Darius Supreme

Over the next week, great changes swept across Darius' territory and the Andrato Kingdom. The supplies Darius had transmuted all that time ago were finally shipped out, consisting of high-grade materials, resources, and even basic goods.

First, they went to Andrato, since the kingdom had first purchase of them. Of course, it was only shipped to factions controlled by the royal family, who would then consume these goods to strengthen themselves.

A small percentage was then exported outward and priced very lowly. This was because Andrato exports had been previously ignored but after intervention by the Fallon Continental Council, such things were no longer allowed to occur.

However, the protection only went so far. Andrato, despite somehow having managed to produce four masters, was still believed to be greatly weak and inept, at least compared to the bigger kingdoms and empires.

As such, the common logic was that the resources they could export would not be so good, right?

After all, a couple of years ago that hidden Master who had issued a quest in their land with top-tier goods was rumored to just have been a wandering Master.

Darius and Jeanne had predicted this, so despite these goods having fetched horrendous prices in Elysium, they still sold a small batch below market price to each kingdom and empire.

Each of them got one or two of these high-quality goods, making them sneer even further. Seems like Andrato had dug up their very foundations in order to spit this out, eh?

Most tossed these things into vaults and storage spaces without a care. Why should they use lower quality goods when they already had better stuff produced locally?

Nevertheless, some were desperate, curious, or had a slew of other reasons that made them tentatively try what Andrato had shipped out.

The result was obvious, given the power of Transmutation.

Over the next week, the entire Fallon continent was taken by storm.

News spread far and wide about the quality of the goods, and more importantly, the source. Andrato did not hide who the creator was labeling him as Darius Stone.

Extensive investigations were conducted about this Darius Stone person, where he came from, and how he managed to manufacture such goods.

Naturally, the various powers were speechless to find out that… they couldn't trace his origins!

It was as if he had literally spawned into existence one day, his first contact with society starting in some backwater homestead.

After some digging, they unearthed his supposed connection from the Westerlier Empire, an empire which had been swallowed up by its neighbors.

However, when asked about it, those who once belonged to it could barely remember a Stone family.

This made many powerhouses frown and speculate.

There were very few people who existed like that, mostly old hermits who had reached a level of power that was beyond what they could fathom… or unique existences like Fallon's Titan Gods.

After realizing that investigating Darius was a dead end, the next course of action was the various parties sending some of their imported resources to their best smiths, alchemists, and other craftsmen to see if it could be reverse-engineered.

The answer was both exciting and despairing.

Exciting because the materials used were not anything different from the base value, in fact being exactly the same. This meant that as long as the technique could be unearthed, they would also be able to mass-produce these kinds of goods!

And yet, that was exactly where despair set in. Those same skilled vocationists unanimously reported that the technique used was inconceivable.

The work was too perfect and completely without flaw. There was no reduction of flaw factor to any low decimal point, there was simply no flaw at all. Literal perfection, which was factually unachievable had been achieved.

In other words, it was impossible for any human or mortal to create something like this and only a God would have the means.

This left all the powers speechless, and coupled with their earlier findings, many came to a terrifying conclusion.

This Darius Stone… either he was a being on the level of Titan Gods or had one backing him.

This theory had been largely dismissed at first, until more information was dug out.

It turned out that this Darius had used goods of this quality to fund a mission to the Plains of Death, for a 'Resurrection Stone'.

This alone wasn't a big deal, but for those who still had records of the Necromancer Empire and knew who stood at the helm of this power, they took a deep breath, feeling like they had come to understand something profound.

Not only that, it was a fact that Darius Stone had ventured into the Plains of Death with 90% of Andrato's Adepts.

And yet he and his servant ended up being the only survivors, comparatively lightly wounded.

Combining all this, they could only reach one conclusion.

The Titan God behind Darius desired the item held by the Titan God behind the Plains of Death, unable to come to an agreement their respective champions fought each other.

The victor was unknown, but many assumed that Darius must have lost since he had come back beaten and the weaklings he had hired using his backer's creations had all perished.

Eventually, more news spread that items just like these had been auctioned in Elysium and had set off a huge storm there.

Now that it had appeared on Fallon, the Continental Council had tried to quickly suppress the news but it had been in vain.

In the span of a month, every continent of Faust had come to know of this, and even those of Elysium descended upon poor Fallon like a storm.

Houto, Pan, Pokterr, and the rest also made their presences known.

Even the reclusive Gravitas and the exorbitantly wealthy Unyris came around, showing just how game-breaking Transmutations was in the scope of things.

Albeit not openly, Darius was willing to bet that Armadon would also be among those who had come.

This left Fallon's various empires and kingdoms frightened, as powerful visitors from afar came around to stay in their places, waiting on a certain announcement that had been made by the Queen of Andrato a few days ago.

The unveiling of the Darius Stone's new territory would be accompanied by an auction, with various properties, items, and secrets being sold for exorbitant prices.

This was why these fellows had descended, as they swore to get their hands on such materials for various reasons.

Currently, all eyes were on Andrato and the unnamed territory. Many were waiting patiently, but obviously, there were those who felt that an upstart should not have the right to possess such things and decided to seize it for themselves.

Interestingly, up until the date of the auction, all such fellows who had set out never returned.