The Martial Unity

"Tsk tsk, you're too stiff, you've got to immerse yourself into the illusion, young man," Master Zeamer tutted. "In the case of self-hypnosis, there is no external force misdirecting your attention."

Rui exhaled, heaving a sigh as he tried to submerge himself inside the image that he had created for himself. In this case, he was trying to trick his subconsciousness into causing its perception of time to slow down.

This was a phenomenon known as tachypsychia. 

Unlike the images that he generated for a lot of his other techniques, he didn't have a lot of memories to rely on to create this image, thus he had to rely on pure imagination. That was the reason why he was in trouble with the fourth hypnosis technique project which was an upgrade to the Godspeed technique.

This was a direction of upgrade that was entirely different from the direction that Kane had gone down, which used electrical stimulation to speed up his reflexes significantly. 

Their means of upgrading the Godspeed technique was different, but it reflected their strengths and affinities. Kane had stuck to amplifying his reflexes and reactions exclusively to a high enough degree while Rui had chosen to slow down his consciousness' perception of time using hypnosis.

"Here, let me help you out with building the image," Master Zeamer remarked as he activated a misdirection technique.

Rui glanced to his right as he felt an enormous presence that drew his attention. Of course, there was nothing there when he looked. It was a simple misdirection technique.

Yet even though he wasn't using his Martial Heart at all, and a very small portion of his Martial Mind, Rui was unable to resist the overwhelming technique. 

Instantly, Master Zeamer had already manipulated his subconsciousness with swift non-verbal communication. Rui's perception of time had already begun to slow down to a crawl. The world around him moved in slow motion.

Except for Master Zeamer, who had no problem keeping up with even his slowed-down perception of time. 

Rui heaved a heavy breath, having activated Godspeed. Instantly he felt his body lightening with a surge of power. He moved around with the technique, this time, however, he didn't need to rely on thoughtless reflexes to control of the technique. He could still rely on his perception of time being slowed down.

'Incredible...' Rui moved his fingers and arms around. 'I have no issue controlling Godspeed at all.'

The Godspeed technique was already a remarkably powerful technique even without this upgrade, it would be even more capable now that he had added this element to the technique.

He would be able to use the technique with a lot fewer risks if he could tap into this power on command.

'I need to remember this sensation.' Rui closed his eyes as he added did his best to record this memory as well as he could. He also made sure to record the change in his perception of time when the Master hypnotized him and manipulated his perception of time.

It wasn't too long later until it wore off, however. 

"Huff..." Rui heaved a sigh as he returned to meditation, accessing the memory of the experience that Master Zeamer had generated.

Self-hypnosis worked differently from normal hypnosis due to several differences caused by the fact that the user was the target.

Firstly, there was no non-verbal communication. The conscious mind directly communicates with the subconscious mind by embodying an image. Thus the quality and speed at which one could not only generate a powerful image but also embody it was what mattered when it came to self-hypnosis.

Thankfully, Rui had extreme affinities for both, thus his aptitude for self-hypnosis was high. That was why although it was difficult, he was sure that he would be able to master the technique.

Out of all the four projects that he was working on, he was definitely having the least amount of ease with the self-hypnosis technique and the pain hypnosis technique to sabotage defensive Martial Artists.

With the defense-sabotage technique, he wanted to make sure that he didn't just inflict pain, but he inflicted pain that corresponded with whatever attacks he landed on his target.

For example, if he landed a blow on the target's arm, he wanted the target to feel a sharp pain in his bones and on the flesh that was in the area of contact. That was particularly challenging and was going to take time from his side. 

He also specifically chose parts of the Squire evolution breakthrough process that would make sense to recreate for any given strike. He did not want there to be any incongruence between the strikes that he generated and the pain felt. The moment there was any incongruence, the illusion would become a lot less effective.

All in all, he had his work cut out in front of him for all the technique projects that he was working on. Ordinarily, he would never dare take up so many at the same time, but alas, he didn't have too much of a choice.

His progress with mental techniques was high. This meant that things that would take too long were a lot more manageable and quick for Rui. On top of that, he doubted that he would receive something as invaluable as the tutelage of the Hypnomaster if he tried postponing these techniques to a later date.

The Hypnomaster taught him the most efficient ways to develop images and how to embody them in the best manner to generate the necessary non-verbal communication to manipulate the opponent's subconscious mind.

On top of that, he significantly accelerated his progress by hypnotizing Rui in the manner of his technique to allow him to get a good understanding of the imagination that he needed.

All in all, it was worth it to spend some extra time in Cloudia if it meant getting the best quality techniques, and more importantly, a strong foundation to develop high-quality mental techniques in the future. The training principles and foundations that the Hypnomaster would pass on to him would be of great help in the future as well.