Meanwhile, Draco appeared above Vita Kingdom, hovering in the sky above the Aether palace. He looked down once more with a wry smile and then disappeared by teleporting.
He appeared in many places around the mapped zones over the course of the next few hours. He would check conquered areas and yet-to-be-conquered areas both, seemingly ascertaining something.
He even checked on the five airships led by the core members without them noticing, nodding his head at their progress and speed. At this rate, they would be able to achieve their goals in a matter of weeks.
The most fearsome part of their advance was that they were getting stronger with each step they took. It wasn't just them, but the army as a whole. The NPCs were at Rank 6 now and were getting ever closer to Rank 7, while the other players hovered at Rank 4's boundary.
The core members were stably within Rank 5, and could have easily gone past that barrier in time but their merger with the world caused them to face a severe reduction in experience gain. They would only likely reach Rank 6 after 50% of the mapped zones were cleared.
The advanced members, expert members, and basic members of Umbra all had upgradeable sets for their classes that all their experience was being invested into, so despite having mostly Epic and Legendary classes with faster exp gain, their exp drain was just as bad.
After checking on them, Draco left the area and appeared within the new territory that had joined. He especially entered one of the largest and most well-known Divine Empires among them and descended into their fold.
He appeared at the city gate and paid the fee to enter, which was shockingly 10 gold. This was a steep price in the former mapped zones, but he saw that even peasants and farmers could cough up this amount with relative ease.
Draco could only sigh. After all, these areas had gone through millennia of development and being untouched, so they didn't have a situation were 98% of their circulating currency was locked in some retard's vault.
As such, the standard of wealth was far higher. Bronze was like the value of a penny, Silver was like the value of half a dollar and Gold was like a dollar if we were converting it to the wealth of the Central Country.
This was not necessarily in terms of raw value like in the Intermediary Trade Center, but more like a sample of how it would feel if this standard was copied over to earth.
Or basically, the purchasing power.
On the main plane previously, Bronze was like 10 dollars, Silver was around a hundred or more and Gold was like having a thousand dollars on hand. Platinum was straight up a million dollars.
The gap was severe.
Another thing Draco noticed as he entered the town and observed was the level of technology. While the world was still kept forcefully within the medieval boundaries of Western fantasy, it had clearly developed forward in its own way.
That's right, the thing of the old era that many yearned for day and night in the former mapped zones was in its budding stage over here: Magitech!
Magitech, short for Magical Technology, was a branch of the tech tree where a society that possessed magical abilities developed more conventional modern technology that was powered not by electricity, but through some magical force.
In this case, it was naturally Worldly Energy of course.
Looking at all the appliances, the lights, and the various semi-automotive vehicles passing up and down, Draco could finally feel a bit of the fabled old era in Boundless lore.
It was no wonder such a time period could give birth to such power and development, because if it wasn't an upgraded version of this, then Draco could totally believe that the old era was the peak of Western fantasy society.
This reminded Draco of his Epic Rank Tradeskill Magical Engineering, which was a basic branch needed to enter into this field. He had learned a lot from it and had glimpsed into the marvelous old era through its machinations.
Draco also couldn't help but think of the strange expressions the Goddess Descendants wore when they were integrated into Vita City-State back then and saw how the current main plane was.
After all, their ancestors originated from the old era so the texts about what the outside world was like, and what the outside world was actually like did not match up in the slightest.
However, they understood that society had practically devolved after some time, so they accepted it. They had no interest in changing the world since they had no emotional connection to it, and besides, the world was going to be Draco's playground anyway.
Draco continually took in the sights and scenes from this Divine Empire which was called Emphor. In terms of size alone, it was massive, almost occupying an entire continent for itself.
Errr, but the irony was that this actually made it smaller than Vita Kingdom in terms of land size since Vita had swallowed up the entire Cario Continent into its fold and was even stretching its fingers across the seas.
Draco soon reached the marketplace and saw a wealth of goods being sold. He even saw common roadside stalls selling Rare and Epic items and equipment, while the proper chain stores even had Legendary equipment without even being at Rank 7!
To compare, the roadside stalls on the former main plan had Common items in stock with the occasional Uncommon that caused people to go crazy.
Stores with buildings up to Rank 6 had all of these plus Rare items at different levels. This was their mainstay and kept them above the common rabble.
Rank 7 shops like the mall had some Epic materials and a few Epic items on display, and these were not even allowed to be sold but only for looking.
It was only Umbra's mall that changed this rule since they were backed by Draco and the talented Tradeskill crafters of Umbra, as well as the Goddess Descendants.
