Chapter 179 Phantom Step

He picked the scroll for the technique out of the slot, examining it happily. He was quite satisfied with the significant improvement to his lethality.

The technique costed around four hundred martial credits, despite the fact that it could cause more damage. The reason for this was because the Stinger had very low flexibility. It could be executed as a straight kick, or side kicks, to varying heights. But the fact of the matter was it required a leg, and unless the user trained the large toes of both feet for the technique, it could only be used with one leg.

Outer Convergence was less devastating with every attack, but fundamentally boosted the power and speed of nearly all Martial maneuvers in general. It wasn't limited to one leg or one type of attack and could even boost other fields if used cleverly. But it lacked the lethality, in turn.

The two techniques were equally high-grade with high-difficulty of mastery that made them more affordable, and had different strengths and weaknesses.

With this, Rui's offense was not to be messed with, he was probably still inferior to Fae in this regard, but he should still be comparable enough to her in this regard once he mastered this technique.

He moved on, stepping out of the offense-oriented section. He had no intention of purchasing any more pure offensive techniques.

When he walked out, he paused.

('Now what?') Rui wondered. He wasn't sure. He sauntered around a bit, eying the different sections in the Apprentice Library, as they eventually settled on one.

The maneuvering section.

('It's been a while since I've visited that section.') Rui mused. He hadn't purchased a maneuvering-oriented technique since he purchased Parallel Walk two training sessions ago.

('That was a long ass time ago.') Rui felt nostalgic.

It actually was less than a year ago, but so much had happened since then, that Rui felt it was truly a long time ago.

He shrugged. It was as good a choice as any. He didn't even necessarily have to pick a maneuvering technique either. If he didn't like what he was seeing, he could just move on. There was no reason to pick something he didn't want to pick.

He came across the many techniques held in the maneuvering section, many of which he had seen before.

[Godspeed]

A technique that allows the user to momentarily surpass the speed of sound by accumulating power in the form of muscular potential energy, allowing them to surpass the reaction time of most Martial Apprentices, launching a clean knockout blow that was almost impossible to avoid.

It was one of the few techniques of the entire library technique that had grade ten difficulty, just like Heart Permeation, Void Step and All-Seeing Eye.

Rui was aware of the technique, this was the technique with which Kane had beaten Fae singlehandedly, and the technique that had forced Kyrie to stop holding back and limiting herself. It was an incredible technique with highest of efficiencies. If successfully well-executed, Rui doubted there was a single Martial Apprentice that could avoid being defeated. Even Fae, who was among the strongest offense specialists in the Academy could barely launch a failed counter before she got knocked out.

The technique had some significant conditions and drawbacks, otherwise Kane would just go around one-shotting Martial Apprentices like he was a Martial Squire!

Still, the fact that Kane mastered it in half a year was impressive, because this was the kind of technique that took several years of unhindered dedicated training to master.

When it came to mastering maneuvering techniques, Kane was unrivalled. Not even Rui with his reincarnated-enhanced mind and reincarnated-enhanced potion tolerance was above him in this particular regard. He could just drink up maneuvering techniques like they were juice.

The reason he was still slower than Rui on average was because he was average at learning techniques from other fields.

Still, Rui didn't think he could master Godspeed, nor did he feel the urge to so he left it at that.

He went through the many techniques, many of which he had seen before, many of which were new, until he stumbled upon something interesting.

[Phantom Step]

A technique centered around creating illusions with extremely high-quality convincing feints based on accurate and precise trajectories as well as appropriate shifts in center of gravity.

It was a technique with equal amounts of flexibility and high-efficiency, which resulted in an overall high-quality technique, it was quite reasonably priced too.

This wasn't the first time Rui had seen techniques with the concept of feinting incorporated into them. In fact, he had mastered one himself.

Mirage Dive was a technique that he had mastered two training stages ago. It used a feint grappling attack to create an opening for a takedown.

"Hmm..." Rui pondered. This technique was a variable that would allow him to create variables to end the battle or turn around a losing battle by exploiting an opening created by the technique. Furthermore, this technique's surprise effects could be used synergistically with the surprise effects of Blink, and also could be used as a tool to successfully land the Stinger kick.

He could increase the likelihood of all his techniques working better directly or indirectly thanks to Phantom Step!

All in all, it had good compatibility and synergy with his existing techniques and Martial Art.

"Alright then." Rui plopped the scroll out of the slot and walked away from the maneuvering section.

The technique had costed around three hundred and eighty martial credits. Not unreasonable given what it was touted to be capable of. Along with the Stinger technique, his total expenditure was seven hundred and eighty martial credits.

Leaving him a remaining of four hundred and forty martial credits.

"Enough for one high-grade technique, or two mediocre techniques." He mused. He didn't even consider purchasing mediocre techniques, if he wanted those, he could go back to the foundational techniques and pick four or five techniques from there.

His Martial Art had already developed to a point where it needed high-quality techniques to grow significantly stronger!

"That leaves one last technique."