The Martial Unity

The lecture continued as she began delving into greater detail bit by bit, as time passed. Rui kept up with every word she uttered, actively using the Mind Palace to store and organize information in a manner that made it the easiest to access at any given time.

The value of the lecture kept unfolding as she went in-depth into the paradigms of assassinations, conveying the very essence of her experiences to Rui in a compact information package.

"I'm surprised you have been able to keep up so well," She remarked by the end of the seminar. "Most people are lost by this time even with notes. This usually takes some time to digest."

Rui shrugged. "I've always been good with handling a lot of information."

"Then again, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, considering how powerful your mind is." She remarked. "Regardless, we've finished the boring theory. Now it's time for me to actually begin training you."

"What exactly does that entail?" Rui asked with a glint of enthusiasm. 

"I told you, didn't I? I'm going to provide you with a good foundation that will allow you to kill the person you want to." She said. "There are some foundational techniques that I can impart to you, better than any other you'll find out there. Once you have mastered them, you won't be as limited and will have many options at hand if you want to kill someone. That said..."

She glanced at him. "You are a Martial Senior, which means that there is a limit to what I can pass on to you directly. In the Senior Realm, techniques need to cater to both the Martial Body and the Martial Heart, both of which vary from Martial Artist to Martial Artist."

Rui understood her predicament. Techniques squeezed the untapped potential and power from within a person. In order to do that, they needed to be attuned to the person. Techniques for someone with a lightweight body were going to be very different from those with a heavyweight body.

"That is why what I intend to pass on to you are principles rather than the techniques themselves." She explained. "You can apply those principles yourself and form your own technique surrounding them, and it will naturally be attuned to you. You can even play around and diverge from it if you think it will suit you more."

Rui actually preferred that.

Not that he was strictly against the Silent Shadow of all people teaching, he was against being denied the opportunity to imbue his own Martial Art techniques with individuality and attuning them to himself.

He had also grown far too accustomed to developing his own techniques, it was far too difficult for him to diverge from that and simply engage in mindless training.

"Now then, based on our lecture. Tell me what you lack when it comes to being well-rounded for assassinations?" She asked.

Rui thought for a moment. "Range versatility. Although my long-range technique is powerful, it has its limitations because of the fact that it needs to be undetectable. Thus against those with passive defenses, it is powerless."

The fact of the matter was that if someone had extra layers of protection, especially at the Squire level, the difficulty of assassinating his target with Death's Sympathy rose significantly since the technique relied on there being only three layers of protection around the skull.

Because of the range, the undetectability significantly constrained its power and thus its ability to kill well-protected individuals who actually invested resources into their immediate and passive protection.

It also couldn't work in a close-range setting since the activation of the Mighty Roar Flash Blast technique was something that drew a lot of attention, making it difficult for the technique to actually catch the target off-guard and cleanly if they were protected by Martial Artists.

"Good point." She noted. "You are almost constrained and impotent in a close-quarters encounter with a well-protected target. That's not a good thing. I can impart a number of principles to allow you to bypass defenses with close-quarter techniques."

Rui didn't disagree, but he had other ideas in mind. "I actually have a technique template of my own for a close-quarter assassination technique. I would rather realize it than rely on something provided by someone else."

She nodded. "That's fine as well. If you think you can develop an effective killing weapon for close quarters, then it will be better to rely on yourself entirely. However, remember that assassination techniques are not the same as combat techniques. Assassination techniques maximize killing potential in exchange for combat practicality, man assassination techniques require forehand knowledge, or preparation, or an element of surprise in order to have a higher probability of successfully killing."

Rui nodded. "I do intend to create an assassination technique, not a combat technique."

Simply developing a lethal attack in close quarters was not enough to call it an assassination technique didn't work. Any technique that viably could be used in combat normally was a combat technique. 

"Good." She nodded. "Now, putting aside range versatility, what else do you lack?"

Rui considered for a moment. "Stealth. Not being identified as a threat by your target is fundamental to exploiting the element of surprise that every assassin has."

She nodded. "Not being identified as a threat allows you far more flexibility in both direct and indirect assassinations. Every assassin must learn stealth, being it avoiding detection or identification, in order to effectively assassinate. You have already learned a technique that allows you to disguise your perceived threat level to a target, haven't you?"

Rui nodded. "I create an image of weakness out of imagination and embody that image in my consciousness and unconsciousness. It allows me to completely mask my power."

"Hm, that technique is actually not a stealth technique." Master Reina noted. "It's a technique meant to misguide the accuracy of your opponent's evaluation, causing them to underestimate you in combat. However, because your consciousness is so powerful, you are able to completely hide your power. It is completely different from the principles of normal power-concealing techniques."