"Besides," Rui shrugged. "Even if these are dead-ends, who knows? We might run into something interesting."
"Yeah ri-" He paused when Rui suddenly stopped walking as he cocked his head and stared hard in a particular direction. "What is it?"
"I sensed something strange at the edge of my sensory sweeps," Rui frowned. "Is that… Is that a big tree?"
He jogged a bit ahead, to extend his sensory range in that direction as his eyes wandered around, lost, as he was absorbed in the sensory feedback that he got from Riemannian Echo.
"A tree? Is that all? That doesn't seem exactly out of place given that the dungeon is basically overgrown trees," Kane remarked.
"It's the size of a small mountain," Rui informed him with a surprised expression. "It's inside a cavity large enough to be a floor."
"Wait, so that's the next floor you discovered?" Kane's grin lit up. "That's awesome, we've finally run into something tangible after exploring this much."
"Yeah, let's get going," Rui nodded as he picked up the pace. "I think this floor might be special."
"Because of the tree?" Kane asked.
"Yeah, and also, I don't sense any monsters on that floor. Everything is strangely stationary," Rui remarked as he ran forward with Gale Force Breathing. "Honestly, there might be nothing worth having there. It's hard to tell from this distance. Regardless, let's reach it first. The problem is, I can't immediately detect a tunnel route to the floor immediately."
The tunnels in the dungeon did not interconnect in an orderly fashion, instead resulting in messy mazes. The presence of these mazes was an additional reason why Rui's maps were basically priceless, the ability to know which direction to go was special.
Rui could either spend a lot of time trying to find a natural tunnel path that leads to the fourteenth floor, or he could try a more forceful method.
"We could try breaking out way through to it, honestly," Rui scratched his head.
It allowed them to create a direct path to the fourteenth floor and they didn't need to waste time running around looking for a tunnel leading them to it. After all, there was no guarantee that such a thing existed. There was no rule that the dungeon abided by that said all tunnels must necessarily be connected to all floors. It could be that there were isolated tunneling systems, and they were simply in the wrong one and would never get to the destination that they were trying to get to even if they ran around for all time.
"Hm," Kane did not want to waste too much time. "How far away is it?"
"About three kilometers in that direction," Rui pointed straight towards the wall of the tunnel. "It's a bit much, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Kane concurred. "Not to mention, the walls of the tunnels in the dungeon aren't weak, it's going to take some effort getting there. Still… I think I prefer the certainty that comes with it."
Kane did not want to spend any more time running around in the tunnels of the dungeon than they already had. Breaking holes into them instead was a fresh way of going about things.
Unlike Rui, he could not sense beyond a certain range outside of his immediate vicinity. This was an incredibly discomforting feeling that he would rather not subject himself to. The prolonged subjection to the sensory jamming could be stressful. Even though he had spent much longer time in isolation on covert missions, at the very least, he had complete awareness of his surroundings.
"I concur," Rui nodded. "Let's get started. We can do alternating strikes. I'll start us off."
Kane nodded as the two of them took their stances.
Rui rushed forward as he used Flowing Canon as the main strike. All of the muscle groups across his body generated a tremendous power with which he smoothly empowered the strike. He breathed deeply as his fist shook, vibrating back and forth extremely fast, yet extremely mildly.
The vibrating fist collided with the wall as the superhuman might of his Martial body empowered with Outer Convergence, Flowing Canon, and Reverberating Lance struck the wall.
BAM!!!
This one strike alone created a two-meter wide and deep crater that almost entirely blasted a hole in the tunnel.
"Tsk, so small and shallow," Rui tutted, unsatisfied with the result. "The walls of the tunnel must have some decent Squire-level esoterics protecting it."
At his current level, every single strike possessed the ability to fragment buildings to pieces. Yet he still wasn't able to blow a hole in the wall.
BAM!
Kane followed up with a swift piercing kick.
CRACK CRACK CRACK
A hole emerged in the wall. "Still, this might not take as much time as I feared if a single combo can break a hole in it."
"True, still, it's three kilometers," Kane sighed. "Let's not waste time dilly-dallying."
Despite their fears, it took them only three-quarters of an hour before they broke through three kilometers of tunnels.
BAM!!!
"Finally," Rui grinned. "We're here."
The last wall of the tunnel opened up into a huge space with a glowing ceiling that radiated sunlight. "That never fails to surprise me. Do you see the tree?"
"It's blurry as hell, but yeah, kind of. It's freaking huge," Kane squinted his eyes.
Rui on the other hand could clearly get a good image of it with his Riemannian Echo. "That it is, I still don't see any monsters. Which is strange."
"What about the esoteric resource deposits?" Kane asked.
"Hehe," Rui grinned, "You're not gonna believe where they are. Or rather, where it is."
"It?" Kane raised an eyebrow.
"The tree's trunk is slightly elevated above the ground, meaning it's uplifted by its roots that are dug deep into the ground, deeper than even my senses can reach," Rui explained. "And under the trunk is actually a small space, relatively speaking where a huge singular ore is sitting half buried in the ground. A big singular ore the size of a large building."