As for true Epic and Legendary items, you'd have to see them in the top auctions, with which they were fought over like crazy. We had seen this many times in the past.
But here, they were sold on the street.
In truth, Draco and Vita could easily achieve this level with their current prowess. Draco alone could achieve this if he put aside some days for crafting and flooding the market, but that was not organic.
This situation was more organic, with the various locals feeling that this was the norm and even having the purchasing power to buy these items much easier than on the main plane, with these items also costing far less since supply was higher while demand was roughly the same if not lower.
It was a fact that if these new areas wanted to, they could easily slaughter and conquer the former mapped zones had Umbra not begun their conquest.
So after seeing this, Draco's eyes narrowed as he wondered why this was so. He browsed the market for a few more minutes before disappearing and reappearing within the large Imperial Palace of the Emphor Divine Empire.
He walked through the halls and saw that while things seemed grand, there was an aura of fear and uncertainty in the higher-ups. The servants had also picked up on it but were mostly uncertain and did not dare to ask questions.
Draco sniffed deeply, absorbing the chaotic emotions. He gained some blurry understanding of what was going on and he felt that it was too good to be true.
The whole reason he had come here lowkey was because even though he could fight True Gods, he had never actually fought one. He wasn't sure if he could overpower them using the trick he and his two soulmates devised.
If he barged in here arrogantly and displayed his methods, even if they worked they would just alarm the other True Gods of these territories and make them feel endless fear.
A Non-True God who had Divine Energy and a Basic Law that could kill True Gods above their rank? Such a thing could not be allowed to exist!
They would all descend upon him like the Rank 7 fellows did Vita Kingdom, but this time, it would not be so easy to speak a few words and turn the situation around.
Draco did not fear any mortal Combat Rank because he had the Seal of Camelot that granted invincibility. Its rules were very straightforward, even if you somehow overcame his other abilities and crazy stats and managed to land a killing blow, Draco would simply stand there with 10,000HP remaining and 10 minutes of invincibility.
And he had this ten times each day.
So for a person who possessed the powers to harm him, one must overcome his Control, his bloodline at 100%, and his own Semi-Eternal class with 500k stats ten times in one day of 24 hours.
Not only that, they needed to wait for his ten minutes of invincibility each time to end. That was a total of 100 minutes of waiting back to back, which was almost 2 hours.
So you can understand why despite not yet possessing the raw power of one, Draco had largely been unbridled and fearless towards those above him.
However, whether it was back then or now, he had never truly messed with True Gods. When Sigurd assaulted his family, despite his seething anger he did not act rashly and rather used the Origin Chains from the agreement to deal with him.
When they attacked the Demon Realm, they only suppressed the Demon Gods through a calamity and escaped after killing every mortal rank demon. As of now, those Demon Gods were either still occupied by that full-power attack or recuperating from it.
All in all, the simple fact was that, as Draco had always known, a defense or a certain Rank could only be broken by an attack of the same Rank. This was why Hikari could cure the disastrous effects of using the Eyes of Caelo after her State of Being had been upgraded to Divine.
Likewise, the invincibility Draco would gain after being almost killed would be shattered by concerted efforts by the True Gods. It definitely would not go out easily, but it could go out, which was the problem.
True Gods also controlled laws, so apart from Control which used innate power, powers like his bloodline abilities would be slightly suppressed since they were also manifestations of laws somewhat.
This explained why Eva could not turn back time at first when the Evil Trio returned from the Vault of the Deep to see that Vita Kingdom was being sieged. At the time, Sun Goddess Sunna had locked down the time laws of the area, which interfered with Eva.
So the last thing Draco wanted was to be surrounded by those bloody True Gods in a head-on fight.
But OwO, what's this?
What was it that he was hearing from the forcefully extracted memories of some of the top officials who were in his iron-like grip, their eyes rolled back into their heads as their minds had been destroyed.
The True Gods of the entire new areas had been forcefully pulled into the Divine Realm by the Supreme Pantheon in order to assist the fight against the grey rot?
So didn't that mean that the entire newly mapped zones were basically defenseless if they were relying on mere Semi-Divine Experts and their technology?
Draco's eyes flickered with malevolence once he found this out and he grinned widely. However, he had his own engagements to do, so he did the wickedest thing he could think of.
He fed this crucial information to the core members of Umbra.
The core members, who had long been distraught and worried about how they would deal with the True God ancestors of the various new empires, suddenly heard this.
They bellowed with despicable laughter and charged ahead, their eyes bloodshot with malice and cruelty as their last scruples had disappeared.