Rui spent a few hours on the first stage of Outer Convergence training. It was more draining than he’d expected. He had to consume two potions before he was good enough to continue training.
Though much to Squire Dylon’s surprise, he halted his training and left the facility after biding him farewell.
Rui had purchased four techniques, not one. He wanted to begin training in all of them. Once he got an idea for how difficult or easy the training regimes for each technique was then he could formulate an efficient plan and schedule as for how to go about it.
Dedicating an equal amount of time for techniques that were unequally difficult to master was not an efficient allocation of time.
“Alright…” Rui stretched as he left the striking training facility. “What to do next?”
He shrugged before heading over to the defense training facility. He wanted to begin training Inner Divergence as soon as possible.
“Squire Fare.” Rui greeted, bowing to the head instructor of the defense training facility with respect. “I’m here to begin training with the Inner Divergence.”
A muscular women built like a tank turned around, glancing at Rui. “Training a third defensive technique? Acute Edge and Elastic Shift are falling short already?” A flash of surprise crept onto her chiseled face. “I would have thought you would go longer without purchasing a defensive technique, with how well you mastered them.”
“Me too.” Rui shrugged. “But I decided to take a cautionary measure anyway, after having run into two dangerous missions twice in a week.”
She snorted in response. “Good choice, defense is the most important part of combat, it is literally the only thing that separates you from death. Too many people don’t develop their defense enough, and what happens as a result? They die.” She glanced at Rui with an approving look. “I’m glad you aren’t foolish like them. Come, I’ll train your defense so that it never cracks!”
Rui smiled wryly as he nodded.
“Inner Convergence huh?” She glanced at the scroll. “Interesting choice. It’s a technique capable of much, but it has high demands of the user. Fail to fulfill them and the technique will fail you. Are you sure you want to learn such a technique?”
“Well, I’ve already purchased it and refunds aren’t allowed.” Rui said. “But also, this technique has a high synergy with my Martial Art.”
“Hmmm… True.” she admitted.
Rui’s strange Martial Art was not a secret within the Apprentice circles in the Academy. A powerful, yet bizarre all-rounder style, but not really because it would change shape depending on the fight and his opponent. All the Martial Squires had long become acquainted with it and its capabilities.
“Alright, let’s begin.” She said. “Inner Divergence is a technique that diverges and dissipates the power of all impacts across the entire body, diluting the effect over a great space thus negating the attack.” She reiterated to begin. “The core means by which one does this is by ensuring the attack’s trajectory is aligned to the center of mass of the human body. That in combination with flexing each muscle group to support the area of impact will disperse the impact across all muscle groups.”
Rui nodded. The concept was simple in theory. By having each muscle group rigid enough, they would be no different from how the shock absorption springs in vehicles work; each muscle group absorbing the shock of impacts.
Technically it wasn’t impossible for humans to perform this technique, but the reasons humans couldn’t master it was because the mental faculties required to accurately and precisely execute it were superhuman.
That was why it was an Apprentice-level technique; Only Martial Apprentices could perform it.
The Inner Divergence had two three training stages. The first training stage was to simply train the user to shift when attacked to ensure all attack trajectories would be aimed at the center of mass of the human body.
This was because the center of mass was the middle point of the body, the only point that was close enough to all muscle groups to be supported by them like shock absorption springs.
This was a difficult stage of training, no doubt. Rui was simply unaccustomed to the thought process and the mindset needed. He was starting to see why the technique warned the user of the potential risks and mishaps.
If one messed up the initial set up for ensuring the attack lines up at or close enough to the center of mass, then the technique would simple be ineffective. The user will simply be left defenseless in this case.
Still, if Rui managed to master this part, it would become an extremely valuable tool. One of the reasons for this was that Acute Edge and Elastic Shift were perfectly compatible with Inner Divergence.
Each technique operated by entirely different principles and mechanics that were mutually exclusive with each other, meaning there was no friction between them and they cooperated perfectly.
Acute Edge operated by making the angle extremely sharp instead of direct, this reduced the impact. A bullet that just nicked sharply a wall would do less damage than a bullet that hit a wall straight and head-on.
Elastic Shift worked by increasing the distance and timeframe of the impact, making the impact more elastic. It was like effectively putting a thick bouncy mattress in between the target and the strike, making the strike hurt less.
And Inner Divergence reduced the impact of the strike from within, by using all the muscle groups as shock absorbers, sharing the dispersed impact.
Acute Edge and Elastic Shift mitigated the impact by focus on external factors like angle, distance and time frame of the impact, thus there was no overlap of their focus.
These three techniques cooperated very well. Rui anticipated he might become extremely sturdy once he mastered Inner Divergence.
Over the next few months, he intended to burn the Inner Divergence technique into his muscle memory, no matter what it took.
