“An esoteric substance or compound that reacts to gravity?” Julian frowned. “Such things do exist but… Why on Gaia could you poss-“

“They exist?!” Rui’s grin was wide.

Julian frowned as he furrowed his eyebrows, taking a good look at his younger brother. Usually, he possessed quite a composed temperament. Even at an extremely young age, Rui demonstrated the serene patience that one would really only see in the elderly.

The only exceptions were when a matter was related to Martial Art, then for some reason, he became as excited as a child.

Julian had no doubt that whatever this was, this had to be related to his Martial Art. Not even all the wealth in the world could shake Rui’s composure as much as his passion for Martial Art did.

“Yes… They do, or at least that is what seems to be the case with many of them. As you know, we mostly test hypotheses with experiments, and there are esoteric substances where the only reasonable prevailing hypothesis is that they are especially reactive and susceptible to gravity,” Julian explained.

“Brilliant!” Rui grew absorbed in his own thoughts.

“…Why exactly are you seeking esoteric substances that are especially reactive to gravity?” Julian raised an eyebrow, he couldn’t help but be curious.

This was not the first time that Rui had consulted Julian before, yet he was usually a lot more composed, even if energetic.

The last time that Julian had seen Rui exhibiting this kind of energy was when Rui had returned home from a mission after receiving a message informing him that Julian had finished compiling his explanation and report on the research data that Rui had brought from the Commonwealth Duchy of Vinfrana and had translated himself.

“I’m trying to develop a technique that allows me to sense my environment through the forces of gravity that the environment generates,” Rui sighed.

When explaining it to Julian, he used a different model of gravity; the Newtonian model of gravity which stated that gravity was a force and not a war in space-time like it was in Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.

The reason for that was that he was absolutely confident that the theoretical physics of this world had not reached a stage where such a theory existed, so even if he told Julian, he would probably get a bewildered look.

“I lack a fundamental way to sense gravity itself,” Rui sighed. “If there are esoteric substances that are reactive to gravity, then it is possible for me to integrate them into a technique and figure out a way to use them to sense my environments.”

“That’s… ambitious,” Julian cautiously murmured. “It is possible that what you are going for may very well be impossible, you know?”

“That’s always a possibility for every endeavor I undertake,” Rui replied calmly, unfazed. “Now, can you help me out with these esoteric substances brother, please?”

“Of course, it will take me a while because I don’t know all of them off of the top of my head since it is a little outside of my field of expertise, but I can get your data on them within a week for sure. From there you’ll be able to handle yourself, right?”

“Of course,” Rui grinned. “Thanks a ton, brother, you’re awesome. See you later.”

“Good luck.”

And just like that Rui disappeared from his seat, leaving Julian chuckling. Usually, Rui didn’t use his super speed inside the house, since it was scary and startling to everybody.

“He must be extremely excited…” Julian smiled, amused and resigned.

He was right.

Rui was quite excited to get his hands on the data that Julian had promised to get him. However, until then, he did not intend to sit still. He had other projects to work on.

(‘Project Monster Repellant and Project Keep Up With Kane are not going to be easy,’) Rui sighed.

He did not ask Julian about the former because zoology had never been a focus of his. Rui would need to do his own research on the matter.

(‘What I need is a technique that uses my strengths to grant me an effective solution against monsters of their caliber,’) Rui noted.

His strengths lay in the parts of battles and techniques that employed mental faculties. Thus techniques that provided great results while having high demands of, or burdens on his mental faculties were what he was looking to create.

(‘The first issue is that there is a great variety in the fauna of the Shionel Dungeon, thus I cannot create a technique that is highly customized to focus on particular species, I need to exploit traits that these monsters all share. There are many species in the Shionel Dungeon, and trying to create a technique for only one of them is pointless, and creating separate techniques for all of them is highly impractical.’) Rui sighed. He needed to create something that was effective against all of the monsters. Even if it was less effective against each species than a technique that was created only to deal with one species, it was more useful to Rui.

This means that he had to focus on a technique that used a mechanism that applied to almost all monsters.

This narrowed it down considerably.

(‘Massively superhuman physical prowess, affected by esoteric substances in their bodies, and low intelligence…’) Rui immediately came up with three traits that matched all of them.

If he could somehow use all of them against the monsters with a technique that requires a lot of brainpower to produce great results that he would not be able to reproduce always, then that would be extremely convenient.

(‘I don’t think I can really use their superhuman physical capabilities against them, those are plainly huge disadvantages for me… But the other two…’) Rui smiled as a few ideas came to mind.

The matter surrounding low intelligence was easier to exploit. Low intelligence meant it was easier to trap and fool, Rui absolutely intended to use it to whatever degree he could.