Chapter 366: A Direction for Shigure-Soen-Ryu's Development?
Tatara Yui was not weak.
That much could be seen from the attack on Hagun, where she had temporarily held off four powerful opponents by herself, including Ikki and Touka.
The reason she had been so easily suppressed by Moroboshi Yudai was because his ability to nullify Blazer abilities was simply too terrifying.
If her Reflection ability had not been broken, Tatara could have charged straight through Moroboshi's spear.
If she had not looked down on these students and failed to investigate them beforehand, Tatara would not even have suffered this loss.
If they truly fought, it was hard to say who would win between Moroboshi Yudai and Tatara Yui.
Moreover, Tatara was an assassin.
She was an assassin who had grown up in an environment of assassination and ambush since childhood.
For someone like that, sneaking up on her without a sound should have been practically impossible.
But Yakushi Kiriko had done it.
She had easily embraced Tatara directly from behind without being noticed at all.
That was simply unbelievable.
One had to know that even Luke could not do it as casually and effortlessly as she had.
And all of that was thanks to Kiriko's ability, which she had developed nearly to the extreme.
"Elementalization."
Luke had once seen this kind of fantasy-like ability when watching One Piece.
The ability of Logia Devil Fruits to freely manipulate the elements of nature had left an extremely deep impression on him.
Among them, the elementalization that could completely transform the body into a natural element and become immune to physical attacks had been especially memorable.
An alternative undead-type ability.
It could even be called a kind of pseudo-invincibility to a certain degree.
Naturally, Luke would not forget such a powerful ability.
But he never imagined he would see a similar ability in this world.
Without those so-called specific counters to elementalization, Luke probably understood better than anyone just how terrifying this ability could become.
Just now, Kiriko had transformed herself, including her clothes, into the water element, which was why she could completely avoid Tatara's perception.
Under the effect of mana, she had forcibly developed her Natural Manipulation-type ability into something like a Natural Concept-type ability.
That extraordinary imagination and abnormal level of mana control shocked Luke greatly.
Once Kiriko trained this Noble Art resembling "elementalization" to the point where she could use it freely, as long as she did not encounter someone like Moroboshi Yudai or Stella, who completely countered her, she could stand undefeated.
Not only that, when Kiriko subdued Tatara just now, she had used two water-control techniques in total.
The second one, the ability to control Tatara's body, was even more terrifying than elementalization.
"Yakushi-senpai, those two techniques of yours are really chilling."
Luke looked at Yakushi Kiriko and felt somewhat emotional.
So big, so white… No, wait. She was a powerful opponent worthy of his attention!
Controlling the water inside an enemy's body to manipulate all of their movements.
If she could take that one step further, then even Luke could not immediately think of a suitable countermeasure.
Without a way to counter this kind of ability, it was practically unsolvable.
Compared to Luke's shock and emotion, Kiriko's own surprise was not any lesser.
She looked Luke up and down with astonishment, as though thinking about how this person could see through her ability.
"You've never seen it before, yet you saw through my Noble Art immediately."
"Mm… I'm certain I've never revealed any information related to it."
"That kind of imaginative judgment and insight… Ah, right! I remember your mana control rating is also A-rank, isn't it?"
As she spoke, Kiriko grew excited.
She was not someone who was stingy about sharing techniques, but at the same time, she was not the type to publicly share information selflessly and for free.
In her view, someone who could make her happy to share her accomplishments should be a genius qualified to discuss progress with her.
It was just that all this time, she had never met anyone who fit that standard.
And now, Luke clearly met the conditions.
On top of that, there was his body, which held a fatal attraction for Kiriko.
In that instant, Kiriko even thought she had received heaven's blessing.
However, she calmed down in the next second.
Because she remembered a very crucial problem.
Luke was not a Natural Manipulation-type Blazer.
Kiriko's entire skillset was built on controlling water.
If she wanted to find someone to share and discuss it with, then at minimum, the other party would also need to be a Natural Manipulation-type user.
Otherwise, no matter how similar the effects looked, they would still be fundamentally different.
Forget discussing things together and improving together.
They would not even be able to communicate the basics of how their abilities were used.
The instant she understood this point, Kiriko's mood visibly sank.
Along with it, the white coat she had deliberately loosened earlier was also fastened again.
Originally, she had only intended to tease a junior and test Luke's reaction along the way.
Since she did not achieve the effect she wanted, Kiriko naturally had no intention of continuing to give Luke fanservice.
Her series of actions left Luke somewhat confused.
First, she had stared at him as though she wanted to eat him.
Then she had enthusiastically handed out some small benefits.
Afterward, her astonished gaze had gradually turned excited.
Before Luke could analyze why the senpai before him was so excited, she suddenly fell into a depressed state, and even stopped giving out benefits.
Silently rubbing his forehead, Luke completely could not understand what had happened to this young lady in such a short span of time.
However, not understanding was one thing.
He still had to seize this rare opportunity.
Ever since Luke obtained the "Precision Control" skill, he had always wanted to develop it.
Unfortunately, there had never been any effective progress.
Aside from increasing his control over his body, the only other benefit this skill had brought Luke was giving him an A-rank mana control evaluation.
But even A-rank mana control was not actually that helpful to Luke.
For all his mana-related strength, B-rank mana control was already completely sufficient in terms of control.
A-rank mana control could be called excessive.
Aside from saving a portion of mana, it did not have any especially notable effect.
It was not that this was bad.
No matter what, it was better than not having it.
But if he simply left this excess control power unused, would that not be the same as wasting it?
Moreover, Luke, who possessed the Sword Sheath of Tranquility, did not really care about that little bit of saved mana.
Even in his battle with Edelweiss, during the second fight, Luke had not completely exhausted his mana.
To say it was useful, it was indeed useful.
To say it was useless, that was not entirely wrong either.
So this A-rank mana control had always been rather awkward.
With nearly all his strength concentrated in swordsmanship, Luke also did not know how he should integrate mana control into his own system.
Now, Yakushi Kiriko's appearance gave him an excellent opportunity.
The other party was clearly a powerhouse who used mana control to form a tactical system.
Even rarer was the fact that her ability was "water."
For Luke, who had always worried over Shigure-Soen-Ryu's progress and how to develop his mana control, she was simply a perfect reference.
Even if Kiriko's accomplishments in water control had nothing to do with swordsmanship, they could still give Luke considerable inspiration.
Especially the combination of mana control and water control.
It might very well allow Luke to develop an entirely new series of sword techniques.
After all, Star Swordsmanship had been born in exactly this way.
And so, after making up his mind, Luke looked at Kiriko and asked seriously,
"Yakushi-senpai, may I learn water-control techniques from you?"
…
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