"The Martial Path seems to be a product of one's mentality and experiences," Julian explained. "It makes sense that a lifelong exposure to a certain field of conflict would influence the Martial Path of a person."

"I see..." Rui was absorbed in thought. "I bet the Martial community of the Kandrian Empire employs several means to condition their offspring to be likelier to have a Martial Path that is more desired."This is property © .

"They do." Julian nodded.

"But, it doesn't necessarily always work," Rui concluded, as he thought about Kane. Kane was the heir of the Arrancar family, he no doubt underwent a similar process if such a thing is a common practice in the Martial community. Yet despite that, his Martial Path was the polar opposite of that of his father. Instead of a fearsome aggressive offense, his Martial Path was centered around evasive maneuvering.

"Indeed, it doesn't." Julian nodded agreeing. "Ultimately, there are many variables and factors that influence the Martial Path prior to its discovery. It is most likely impossible to absolutely control what one's Martial Path will be. At most, one can influence across a long period of time."

"Incredible..." Rui murmured as he considered the various matters that instantly came to mind.

Was it possible to employ hypnosis to manipulate one's Martial Path? He wasn't sure if that worked. However, the fact that he had never come across anything of that sort whatsoever in the Martial Academy prior to the discovery of his Martial Path likely suggested that such a practice was not the norm.

Julian smiled, seeing Rui deep in thought. "By the way, you said you wanted to speak to me about something. I didn't intend to hijack the conversation to turn it about myself."

"Ah, right." Rui shook his head. He's almost forgotten why he'd wanted to talk to Julian in the first place. "I wanted to get your thoughts on something."

"Go on."

"Well, I recently came up with a few technique development projects. Projects where I focus on developing techniques that are highly suited to me, unlike the techniques of the Martial Union." Rui explained.

"Interesting," Julian muttered in response. "I had heard that this was a common tendency amongst Martial Artists in the higher Realms, though I don't know much about it."

Rui nodded. "It's a necessary measure to continue developing your Martial Art and also to progress to higher Realms."

"So, what exactly do you have in mind?" Julian asked with a hint of interest.

"One of the techniques I seek to develop is a piercing technique that incorporates friction and poison into the technique to maximize lethality," Rui told him. "I was wondering what you think about the viability of such a technique, and how I ought to go about it."

"Well, it's an ambitious technique without a doubt." Julian frowned mildly as he considered the matter. "Perhaps a bit too ambitious."

"All of them are." Rui nodded.

"Have you mastered any poison techniques prior to this?" Julian asked.

"No, I haven't."

"What about friction-based techniques?"

"Haven't touched that one either."

"Hm. But you have mastered a piercing technique before, correct?"

"Yep. The Stinger served me well while I was a Martial Apprentice."

"Then I'd suggest beginning to assess the viability of your technique by checking how much affinity you have with those two fields. There's no point in proceeding any further until you verify that." Julian explained. "Statistically, Martial Art techniques tend to be more difficult when they incorporate multiple different fields like the kind of technique you're aiming to create. Once you have that down, then you can proceed to flesh out the technique such that they fit within what you can realistically master."

"Those were my thoughts as well." Rui was glad that Julian affirmed his concerns.

"Asides from that, be careful with poison. You have a symbiote, which does not inherit whatever poison resistance you possess." Julian warned. "Even if you are compatible with it, your symbiote necessarily isn't. There's a bit of a clash between symbiotic techniques and poison techniques."

"Damn, I hadn't considered that." Rui nodded appreciatively. This made his technique that much more difficult. He didn't want to jeopardize the Mindmirror Brain because it was valuable. He never 'used' it, but it was constantly helping him in the background very silently.

This made for more complications. In fact, it made this project somewhat dangerous. If something went wrong, then he would be screwed big time.

"I'd suggest taking it slow and easy, as well as consulting experts on the matter," Julian told him.

"Will do." Rui nodded as he added that to his list of to-do things. "Any other inputs?"

Julian shrugged softly. "No, unfortunately. I'm not familiar enough with the fields you've specified to be able to offer anymore."

"It's all good." Rui nodded. "You've helped plenty already. Let me tell you more about the remaining two projects I'm working on. Project Sniper is the project centered around developing a long-range offensive technique that uses my strengths to deliver accurate and precise attacks from a great distance away without sacrificing too much power."

"Interesting," Julian murmured. "You're going to have to tell me more than that if you want meaningful input from me, I'm afraid. Have you fleshed it out more?"

"To a certain degree, yes." Rui nodded. "There are roughly three problems that primarily stand in the way of creating a viable technique that fulfills my conditions for the Sniper Project. The first is the most obvious one; firing an attack over such a large distance requires a lot of accuracy, beyond what should be possible for my affinity and Realm. The second is that environmental factors cause greater deviance across a greater amount of distance, meaning even if I aim correctly, my attack could still veer off course. The third is that at such great distances, moving targets are absolutely hell because the projectile takes longer due to the distance between me and my target. So even if I aim correctly and I account for environmental factors, I could still miss if my target is moving even a little!"