After entering Zenit Empire's territories, both the Chambord's Expeditionary Force and Soros' merchant group were relieved.
In this imperial territory, no affiliated kingdom dared to attack the people of Chambord. Otherwise, even the king of level 1 affiliated kingdom would be arrested by the Executive Knights and be executed for committing crimes such as treason or conspiracies. There were no room for refute, and there won't be any hesitation or exceptions.
This was the power of the parent empire.
Fei who came to his parent empire for the first time was very curious.
He could clearly sense that the atmosphere in the parent empire's territories was completely different from other affiliated kingdoms. The surroundings seemed stricter. As soon as Chambord's force entered the territories, Fei saw numerous guard posts and security blockades that were hidden at different places. Other than that, there were more fully armed imperial cavaliers who were patrolling the area. They were formed into many teams, and their paths and time management were so strict that it seemed like they formed a huge net looking down from the sky. With tall watch towers, they could guarantee that no one could get into the area without being discovered.
The Expeditionary force from Chambord and Soros' merchant group only proceeded about a dozen kilometers forward into the territory, but they were stopped and questioned about ten times by the soldiers of Zenit. Their questions were so detailed that they made Fei feel like he was being treated like an enemy.
This phenomenon surprised Fei, but at the same time, Fei felt strange about it.
"The atmosphere seems strange, this is weird. Even if Zenit's military power is great, it shouldn't be this strict. This gave me the feel of preparing for a big war that is about to occur. Very interesting."
Fei carefully observed and wondered to himself.
"Maybe it's because of the Military Exercise that is about to occur. There would be elite soldiers from 250 affiliated kingdoms, so they have to be cautious about it." Fei could only think of this one explanation.
It had been a day since the battle at Dual-Tower Mountain.
Right now, Fei didn't relax. Because of his good habits, he was thinking about the gains that he made from the battle with Chris-Sutton. That battle stimulated Fei, and it brought him the pressure he once felt when he arrived at this world. He had the feeling that he was about to meet more powerful warriors and encounter more challenges. He had to try his best to improve his strength so he could handle the storm that was about to arrive.
For the past day, Fei made a lot of progress from thinking the battle through again.
To Fei, the biggest take away was the Barbarian's fighting technique.
There was one thing that was true on this broad and big Azeroth Continent that gods couldn't even avoid. Both warriors and mages had their own unique secret fighting styles. Since the creation and the improvements made by many generations of geniuses, these techniques contained a deep understanding of power and could deal unbelievable amounts of damage. Among them, warrior fighting techniques and mage chanting spells were the most powerful techniques.
The profession of mages had an unlimited need for money and resources due to its uniqueness. Therefore, there were less of them. Fei had only met a few mages since his arrival in this world, and most of them were not powerful. In fact, the most powerful mage he encountered was the former head minister of Chambord, Bazzer. Bazzer was actually only a four star mage. Since he didn't have a mage master, he was considered a grass root mage. He had very limited knowledge, so he was lucky that he advanced to a four star mage. After the advancement, he didn't get to learn any level 4 magic spell, so he didn't utilize his power. He was like a soldier without a weapon. He couldn't fight at 100% capacity. This sequences of events gave Fei an inaccurate impression about the power of mages.
Except mages, Fei had already met a ton of powerful master who utilized their warrior energies. The strongest among them were the white haired elder on Paris' side and [Zenit's God of War] Andrew-Arshavin. But the person who brought Fei the most shock was the young Golden Sun Knight Chris-Sutton when they fought on the Dual-Tower Mountains.
This executive knight's warrior combat technique Gold Lance Tsunami Strike surprised Fei.
It was the first time that Fei clearly realized that such a technique could let a peak five star warrior deal the damage of a mid-tier six star warrior.
This top level combat technique had completely flipped Fei's understanding about warrior combat techniques.
