Chapter 696 Shocking Discovery

*Hand-drawn panel for accurate imagery*

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Chapter 696: Shocking Discovery

But when the acid rain started, Leo and Lily suddenly realised something.

And that was that moderate rain was nowhere near enough to fill the whole area with water in the given time.

Not to mention, Pryde, as a Peak 4-star being, was only capable of making rain in a 5-kilometre-wide area in the sky, and even then, not every drop of water would fall into the canyon—most would fall outside.

But the solution to this problem was a strong wind that carried every drop of water into the canyon.

That meant Leo and Lily would need to burn a tremendous amount of mana just to fill the canyon a quarter of the way up.

"Wait... I guess even a 100-meter-deep fill would be enough to drown almost every being," Leo realised.

"Not to mention, I will have the hydra swim in that ring lake. He will prevent any underground sneak attacks!" Leo formulated the plan and immediately used his power to expand the clouds from 5 kilometres to 10 kilometres.

-80,000 mana

Leo raised his brow. That was just the cost of forming the acidic rain clouds across the 10-kilometre range.

Leo waited for a minute in that rain—though Lily had already begun concentrating the winds from the surroundings to direct all the water droplets into the canyon enclosure.

Just as the minute passed—

-15,000 mana

Leo sighed in relief. The cost of maintaining the moderate acidic rain of 10mm/hour across the 10-kilometre area was 15,000 mana per minute.

Thankfully, Lily had a total intelligence stat of 16,000 and, as a perk of all spirit contracts and being a spirit master, her mana regeneration rate was 2 times that of her intelligence stat, meaning 32,000 mana units per minute.

And if the boost from Niri's presence and Sylrael's [Unity Resonance] talent was counted, it reached almost 35,000 to 40,000 units—not that much of an increase because Niri and Sylrael were both weaker than Lily.

Meaning Lily was capable of maintaining the rain at double the rate, at the cost of 30,000 mana units per minute, for an indefinite amount of time—though she would constantly need to move around because a region could have only a limited amount of mana particles for Lily to absorb.

As for why Leo wasn't maintaining the rain while he himself also had nearly 16,000 intelligence stats after the trait boost of Agnivar and more than double the mana units due to dual soul, it was simple—Leo's mana regeneration rate was slower than Lily's.

When Niri was summoned, and around him, his regeneration rate would be equal to his intelligence stat—meaning 16,000 mana units per minute if he continuously moved around—barely enough to maintain the rain at normal intensity. And if Niri wasn't around, the rate would directly fall to half his intelligence stat—a normal rate across most beings.

But not only was Leo supposed to stay in one place and construct a strong wall—extra strong because it would now also work like a dam to withstand the ring lake's pressure—but they only had 5 and a half days remaining to complete their base building, and by then, at least 100 meters of water should be filled up—a normal rate of 10 mm/hour which was max that could be maintained by Leo was not plausible.

Meaning the constant high-intensity rain could only be done by Lily, who could regenerate her mana fast and also move around.

But Leo suddenly realised they even needed to account for the mana cost of wind manipulation over a 10-kilometre-wide area.

Too much even if he were there to help. In this, the person taking control of the wind was bound to be sucked dry eventually.

He stopped the rain, raised his hand, and concentrated the clouds that had expanded over a 10-kilometre-wide area into just around a 3- to 4-kilometre-wide range forcefully. This, however, wouldn't reduce the cost of maintaining the rain because Lily was supposed to increase the rain intensity to almost 30mm/hour from the original 10 mm/hour.

A heavy downpour continuously for 3 to 4 days straight while also using the wind to converge every single droplet into their location.

Unfortunately, the total cost per minute was 52,000 mana units. This time, the extreme pressurised wind was eating 22,000 units of mana every minute. Even if Leo and Lily worked together, things would still fall short unless there was perfect coordination and they worked tirelessly for 4 days straight, nearly exhausted every moment, because there were bound to be some coordination errors.

And that was dangerous, because they were the top fighters.

But an acid moat around the territory was a dangerous defence that should be built if possible.

Leo then looked at the 100-meter wall he had constructed on both channels. He didn't think twice before breaking apart the wall with a slope leading towards their location.

He would cause rain in the canyon so that water would naturally rush to their location, and any water that remained in the canyon channels due to elevation would be personally directed by Hydra's water-manipulation abilities.

Leo swiftly completed the other side of the wall with adequate durability so that the incoming water wouldn't escape—deciding to strengthen it later.

Then the rain began, the couple letting it fall naturally into the canyon so that wind wouldn't be needed to the same degree as before.

-44,000 mana units/minute.

Just in the range where both Leo and Lily could sustain the rain and wind while moving around and without exhausting themselves.

Swwooossshh—Splash! Splash!

With most of the rain happening on the canyon, the water started to flow rapidly along the slope as the initial dryness was washed away. And in just 2 hours, at a rate of 30mm of rainfall/hour, a flash flood occurred.

Water sloshed across the canyon's length and raged towards the horseshoe location in a mad rush, carrying dirt and debris with it.

But there was one beast that seemed rather excited.

Hydra.

He was waiting patiently under the heavy rain for the flash flood to hit him in the face as he stood right at the mouth of the channel leading there.

And he literally seemed excited, judging by how much his spirit body was flickering and shining under the heavy acidic downpour.

A wall of water, more than tens of meters tall, came through the channel that had formed itself over the course of the path, right towards the face of Hydra, who was ready to take it all.

Leo and Lily weren't worried about Hydra since he could simply be summoned back after taking fatal damage.

So they simply watched.

SPLAASSHH!! THHOOM!!

The debris-filled flood hit the hydra, and he was thrown back while his body cracked terribly, slamming immediately against the base of the central kilometre-tall pillar. But the hydra wasn't bothered at all—being a spirit, physical damage was not much to him unless it was really too much, and this flood hit was nowhere near enough to do that.

Suddenly, something surprising started to occur in Hydra's body.

It started to transform!