941 Stakes 1 (1/2)
Dyon frowned as the teleportation formation flashed. 'This teleportation is too high level for a quadrant like this. That's not to mention the fact I'm 70% certain the divisions between the areas of the Peak are also high-level arrays…'
The more time Dyon spent in the 98th quadrant, the more oddities he found.
For one, the suppression was far too much for such a weak quadrant. The fact that Dyon lost more than 50% of his abilities was utterly ridiculous.
Suppression itself should be based on the power of the peak-most clans and sects within a quadrant. However, the highest-level clans and sects here could almost be treated with impunity by Dyon. Yes, it was true that there were quite a few celestials that Dyon couldn't hope to beat, but in terms of his ability to escape from such existences, Dyon wasn't worried in the least.
In addition to all of this, according to the information Zabia gave Dyon, in their entire quadrant, there was only a single dao formation expert, and it wasn't even confirmed if said individual was still alive or not.
Interestingly enough, that dao formation expert wasn't known to be a part of any one clan. Or, more accurately, Zabia didn't have much information on who it was. It was just that Zabia's father had thought it important to pass on this information to his son before his death.
Luckily for Dyon, the Death of Bol Jafari was unknown to the 98th quadrant, so he was able to take advantage of having an identity as his son.
Either way, that dao formation expert was the furthest from Dyon's mind. Such an expert would either constantly be in seclusion, or constantly traveling in order to seek a break through. This was because he was unlike those dao formation experts from powerful quadrants. If the 98th quadrant was as weak as it seemed, the opportunities for improvement here were limited.
This was all to say that this quadrant shouldn't have any existences powerful enough to sustain such pressure.
It wasn't that Dyon didn't think of the possibility that maybe there were some hidden forces, or maybe this suppression was lingering on from past, much more powerful clans and sects. It was more so that he just didn't have the supporting evidence. He couldn't think of a logical reason for a sect to feign weakness, nor did Jafari have any information on any past clans powerful enough to meet the criteria.
On the surface, the possibility of there being hidden forces makes sense. After all, maybe they wanted to launch a sort of surprise attack, and as such, kept themselves hidden.
There were a few problems with this.
For one, the Epistemic Tower wasn't just a normal resource. No. It was THE resource.
Dyon's home quadrant dropped from number one in the rankings, to the power of only about the 60s, purely because of the lack of this tower as a cultivation resource.
The drop off in power and potential was simply astronomical. To put things into perspective, even a quadrant ranked in the 50s could annihilate a 60th ranked quadrant with a mere 20% of its abilities, let alone what a top one quadrant would be able to do.