Chapter 42: Chapter 42
Darius woke up quite refreshed and limber. It could be because he had a long period of sleep or because his averaged out Endurance stat made him less fatigued overall.
Whatever the case, he bathed with the help of Portia - only in preparing it of course - and wore another one of Derek's altered clothes. Instead of heading out, Darius walked right back to the library where he resumed his reading.
Of course, he didn't forget about his newly refreshed Conversion Points.
[Would you like to change the empty spell manual into a small teleport spell manual? This will cost 9 Conversion Points.]
Darius was left speechless by how expensive it was. Then again, space was among the pinnacle of the elements and was definitely hard to grasp for normal mages.
Before he made the change, he decided to check how much it would cost to make a healing spell manual.
[Would you like to change the empty spell manual into a small recovery spell manual? This will cost 7 Conversion Points.]
Darius' lips twitched. Both were far more expensive than the Ember Spell Manual had been. Darius had planned to create a spell and some more Short Warp scrolls today, but his plans were shot.
Well, if he had a blink spell, it wouldn't matter if he had Short Warp scrolls, would it? With his healthy mana pool, even if the blink distance was short, he had no cooldowns for his spells like other mages.
He could just rapidly blink to his destination or until his mana ran out, which was why he chose the blink spell after thinking it through some more. Since he had potions to help with his healing, he didn't think he'd need a spell for that so pressingly.
As such, he sighed and created the small teleport spell manual for 9 of his precious points for the day.
[Blink Spell - Manual
Durability: 10/10
Description: Contained within is the required knowledge to cast the simplest spell of the space element, Blink. Due to the high quality of the material and the penmanship, the success chance of learning the spell is increased by 100% while the effectiveness of the spell is increased by 500%.]
Without wasting time, Darius learned the spell immediately.
[Detected spellbook. Would you like to learn its contents?
Warning: The spellbook will be destroyed upon using this method! Continue?]
As he assented, he saw the spell manual turn into a purplish slush that climbed up his arms and went into his brain through his ears. After a short pause to digest the years of practice and studying he had undergone to master the blink spell, he checked its description.
[Blink - Level 1 Spell
Cost: 1 MP
Description: Move through the folds of space to cross the distance between two locations instantly. The maximum distance is 10 meters.]
Darius tutted. 10 meters was quite short, he could even sprint that distance in under a second or two right now. However in battle, being able to appear even 1 meter away from an attack could mean everything.
This wasn't a traversal spell, this was a battle one. Darius understood this the moment he read its details, so he pondered if a traversal version of the blink spell existed.
It likely did for sure, but he fathomed that its relative cost would be higher, even with a prepared manual. Whatever the case, he would find out more on that later.
Just as Darius was about to enter the library with Portia, who had seen Darius absorb the spell manual with wide eyes and a drooping mouth, he saw Derek coming over.
Slapping his forehead, Darius quickly walked over to Derek. The young man still wielded his own spear, as if he never let that thing down for even a second.
"Hello there Derek, I was wondering if I could share some things I acquired with the homestead." Darius greeted with a smile.
Derek nodded and paused. "What would that be?"
Darius flourished his palm a little and a cut of Grey Bear meat appeared on it. This action greatly startled both Portia and Derek, for it was something they had never seen before.
"I have a lot of cut meat I saved for my journey, but no longer need since you have all given me lodging and food. As such, I also thought to give something back to you all, even if it might be small."
Derek received the meat and checked it to see that it was still as good as new, as if Darius had just killed the source of the meat a few seconds ago. There was even fresh blood still dripping from the meat!
The young man's face became solemn and he nodded. "Follow me to the storeroom, Mister Darius."
Derek turned and led the way down to the kitchen area of the farmhouse/manor. Darius told Portia to wait for him in the library while he followed Derek with a slight smile on his lips.
'Mister Darius, huh?'
Interesting. Just as the Analyze skill had stated, Portia was a friendly party to him and would likely be more if Darius accepted her advances. Derek though, despite being her sibling and seeing the same things Portia did, still did not fully accept or trust him.
It could either be part of his personality, being cold and detached which seemed likely, or it could be because he saw something in Darius that Portia failed to. After all, the young miss was enraptured by the circumstances and his looks, but the young man had no such interests.
As such, it was likely that Derek could see more about Darius than usual. This Darius disagreed with because if Derek could truly see into his character, even slightly, he would undoubtedly be hostile and not neutral.
Darius appeared in a storage room that was maintained by a few of the other men and women of the homestead, mostly the peasants just reaching the age of adulthood.
When they saw Derek and Darius, all work stopped as they greeted the duo. Derek nodded to them while Darius smiled benevolently.
Soon, their respectful faces changed to one of utter shock when Darius removed pounds and pounds of meat he had cut from the various beasts he killed on his way here.