He was quite proud of the techniques such as Lightning Speed Fists and Corpse-Piling Shock Wave that he created. But he was forced to swallow the fact that these techniques he created couldn't match up to the Gold Lance Tsunami Strike in terms of sudden explosive power. This unexpected finding reconfirmed Fei's determination of finding higher ranked and higher quality energy training scrolls. Only after consulting with high rank scrolls could he use his Assassin Mode to add more energy connections channels in the training scrolls that he created. If Fei could add more connections and utilize their mystic powers, he could create combat techniques that could increase the explosive power of a warrior in a greater degree compared to Gold Lance Tsunami Strike.
Other than that, Fei discovered more forms of fighting for his Barbarian character during the fight with Golden Sun Knight.
Didn't matter if it was warrior energy or the physical strength of Fei's Barbarian character, they were all forms of power; they weren't different on the empirical level. Unfortunately, Fei who was under the Barbarian Mode was only able to utilize the strength in a very instinctual and basic way to fight. Although this style of fighting was unconventional and did take his enemies by surprise, it was too simple compared with the fancy warrior combat techniques before Fei could actually learn the high level fighting techniques of Barbarian. On top of not being able to suddenly increase the damage being dealt, he lacked long-ranged attacks other than throwing stuff.
From that fight, Fei was surprised that he found another way of using the Barbarian's power –
Using fist marks that could be condensed in the air to attack an opponent from afar.
During the fight with the Golden Sun Knight, Fei entered a very strange battle state when he was extremely battle thirsty under pressure. At that moment, it felt like every single cell in his body was activated. In that state, his Barbarian physical force created something special – under the full unleash of power, Fei smashed a series of semi-transparent fist marks that were the size of car wheels into the air using his devastating brutal force. These fist marks were crystal like, and the detail of the fists such as knuckles was vividly displayed on every single fist mark.
What surprised Fei the most was that every single fist mark contained 100% of the force that he smashed out. These forces were enveloped into the fist marks for a short period of time before they would just disappear, and Fei was able to stack up to 30 to 40 fist marks and strike the opponent all at once. Together, the explosive force and the damage was equivalent to 30 to 40 Feis attacking at the same time. The damage dealt by this strike already reached the attack power of a six-star warrior, and this technique was comparable to high ranked warrior combat techniques.
This was the real reason why Fei was able to turn things around when he was already injured by the metal warrior energy and defeat Sutton who had the Gold Lance Tsunami Strike.
This also made Fei understand that he should really obtain some combat techniques if he wanted to win battles at this level.
This was Fei's new understanding of his Barbarian Mode.
For the last day after the fight, Fei had tried multiple times to enter the state he was in before and smash out transparent fist marks. He was able to master this technique after a lot of practice, and he also discovered that the strength, physical instinct, battle sense and fighting experience of his level 38 Barbarian character allowed him to stack up to 46 fist marks. This was his limit. After 46 fist marks, the first fist mark would start dispersing into the air, so he could no longer stack them together.
The strike with 46 stacks dealt the damage of a low to mid-tier six star warrior, which on its own was impressive already.
"This fist mark stacking technique is not inferior to those combat techniques, and I created it. Therefore, I have to give it a bossy name... eh... let me call it Sky Frost Fist! Hahah!" Fei thought about a TV series called [Wind and Cloud] and the martial art technique of the senior disciple named Qing Shuang. He thought the name was cool, so he had no shame of stealing it. In fact, he was so proud of his idea that he started to laugh out loud.
After the battle with Sutton, Fei felt like he had opened up a new gate to power. He felt like the ceiling he once felt was lifted as he knew he could use the skills of different characters from Diablo World agilely to create more versatile fighting styles. To Fei who was a thoughtful otaku, this was really fun.
"So now I have an offensive technique, what about a defensive one..."
Fei thought.
The battle style of a Barbarian could be simplified into one sentence. Only attack and no defense, only forward and no backing off. But as a king, Fei felt like the appearance of bleeding and being at the verge of death after every battle didn't fit his image too well.
However, he wasn't able to concentrate 100% on the stuff that was on his mind.
Because behind him, in the direction of the Chambord Kingdom, Fei felt like something was calling him for some reason. The vague yet sudden and urgent calling and summoning caused Fei to zone out and be absentminded.