Chapter 14: Techniques

"Alright, now I will give you time for selecting your techniques. You have 3 hours. Read the summary, if you are interested, take a look into the results and then decide. If you want some advice, remember to take at least a movement skill as it will be very beneficial for your future. Finally, don't bite more than you chew. Choosing a sky ranked technique is good, but practicing it requires years. It won't help if you are defeated and thrown out of the academy before that!"

Saying this, he directed the students to the martial database hall situated in the gym.

"Oi Commoner, don't take any Earth or Sky techniques. You will just dirty them with your filthy hands! They are above your level." A boy around the age of 18 spoke with a smug smile. 

"Hahaha" Zen started laughing after hearing this. The boy was flabbergasted. As a noble no one was allowed to talk back to him.

"What are you laughing at?" He shouted with red face.

"Looking at you bitch, I am sure that you are at least 1 year older than me. You couldn't even get into school without repeating an year and you have the gall to question my level? Didn't you see the nobles getting hit in the face by these filthy hands?" Zen sneered and then ignored the boy. The boy's face was black with embarrassment and anger but he couldn't find words to refute Zen.

"Now shut up for me and enter the building. Don't worry about anything, you will understand everything as soon as you enter." David shouted and everyone entered the building with nervous thoughts.

As soon as Zen entered the building, he felt dizzy and closed his eyes. He calmed his mind and open them only to find himself in a completely white space without anything. Suddenly a black sphere came out of nowhere.

"Name Zen, no rings formed." A mechanical voice came.

"....Oooo an AI huh?" Zen was astonished and started revolving around the sphere as if he was inspecting it. "Are you the sub-AI made by Zero to manage this place?" Zen asked.

"Yes student Zen. I am the master of this database. You can call me BetaDB." The AI system paused for a bit. 

"Student Zen. I would politely ask you to stop looking at me like a pervert. I don't have any physical body." BetaDB said with its mechanical voice.

"..." Zen froze. What the fuck just happened? Did the AI just called him a pervert? A fucking black sphere called him a pervert? Zen can swear that the voice sounded like a robot girl getting harassed. This was infuriating. He was innocent!

"So you have more degrees of freedom than Zero is allowed for students huh?" When Zen thought how Zero just acted as an assistant instead of as a sentient being, he understood that Zero was highly restricted when accessed by students. Well that is to be expected as the students can't be given the power to access an AI like Zero. Of course it is different for those high and mighty nobles. Although Zero is managed by the federation itself, the nobles have some authority over it.

"So you will not even deny the fact that you are a pervert? Well whatever, yes student pervert you are right, I have less restrictions because I am confined to this database and have to wield necessary authority to prevent perverts like you from advancing." BetaDB voice was back to the usual.

"Enough with the pervert! Just do your work and show me the techniques." Zen really didn't want to hear an AI calling him pervert. Thinking if somehow Anna got to know this, Zen shuddered.

"What kind of techniques would you like. As per regulations you can take 3 techniques right now."

Zen thought for a while. Although he already had a plan of what kind of techniques he was looking for, he just wanted to confirm if his thought process was correct or not.

"I want two attack techniques and 1 movement technique." After a while a plethora of techniques were in front of his eyes.

"Now remove everything that is human rank or lower in earth rank. For attack, remove everything that is not hand to hand or spear technique." 

"Making a lady do this much work. You really are the worst." BetaDB said with emotional voice but did everything Zen asked for.

Zen didn't have time to reply. His mind was working at a very fast pace and he was completely concentrated on the task at hand.

"Hmm, this movement technique looks really good." He picked a movement technique with the name 'Formless lightning steps'.

"This technique is really good." BetaDB said. "It has no form so it is almost impossible to predict if you perfect it. The lightning in the name signifies that speed is top class among the other movement techniques. The downside is that the learning curve for this sky ranked technique is very steep and making progress is very very hard. You will need a lot of time to master the technique. Let me warn you, there were only 2 martial artists who could master is technique." 

"... I understand, but are you supposed to tell me all this?" Zen knew for sure that AI cannot directly help the students in anyway and their were restricted to only assist the students in academy.

"Of course. Don't worry about this." BetaDB said in a different tone but Zen ignored it as he had not reason to doubt it.

"Okay, now coming to attack. Show me a spear technique. Especially those whose power can be augmented by the Formless Lightning Steps."

"Good. You understood the crux. These are the techniques which can be augmented with the movement technique." BetaDB was surprised. Most students just go forward with the sky ranked techniques without thinking about augmentation as they are very excited after entering the database.

Zen looked at the techniques and opened the videos for few of them. In the videos, there was always a shadow man who performs the technique. After looking for almost an hour, he found the one. In the video, the shadow man picked the spear and slashed the stone in front of him. The stone was immediately cut in half. But the man didn't stop there. He immediately jumped and started slashing at a speed which Zen couldn't comprehend. And finally took very fast steps to finish the act. At last, not a single part of the stone was left. Everything turned into dust. The name of the technique was, 'Void Slashing Spear' and it was again a sky ranked technique. Zen could swear that the creator of martial artist was a chunni!

"I will select this one." Zen was confident. "Next a Hand to hand technique."

There was no response from the AI. Zen even shouted but there was pin drop silence. 

After a while, BetaDB said, "Student, I will directly provide you with the technique instead of recommending something. I would really request you to take this." BetaDB replied to Zen with conviction instead of its usual mechanical voice.