The Martial Unity

"How do you plan on extracting all the esoteric ore deposits?" Kane asked, raising an eyebrow as he glanced at Rui.

"It's simple, really," Rui told him. "The reason for the difficulty of extracting the esoteric ore deposits of this particular floor is because of the fact that there is a huge body of water between us and the esoteric ore deposits and powerful creatures who are extremely capable in water, correct?"

"Right," Kane nodded, furrowing his eyebrows as Rui rehashed the obvious.

"Then it's simple," Rui smirked. "We just need to get rid of the water."

Kane stared at him.

"Here me out,"

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," Kane scoffed. "'Oh there's problem? Just get rid of it.'"

Rui laughed as Kane mocked him. "I don't mean figuratively get rid of the problem, I mean it quite literally. We'll displace all this water and literally get it out of our way."

"That's insane," Kane replied with exasperation. "How are you going to displace all this water out of the way? Even if you had the biggest bucket, it's too untenable."

"We have a tool better than buckets," Rui replied with an amused smile. "We can use gravity."

"Gravity points downwards, not upwards," Kane reminded him.

"Exactly," Rui turned towards him with an amused grin. "So let's just allow gravity to do its thing."

"Except the bottom of the floor prevents that from happe-" Kane paused abruptly. "Oh."

"Seems like you figured it out already. I'm thinking we can break open a hole at the bottom of the floor, drain all the water out, and then peacefully extract all the esoteric ore deposits from the now emptied floor."

Kane's eyes widened. "That's insane. But… it makes sense."

Still, Kane couldn't help but marvel at how simple but brilliant the plan was. It wasn't going to be easy, but it was straightforward and viable for Rui, even if it wasn't viable for others.

"Still," Kane paused. "That still requires you to go underwater, right? Depending on how deep it is you may have to stay down there a while, won't you run into the same problems as you would if were trying to extract all the esoteric ore deposits from the bottom of the lake?"

"Only if we try to break it from the inside," Rui replied. "I plan to blast a hole into the floor from the outside, from under it."

"I feel stupid for asking. But I suppose you are the only one who could possibly do that."

"You're right," Rui nodded. "Only with my Riemannian Echo is detecting the right avenue for breaking a hole in the bottom of the floor feasible. Otherwise, it's extremely difficult to even come around to the right spot."

"I see," Kane nodded. "Also it's not entirely risk-free, I'm guessing."

"That's also true," Rui nodded. "The hole needs to be large enough to drain the lake in a reasonably short amount of time, but also, making it larger will flood the tunnel that I will be in at the moment it breaks through. This means the moment I break through, an extremely large flood of water will blast out at extremely high speeds. The total force will be a threat to even Martial Squires, not to mention the Squire-level monsters that will flow out along with it. Getting caught by it will be extremely dangerous."

Rui played several scenarios in his head as he calmly analyzed the situation. Based on some rough estimates of the size of the lake in conjugation with his knowledge of fluid dynamics from his bachelor's degree in physics, he was able to understand just how dangerous this operation could potentially get.

What if he broke open a hole, for the water to blast out, hitting him at high speeds only for a giant shark to come through and chew his head off?

The water pressure would be working against Rui in these circumstances, making it difficult to move, while the flood of water would aid the shark, allowing it to reach Rui in an instant where it would rip his head off, or at the very least cause him significant wounds.

What Rui needed to do was ensure that the whole was big enough to drain the entire floor at a reasonably fast pace.

It would take far too long if the hole was the size of a human, after all. What Rui needed was a much larger hole. However, the larger the hole, the more dangerous and risky it would be immediately after completion.

Thus he needed to find a way to mitigate the risk as well.

"Distance from the hole will greatly mitigate the risks," Rui noted.

Thankfully, Rui had learned techniques that allowed him to put distance between himself and his opponent. Transverse Resonance was a technique that allowed him to hit above his grade as a Martial Squire. This meant he could hit with the power of a high-grade Martial Squire at range.

Of course, there was a limit to the distance he could put between himself and the hole, given that he was not working on an open field but inside a cramped maze in a dungeon. The maximum distance he could achieve when considering everything was the height of the tunnel plus the thickness of the bedrock of the lake.

"It's manageable, probably," Rui murmured.

"Probably?" Kane raised an eyebrow.

"It depends, if I get really unlucky and have too many monsters, then I might get hit by one of them, though they'll undoubtedly be frantic due to being sucked down by a powerful whirlpool. I don't know if they're strong enough to resist the sheer force of the downward pull at the lowest point.

"Well, it's a risk you're going to have to take alone since I'll be chilling up here while you'll be doing all the hard work," Kane patted his back lightly, whistling humorously. "Let me know when you're done."

Rui chuckled. "Will do."

He didn't bother trying to get Kane to go along with him, he was right. This was something for Rui to do alone.