Chapitre 19: Chapter 19
Darius' actions infuriated the malevolent animals as they yipped and barked back at him even more angrily, yet none dared to approach. They were extremely fearful of his might, but they didn't leave because they still outnumbered him greatly.
Darius knew that too, which was why his thoughts were running super fast on how to resolve this situation. He knew some basics about hyenas thanks to the NatGeo channel which he had watched in his offtime, but that didn't make him an animal expert.
Darius had an idea and walked to the carcass of one of the nearby hyenas. He then bent over it and plunged his iron dagger straight into the corpse and began skinning its hide deftly.
This, of course, almost made the surrounding hyenas go mad as they advanced. Laughing at and taunting them was one thing, even killing one of them in self-defense was just the way of the wild, but carving up their dead brethren's corpse right in front of them?
Darius' eyes flashed when one of them came too close in anger, and he quickly fired a Sparks spell at it. The poor wild dog had been too enraged to pay attention to its situation properly, so it received the electrical shower without fail.
When the beasts watched another of their kin fall dead, they abruptly paused and fled back again as the fear set in again, this time much stronger than before. Alas, the anger also remained as Darius continued to carve the corpse leisurely, as if it meant nothing to him.
Darius had succeeded in killing a quarter of the beasts using timing and some tricks, but to clear the rest in a manner that didn't make those survivors go crazy and risk it all would be hard.
For the time being, he simply removed the hide of the hyena and began working on its meat. Despite all this, the remaining survivors seemed content to bark and yip from their distance without any intention to get close.
They had once again entered a troublesome stalemate. Darius did not dare to show any weakness by retreating or acting soft, as they would maul him, while they did not dare to be the first one to rush in, as he could kill one of them in one shot.
No one wanted to be the first guy, and hyenas were not so noble that one would sacrifice their life for the pack. Darius needed something more solid and fearsome to scare them off, and his Ember spell seemed to be the answer he had been looking for.
Hyenas would respond strongly to fire over lightning, so he just needed to find the right opportunity…
In the meantime, he quickly carved up the corpse beneath him and kept the hide as well as the meat in his Inventory, with the stuff from the Grey Bear and the tusks from the Wild Boar.
Darius had a few plans that could work if he used Conversion Points, but he refused to be so wasteful. The day had just begun and he had already spent 8 of his 10 Conversion points, so he felt he had to be more miserly with them.
Mana though, was not an issue. He could recover that quickly and easily. How he wished this confrontation would be one where he had cover to hide behind, or if he could just get someone to act as a defender for him.
More than ever, Darius wanted to reach civilization and acquire some useful people to brand, so that traversal like this would become easier. A Magus was not meant to be a frontline fighter unless they were a Spellblade, yet Darius' other class was an Itemancer, someone who arguably should never be on the battlefield.
Darius was finished with the first corpse, so he walked over to the second one. Instead of carving it up though, he stretched his hand over it and cast Ember.
A shower of flames not lesser in quantity than the sparkle of lighting from the Sparks spell rained down on the corpse, quickly setting it alight. This made the watching hyenas howl in anger and fear.
Some of the pack were considering retreat. A human who could summon death and fire was not to be toyed with. A predator never fought another predator who had equal or more power, unless it was over territory or a conflict of interests. Treating another predator as prey was a sure-fire way to earn death, or at best, a pyrrhic victory.
'First, that strange blue light that killed our brethren, now the dreaded fire? Just what is this human? This was supposed to be easy prey on these grasslands, yet we've lost 3 of our brothers with nothing but empty air to eat!' While the hyenas were obviously not clever enough to make these kinds of sapient analysis, they did have instinct.
The alpha of the pack barked at the others to maintain order, but it was futile. Hyenas were not wolves, they were not noble and loyal animals, but traitorous bullies that liked to torment and torture others.
When they were on the receiving end? Not so fun for them.
Once the first one broke off and began running, it was a prelude to a full escape. Darius didn't let this chance go, as he fired one more Sparks off at a running hyena as it went, killing it.
This made the survivors bolt even faster so they would not share this fate. In the end, even the alpha slinked away with a filthy look towards Darius, but he had no interest in fighting it.
Once they were gone, he sighed and checked the messages from the system.
[You have gained 5 EXP, 3 Bronze Ando Coins, and 1 Inferior Mana Potion.]
[You have gained 5 EXP, 1 Bronze Ando Coin, and 1 Inferior Stamina Potion.]
[You have gained 5 EXP, 2 Bronze Ando Coins, and 1 Inferior Health Potion.]
