"Impossible! That cannot be true!" A Demon in the crowd roared as he rose to his feet, hellfire blasting out from him in his agitation.
Many in the crowd were in agreement with this sentiment!
How could such a thing be true? It would totally overturn the way of the world!
As stated before, one could only fight within their stage, no matter how talented they were.
The gaps in skill power and stats had been shown already. Someone with 45 Speed would die to someone with 85 Speed a hundred times over.
Someone with 23 Power at the Journeyman stage would never be able to beat down someone with 65 Power at the Adept stage.
It was not just fact, it was common sense!
Of course, this did not factor in cross-species fighting. It was obvious enough that different races had different stats at different levels. Once again, the stat comparison used for the stages was based on humans.
In their case, Unsparked/Unawakened has stats ranging from 1-10. Amateur = 11-20. Journeyman = 21-50. Adept = 51-100. Master = 101-200. Grandmaster = 201-500.
Previously, Darius had assumed that everything beyond 200 would be a Grandmaster, and while the Laws of Faust only recognized these 5 stages, he decided that further classification was necessary.
As such, even without having Divine Energy or a Divine Spark, he consider those with more than 500 points in any stat as Demi-Gods, because that was the stats those like Hercules had on average.
Continuing like that, Demi-God = 501-1000. Lesser God = 1001-2000. God = 2001-3000. Greater God = 3001-4000. High God = 4001-5000.
As for True Lords, Darius did not have enough information about them, so he had naturally slotted them as 5000+. Until he could gain a clearer classification, this would have to do.
Of course, these stat ranges were also based solely on the human race.
All other races had different stat ranges depending on their racial quality. Humans just happened to be the most average. Additionally, it was also a very convenient system to use, so Darius had stuck to it.
Under this stat system, Darius would classify as a Lesser God, even though the world only recognized him as an Adept.
Meanwhile, although Gunner would also qualify as a Lesser God level, once the half-giant activated Earth's Guardian, he would jump to the True Lord level x4, one of the reasons why Darius feared none anymore.
On the other hand, Xela was at the entryway of the God level because she solely focused on upgrading her Magic stat, unlike Gunner and Darius who would split between physical stats and magic ones.
However, if willpower was accounted for, Xela was at the True Lord level.
As for Luna, she was at the early stages of the Lesser God level, the Moon Elf had a lot of room to improve since her stats would rise quickly.
Going back to the matter at hand, the Five Apprentices had stats at the Grandmaster level using this scale, although they were officially at the Journeyman stage as recognized by the Laws of Faust.
It would already be preposterous to state that Journeyman might defeat Adepts, but at least those stages were next to each other.
However, they claimed that those brats would be at the level of the peak existences!
It was impossible!
No, it HAD to be impossible!
The alternative was too horrible to consider!
It meant that the sanctity of stages would be usurped!
A random Journeyman who would usually be a slave for them could not sock them in the jaw!
Heck, he could not even make Masters his slaves!
Ideally, this should not be an issue, right?
If the standard for Journeyman rose, then the standards for Adepts, Masters, and Grandmaster should rise accordingly so the balance would be restored.
Obviously, if the Five Apprentices had stats like this at this level, then once they rose further, their stats would naturally rise too. This was the basis of the previous assertion.
BUT!!
There was one problem. This kind of situation was not natural, but artificially created through the use of Safemoon's rare and top-tier products. If EVERYONE had access to these products for free, then there would be no difficulty, as the previous 'ideal' situation would occur.
However, reality is, was, and always will be cruel. The truth of the matter was that only a blessed few could get the resources at a time due to their exorbitant cost and low supply, and even those fellows could not get enough to invest as wantonly as the City Lord of Safemoon did.
In other words, no one would be able to reproduce the effect that Darius had!
This too was not a concern if only his Five Apprentices were an anomaly in the world, but Safemoon had recently announced that stocks would be refreshed with almost 10 times the previous supply while prices would be increased by 50%.
This means that the number of goods would increase, but the accessibility would sharply decrease. Now, even less could buy, but those who could still buy could buy more!
This meant that such fellows might be able to reproduce what was being revealed here, and the various powers and factions who came to watch found this horrifying and unacceptable.
It meant that their enemies could possibly buy these goods and manufacture warriors that could beat their Grandmasters at the Journeyman stage. If those Journeyman manufactured warriors reached Adept, then wouldn't they be able to stomp on their Grandmasters like Gods?
So those who knew they couldn't buy had only one choice: Deny!
Deny, deny, deny!
Deny so hard that the Laws of Faust are brainwashed and agree with you, wiping this thing out of reality!
Nicholas Spencley saw through this, so he didn't argue with them. Rather, he continued.
"In light of this, the only accepted combatants will be those at the Grandmaster stage. Each of the apprentices will come up one at a time, and ten Grandmasters may challenge them in a row. Whoever wins will acquire the prize, while those who lose will have to forfeit their lives and their property."
The various Grandmasters in the crowd had their eyes light up. They had long treated Nicholas' words about some Journeyman brats having the same power as them as rubbish.
Their only concern was to become the first one to fight to claim the free pot of gold before it ran out!
