The Martial Unity

"We understand." The man addressing Rui said. "We'll make the best of your teachings."

They nodded vigorously. Vemy threw him a brief mischievous smile sneakily that the others didn't notice.

('So she didn't tell them, phew.') He sighed inwardly.

"How do you propose we go about this?" The man asked.

"Hm..." Rui thought about it. His mind flashed back to the days when martial Apprentices all ganged up to fight Kyrie, once the sparring session was over, she would round them all up and instruct them on their shortcomings, flaws, and weaknesses as well as offer suggestions on how to mitigate or get rid of them.

"We don't have much time," Rui told them. "A third of you come at me at once first, followed by the remaining third."

It was not practical to try and spar with twenty-seven people at once. Not because Rui could not accomplish it, but if he wanted, he could slaughter all of them with relative ease. But sparring twenty-seven people at once wasn't really practical for a meaningful form of training because there was a physical logistical limit to the number of people who could attack him at once, and a limit to the number of Martial Apprentice he could focus on grilling at once.

Meaning, sparring twenty-seven at the same time would make all of them feel left out for longer periods of time. It was better to spar with fewer people at once and ensure that each of those people could have a proper sparring session where they were intensely involved with the fight.

They nodded at that proposal, having similar thoughts.

"You three." Rui pointed to three random Martial Apprentices out of the crowd. "What are your names?"

"Cern."

"Gerard."

"Mina."

"The three of you are the strongest of all of you, aren't you?" Rui could clearly sense that those three were the only full-fledged higher-grade Martial Apprentices in their group.

The three of them nodded with surprised expressions, wondering how Rui was able to discern it so easily. Was this one of the abilities of Martial Squires?

"Form three teams that each of you will lead, and decide who will go first," Rui told them as he sat on a rock, observing them.

Rui observed them intermingling with each other carefully. What they didn't know was that Rui was already testing them. Depending on how smoothly their team formation went, it would tell them much about themselves. If they scrambled to obtain all the strongest Martial Apprentices for their own team at the cost of the other teams, then it would generally reflect poorly on their sense of unity and teamwork. If they were truly united in their goal to make the best of this opportunity for all of them, it would reflect in their choices and actions.

('So far it's already going well.') Rui nodded inwardly.

Cern, Gerard, and Mina were discussing amongst themselves rather than trying to compete with each other by trying to attract the other Martial Apprentices to their team. In little over ten minutes, they had already formed their teams.

"We're ready, Squire Falken." The three of them told him with three groups of Martial Artists behind them.

Rui swept his eyes across the three groups, analyzing them. He was satisfied when he saw that the teams were broadly equally strong. Although it was impossible to create three perfectly equally strong teams, he was pleased that they had gone or an approach that made each team equally strong that allowed all of them to experience a similar level of power from Rui.

He also noticed that each team had roughly three of the ten offense-oriented Martial Apprentices that he had seen practicing coordinating their attacks to blasting a large opening in walls to allow the army to pass through smoothly. Meaning each team had a similar level of offensive capabilities. This meant that they had tried to create teams that not only were equally strong but also equally balanced.

"Good." Rui nodded. "Let me begin by explaining how I'm going to go about this. I will be restricting my power and speed to the peak of the Apprentice Realm, though I may decide to use even lesser if I can, barring my toughness and reaction speed, both of which I cannot truly restrict or change in any other way, got it?"

They all nodded. It made sense, there was no point in him going all out as that would simply kill them or defeat them so fast that there was nothing of value to be learned in their loss. They would gain no valuable experience.

"So which group will be going first?" Rui asked.

"I'll be going first, Squire." He smiled confidently. He was a large man with a towering well-built physique, and also the strongest offensive fighter amongst all of them.

The nine of them surrounded him quickly while the other two groups retreated to an adequate distance to give both sides enough room to fight all out.

They all took their stances, waiting for Rui to send the signal.

"Alright then..." Rui cracked his knuckles. "Come."

WHOOSH

In an instant, two Martial Apprentices were at his sides while another was above him. Two more emerged, attacking him from the front and behind.

('Three maneuvering-oriented Martial Apprentices and two offense-oriented Martial Apprentices.') Rui casually noted while he studied their movements that were in slow motion in his eyes. He had no intention of flexing his power and blasting them all away, which he could even with his stated restriction.

Instead, he caught the attacks of all the two Martial Apprentices attacking from his sides and slowly shifted them to the Martial Apprentices that were front and behind him, pulling them in those directions. His twisting motion also deflected the attacks of the Martial Apprentices front and behind him that was about to touch his back and front, redirecting them to the Martial Apprentices to his side.

Their attacks were redirected such that it looked like they were attacking each other in a chain!