The Martial Unity

"Unfortunately, it's not enough," Rui murmured aloud, informing Kane of his thoughts. "The good news is that I know how to get more data."

"Do you intend to pull off the monster trick once again?" Kane raised an eyebrow.

"No," Rui shook his head. "It's unlikely that we can do something like that again. I got lucky with the python monsters being extremely heat-loving creatures, but there is certainly no way that we can possibly get that lucky again. Manipulating monsters this easily is extremely difficult and the python monsters were the first set of creatures that we ran into that were so easily manipulatable."

Rui didn't hold out any hope of being able to manipulate other monsters the way he did the python monsters. It was statistically too unlikely that he would have a way to manipulate the monsters of any other floors.

"Then what?" Kane asked. "You're not going to be able to get more data unless you figure something out."

"Don't worry," Rui replied. "Ironically, manipulating humans is easier than manipulating monsters."

Kane took a second to process those words, before realizing what Rui's plan was. "You intend to use Chairman Deacon's Martial Squires to get more data for you."

"At this point, I don't see much of another viable choice," Rui sighed.

He had considered several other courses of action. He briefly considered the idea of manually knocking out monsters and dragging them to the Root Floor before dumping them in. Depending on their size, he could possibly get several in at a time with some kind of harness. But he quickly discounted that idea.

"The problem with that idea is that it's too impractical to try and incapacitate monsters as opposed to just killing them," Rui sighed.

Due to their vastly differing physiologies from humans, he didn't even know if he could even knock half of them unconscious. Furthermore, he didn't even know if they would stay that way.

On top of that, how was he supposed to harness them to himself? He didn't want to just tie them and drag them across the tunnels of the Shionel Dungeon. If they somehow broke through, it would be over, and potentially even dangerous if they caught him off-guard.

On top of that, they didn't listen to threats, obviously. He couldn't just tell them to shut up and obey, or they would die if they didn't. Even if he used Fauna Flow to try and convey that, the technique could not make up for stupidity. He would be forced to kill them.

He considered doing something to sabotage the entire floor, forcing them to leave, then sealing off every possible exit that did not lead to the Root Floor, making sure that eventually, they would be forced to enter the Root Floor for a larger space.

But this too was quite impractical, as he quickly realized. Firstly, sabotaging the floor in a manner that would force all the monsters to exit was quite difficult. He did not really have a way of doing that in a pragmatic manner. He considered setting an entire floor on fire, but even ordinary Squire-level monsters were completely impervious to ordinary fire.

They would not be forced to leave the floor just due to fires.

Of course, there was the smoke, even monsters couldn't get rid of their need for oxygen. However, they could just put out the fire with great. Martial Squires and Squire-level monsters could generate powerful shockwaves and gusts of wind with their movements that could easily kill humans, they were more than capable of putting out a fire across the entire floor.

Of course, Rui could try and use an esoteric fuel that generated devastating infernos that would be impossible even for the Squire-level monsters to put out in time but the plan had already started becoming too convoluted. Obtaining large enough amounts of such an esoteric fuel, then spreading it across the entire floor in a manner that didn't kill all the monsters, while also securing their own safety, then making sure that the dungeon didn't inadvertently burn down.

It was far too impractical of a plan.

The smoke from such a fire would clog the tunnels, making breathing absolutely impossible, and this was something that would be detrimental to humans and Martial Squires equally, meaning it could be quite deadly.

"Too much," Rui shook his head.

That was why he had thoroughly ruled out trying to dump more monsters into the Shionel Dungeon. It was not a plan worth following, he did not believe that there were ways in which he could realistically make the plan more feasible and viable.

"Well, humans it is then," Kane shrugged. "It's ironic because humans ought to be harder than monsters to manipulate, but it seems to be the opposite in this case."

"It does feel counterintuitive," Rui concurred. "The issue is that monsters don't play by certain rules. Benefits, incentives, and disincentives. They're too primitive for them to serve as viable test subjects. They're also too weak to give me the more rigorous testing of the Root's capabilities that I desire. On top of that, they won't be able to even weaken or injure the Root before my battle with it."

Kane considered his words. "Ah, so you're also hoping that the Martial Squires associated with Chairman Deacon will weaken the Root to make it easier for you? Feel like that's unrealistic given how strong the Root is if it called all those monsters so quickly.

"Don't underestimate what a thousand Martial Squires and a hundred veteran high-grade Martial Squires can do," Rui replied. "Not to mention the dozen or so grade-ten Martial Squires that stand at the peak of the Squire Realm. Those elites leading the rest of them will be able to hold out for quite some time, I suspect."

"Hm," Kane nodded. "When you put it that way, then yeah, I can definitely get it."

"Still…" Rui continued. "They'll lose. The Root has more than a thousand roots capable of expressing extremely high-grade Squire-level power. Their lack of preparation and understanding of their opponent will seal the deal."