Shen Lei stared at Yan Hong Min and considered hitting him on the head for just a short moment. Then, he figured that it wouldn’t be conducive to why they were here. “Alright, this … hat notwithstanding, are you sure that this can bring down a building? You haven’t seen the underground palace. It’s huge.”

Luo Lin thought for a moment and figured that this wasn’t enough to let his second senior martial brother actually know what they were talking about. “Compared to the Sect Master’s palace, it’s still bigger.”

Yan Hong Min indeed had a much better idea of what to expect when he heard that comparison. He wasn’t worried though. “Well, it’s a pretty big explosion. Plus, you’re not actually trying to bring down the whole place. What you want is enough to bury the demonic practitioners that’ll come to get you and it’s definitely enough for that. Don’t forget: For a building to remain standing, the structure needs integrity.”

Shen Lei and Luo Lin exchanged a glance. Neither of them had ever bothered thinking about such things. In fact, most cultivators hadn’t. Some wouldn’t even bother living in houses and just preferred wild caves: Enough to have something over your head when it rained or stormed and something to keep the wind and unwelcome visitors out so you wouldn’t be bothered but otherwise, without much to upkeep. Integrity and whatnot, it didn’t matter to them.

Yan Hong Min could only sigh. As someone who excelled at building new things and combining them with his knowledge of cultivation, he sometimes wondered how other people lived their lives being this ignorant about anything other than cultivation. “For example, the roof of a building is carried by its walls but not every wall inside is absolutely necessary for that task. Think of a pagoda: With a few columns that are connected by beams and maybe reinforced by a brace, it can hold up an intricate roof. That is to say, if you want to collapse a building, your explosion doesn’t have to be big enough to cover the whole area. It’s enough to cover one part that’ll help achieve that goal.”

Even if Shen Lei and Luo Lin knew nothing about how to build a house, they still understood when it was explained to them like that. The only difficulty was that they had no idea how to make use of that in real life.

“But how to find a place like that? Also, much of the underground palace is, well, below the ground whether that is because it was built that way or was covered over time. That should likely be taken into consideration as well, shouldn’t it?” He wasn’t sure if this would make things easier or harder but he’d rather that Yan Hong Min had all the information that might possibly impact what could and couldn’t be done. In fact, it was a pity that Luo Lin’s dreamscape wasn’t enough to support a third person. Being able to bring just one person with them would have allowed them to do so much more.

Yan Hong Min hummed, his expression pensive. “Well, I haven’t seen it so I can’t say for sure but I’d expect that to make things easier. After all, the soil itself will press on top of the building so if the walls get damaged, it’ll be easier to make them crumble completely and have everything collapse on top of them.

“Either way, try to pick one spot in the building and focus on that. Without knowing anything else about the place, I can only say that somewhere with the walls far apart might work best because there wouldn’t be any other walls to prop up the rest even for a while and give the other side time to evacuate.”

Shen Lei narrowed his eyes and glanced at his fiance. “One of the halls should be best then.”

“Yes, but one further in the back of the building, not right at the front.” The front of the building actually wasn’t underground at all but the whole back was, almost giving it the feeling that it had been built into the mountain. If Yan Hong Min was right, then that place would give them the best chance at collapsing the building completely and burying the people from the other side.

“Well, that is where the corridors with most of the arrays are so the chance to set that up shouldn’t be too bad.” Of course, whether they could indeed lure everyone there, have the explosion go off, vanish in time, and close up the way out right behind them was still questionable.

There would be a lot to do and not much of a margin for error. If any step went wrong, they might be forced to fight after all, maybe in a damaged building that could collapse at any time. In the worst case, everyone could perish alongside the demonic faction because they didn’t make it out in time. He’d rather not even think about it.

Shen Lei looked at Luo Lin and thought of the dreamscape they shared. Actually … they should be safe from the impact of the explosion there since they would literally be in another dimension. This probably meant that they were the perfect people to take charge of this plan but … if things went wrong, it might be bad. Not to mention that they had no idea how much the other side knew about abilities. If they somehow recognized what Luo Lin could do as a mimic of what Blue Butterfly was able to do and had a way to prevent it … there would be nothing they could do to prevent their demise.

Shen Lei hesitated and finally reached up, taking the broken bowl off his head and eying it warily. Finally, he couldn’t help but look up at Yan Hong Min. “Does this actually have a defensive ability?” Because it sure didn’t look like it but he’d never discount something that could potentially save his fiance’s life.