Book 3 Chapter 22.3 - The Ignorant Don't Feel Fear
"Out of the question!" Su firmly rejected.
Even though he left this time mainly to deliver the fuel to the base, they had to go across the Scorpions of Disaster's area of defense. After starting up the base, he still had to clean-up the surrounding regions' Scorpions of Disaster troops. This was not a safe and peaceful process, with the battle possibly even being extremely intense. On the battlefield, Madeline without any abilities would undoubtedly be in extreme danger.
However, Madeline didn't seem to hear Su's words at all. She raised the strangely shaped heavy sword in front of Su's face and then walked towards the off-road vehicle. The heavy sword's hit alone was close to a meter in length, almost the same length as the sword itself. Even though Madeline was rather tall, when she dragged the heavy sword behind her, the sword's edge still touched the ground, drawing out a shallow groove on the flat road.
With a hu sound, the heavy sword flipped over in Madeline's hands. It was tossed into the trunk of the off-road vehicle, which immediately caused the off-road vehicle to sink downwards.
The faces of the two robust men whose sweat hadn't even dried yet immediately changed, and their eyes when they looked towards Madeline contained much more respect. Even Su's eyebrows jumped slightly. From the extent in which the off-road vehicle sank, the heavy sword should weight at least 150 kilograms, being quite a bit heavier than what he had even anticipated. When fighting in close quarters with this type of weapon, the increase in strength would increase the difficulty exponentially. 50 more kilograms was definitely no joke.
The two robust males clearly thought that Madeline possessed at least five powers of power strengthening. After power strengthening, most people's bodies would become extremely robust, but that wasn't always the case. However, Su was quite clear on the fact that Madeline currently did not have a single level of ability, not even a single evolutionary point. If she could raise and use this heavy sword with difficulty, even if it was from the most conservative estimate, it meant that her body's basic power already surpassed that of an ordinary Combat Domain ability user with four levels of expertise!
An ability like power strengthening was actually two-fold for a person. The main effect was amplifying an person's original ability, but it also added a portion of fundamental strength. This meant that two people both at six levels of power strengthening could display quite different levels of power. Even if a thin and weak individual had six levels of power, he would never surpass a robust man with six levels of ability. Meanwhile, with the increase in ability levels, the difference in fundamental qualities would become more and more apparent.
One's foundation qualities were similar to potential, the second of the three cornerstones of a genius. The last cornerstone, is called luck.
This meant that when Madeline had eight levels of power strengthening again, just from pure strength, perhaps she might already be able to defeat all ninth level ability users!
This was just in terms of power. What about other areas? Su suddenly felt that not bringing Madeline out to conduct a basic test was not that bad of a choice. Forget about everything else, just from her terrifying fundamental strength was enough to make various powers go crazy over her. Once there was no hope of roping her in, those powers wouldn't mind casually eliminating Madeline.
After putting the heavy sword away, Madeline herself sat in the driver's seat, and then she was no longer willing to budge an inch.
Su helplessly shook his head. He knew that there was no way to make Madeline stay behind in Dragon City. His temperament was comparatively more gentle, but regardless of whether it was Persephone or Madeline, they were extremely direct individuals. Once they decided to do something, they definitely wouldn't easily change their mind.
After signing for the heavy sword, Su sent Li and Li Gaolei a message for them to make battle preparations as fast as possible and to join him at the designated rendezvous point in Dragon City's sentry patrol region. Since Madeline insisted on staying at Su's side, then there was no point in having Li and Li Gaolei who were originally supposed to protect her stay behind. There would definitely be some low intensity battles along the way, so with them at his side, they could also obtain some evolutionary points from the battles. Even though it might just be one or two, no matter how much evolutionary points one had, they all had to be saved up bit by bit.
At nightfall, the vehicle fleet finally departed. Under the low hanging curtain of night, they rumbled into the distance.
At the top of a close to a hundred meter tall sentry post, a complex imaging electronic camera's lens adjusted its angle, aiming its sight at the currently departing vehicle fleet.
The fall of darkness was also when many people became excited.
A luxurious limousine slowly stopped in front of Dragon City's most extravagant restaurant. The chauffeur who didn't have single thread out of place walked out from the vehicle and respectfully opened the rear door. A gorgeously dressed Ricardo walked out from the limousine. The manually tailored suit, full set of accessories, and rose flower he carried in his bosom made him look just like a mating peacock.
As for the limousine that didn't have off-road capabilities, even in a place like Dragon City, it was just a symbol of luxury. This vehicle that heavily relied on road conditions couldn't even travel through a larger half of dragon city, let alone even travel half a step out from Dragon City.
This limousine's existence was purely for the sake of displaying financial ability, and the Fabregas family insignia on the vehicle body was similarly for expressing wealth. If it wasn't because it really didn't harmonize with tonight's atmosphere, Ricardo didn't mind bringing over a few mobile suits to put up a front. Of course, it would only be the first generation type. As for the later generation mobile suits, he was the only one in the entire Fabregas family who could pilot it. As for why he didn't bring large numbers of subordinates, the main reason was because Dragon City was full of experts. The value of a dragonrider wasn't purely based on the number of subordinates, but even more importantly how powerful the subordinates were. If he could bring subordinates like Li and Li Gaolei, it would inevitably add much more glory to his face. After all, their abilities already reached the level of official dragonriders, and even for generals, subordinates with these types of abilities were not many in number. Unfortunately, there was no one among Ricardo's own subordinates who could reach this level, and all those that were at Su's level or higher were quite familiar in the public consciousness, so there was no way he could pass Li or Li Gaolei as his own subordinates. Moreover, the target of his invitation tonight was to become acquainted with Li and Li Gaolei.
Ricardo reserved the entire second floor of the restaurant, and he also hired a skilled band to play this evening. Then, he sat in the master seat, looking at his watch every few seconds. His anxiety was clear in his speech. Even though he knew quite clearly that since the other party accepted his invitation, they would definitely arrive promptly, but he still felt as if he couldn't control himself.
Two rows of attendants stood in the spacious restaurant, creating an extremely spectacular sight. They were all waiting for the dinner party to start.
At seven fifty-seven, an extremely ordinary off-road vehicle stopped in front of the restaurant, and from the vehicle exited an extremely simply dressed woman. She walked through the restaurant doors at a constant speed and directly headed up the stairs towards the only master table on the second floor hall.
At eight exactly, she sat across from Ricardo.