Darius was chilled by that experience. He felt that it wasn't just his imagination, but some form of spiritual feedback. After all, this was not Earth where he could write such things off. Faust was a world of magic, where anything should be possible.
It might be due to his enhanced Luck at 50 points, it or could be an effect of his Intellect at 50 points that had turned him into a fledgling psychic. Perhaps even both of them working in tandem?
Whatever the case, Darius felt comfort. Now that he had seemingly received confirmation about being on the right path, he wouldn't be so clueless as to how to proceed like before, wondering if every choice would doom him to hell.
His increased survivability could all be attributed to the new specific trait Mikey and Joneson had acquired with their increased stage.
Their Dominate trait!
This trait allowed the duo of undead to control ambient undead and take them under their banner as long as they outleveled and outranked them, which shouldn't be too hard as Liches were pretty much on the top of their hierarchy.
This posed moderate use in infiltrating the zone since their target destination had foes higher leveled than them and possibly higher ranked.
But if - and just if - Darius was able to nick the First Resurrection Stone someway somehow, he foresaw that this trait would be the key to his survival. Caesar had said it, once the stone landed in his hands, it would act as a beacon to all undead.
Once that happened, even if he could escape the Adept band, he would have to cross the Journeyman and Amateur bands with possibly thousands of undead on his tail.
This was why he had offered rewards for others to cull as many undead as they could. The fewer there were, the easier the second half of his mission would be.
Assuming they couldn't even do that, then Mikey and Joneson could just control them and turn them into shields for his escape.
Darius was betting that after acquiring the First Resurrection Stone, neither he nor Gunner would be in the best shape, and that was already putting it in the best-case scenario.
Without some form of protection, it would be impossible to cross the great distance that was the Adept band to the Baratuo outpost. It was almost a total of 1200+ kilometers from his destination to the nearest 'safe zone'.
Darius cut his train of thought when Mikey spoke again. "So, err, boss, what do we do now?"
Darius didn't need to think long. "We proceed and take out any enemies who get in our way. Any undead you see who are below your level claim them and turn them into your forces to fight as we go forward."
Darius pointed at the duo of undead liches. "Your new goal is to reach at least level 40."
The undead duo shared a look before nodding. "Yessir boss!"
Satisfied, Darius turned to his own matters. He checked the compiled damage lists from him and Gunner, relaxing that force/external damage was accounted for at the end of the equation.
It wasn't even a modifier, but a raw damage value of its own, and from what he was seeing, it could even be in the hundreds and thousands in terms of value!
Darius now knew that what Gunner was doing was right, one should not just punch like a commoner, but create a situation where the force of one's punch would exceed common sense for more effect.
After storing the values in his database, he then checked his and Gunner's earning in terms of experience and loot.
[You have gained 51,200 EXP, 12 Necrotic Fluids, 2 Blue Soul Fires, 5 Undead Essence, etc.]
[Gunner has gained 51,200 EXP, 10 Fire Sacs, 3 Rotten Hooves, 6 Broken Skulls, etc.]
[You have leveled up x25! You are now level 20(+27). You have gained 2.5 Ability Points and 2.5 Skill Points to spend as you wish!]
[Gunner has leveled up x25! He is now level 20(+24). He has gained 5.4 Ability Points and 3.4 Skill Points to spend as he wishes!]
Darius frowned. He was aware that Mikey and Joneson killed more than 60% of the undead themselves because their numerous minions were able to take advantage of the first Earthen Stomp, leaving only 20 alive at the end that could fight back.
Out of those that remained, Darius and Gunner killed at least 15. This explained why Mikey and Joneson together had gone as high as level 28 in one go, but Darius felt something was wrong.
Based on the calculations for the experience share, he and Gunner's lower levels should have granted them far more experience per kill than what this number suggested.
Darius quickly jogged his brain and did the calculations. Once he understood what was going on, his face became solemn as he could help but sigh in defeat. It seemed that Vena and Ceasar were even crueler than Darius thought.
He never noticed this little hidden fact up till now because he wasn't in a rush to climb all the stages. He had been apprehensive of whatever trick the duo was hiding, so he had mostly taken on foes within a certain level range.
Now that he did take on foes much higher, he quickly noticed what was wrong. It seemed like, just as he was capped to 5 levels below himself for the 1 exp award, he was capped to 5 levels above him for the 5,120 experience reward.
This meant that should Darius kill even a god right now, he would only get a maximum of 5,120 experience. He was capped at that limit as far as he could tell, and he wasn't entirely sure if it had always been like this or it was something that came with the Supreme System's upgrade.
Darius turned to the mouthpieces of the system, the two Liches, and inquired upon this. Their answer made him smile bitterly, as it had been what he largely expected.
