Darius Supreme

Darius was back in Fallon, sitting within the peak of his tower as he pondered many things. He had come back from Gravitas after leveling the entire continent and ending so many innocent as well as not so innocent lives.

Just like with the war on Fallon, the deaths did not give him any experience since he indirectly caused it. He also was not in any hurry to level up now, because more important than levels were stats.

With more stats came more raw power, and skills allowed him to funnel and refine the power for his own use. Leveling only gave him 5 points in stats and 3 points in skills but meant that his experience gain was reduced.

Darius would never do something so counter-intuitive. Just one Event or Quest could give him more than that, and speaking of that, he was pondering about his apprentices.

They had just recently become adepts but were making rapid progress. Darius expected that within 3 to 4 months, they should be ready to become Masters.

He would have to prepare resources for them once they reach that level. However, resources of that level were not easy to transmute in one go and would have to be supplemented.

After all, the apprentices were basically an investment that did not directly pay back. Unlike typical apprenticeship models where the teacher/master would clean his apprentices of everything of value and then give them back the barest minimum, Darius invested the best and most expensive in them without taking anything back.

He did this not out of kindness, despite what the apprentices themselves thought, but rather to verify his own theory. They were basically an experiment, the five of them being living test subjects.

The value of an experiment lay not in its process, but in the result. The result was what mattered to Darius.

The previous event where he made them fight against Grandmasters from all over Fallon in order to consolidate their teaching also had the nice effect of giving the public a preliminary viewing of what consuming his resources could bring the average person.

After all, when Darius started the experiment, he was still using the old Supreme System under Caesar and that version did not allow organic growth.

So neither himself nor his Branded Servants could use such resources to grow. While they could use them now, it was pointless given their current power and would not do much of anything.

However, the value was still there. After that tournament, the demand for Safemoon's goods had skyrocketed exponentially. The prices resellers were selling bought goods for was over 5 times the selling price at Safemoon!

Of course, Darius only tolerated reselling because not everyone wore a HoloBrace. While Miranda had launched the satellites and had full coverage of Faust, that was only for those who were wearing HoloBraces.

Areas without such a thing were still mostly blank to her, otherwise she would have detected Deia who arrived on Kiel and was struggling to survive then informed Darius.

As it were, she was still establishing herself and HoloBraces were spreading rapidly over the world of Faust. Fallon was about 80% conquered in total and everyone within the conquered areas was forced to wear a HoloBrace.

So for that matter, one could say Fallon was totally covered. Pokterr was Miranda's homebase and had been totally terraformed into a mental world, so that too was fully covered.

As for the other continents, the spread of HoloBraces was scarce and intermittent. Ludo was the most significant of the rest due to the fact that Darius was their new Desert King but had yet to announce his status.

He had given the various sultans hefty resources to develop their forces first. That way when they announced his rulership over the continent, they would have the capital to resist any unwanted forces.

Well, the most premier unwanted force would have been those greedy False Gods, but they were currently AFK. However, Houto and Pan were also war-like continents who would invade in a heartbeat to secure land and resources for themselves.

The only reason they had not bothered with Ludo was the distance and the sheer poverty of the continent. Once Ludo was said to belong to the Lord of Safemoon, people wouldn't be deterred.

Rather, they would be excited. Just like the situation when Safemoon announced that it was supporting Andrato, people would see the latter as an avenue to filch free top-tier goods 'legally'.

After all, Darius as the master of the land would not leave it bare and so useless, would he? Naturally, he would develop it to a satisfactory level befitting his status and in a way that could benefit him, so he would use resources on it right?

Great, then he couldn't be angry if we raided those resources from individual factions, since while they may be under him, they were not directly linked.

Even if he was angry, so what? The worst he could do was blacklist them, in which case they could tear all pretenses down and raid the goods that came out of his city from every avenue, buyers, caravans, and more.

They certainly feared Safemoon, but that was the city itself. Outside its walls? It only had a slight deterrent effect at best.

If Safemoon did not like it, they would just camp outside the wall and bash anyone who bought something to death and loot them. Even if people wizened up and decided to consume their goods in the city, how long could they keep it up?

Were you, the Prince of Empire A, going to stay in Safemoon forever? Even if you thought you were smart and would consume resources in the city and then come out to go home while empty-handed, we will still bash you on the head!

Then like a tax agency, we will assume your debt and force you to pay what we assume you would have bought and consumed anyway.

You can fool the chairman, but you cannot fool the secretary. After all, she fools the chairman every day for a living!