai in particular used elbows offensively while Silat used them defensively and counter-offensively.

"Surprised?" Fae smirked. "I'm trying to solidify my striking combat prowess at all ranges in close quarters combat. Palm attacks are powerful but they have narrow flexibility as far as range goes. So, I decided to learn the Hooking Elbow technique. It's a mid-grade counter-offensive elbow centric technique that allows me to keep up with opponents even at dangerously close ranges."

Rui understood. "I see, and palm jabs have a longer range than outwardly open palm attacks, allowing you to handle somewhat longer-range close quarters combat better."

Fae nodded, in response, before taking her usual open-palm stance before charging.

('Tsk, no chill.') Rui tutted inwardly, as he launched several Outer Convergence kicks.

POW POW POW

Kicks were a good tool against someone who exclusively used her arms for offense, since legs had longer range than arms, he could effectively continuously attack her while she was unable to attack him.

Unfortunately, his Outer Convergence was still too flawed as she cleanly neutralized his attacks with her own.

Another problem he was suffering was that kicks made it difficult to maneuver, since one leg was often mid-air, meaning if Fae was able to handle his kicks, she would be able close the distance faster than Rui was able to maneuver top maintain it.

BAM BAM BAM

She did just that, managing to close in, landing a flurry of palm attacks.

Rui tried matching them with his own Outer Convergence, but it was too weak in comparison.

BOOM

She managed to land a clean strike, as Rui fell backwards.

"Huff..." She exhaled. "That was not bad, it's actually quite remarkable considering you've only been training for a little under two months along with other techniques." She complimented.

"Thanks."

"But, it's still too rough." She critiqued. "There are two elements to Outer Convergence; Drawing power from each muscle group individually, and then accumulating and converging that power in your strike by having all your muscles cooperate in perfect sync. You're lacking in both those departments."

"Yeah, I know." Rui replied, sighing. "It's hard for me to get used to the increased mental load of synchronizing and managing each of the muscles."

"It took me four months to fully get a hand of it." She said. "So don't be discouraged, as I said, your progress is pretty good."

Rui nodded. "I hope I can master it as soon as possible; I want to get finish some more missions and purchase a few more techniques as soon as possible."

"What's the hurry?" Fae asked, curiously.

"I want to be as strong as possible when the Kandrian Martial Festival rolls around."

"Ah, yes, the Martial Festival." She murmured with mixed emotions.

"Do you dislike it too?" He guessed.

"It's not particularly pleasant." She shrugged. "But it is an opportunity for me to bring prestige to my family."

"So you do intend to participate after all."

"Yes, in both the Martial Academic Contest and other prestigious contests that are hosted every Festival."

"Wait the Academies also hosts tournaments during the festival?"

"Of course, they do." She threw an odd look at Rui. "There are thirteen branches of the across the thirty-nine states of the Kandrian Empire. The Academies conduct an inter-Academy tournament. Each Academy elects representatives in a manner of their own discretion and the representatives compete against each other in a large tournament. The winners usually get a huge credit prize among other things you see."

Rui's eyes glimmered as he reveled in the idea of participating and competing against the best of the best.

"Do the other Academies have prominent and powerful descendants of the Martial Community?" Rui asked excitedly.

"Yes, our batch and the batch before and after ours in total have a large number of Martial descendents now that I think about it. This tournament is bound to be a contentious one."

Rui imploded with excitement at those words.

He couldn't wait for the Festival to arrive already!