The Martial Unity

Rui was fascinated by what he heard. Memory manipulation seemed incredibly powerful, but also extremely difficult, based on the information that the Hypnomaster had conveyed. 

It was practically impossible to engage in sophisticated memory manipulation, certainly extraordinarily difficult to do so in the middle of a fight. He could see why the Hypnomaster hadn't included it in the middle of a fight.

"Can you use memory manipulation to make a Martial Artist forget their Martial Path?" Rui asked, curious.

"Yes, but it is extraordinarily difficult." The man sighed. "Even for me, erasing the Martial Path of a Martial Apprentice takes an enormous amount of effort. The already herculean task grows exponentially more difficult with each Realm. I can only damage the Martial Path of Martial Squires, and can only cause temporary setbacks for Martial Seniors."

"I see," Rui was relieved to a certain extent. He would rather die than allow his Martial Path to be erased, he was glad that it was not something that could be done easily. "What about things pertaining to muscle memory?"

"Those are just as hard." The man explained. "It would require much more effort to erase that.

"If someone could perfectly manipulate light and sound, would they be able to perfectly manipulate memories?" Rui asked, curious.

"Probably, but perfect manipulation of light and sound is not something I have heard or seen," The man shook his head. 

"Interesting..." Rui murmured. 

Memory manipulation had more applications and power than he had given it credit for, although it was still quite impractical for combat, perhaps Rui could work on a particularly long-term project for centered around mental techniques.

"Let's do one demonstration," The Master remarked. "You."

He put Rui in front of Ieyasu before his body shifted and twitched, moving in particular ways. Rui even understood what he was saying, he was speaking to Ieyasu the same way that human hypnotists would speak to their targets, trying to get them to forget something.

CLAP

The Master dispelled the trance. Ieyasu became more alert and conscious, glancing around.

"Ieyasu, do you know who this is?" Master Zeamer asked. 

"I've never seen him in my life," Ieyasu replied with confidence and certainty.

"That's what I thought."

It wasn't long before Ieyasu had been brought back into a trance.

"That's so surreal," Rui murmured. 

"Hahaha, mental techniques are among the most surreal techniques of them all," Master Zeamer snorted pridefully. "However, let us move on to a more combat-practical application. Sensory manipulation."

"Illusions?" Rui asked. 

"No, sensory manipulation. Illusions are a subset of sensory manipulation," Master Zeamer stated. "Sensory manipulation includes illusion as well as things like sensory sabotage. This relies purely on non-verbal communication to convey and embed the manipulation and sabotage of a certain sense organ in the mind of the victim. However, how do you convey that? How do you convey the state of being having one's own sense sabotaged?"

Rui considered the matter deeply. Non-verbal communication worked differently from verbal communication. There were no rules of grammar, and no database of vocabulary stored in some dictionaries when it came to non-verbal communication.

If Rui wanted to consciously tell a person that their vision was messed up, then he simply needed to say 'Hey, your vision is messed up.'

But how was he supposed to non-verbally communicate such an inner experience to someone else's subconsciousness non-verbally?

"Since there is no defined set of rules for non-verbal communication and it is all based on common psychological associations, then..." Rui paused for a moment. "Then I'm guessing you have to subject yourself to the same experience through powerful imagination, tricking your own subconsciousness into believing it, causing your body to move in ways that it would if the imagination was real. this would undoubtedly cause the non-verbal communication to convey the experience."

It was a similar principle to the Phantomind Void technique. Except the purpose was to impact the subconsciousness, instead of misdirecting the consciousness. 

"Correct," The man grinned. "You really do catch on quickly. However, it takes a lot of time to develop an image powerful enough. This principle is known as the imagination-embodiment process"

"Can the imagination-embodiment be used to manipulate memories in place of actually manipulating light and sound? Rather than manipulating light and sound to produce the sensory cues to draw out memories associated with those sensory cues, can I rely on non-verbal communication to convey memories and then erase them?" Rui asked.

"It's possible," The Master confirmed. "However, it is even more impractical than manipulating light and sound. Remember that imagination-embodiment requires an immense amount of training to generate a well-developed image that can allow you to embody it well enough to convey it through non-verbal communication. Which means for every memory you want to erase, you need to spend a lot of time training for it, almost like it is its own technique."

Rui narrowed his eyes. "What if there was someone who could rapidly generate these images without having to go through all the effort as a result of a powerful mind and imagination?"

Master Zeamer's eyebrows rose with interest. "I'd say such a person was blessed and ought to make use of their gifts to the fullest."

A smile emerged on Rui's face. "I do intend to."

"Hoho..." The man stroked his long flowing beard. "I sure look forward to that. I'm glad that what you have seen thus far has already motivated you to master the depths of the field of mind. Your Phantomind Void technique is powerful, but it hardly uses your talent for mind to its fullest."

Rui nodded. He had previously been skeptical of the Master's continuous insistence that the grade-ten technique he had been proud of did not harness his mind to produce the greatest results, but he could definitely understand where the man was coming from after seeing what was possible.

The Phantomind Void was a deliberately incomplete technique mostly because assassins did not manipulate the mind, they killed. They had no need for such techniques. However, now that Rui had come across them, he could not ignore them.