THUD

The two of them collapsed to the ground, exhausted.

“Good job you two,” Rui remarked with a smile. “The two of you have grown stronger.”

“But we still couldn’t even land a proper blow on you even though you were moving at a normal speed!” Max complained, earning a nod from Mana.

Rui had held back his movement and reaction speed to human level by deliberating delaying his movements to match those of normal humans, yet despite his raw movements being that of a normal human being, and often slower than them, they were unable to land even a single clean strike on him!

Max and Mana were dumbfounded at how Rui was able to accomplish such a feat. Their understanding of combat had not yet matured to a level where they could actually grasp the means by which Rui was able to pull off such a feat.

“I’ve told you many a time, have I not?” Rui chuckled, amused. “Accuracy of timing and placement matter more than raw speed.”

“But what does that actually even mean?” Mana raised an eyebrow.

“I can predict your movements rather easily, I just need to evade or deflect at the right time and place that I know will be enough to deal with predicted strikes,” Rui shrugged.

“Can you teach us how to do that?” Mana asked, intrigued.

Rui shook his head. “Most Martial Artists obtain the ability to predict simpler and primitive combat styles like yours after lots and lots of experience. Although there are exceptions, I am afraid they cannot apply to you.”

The two of the children sighed, looking crestfallen.

“Cheer up, the two of you are making respectable progress,” Rui tried to coax them, much to no avail.

He decided to try and give them some good news.

“I’ve decided to switch your Apprentice mentor,” Rui explained.

The two of them looked at Rui with knitted eyebrows. “But why?”

“I want to expose you to all kinds of Martial Art,” Rui explained. “It helps to broaden your perspective regarding what the two of you aspire to pursue. I’m going to be commissioning all kinds of Martial Artists with all kinds of Martial Art for you to experience. And let me tell you, there aren’t just a few. Aren’t you excited to see just the kinds of things that Martial Artists are capable of?”

The two of them lit up with eager interest at Rui’s words. As avid admirers of Martial Artists, the two of them were quite excited at the prospect of meeting all kinds of Martial Artists.

Of course, the reason Rui did this was that he wanted to hasten the discovery of their Martial Path. This required both external and internal exploration. Rui had been doing a great job of significantly hastening their internal exploration by exposing them to the VOID algorithm turned down to match their prowess.

However, he hadn’t given them too much of the latter. They needed to be exposed to different kinds of Martial Art, otherwise, they would likely never come to the realization of what their affinity out of all these possibilities was.

In fact, that might have been the reason why Crea broke through earlier than Mana and Max despite receiving less tutelage from Rui than those two. While Rui greatly accelerated her self-awareness regarding her patterns and combat style, her strong foundation as the daughter of a Martial Senior who was also loaded, gave her vastly more exposure to Martial Art than Max and Mana, who, up until now, had only met two Martial Artists in their life.

(‘Tsk, had I come to this realization earlier, they might have already broken through by now.’) Rui sighed.

Of course, this was not necessarily true. Rui didn’t really possess the funds to commission Apprentice mentors full-time back when he was a Martial Apprentice. He had commissioned a mentor for them pretty much as early as he could financially afford to.

If it weren’t for his debt, he would have been able to pay for tutelage much earlier.

(‘Oh wait, I completely forgot about my debt.’) Rui immediately realized.

It couldn’t be helped, because it didn’t have a time limit and didn’t snowball interest, it didn’t put too much pressure outside biting a chunk of all of his paychecks, however, once he got used to that it simply became normal.

(‘Currently, I actually have the funds to get rid of my debt in full… Should I?’) Rui wondered.

On one hand, it would eventually get cleared even if he didn’t do so himself, as he grew stronger, he would be completing higher grade missions that would yield even greater income than he currently had and he was already able to manage with what he currently had. There was no need to spend a solid chunk of revenue on paying back his debt.

On the other hand, there was a saying that a man in debt was never truly free. The psychological freedom of getting rid of his debt alone was worth it at the end of the day. It was not nice having to constantly remember that he had a large sum of money to pay back to the Martial Academy for his time in it.

(‘That alone with the perma-augmentation potion, as well as the tutors for the kids will be my initial spending.’) Rui nodded inwardly, having made up his mind regarding this issue.

He didn’t intend to spend the rest of his Martial credits immediately, however, he was not opposed to spending them on pricey things here and there that he needed that he otherwise might not have deigned to purchase due to a lack of funds.

For now, however, he intended to get back into completing missions, rather than jumping into training back again. He was eager to put his new techniques to the test.

(‘Perhaps I should undertake a mission that allows me to use the Flux Earther technique in the field for once.

It was a less flashy and shocking move and also a mundane part of normal combat, thus it wasn’t as impactful as the Pathfinder technique, but it was something Rui looked forward to using.