The Martial Unity

('It really is a shame because had I possessed the knowledge and experience with creating techniques that I possess now, back when I was a Martial Apprentice, I would have come up with a lot more techniques that would have been quite amazing at the Apprentice-level,')

Unfortunately, in the Apprentice Realm, his familiarity with the concept of individuality was incomparably lower than it was today as a Martial Squire. Back then he underestimated the importance of it as far as creating techniques that progressed one's Martial Path due to the individuality and creating techniques that were compatible with his Martial Path and his Martial Body.

Back then he had been too fascinated with the techniques that the Martial Union possessed and had still been exploring what Martial Art was even capable of in the first place. By the time he had obtained enough experience and understanding of Martial Art and Martial Art techniques, he had already reached the peak of the Apprentice Realm when he created the Hungry Pain technique, his altered version of the Mind Switch technique.

('Maybe I can create techniques for Max and Mana,') Rui shrugged.

Given the fact that he had a good understanding of their Martial Paths and had already made updated predictive models for their Martial Art in the Apprentice Realm.

('I could potentially create techniques that have a high affinity and synergy with them but…') Rui sighed

They would gain zero individuality from such a technique, even if it made their immediate power jump, it would hinder their long-term growth.

The Martial Academy gave them enough support and help, he did not want to give them anymore.

After all, none of the Martial Families of the Martial Apprentices at school ever intervened to boost their growth at school. Not even Fae's family, a prestigious and powerful Martial Family in the Kandrian Empire.

('Anyways, putting that thought aside, I should focus on getting the third project off while the first two stall,') Rui focused. ('For now, I guess I can focus on exploring the potential ways I can improve my speed.')

He had ruled out biological mechanisms, which left him with physics for the most part. He highly doubted that there was anything in chemistry that could help him, he was never that good with it in the first place either.

('Physics it is,')

Could he somehow increase the efficiency of the power used to accelerate his body? It would result in a greater force that would increase his acceleration and top speed.

('Hm, I can't think of any good way to do that.')

It was true that the human body was not the most efficient, but his movements had already been quite refined as they would for quite some time, and no principle of physics he could think of could improve that at the moment.

('If I can't increase the force that propels me forward, then maybe I can decrease the hurdles that hamper my speed,') Rui wondered.

Friction was something that opposed all motion fundamentally, but it was actually not something that was bad in this case. It was quite necessary. Without the friction of the ground, people would not be able to even stand straight.

However, that was not the only kind of friction that opposed movements. There was also the friction generated by the atmosphere known as drag.

Drag was inconsequential to slower movements, that's why normal humans did not notice it on a daily, but it became more relevant the faster one was. This was because the drag was proportional to the square of the speed of the body experiencing the drag. Meaning, if one became twice as fast as before, drag would be four times greater than before. If one grew to be thrice as fast as before, then drag would become nine times greater than before.

Now, what would happen if a human ran one thousand times faster than before?

Drag would follow through and become a literal one million times greater than what they would be experiencing before.

That is the situation that Martial Squires had found themselves in. They experienced a drag that was millions of times greater than what normal humans experienced. What was a pleasant breeze to the latter, was an oppressive force and a wall that constantly opposed their motion.

('What if I created a technique that mitigated that?') Rui's eyes lit up with interest.

If he could, he would become substantially faster due to the lack of resistance. The only question was how would he go about manipulating the air such that the air would no longer hinder him. The problem was that he didn't know of a way to do that.

('Breathing techniques!') Rui's eyes lit up with excitement as he finally came up with an idea that was exciting enough to have him fully motivated. ('Breathing techniques allow for extensive manipulation of the air!')

He was quite confident that it was possible to do what he was looking to accomplish.

('What if I go further than just getting air resistance out of the way?') The idea further developed in his mind. ('What if I make the air not just not hind my movements, but also propel me forward?')

This was where he was entering dicey territory, he had to admit that he had no idea whether this was possible or not for the most part.

('Then I'll have to get to exploring and testing existing breathing technique models and see if it is possible to manipulate the air in such a way that I can erase air resistance and instead, have the atmosphere propel me forward towards the direction that I want to move in.

('This probably still won't be enough to beat Kane,') Rui noted. As long as Kane had the Godspeed technique, he would forever be ahead of Rui as far as peak speed went and was still beyond Rui's reach even without it, but Rui was content not being embarrassingly slow compared to him in travel.