[Congratulations on completing the Event: Coffin of Lord Darm!]
Darius sighed with relief and passed a hand through his hair. Thanks to his increased Intellect on Faust, he felt a little fatigued from being at a high-intensity combat status for almost 10 minutes.
The same went for Gunner and Xela who were certainly slightly fatigued, but not panting nor particularly overwhelmed. This was one of the reasons Darius liked to increase stats as equally as possible, so that he wouldn't be caught lacking in any regard.
Gunner smiled and squatted down where Darm had died, inspecting the greenery while Xela lowered her head. Darius noticed her downcast look and guessed what she must be thinking.
He smiled and walked over patting the Elven Princess on the head, startling her.
"You appear to feel ashamed that I had to take up some of your duties while Gunner was fully able to complete his, correct?" Darius guessed.
Xela nodded slowly. "That's right. My duty, as well as the reason you chose to brand me, was to fulfill my role as this party's healer, so that I would take that load off your back. And yet I contributed little to that end, forcing you to pick up my slack."
Xela's face became bitter. "I'm aware that my time spent with the Supreme System is far shorter compared to the two of you and that my level is still low, but it still doesn't feel too good."
Darius chuckled. "I see what you mean, but you're looking at it from the wrong point of view."
Xela looked up to him. "How so?"
Darius raised a finger. "Consider this, if your healing was subpar this battle, then my damage dealing was also trash while Gunner's defense was terrible."
When Gunner heard his name, he stood up and took over for Darius. "You, with your bow, dealt more damage to Darm than Master did. Meanwhile, I would have died if the two of you hadn't continued to heal me every second, despite being a tank that should have higher survivability."
Darius patted Gunner's shoulder, glad the large lad understood his point. "Exactly. The important thing about understanding and reasoning one's actions is accounting for relativity."
"Everything is relative. Our collective and individual power against Darm was simply lacking. However, you shouldn't forget, all three of us are Journeymen, not Adepts or Masters. We should measure ourselves using the yardstick of fellow Journeymen. With that in mind, would any other Journeymen be able to do what any of us did against Darm?"
Xela was stunned. "Well… no?"
Darius removed his hand from her head. "That's right. A normal Journeyman would be lucky to be able to shave off 1% of Gunner's HP in 5 minutes, yet you can bring 10% of the entire thing back in a single second. Do you understand just how overpowered you are relative to your own stage?"
Once Darius put it like this, Xela felt like her mind was blown. She had subconsciously neglected to consider their fellow Journeymen because even peak Journeyman would be weak compared to their group.
With her Intellect stat at the Adept stage, she had been unconsciously measuring herself using that as a benchmark, but that was a grave mistake. The fact of the matter was that she wasn't an Adept in the truest sense, despite her stats reaching into those categories thanks to the Supreme System.
She was still a Journeyman, bound to use Intermediate skills and spells at best. The simple truth was that Xela, despite being only a quasi-Adept, had managed to slaughter a Master stage Vampire Lord.
Though weakened, he had maintained the power of an Adept for his race which was one grade higher than the human race already, so it was a great feat no one could put down.
She should be feeling pride, not debasing herself. Realizing this, Xela lifted her head with a smile and nodded. "You're right, thank you, Master Darius. Thank you, Gunner."
Darius and Gunner smiled. "Not a problem. Besides, now that we've completed our task, it's time to enjoy our spoils."
Their rewards were twofold. The first was obviously the AP and SP from the Event, which totaled 190 and 95 for each of them respectively. This was a huge amount that if distributed well, could increase their power by twofolds at the least.
The second was the natural experience gain from killing the 2,000 undead, 500 Blood Thralls, and Lord Darm himself. Unfortunately, the Blood Warriors had not given them experience nor drops as they were summons.
Furthermore, only 100 of the undead army had been Journeymen undead, with only 5 at the Adept stage. Well, that was to be expected, as they had been common undead incapable of growing more powerful.
Darm had been just a normal undead summoner, not someone like Thanatos who could organically grow undead or Darius who had received a bugged spell had Spawn.
If he could have amassed an army of even 500 Journeymen undead, then he could have conquered any town or village he wished. As for the 5 Adepts, he had only gotten them after painstakingly investing his Death Energy into them with his Promote ability.
For the Blood Thralls though, they had all been at the Amateur stage. It was impossible for Blood Thralls to ever climb from there as they would stay at the stage they had been summoned at.
That was why Pureblood Vampires and above used their 'Create Initiate' ability, for it would turn a living person into an Initiate Vampire that needed to drink blood to turn into a Halfblood.
However, Blood Thralls were made from corpses, so they lacked souls and sentience. Blood Warriors were more recognized as elite warriors, but they came at the cost of the Vampire's own powers.
A typical vampire army would look like this: Normal undead at the front, Blood Thralls in the middle, and Blood Warriors at the back. If there was a need, Halfbloods would be sent out as shock troops to level the enemy with raw power.
Ultimately, the trio had gained a total of 80,235 experience. Split by three, that left each of them with 26,745 points of experience.
Putting aside how quickly their bars shot up, there were also the plentiful drops from their slain foes that had been deposited in their Inventories to sort out, especially what came from Darm himself.
