Bottleneck

Rui immersed himself into mastering these four techniques. He dedicated his time equally to all four techniques. Thanks to his tolerance of rejuvenation potions, he was able to dedicate a massive amount of time to mastering them.

Harmonic Respiration was a truly invigorating breathing technique. It flooded Rui's body with energy and eased his fatigue and stress to some degree.

Rui had already observed the technique while he performed it. Keenly observing it's form, mechanics and its effect on him physiologically.

('It increases the amount of oxygen being diffused into my blood by timing the respiration intervals with the heart rate at that moment.')

This allowed for a larger amount of blood to come into contact with the maximum amount of oxygen. Amidst combat, this was quite useful. This was the principle by which supplementary breathing techniques functioned. They aimed to augment metabolism by increasing the net amount of oxygen supplied to all the cells in the body through various means and phenomena. Harmonic Breathing was merely one of the foundational techniques.

It was also the easiest technique out of the four he had picked; he had already mastered it after two weeks of practice. Yet it was the weakest in terms of its impact in combat.

He hadn't yet mastered the remaining three techniques, yet even his partial mastery over them resulted in amazing boosts to his combat prowess.

Collision Optimization improved the impact of his strikes remarkable, allowing him to inflict much more pain and damage with each attack than he could without applying this technique.

This technique had a lot of synergy with his superhuman mind and scientific background, so his rate of mastery over it was the highest among the remaining three techniques he had chosen to master.

He had even begun experimenting with it and had managed to improve certain aspects of the comprehensive technique. Optimizing the angling of the strikes within the technique in certain parts of the body to inflict even more damage and pain.

He frequently tested his capabilities in sparring sessions with other explorers, or instructors, or Kane. Leaving each of them bewildered at his rate of growth.

"I recall telling you that you'd grow faster with potions, but I never expected it to be this quick!" Kane exclaimed with a hint of envy. "I can't believe you're learning Balance Direction this quickly!"

Rui shrugged, laughing.

He had consulted Kane a lot when it came to learning the maneuvering technique he had picked; Balance Direction, Kane was the best maneuvering expert who was willing to spend a lot of time with Rui. His rate of mastery had left Kane with mixed feelings. They would regularly spar using primarily Balance Direction with no other technique, this had allowed to Rui grow faster than he had expected. It was his next best technique after Collision Optimization.

The hardest technique to learn was Damage Mitigation. He found it really hard to move with the impacts, it required precise timing that he simply was unable to accomplish on a regular basis when he initially started out.

However, as his proficiency with the three techniques improved, so did his combat prowess. The Explorer techniques weren't as potent as the Apprentice level techniques that Kane had mastered, but they were still much better than barest of basics he had learnt during the Martial Foundation Stage.

What astonished him was the sheer variety of techniques. It was far more diverse than what he had known back on Earth.

Just the breathing techniques alone were vast, their purposes were varied too, not all of them were as straightforward as Harmonic Breathing was. Their purposes were also varied. He did not know breathing could actually be used as part of offense or defense!

There were several systems and principles that extended beyond just the MMA fighting style back on Earth. Centered around skin, flesh, joints, nails and even hair! Furthermore, they encompassed a variety of sub-categories within the four aspects of combat. Within offense laid different types offense such as incapacitation, killing, paralysis, destruction etc. These sub-categories were quite different from each other in so far as the goal that the techniques tried to achieve. Rui had to spend time understanding the general skeletal structure of the organization of techniques.

Of course, Rui did not have the time to look into each one of them in-depth. Each technique was extremely info dense and heavy. If he let himself get absorbed into reading all of them, he would have no time to train.

Dedicating an average of twenty-one hours a day to training, Rui made visible progress every day. With his work ethic and dedication, it took a little less than two months for him to have mastered the techniques. His combat prowess had fundamentally grown enormously. Having picked a technique in each field had made his fighting style quite balanced.

Collision Optimization, Damage Mitigation, Balance Direction and Harmonic Respiration each amplified the four fundamental aspects of a Martial Art and combat.

However even after he mastered them, he was still growing stronger. This was because his application of the four techniques was still suboptimal.

It couldn't be helped, Rui had very little experience in applying these techniques in combat. It helped that these were broad techniques meant to be continuously used, but he still needed a lot of raw experience before his application reached a satisfactory stage.

He had already begun picking a new set of techniques that he would dive right into soon.

Rui sighed. "Shame today's my rest day."

Even Rui had to sleep at least once in a while. His tolerance of the potions was not limitless.

('The techniques made me much stronger... But I don't feel any closer to discovering my Martial Path.') Rui anxiously thought to himself.

He knew he was being a bit impatient, but his instincts told him just plainly learning more techniques would not be conducive to his progress towards his Martial Path.

Something about them felt mundane. He was certain he was going to be an all-rounder at this stage. But that wasn't the same as discovering his Martial Path.

The instructors described it as a soul-shaking epiphany, that once you had it, you know for a fact that you had discovered your Martial Path.

They were also concerned that Rui did not feel anything special while exploring. Usually, Explorer students were guided by emotions when they chose the techniques they wanted to learn.

However, Rui didn't feel stirred at all. He had approached the process in a very rational and logical manner, trying to choose the optimal combination of techniques that would improve his combat prowess the most.

He instinctively felt repeating this would not yield him the desired outcome.

Just as he wanted to think more, he felt his eyelids growing heavy and his head strained. His body demanded sleep.

('Fuck it... let's think about this tomorrow.')