Before Darius slaughtered the beast and its family, he Inspected and then Analyzed the leader of the pride.

[Plains Lion - Level 5 Beast

HP: 40/40 MP: 10/10]

[Detected target is of an Enemy affiliation. Displaying details accordingly.]

[Name: Plains Lion

Race: Lion

Class: Predator

Subclass: None

HP: 40/40

MP: 10/10

Level: 5

Strength: 8

Agility: 9

Endurance: 8

Intellect: 3

Charisma: 5

Luck: 1

Abilities: Maul, Shred, Overwhelm, Roar

Weapons: Tooth & Claw.]

Darius nodded with no surprise on his face. He had long since guessed that stats were not fixed to levels, and that stat distribution varied per existence. The Plains Lion might just be a level 5 and a mere beast, but its stats neared the level 8 Blue Troll.

It made sense then that the Troll and the lion had not met. Both were very similar in power except for the matter of HP, and neither of them would wish to risk their lives in a fight.

Darius had no doubt that if the Blue Troll had been stronger, it would have long since killed the lion and captured all the lioness for unholy purposes, rather than stalk a single one out.

The Plains Lion was likely a formidable foe. With an Agility of 9, it likely could avoid Darius's spells and call its pride to help him overwhelm this puny pink skin.

Unfortunately, it never got this chance because Darius blinked right in front of it and used Sparks.

[You have gained 0 EXP.]

Darius was too surprised by the sudden system message popping up in front of him to continue his assault on the rest of the group. In the split second he had roasted the leader of the pride to death, its family roared with anger and grief as they pounced on Darius.

The young fellow blinked away from their point of impact and cast Ember out in an arc. Unlike Sparks, his fire spell had a marginal area of effect bonus that he took advantage of this time to roast many of the young cubs trying to flee.

[You have gained 0 EXP.]

Darius was even more baffled, while the lionesses were enraged to the point some were frothing at the mouth. First, the male of the pride was killed, and now their cubs?

Their pride, their family, was practically ruined in just a few seconds for reasons the beasts couldn't even comprehend.

Darius turned towards the angered Plains Lionesses and blinked behind them one by one as he used Sparks to kill each of them in one hit. It didn't matter how they tried to maneuver or dodge, one cast of his spell would bring Darius right behind the beasts, within the 10-meter range.

This was why Darius had chosen the Blink spell in the first place. Coupled with his maxed out Sparks, it made him a fighter that was impossible to kill unless someone's Agility was above 15 points where they could move before Darius even appeared behind them.

Despite his now seemingly infallible combat prowess, he still received the same message from the system, informing him that he got zero experience points for his effort.

Darius was confused as to why this was the case. He tried to think of a few reasons why this would even be a thing but came up with only one theory that was too cruel to consider.

Still, Darius knew that he had to investigate this as it was a crucial aspect of the Supreme System's mechanics and could affect his leveling up speed in the future.

He then processed what happened. The Plains Lion had been level 5, whereas the Plain Lionesses had been level 4. As for the cubs, they had been between level 1 and 2 depending on their growth stage.

Darius himself was a level 11 Itemancer, so when he considered this, the earlier theory he thought up but feared came back to his mind. The reason it scared him was because it would show the cruelty of Caesar and Vena in the truest sense.

On his second day in the world of Faust, Darius had made use of the river to kill many weak beasts, leading him to believe that killing anything below his level would grant him a base minimum of 1 experience point. As his level rose, the amount of experience needed to level up once also rose linearly.

However the system message clearly proved him wrong. His new theory was that below a certain level threshold, a user of the Supreme System would no longer gain experience points. While this seemed like a sensible and fair mechanic, it was truly horrendous for Darius!

This made it impossible for him to act like a major villain at higher levels who might simply genocide a city or location to farm masses of weaklings once enemies around his level became either too scarce or too troublesome to fight.

Even if the Supreme System might have only given him a pittance instead of the full 1 experience point, a city should have about a hundred thousand people in it, no? With that, he should have been able to reach whatever level he needed and complete his task.

But why would Vena and Caesar make it so easy? It was also clear that they were likely not even bothered with his early stage escapades since there would be little suffering at this point.

At level 11, it wasn't a problem yet. But what when Darius reached level 89? How many level 89 foes naturally existed in this world, and how easy would it be to kill one of them when so many powers and abilities would be in play at that stage?

Assuming he even found such a level 89 foe and killed them when they were the same level, that would grant him a total of... 5 EXP. At that level, he would need 8,900 experience points to climb once, so he would have to find more than a thousand other such foes!

As Caesar had warned him, the Supreme System did not care about how much effort it might take him to slay an enemy. All it cared about was the level difference between him and his prey.

Darius was chilled to the bone by this. Assuming that he could even reach the Supreme stage… how long would it take? Years? Decades? Centuries?

Would Darius even have to create his own enemies and then slaughter them like farm animals to grow? Was that why he was given the System Brand?!

Darius' thoughts became chaotic and spiraled into a mess from this horrendous revelation about his limited ability to gain experience. His expression changed many times, from fear, depression, to anger, and then to frustration.

Eventually, Darius' mind quaked as his high Intellect forcibly calmed him down. It was only then that he noticed that all the other prey animals had run away, making the closest few meters around the bank of the river clear of all life.