"Thank you for your concern," Rui smiled. "The food is delicious, by the way."
The two of them refueled themselves with some food and rest. It wasn't long before they sneaked out of the inn, and headed towards the Thundering Valley wearing their Martial attire.
They couldn't wear anything else, considering the sheer harshness of the environment that they were soon going to enter, any other fabric would be reduced to ash. Their Martial attire was made out of Squire-level fabrics that, while unable to offer any meaningful protection to them, were capable of surviving the immense rigors of Squire-level combat for the most part largely by simply evading being the target of most of the energy.
All punches and strikes were seamlessly delivered to Rui's body.
For a brief moment, Rui considered the prospect of wearing full-body armor of some sort to deal with the lightning, before shaking his head. There was a reason that Martial Artists did not make use of such combat gear regularly unless it was a significant part of their Martial Path. It was no different from committing Martial suicide. Growing dependent on such gear and equipment was a sign that a Martial Artist had abandoned their Martial Path, there was essentially a zero percent chance that they would be able to grow stronger.
It was why Kane was extremely hesitant of using a knife coated with poison in the Shionel Dungeon, and only did so for the briefest of times under life-threatening circumstances, before abandoning the weapon forever.
Furthermore, Rui did not think they would need such defensive measures and equipment in the first place either. It was rather unnecessary, although there was an extraordinary amount of current passing from the cumulonimbus cloud to the valley, it was spread across the entirety of the valley. Furthermore, the greatest amount was concentrated in the center of the valley where the distance between the ground and the clouds was at its minimum.
As long as they proceeded cautiously, death by lightning strike was a remote possibility.
Rui even made sure that both of their footwear was not made out of materials that conducted electricity, otherwise, dodging lightning was impossible.
Unlikely how most people thought, lightning strikes did not occur in a simplistic straightforward manner where a current of lightning straightforwardly jumped from the cloud and hit the ground.
The actual mechanics of lightning was a lot more complex. The process began with two streams of charged particles emerging from the ground and the cloud respectively due to the strong potential difference between the clouds and the ground. It was only when those two streams touched each other in midair did the circuit become complete, causing a tremendous flow of current to occur through the path, striking the ground.
That meant that if their footwear was conductive to electricity, then they very well could become part of that conductive circuit. If that did happen, then it would be impossible to avoid the lightning as the circuit would just follow them.
Rui ensured that they would at least have a chance by making sure that their footwear attire would not be able to conduct electricity.
"Was it really necessary to put some rubber in our footwear?" Kane murmured. "I dunno man, this feels really weird."
"You'll get used to it soon," Rui replied. "Trust me, you want them on."
"If you say so, I guess."
The Thundering got louder the closer they got, as did the lightning flashes. At this distance, ordinary people would be unable to even lay eyes on the lightning. The two of them did not suffer any problems as they were able to withstand the brightness with their evolved vision.
"Here we go!" Kane excitedly grinned as they finally reached the entrance to the valley.
STEP
The air changed rather sharply. Rui had never ever particularly wondered what lightning smelled like, but now he got to know. The only way he could describe it was…
('Electric,') He sniffed the air lightly.
Yet he didn't have time to appreciate it.
Before them was an ocean of flashes of lightning, entangling through the air as they struck the ground with an astounding amount of heat and energy.
Suddenly, a sense of peril overcame both Rui and Kane, both of them had mastered Primordial Instinct to differing degrees and proficiencies, Kane more than Rui due to a higher affinity for the technique and greater ability to master to Martial Art techniques in general.
In a millisecond, the two of them leaped away.
BOOM!
A lightning bolt struck the land that they were there a moment ago!
Rui glanced at his hand unhappily, which had turned a little red. It had been too close to the lightning bolt. The temperature of a lightning bolt was easily tens of thousands of degrees Celsius, this naturally resulted in it heating the environment around to extremely high degrees. Thousands of degrees Celsius was not something that even a Martial Squire could entirely ignore.
Rui had been a hundred microseconds too late, compared to Kane who had not only reacted much earlier but also moved far quicker than Rui had.
"You good?" Kane asked.
"Just the tiniest of burns," Rui replied. "My healing factor has already healed it."
While his evolved healing factor took longer with more significant wounds, it could easily mend simple wounds like a really mild burn.
"However…" Rui murmured. "I think we might have underestimated how difficult training in this place is."
"Speak for yourself," Kane grinned. "This is perfect! Also, that lightning bolt felt a little dangerous to me, but the damage it did was lacking."
He pointed to the tiny indentation in the ground caused by the lightning bolt. "That's not even a Squire-level attack, that's more comparable to the Apprentice Realm. It's weird that it even felt threatening."
Kane scratched his head, confused.
Rui understood why he felt this way, but it was a misunderstanding. "Lightning is not a solid object, Kane. It did not collide with the ground like a meteorite would. It passed through the ground like water traveling in a river. It is tremendously energetic, but most of that energy is simply passing through, rather than inflicting damage."
* * * * * * * * * *
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