Darius Supreme
chapter-10

[You have gained 5 EXP]

If there was supposed to be something else, Darius was not seeing it. It appeared as if the Wild Boar had just been a cannon fodder monster unlucky enough to end up as his practice dummy.

Darius remembered that Caesar had revealed that the value of experience was fixed and relied solely on the level difference between both parties. However, the AI had intentionally left out how much exactly he would gain per kill.

'Interesting, so as long as I kill something on the same level as myself I will gain 5 EXP.'

Darius wrung his lips. He had played a few online games towards the end of his life in order to bond with his nephews and son, Martin. He had never liked the grind-heavy aspects of such games because they had been repetitive.

On the other hand, he had been quite smitten with those management type games… what was that genre called again?… ah right, Real-Time Strategy. Gathering resources, building farms, quarries, and town buildings, training troops to conquer other players' settlements…

Too bad the world cared very little about his opinion on the matter. From this one experience, it became abundantly clear that the mechanics worked similar to the games his young boys had preferred.

In order to climb 1 level, he would basically have to kill another 19 Wild Boars. Not only that, but he had to make sure he wasn't beaten to death himself in these fights. Well, the latter should be easy enough as long as every fight could go as smoothly as this one.

Be that as it may, there might still be a problem with the former. Despite his only spell costing 1 MP, he had been forced to use up 5 points in the previous battle to kill the creature.

His Mana was limited to 21 points at the moment, meaning that he had 16 remaining, in other words, it was only enough to safely kill three of them before he would be at the mercy of whatever came his way, so Darius became cautious.

He first decided to check the carcass of the boar while his mana hopefully regenerated. He crouched and had to cover his nose. After all, the smell it carried was quite off-putting.

Ironically, Darius also sensed a slight smell of bacon. It turned out that the Sparks spell had fried the boar's innards a little, causing that effect.

Darius was not a butcher, nor was he someone versed in outdoors survival. He had been a businessman living in the city, so he wasn't going to cut up the boar and pretend like he was skilled in doing so, especially without any sort of tool at his disposal.

He just observed the body for a bit, checking if there was something he could take, but ultimately found nothing useful.

At the same time, this brought up another issue Darius had pondered about when he had left the glade, which was the lack of survival skills in his possession. He would have loved to acquire an Infopack to make up his non-existent knowledge in that regard, but since nothing like that had been included in the one he had used, it felt like it would be pointless to ask for one.

Darius rubbed his chin and thought of something. He walked over to a nearby bush and plucked out a leaf. It was a lovely green color showing that it was as healthy as could be.

Darius concentrated and attempted to transmute the leaf.

[Would you like to change the conifer leaf into a steel dagger? This will cost 7 Conversion Points.]

Darius frowned. While it was within a payable range, he had a limited amount of points for the day. Still, this was a great way for him to ascertain a standard of value for the Conversion Points.

Darius tried again.

[Would you like to change the conifer leaf into an iron dagger? This will cost 2 Conversion Points.]

It turned out his theory was correct, changing the quality of the final item lowered the cost. Darius further guessed that closer compatibility between two items might similarly result in a lower cost.

For example, changing sand to water should not cost as much as changing vapor to the same element. However, as could be seen, changing an organic leaf into an inorganic piece of forged steel cost a lot.

Darius mentally assented to the conversion. Just like that, he felt the leaf in has palm shapeshift into a sturdy iron dagger with a dark grey hue. It was a bit heavy, but most importantly it was sharp and well-made.

[Iron Dagger - Weapon

Durability: 10/10

Quality: Perfect

Damage: 1-3

Description: A sturdy dagger made of fine iron and the best possible craftsmanship. Created through pure Transmutation.]

Darius swung the dagger a couple of times, trying to get a grip on it. The unskilled person that he was, he naturally just more or less tossed it around. Still, now that he had something to use, he was elated.

He walked up to the boar and began to cut off its tusks. as Darius knew that they could prove to be useful later on. Alas, that was easier said than done, and by the time he completed his task, he was panting weakly.

He had not accounted for the fact that he was no longer a man, but a mere boy at the age of 13. His Strength and Endurance were each 3 points beneath the universal standard, so trying to do something like that had been unwise.

Darius stored the tusks and the iron dagger in his Inventory before he sat down to rest a little. After regaining his breath, he plucked out another leaf and concentrated once more.

[Would you like to change the conifer leaf into a Hunting Infopack? This will cost ??? Conversion Points.]

[ERROR, Infopacks are items unique to the Supreme System and do not exist in the world of Faust. Please try again.]

Darius breathed out lightly, but had expected this. He had merely been testing if there were loopholes in the rules of the Transmutation ability that he could exploit, but it seemed he was unlucky in the end. Perhaps he should have expected as much from a Goddess of Games and Recreation?

Darius was not too troubled though. He knew that he had a method to keep himself alive thanks to Transmutation, even if his survival skills were terrible.

[Would you like to change the conifer leaf into a flask? This will cost 0.3 Conversion Points.]