Rui knew one of the reasons he had been picked was the Seismic Mapping technique. It was the best technique to locate a hidden underground research facility. Although there were sub-terranean specialists, the difficulty of the mission mean they needed to be extremely strong.
Furthermore, since the conflict wouldn't actually be taking inside land or the actual ground itself, they were useless beyond detection. Thus, it was more efficient to send someone who had the sensory techniques needed but also the power needed for the mission.
How many grade-ten Martial Apprentices were there that had also coincidentally mastered the Seismic Mapping technique, that also weren't on a mission?
Not many, Rui suspected.
Still, it wasn't fun to be the only one working while his teammates were effectively doing nothing.
Rui opened his eyes, lifting his palm from the ground sighing. ('Nothing here as well.')
Rui had long begun grid-search across the northern part of the forest. It would take him a full day of non-stop work to be able to map the entire area with his speed and sensory range.
The problem was figuring out the sizes of the grid boxes because he didn't the depth at which the facility was built at. The deeper it was, the smaller his grid boxes would need to be and the more grid boxes he would need to have. Because the deeper it was, the closer he needed to be in order to be able to detect it. If his grid boxes were large, the probability that he would be close enough reduced the few grid boxes he had.
Most people would simply try to be thorough and careful, and leave it at that.
That was the normal and even reasonable thing to do
But not Rui.
He was careful and thorough. But he also decided to mathematically construct a probability function of the likelihood of the research facility being missed by his Seismic Mapping at certain depths.
Thus, Rui had decided to create a probability function that inputted a possible depth of the research facility underground as well as the size of the grid boxes he was scanning the forest through, box-by-box, that outputted the probability of him missing it.
As for trying to gauge the maximum depth the facility could possibly be, he had conducted a small quick survey where he quickly dug holes into the ground as deep as he could to see where he would hard rock. That would likely be the hard limit where he could safely assume that the research facility would not be below.
Inputting that into the function, he could estimate the minimum amount of effort he would need to exert with his grid searching to be absolutely certain that he would not miss the research facility with his Seismic Mapping sense.
With the Mind Palace technique, parsing through the data was easy, too.
This was how a man of science operated.
Just as Rui felt he needed to take a break, he froze.
('Hm?') His eyebrows knitted as he sensed something odd deep within the land at a certain distance ahead of him.
His eyes widened as he felt a flat continuous hard structure.
A structure that could not be naturally formed.
('This is it!') He turned towards Kane, who was accompanying him. "I think I found it."
"Brilliant." Kane replied, relieved. "Let's storm in and wipe them all out."
"We don't know the exact entrance location yet." Rui told him. "Besides..."
"Besides?"
"There's a reason this is a grade-ten mission with a minimum requirement of five members." Rui told him, narrowing his eyes.
There were six Martial Apprentices in charge of the security of the research facility.
Among those six was a grade-ten Martial Apprentice while the remaining five were estimated to be mid-to-high grade Martial Apprentices at most.
For the Kandrian Empire and the Martial Union, this was trivial. However, Rui suspected that for the Commonwealth Duchy of Vinfrana, this was not a small amount. Its Martial Artist-per-capita, the number of Martial Apprentices for the entire population, was much lower than that of the Kandrian Empire.
Furthermore, because it hadn't had higher Realm Martial Artists in a long, long time. So, every Martial Apprentice was treated as a highly-valuable strategic asset. It wasn't easy for the sovereign state to dispatch these many Martial Apprentices to sit idle in a research facility when there were so many other urgent needs for Martial Artists.
Rui intended to gather as much information as he possible could before he would launch an assault. The current information available was too scarce.
Where was the entrance? How was it accessed? Could they access it the same way? Could the exit it the same way once the mission was complete?
The information that the Martial Union had gathered had allowed them to understand a very general broad structure of the research facility, the Martial Union entrusted them with figuring out all the details.
"What do you suggest we do now?" Kane asked, scratching his head. "Search for the entrance by scouring the area?"
Rui shook his head. "That's too direct, there's a chance they have basic surveillance near the entrance. If we go walking about, there's a pretty decent chance we'll be discovered immediately."
"Then what do we do?" Kane asked.
"Thorough extended surveillance." Rui replied. "You all have monoculars. The four of you will surveil the patch of land below which the research facility is below. You'll look for any opening using the monoculars from an elevated height with an eagle view of the entire area."
"What about you?" Kane asked.
"I'll keep track of activity with Seismic Mapping." Rui said. "You guys keep aerial vision. There's no way we can miss something if something does happen."
He turned to Kane. "Also, once we do discover the entrance and obtain an opportunity to enter. You're going in alone."
"Hey! Why single out me?" Kane complained.
"You have the Void Step technique; reconnaissance is your last name."
"My last name is Arr-" He paused, recalling he hated that name. "Alright fine."
