Chapter 661
Luna as well as Gunner listened to this and seemed to nod imperceptibly. They were not the most socially apt fellow and definitely could not claim to understand the mind of people as well as Darius, but they could understand this saying since it was very direct and touched at the heart of sapient thought.
As for Xela, she did not seem to understand this because she had never really felt greed before. The Divine Concepts in her soul also frowned and prevented such comprehension from coming to her, for they did not want their lovely and sweet maiden to be corrupted.
Darius meanwhile had an expression of confusion.
"In other to pursue wealth, you need to have your life. What is the point of taking risks if they are not fully calculated?" Darius asked seriously.
The cultivators in the surroundings were rendered silent by this. The burly man in the lead pondered for a while before speaking.
"We have done some preliminary research on you and have come to the conclusion that while you may have contracted some powerful forces, they are not enough to stop all of us." He answered calmly.
"My forces...? What about my own personal power? What if I am a peak Grandmaster with extreme power?" Darius asked with a strange look.
The expression of those around him changed slightly as they became hesitant and warier. The burly man's voice darkened a little and became colder.
"Your personal power cannot be too high. Firstly, your history states you were born in southern Fallon and moved to Andrato in the north. Secondly, we have traced your power from when you were an Adept to now, and you cannot possibly have become Grandmaster in less than 10 years from an Adept."
The burly man shook his head. "It is not that we are underestimating you, but it is simply impossible for you to go from Adept to Grandmaster in that time. Your Spirit Root and Nascent Soul... er, your Magic Circuit cannot bear the stress of being upgraded so fast and with such a poor foundation. It is literally physically impossible."
Darius nodded and settled down. Their remarks were apt, as Darius knew that for a native of Faust, going through the stages so fast was a thing of madness. Of course, Darius' resources allowed the apprentices to go from Amateur to Adept in about 3 years which was already mind-boggling.
But that was purely because of his resources and the fact that their stats were higher than their stage, so as the burly man said, their foundations were beyond being solid, very able to tolerate rapid upgrades.
However, it was like a person on a regular planet Earth with a child-like body telling you that they were a 23-year-old adult. Maybe due to some supernatural or paranormal circumstances, that was true but normally and logically, it was physically impossible for it to be so, and supernatural as well as paranormal activities were not commonplace enough for you to attach it to every scenario.
Likewise, Darius saying he was a Grandmaster was like that. While it was true thanks to the Supreme System - and specifically his stats - that he could emulate such power and beyond, it was not possible outside of his Transmuted resources and even Darius wouldn't believe himself - knowing what he was and how he got here - if another person in his shoes told the same.
One thing with cultivators was that they always seemed rash and used stupidly flawed logic, but that was only because they were dealing with a special being protected by cosmic luck with abilities that were out of the norm, so they always lost.
If you switch the person in that scene to a typical native, that same stupid logic would be sound and factual. That was just the reality of it.
Likewise, that sound logic was stupidly flawed when brought before Darius and his group, and these fellows were about to pay the price.
"That's about enough. I finally understand everything, what I need to do, and how to approach the cultivators of Pan on my plans." Darius spoke as he nodded to himself.
The cultivators heard this and tensed. Now that the questions were done, it was back to the kidnapping, and the outcome was up in the air. The burly man forced himself to remain calm and spoke nonchalantly.
"So? Will you surrender as you promised after I answered your questions?"
Darius chuckled. "Sure, after you survive this."
He pointed a finger and released a huge beam of electricity as thick as an industrial pipe that was aimed at the burly man as its first target. Its speed was so great that it left afterimages, moving at the literal speed of light.
[Endless Chain Lightning - Level 60 Spell
Grade: Advanced
Cost: 1,000 MP
Description: You create a bolt of lightning that arcs toward a target of your choice that you can see within range. The bolt then leaps from that target to as many as 1,000 other targets, each of which must be within 3000 feet of the first target. The damage reduces by 1% with each jump. This deals 6,500% lightning damage to the first target.]
The burly man who had been on guard the whole time was ready, but when he felt the power in the spell, his face paled and he screamed.
"NOOO!! PLEASE SPARE ME!"
He mustered all his power, a mighty aura bursting from him as energy coalesced around his body to block the attack, but Darius had already checked his stats by Analyzing him while they were doing all that talking.
[Name: Gu Wenfan Race: Human Stage: Grandmaster Jobs: Cultivator, True Immortal.
HP: 111,112/111,112 QI: 41,391/41,391 STA: 23,579/23,579
Level: 73 Cultivation Stage: True Immortal (Rank 8)
Power: 344 Speed: 198 Constitution: 323
Magic: 567 Will: 555 Luck: 20.
Skills: Immortal Body, Immortal Foundation, Immortal Suppression, etc
Spells: Nine Fire Immortal Wave, Heavenly Water Palm, King Jue's Barrier, etc.]
The details of cultivators were slightly different from those of Fallon due to the different power system here and the True Supreme System acknowledged as well as made changes to it.
However, that was something for Darius to explore and research later. Right now, the Chain Lightning he shot out easily pierced the barrier of the burly man whose name was Gu Wenfan and then lanced his body, turning him into ash.
It then jumped onward to the nearest person who was a female, and she didn't even have time to panic before she was also turned to ash. Some others were faster and had higher speed stats because of their cultivation, so they reacted to defend themselves.
However, it was futile. With Darius' current stats, he could even deal with Demi-Gods head-on, much less them. Even though cultivators had seemingly higher stats than those of the same level on Fallon, it was a fixed outcome regardless.
Death swept the area around the airship equivocally, not sparing anyone nor letting them go. By the time a second had come to pass, the entire area was clear, and even the barrier that had kept them locked in was destroyed.
Interestingly, the Chain Lightning did not dissipate, but darted off into the north where there were some hills and dense forests. With their current physical prowess, the group could soon hear screams and begging that went further off, chilling the subordinates of Darius.
Not even the spies and backups sent here were spared by the spell, and it intended to do its work before going off. Darius simply smiled and did not even look back, ordering the airship to continue forward to their territory while he pondered.
As he had told Gu Wenfan before he died, he finally understood how to treat cultivators. They were not fully idiotic, but were rather usually shrewd schemers who possessed all of the negative cognitive and behavioral traits of a sapient being, but strongly enhanced.
And they fully subscribed to established facts and logic. They hardly or never considered nor planned for exceptions or outliers to their personally understood and accepted worldview.
If they believed that Person A could only achieve this much given the circumstances they knew about, they would never believe or considered that Person A could achieve anything higher than that unless physically proven otherwise.
This made them seem limited in thought when they were just very close-minded and overconfident in their knowledge and judgment.
So essentially, the best way for a person like Darius to deal with them is to display the full extent of his prowess from the get-go in order to deter any thoughts of wasting his time!
In other words, as they often put it, he had to be high-profile and domineering! In the world of cultivators, the stupidest thing you could do would be to try to be low profile, because this was a world that respected strength.
There was violence and death everywhere, who was going to give you the time and peace to develop like it was a lawful world?