(Fourth update, please vote!)
After the demon's ambush, Donald once again entered the forest behind the manor and increased the number of Ancient Protectors to twenty-four, placing them all around the manor.
By his estimation, these preparations should be enough to protect the manor from invasion by Professionals below Bronze rank.
With the Ancient Protectors surrounding the estate and the Tree of Life standing within it, no matter how many Professionals below Bronze rank came, they would only be delivering fertilizer to the manor.
As for Professionals above Bronze rank, whether they were close-combat swordsmen and knights or archers and hunters skilled in ranged attacks and traps, they could already be considered formidable figures in their own right. Relying solely on passive defenses, even with the suppression of the Nature Barrier, could not guarantee absolute safety.
Although early Bronze rank and high Black Iron rank were separated by only one level, the difference in strength was severalfold. An early Bronze warrior could often face five or six high Black Iron warriors without falling behind. And a powerhouse like that demon from the other day, whose strength had come infinitely close to high Bronze rank, was simply not something Black Iron-level beings and a few Ancient Protectors could handle.
After so long in this world, Donald had come to understand quite a bit about its power-ranking system.
Taking swordsmen as an example:
At the beginning were apprentice-level trainee swordsmen, generally ordinary people who had received only basic training.
Once they reached the Black Iron swordsman stage, they had received formal training, mastered basic swordsmanship, could skillfully wield more than three kinds of weapons, understood how to exert force in combat, and possessed endurance far beyond that of ordinary people.
When a swordsman reached Bronze rank, their strength took a tremendous leap.