The Martial Unity

Pettiness aside, Rui truly wanted to see everything the Hypnomaster had to offer. There were nuances that could be shown and not conveyed, furthermore, with how terrible Master Zeamer's explanations were, Rui did not trust him with accurate explanations of what was really happening.

"Alright then, let's begin," Master Zeamer stated. "Take a good look."

He stared at Ieyasu in the eyes while preparing a strike, much to Rui's surprise. The two Martial Seniors stiffened as a powerful Master-level wave of pressure crashed into them.

SNAP!

Ieyasu's eyes widened as a snapping sound reverberated in his ears all of a sudden overwhelming his auditory nerves painfully, drawing his attention for a moment. That was enough. Rui watched as the Hypnomaster's body moved in a way that seemed to speak to Ieyasu.

Listen to me, it told him.

The man's alertness and sharpness declined until his eyes became vacant.

"That..." Rui recognized what had happened. "...Non-verbal communication?"

"Correct," The man nodded. "Quite sharp of you to notice on your first watch. In ordinary hypnosis, practitioners get the target to voluntarily lower their guard and convey information to the subconscious through speech. In Martial hypnosis, we either misdirect, disorient, or overwhelm the consciousness in order to prevent it from preventing external influences access to the subconsciousness. Instead of verbal communication, we rely on non-verbal communication."

Rui's eyes lit up with fascination and enthusiasm. "That's incredible. Non-verbal communication, if done right, is much faster than verbal communication."

"Correct, it is more practical," The man nodded. "If I had to whisper to my opponents in the middle of a fight every time I wanted to hypnotize them, hypnosis would not be much of a viable technique. That is non-verbal communication is so important."

Rui nodded.

Studies on Earth had shown that an overwhelming majority of the communication between humans was done non-verbally. Many different experiments and studies concluded that anywhere between seventy to ninety-three percent of all communication was non-verbal.

This was not something that ordinary humans could harness in a fight, their minds were incapable of that. However, that didn't apply to Martial Artists, Rui had already mastered Fauna Flow which allowed him to rely on his superior observation as Martial Artists to indulge in this otherwise subconscious communication.

"To bypass the impeding conscious mind through misdirection, sensory overload, disorientation, pain, or poisoning, and then manipulate the subconsciousness instantly through non-verbal communication...that is the art of Martial hypnosis," The man said with pride. "What do you think? Quite impressive? Hm?"

Rui nodded with excitement and enthusiasm. he would be lying if he wasn't impressed with the profound power that the Hypnomaster had already demonstrated, let alone had yet to demonstrate.

"Anyways, let's get back to the topic," He said, turning back to Ieyasu. "This is the trance. It is a state of the victim where a channel to the subconsciousness has been created and secured. In this state, you may hypnotize the victim in any manner you want."

"If he's in a trance, then isn't he vulnerable to physical attacks?" Rui asked. "Isn't it better to just finish him off with a single lethal attack?"

"If he were a normal person, sure, but Martial Artists don't possess such limitations. Even if you put your target in a trance in the middle of a fight, he will still continue to fight you and try to kill you." The Hypnomaster said. "Why don't you try? Go ahead and use your Martial Heart even."

Rui glanced at Ieyasu. "You sure he'll be fine?"

"Just do it."

...BADUMP!

Rui's fist flew out as he launched a swift and powerful blow to the man's head.

BAM!

Ieyasu's arms flew into a guard as streaks of red glowing lines covered his entire body in just a moment as Rui's attack crashed into them.

"Did you really think you could get me that easily?" He narrowed his eyes.

"Wow," Rui murmured, impressed. 

Before Ieyasu could even do anything, his body relaxed as his Martial Heart deactivated, and his eyes grew more vacant and hollow once more. 

Rui furrowed his eyes as he turned back to the Hypnomaster, who had stood behind him. "Did you...?"

"Indeed, this time, I didn't need to misdirect as you had misdirected his attention away from me already," The man explained. "But as you can see, the trance does not make Martial Artists physically vulnerable. It is not as though their consciousness has been shut down, it is still active, the only difference is that we have managed to get it out of the way of subconsciousness. People in trances are fully capable of engaging in a variety of complex and delicate tasks, it is merely the state where the consciousness does not protect the subconsciousness."

Rui nodded, understanding. "So from here on out, we do the actual hypnosis."

"Correct," The man nodded. "Let us begin with memory manipulation. Now, I've already warned you that the core mechanics are... a little not well-understood, so bear with me. But memory essentially works by association. Memories are associated with sensory cues. Seeing the color red would induce a variety of thoughts and images in your mind that are associated with that color. Every memory is associated with sensory clues, generally related to the sensory information stored in the memory."

"I'm conjecturing that would need to you draw those memories around by conveying relevant sensory cues to the target. Like if you wanted to make someone forget about the sky? You would perhaps need to make them see blue?" Rui wondered.

"Indeed, you catch on fast. We resurface memories in this manner and then rely on non-verbal communication to convey to the subconsciousness that memories are invalid. Normal hypnotists do this by speech, but we Martial hypnotists, once again, use non-verbal communication."

"I see..." Rui murmured, immersed in his thoughts. "However, in order to generate relevant sensory cues, you need to be capable of manipulating light and air to a certain extent"

"Indeed," The man nodded. "That is the hard part and why memory manipulation is very difficult mid-combat."