Hektor was slightly painting while he looked at the two vanishing summons on the ground. He had had to resort to one of his stronger Spells to down the two bastards. The fact that they were able to purify his flames like water could extinguish a small fire meant that it took him a lot of Mana to eliminate them. If he had used his real Cultivation, he could have obviously incinerated them like nothing, but as things were currently standing…

Hektor cupped his fists and bowed again.

“Sect Head, this Head has seen many cultivators under the Heavens, but your talent truly shines unparalleled on your path. Keep treading this path and you might one day earn the same title this head has earned.”

That said, Hektor turned on his heels and started walking away.

No one had expected Linda to win, but no one had really expected such a show of deep respect by the Vermillion Tyrant. The man was not a pushover, and even if he was a very complimenting person, he never lied.

“Jacob, your aunt is terrifying,” Hektor said, while gazing back at Linda, who was now being stormed by her adoring disciples, with the Elders having problems restraining everyone’s enthusiasm.

“I wasn’t expecting that either,” Jacob said with a frown, “she did not just form her own Law, she is on a path that no one else might have treaded before. Or, at least, she is the first one to show such deep understanding of it. She purified your flames out of existence, didn’t she? Like those mad fucking monks?”

“Yep,” Hektor nodded and they started walking back.

“What were those?” Juliet asked from the side to Jacob.

“Summons. Aunt Linda has apparently learned how to summon temporary monsters. They are Mana construct that rely on the user’s power to come into existence. It’s a very rare path.”

“Not just rare,” Hektor added, “most summoners are weak. Very weak. The summons, those constructs, are only as strong as your insights in a certain path are. If you want to summon Lava Elementals, they will only be as strong as your cultivation and your insights into the element of Lava. Linda must have had some enlightenment; otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to pull that off.”

“And a very good enlightenment,” Jacob shot back.

“Oh yeah, absolutely, what she did was absolutely crazy. If she had been at my same level, she could have lasted an entire minute of me fighting seriously.”

“That sounds like boasting,” Helena said.

“Oh no, it’s not. I’ve the utmost respect for Lisa, but me and Jacob have been around for a while, kid. If you could defeat us just because you had one insight, we’d better go jump from a cliff.”

“It’s true, Helena. Aunt Linda did something amazing, but she’s going to need a thousand experiences like the one she had to reach our level. The only way one of you could defeat a Tyrant is an overwhelmingly superior cultivation level or simply overpowering said tyrant with numbers. And I guarantee you that both methods might not actually work. If you ever meet someone like The Necromancer, you have to run. That’s the only thing you will be able to do if you want to save your life,” Jacob sighed.

It was true.

The difference between these people and Hektor, Jacob and whoever had gotten back, was massive. It was the same distance present between heaven and earth.

“So, what? We will never reach your level?” Helena raised an eyebrow.

“Ha! Jacob I love her. I’m so happy that you two will get married and that stuff. I bet that your kids would be super exciting. She’s as crazy as you are! HAHA! Don’t worry, kid, if it had been impossible, we would have never reached this level. Me and Jacob were much weaker than many Demonic Beasts, but we still slayed them. Dragons land in this world with their full cultivation, most of them above the 8th Realm. And we still slayed a good deal of them. I don’t know what Jacob did after I died, but I bet he killed a whole bunch of them.”

“Yeah,” Jacob scratched his head. “Once you reach higher level of cultivations, it becomes more of a matter of insights rather than your cultivation base per se. You will notice a great deal of slowness once we reach the 5th Realm. Many people had started considering that the real start of cultivation. Because it will become like climbing a mountain made of mud. The only parts you can use to hoist yourself up will be your insights. Epagogia is not trying as hard as Hektor to level up because she wants deeper insights in her cultivation. If this was our old world, though, Aunt Linda would have been able to kill both me and Hektor without batting an eyelid.”

“Well, isn’t that true! HA!” Hektor laughed aloud.

…

While everyone kept cheering, Linda got into the conference room of the hotel, the one room they used for important meetings, the same room where the Elders would meet the Sect Head.

She smashed her fist into a wall, instantly freezing the Elders’ good mood.

“FUCK!”

“Sect Head!” one of the Elders went up to her, worried.

“HE’S TOO STRONG!”

Lisa smashed her other fist into the wall, actually hurting herself. Her Qi cultivation was still in the Cockroach Realm, sadly.

“Sect Head, the Vermillion Tyrant is supposed to be very, very strong so…”

Linda was usually very calm and composed. She didn’t like swearing nor she was one to lose her gears easily. But she had just touched with her own hands the difference between a very strong cultivator and herself. The Vermillion Tyrant had just lowered his cultivation, but she felt he was still way too far ahead even when he had been at the Mantis Realm.

“Elder Thousand Leaves! Elder Eternal Autumn! Elder Boundless Will! We will now journey to our Forbidden Grounds!”

The three Elders widened their eyes.

Had the Sect Head gone mad?

They were all going to die!