The Martial Unity

It seemed like an absurd suggestion. Kane did not even bother replying. His expressions fully conveyed the sheer magnitude of how unimpressed he was. "Explore the rest of the dungeon first before mining a floor that we just cleared, have you lost your mind?"

"Hear me out," Rui placated him. "The water isn't going to stick around for too long, it will eventually be absorbed into the bedrock of the dungeon. I told you the benefits of exploring the dungeon while the water was still there, right?"

Kane nodded. "Tunnels systems that don't really lead anywhere except for eventual dead-ends will be blocked off, while tunnel systems that lead to dungeon floors will be open because the water will be drained into the dungeon floors, rather than being blocked off inside the tunnel."

"Exactly," Rui grinned. "So basically, the water is the best exploration team that we could possibly ask for."

Kane's eyes lit up as he considered Rui's idea. He was sure that his friend's idea was probably good this time because it was good every time, but he didn't want to make it too easy for Rui. Questioning his ideas would at the very least make them more solid.

Still, he had to admit that the way Rui framed it was very attractive.

"The ants were not bad as an exploration team, but the problem is that they were able to detect dungeons, and they weren't able to communicate the existence of one to the queen even if they happened to run into one because they're stupid," Rui explained. "But the water is perfect. Clogged tunnel systems are the tunnel systems that we ought to avoid exploring, and the open ones are the ones that are most likely to lead to something fruitful."

"So you intend to run around as far as possible and memorize which ones are clogged and which ones aren't?

"Exactly," Rui nodded. "The sooner I start, the better my gains. If I start even an hour from now, much of the gains I could make will be gone for sure. That's why I have to go. I promise I'm not just gonna kick back and relax."

"Alright," Kane nodded.

"You make sure that you're using Void Step every step of the way, alright?" Rui warned him.

Kane didn't have Rui's senses, he could be caught off-guard by surviving monster or another adventurer. The best way to combat this was to employ his stealth capabilities. No one would possibly catch him off-guard if he used it constantly. Unless of course it was something that wasn't targeting him specifically, but such a thing was far too unlikely to hit him.

Regardless, Kane could also use Void Step much more continuously without having to use it on another person as well. The fact that he had to use it on Rui in addition was the reason that he needed to take breaks so frequently.

Thus, Rui was quite confident that he would be fine as he mined the esoteric ore deposits.

"Some of the creatures are still alive," Rui glanced down at some of the aquatic creatures flipping around. "The amphibian creatures like the crabs are definitely not dying, so make sure that you avoid them."

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing, you hurry up and make sure you get everything you need before it's too late.," Kane reassured him before leaping into the empty lake.

Rui immediately got to work, leaving the floor as he quickly hurried through tunnels, moving downwards as much as he could.

At the same time, he paid a ton of attention to his surroundings with his Riemannian Echo, making sure to pay attention to clogged and unclogged tunnel networks while carefully inputting all of this information into his Mind Palace.

The deeper he went, the more the water began eliminating all tunnel systems and networks. When he extended his senses as much as possible in a single direction, while rotating that direction across all three hundred and sixty degrees, he was able to cover a vast amount of area with his senses. It drastically cut down the amount of area that he had to explore.

He prioritized going downward first before exploring radially outwards. The reason for this was that he would rather cover every existing primary route that was unclogged across the entire dungeon before he explored each primary unclogged route in order to further memorize which secondary and tertiary routes springing out from it were unclogged.

"This is amazing," Rui murmured.

Normally, running into deadends in the Shionel Dungeon was a frustratingly common happening. Most Martial Squires experienced dozens to hundreds of dead-ends before they actually discovered a new path that actually led somewhere. The Shionel Dungeon was quite cruel.

Only thirty percent of all possible paths at any given juncture actually led somewhere that wasn't eventually a dead-end. When combined with the fact that tunnels very frequently and constantly intersected with each other in the dungeon, it meant that adventurers and explorers ran into many, many junctures as they traveled the Shionel Dungeon.

The probability of picking paths that didn't lead to dead-ends was anywhere from one in a thousand to one in a million. When these odds were stacked on top of the fact that losing one's sense of direction and

This was why even with a huge number of Martial Squires pouring into the Shionel Dungeon, the exploration of the dungeon took an immense amount of time. Rui was able to bypass this significantly thanks to his Riemannian Echo, but not even he could know which paths were right, and which paths weren't. Not even he could pick the perfect paths correctly each time.

Until now.

The water from the gigantic lake had spread across all paths that went downwards, elucidating which ones were worth following, and which ones weren't. That combined with his senses, he was able to pick an incredible number of just the right paths.

Of course, this system wasn't completely flawless, but it made life far easier.