As for the Troll's carcass, he obviously kept that to himself.
Chapter 43: Chapter 43
After Darius was done offloading the meat that had been clogging up his rather large Inventory, he parted from Derek and returned to the library. This time, Darius made sure to speak about the history of Andrato with Portia, and she added a lot of knowledge that wasn't penned down for obvious reasons.
Apparently, what Portia heard was that the founder wasn't actually an advocate for men's rights, but the loser of a battle for the crown. In order for the winner to successfully exile her, they pinned this tag on her in order to lower her standing in public.
As for being exiled here to conquer the Plains of Death, it was basically a random excuse so they could send her out to die. After all, the Plains of Death weren't named as such because one could cross it safely and easily.
Darius rubbed his chin as he listened, finding the politics behind this kingdom's formation quite interesting. There was so much to digest and so much that was different from the norm that he found it novel.
Darius then moved onto geography. He learned the general makeup of the world and filled up many areas of his System Map this way. Apparently, the world was split into 10 major continents, with each so far from the other that denizens needed to use warp gates to cross.
Darius was also surprised to find out that each continent was not the same in terms of era. There was a continent called Gravitas that was described as having metal warriors and natives using metal boxes to move around.
That sounded awfully like mechs or robots for the first and some form of car for the second. This meant that the Gravitas continent was either futuristic or set in the modern age, which baffled Darius.
What the hell was Faust? He understood from what Caesar said that Vena created Faust solely to thrust him here and have him act out entertainment, but this world… this stage he had been given… it was too chaotic!
What made Darius even more confused was that there was a continent called Unyris that was basically - from what he could tell of the description - a land stuck in the pre-historic age with giant lizards, t-rexes, and bizarre wildlife.
The 10 continents were as follows; Fallon, Unyris, Gravitas, Houto, Pan, Pokterr, Ludo, Elysium, Armadon, Kiel.
As far as he could tell, they were currently on the Fallon continent which from the descriptions, seemed to be a medieval era land with a focus on magic and cold weapons.
Unyris was the pre-historic continent with sparse sentient life and rich natural resources that made all other continents drool, but its beast and monster populace were the second strongest in the entire Faust.
Gravitas was the least documented land as they were extremely xenophobic and looked down on all other species on Faust. Darius could not find anything more on them despite how much he read.
Houto was a large island nation that - from what Darius could see here - was basically old Japan. There were mentions of three prominent races on Houto, the humans, the Oni race, and the Yokai. That was largely what clued Darius in.
Pan was a bit harder to discern with these confusing descriptions. If Darius had not been from Earth and well-read, he would not have been able to grasp the make-up of the Pan continent. Putting aside the bizarre descriptions, Darius was able to understand that Pan also shared similarities to old China, and there were four races that existed there.
They were the Demon Beasts, Divine Beasts, Mortals, and Immortals. Darius was certain that Mortals and Immortals were the same race, but it seemed that Faustians didn't agree, especially the Immortals from Pan.
Pokterr was a subterranean continent that was hard to locate on the world map, and was almost inaccessible except through warp gates. It was mostly populated by… insects and moles? And as if that alone had not made it special enough they were giant in size as well.
Apparently, entry to and from Pokterr was strictly regulated since the insect race had once launched a horrible invasion of Faust that nearly ruined the world. If it wasn't for the innocent mole race that betrayed the insects to help the world, the continent would likely have been shut off for eternity.
Ludo was a saharan continent with sparse human life and civilization. It also lacked natural resources for sustenance/consumption, but its wealth of resources in terms of metals and minerals literally supplied 70% of the world!
Elysium was - as far as Darius could tell - the continent where the Gods of Faust resided and had their main churches set up. It was a location that was relatively easy to enter among the many continents, but getting to stay there was almost impossible.
Armadon was the opposite of Elysium apparently the continent where the demons and devils of Faust made their home. A hellish, barren wasteland of fire and brimstone, it had nothing to give the world except endless brutal demons, monsters, and even worse, devils. Entry to and from Armadon was not controlled as no one knew how to get there but those in the know.
Kiel was a continent located far to the north, and was a snowy continent full of strange tribes. It didn't belong to one particular race or have a set theme per se, but according to what Darius read, it is said that the core of Faust could be located there.
Darius digested the knowledge slowly throughout the course of the day. There was a lot more to read up on as some books detailed the locales, provinces, and states within certain continents, but Darius ended it here today as it was now late.
Portia had long fallen asleep on his lap and Darius found that he had been absent-mindedly playing with her hair. This made him smile kindly as this was the exact same position his beloved Miranda had fallen asleep in when Darius had tried to educate her.
Eventually, he had given up and decided to pamper the darling girl while focusing his teaching on the more stoic Solena and later Martin.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
Ranking 
6 Power
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