[You have gained 5 EXP, 1 Bronze Ando Coin, and 1 Rusty Iron Sword.]
Interestingly, the loot they dropped was better than the Level 2 Reticulated Python, but still inferior to the level 3 Grey Bear.
Curious about the items specifically, he Inspected them.
Chapitre 20: Chapter 20
[Inferior Health Potion - Consumable
Durability: 1/1
Description: A poor quality creation of Alchemy that restores 5 points of Health.]
[Inferior Mana Potion - Consumable
Durability: 1/1
Description: A poor quality creation of Alchemy that restores 5 points of Mana.]
[Inferior Stamina Potion - Consumable
Durability: 1/1
Description: A poor quality creation of Alchemy that restores 5 points of Stamina.]
[Rusty Iron Sword - Weapon
Durability: 0.5/0.5
Damage: 0.1-0.4
Description: A poor quality bastard sword that has been ruined by endless battle and lackluster craftsmanship.]
Darius' face turned sour when he read through the descriptions of the loot he had been granted. While he hadn't expected much from a weapon with the 'rusty' tag, this was a bit too…
This weapon was so bad its stats were represented in decimals, which was the first time Darius had ever seen something like this in Faust. He decided to continue walking towards his destination while inspecting what else he got.
The potions were passable. He hadn't had big hopes for potions with an 'Inferior' tag, but 5 points were actually not bad given his current level and stats. While the health potion certainly couldn't bring him back from the brink of death and he had yet to find a way to measure his stamina, the mana potion was already useful.
With currently 50 mana at his disposal, 5 points did not seem a lot, but in a pinch, it could allow him to fire off Ember or Sparks spells 5 additional times.
Darius compared his iron dagger to this rusty iron sword and frowned. It was true that items produced with his Transmutation were at the pinnacle of their specific grade/category, but the discrepancy was truly shocking.
Darius also inspected the common health potion he had received from the fight with the Grey Bear earlier.
[Common Health Potion - Consumable
Durability: 5/5
Description: An average quality creation of Alchemy that restores 25 points of health when drank.]
'So that one can literally refill half of my current health. It would definitely be supremely useful in battle henceforth, but first I should try to fully grasp the limits of my Transmutation ability,' Darius decided to experiment a bit more.
His previous tests had been basic and skewed slightly since he had been mostly converting materials of different types altogether. However, he was now interested in checking the costs of converting materials of the same type into higher quality.
[Would you like to change the Inferior Health Potion into a Common Health Potion? This will cost 0.01 Conversion Points.]
Darius rubbed his chin with excitement. This confirmed his theory that the base version of an item played a major role in the resulting cost and now he knew that it was cost-efficient to convert upwards.
Why did he care?
Well, it was simple. When Darius entered a town or city, he could head to the local general/potion store and buy up all Inferior potions cheaply, then manually covert them into the highest quality instead of purchasing those straight up.
Every merchant's dream!
Along with that, he could even rebrand and re-sell, because the elitist Transmutation technique would recreate the converted potion with the best possible technique for that stage of quality, meaning that Darius's goods were guaranteed to be far better than competitors on the market!
His mercantile instincts were shivering in ecstasy from the sheer opportunities and utilities of this ability, but he calmed himself down. First things first, he converted all his potions into the Common grade.
Then, he held the rusty iron sword and concentrated.
[Would you like to change the Rusty Iron Sword into an Iron Sword? This will cost 0.1 Conversion Points.]
Well, the points required were slightly higher for it. It made sense since the creation, composition, and size of the sword was greater than for the liquid inside the small potion bottle. Still, it was cheap enough that Darius couldn't complain.
This time Darius refused the change. He had to carefully think about what physical skills he wanted to have and what weapon would best assist him in that.
At the end of the day, as Caesar had said, classes were just a guide for assisting his growth. The fact was that his Supreme System allowed him to freely learn any skill he wanted. He could define his own path based on his needs.
Darius considered learning either the spear, the sword, or the bow.
A spear had good range and exemplary variation, but its weakness would be his skill and difficulty of learning it. Both could easily be negated by investing AP into Agility and SP into a spear skill.
The sword was the most common weapon and the one most developed. It boasted speed if one used one-handed variations or strength if one used two-handed variations. However, its weakness was the short distance and the extensive counter-knowledge on sword techniques.
The first weakness wasn't that easy to negate unless Darius found a special skill to that end - or created one himself - and the second was also difficult to negate unless he used a whole new brand of swordsmanship not seen before.
The bow was a semi-common weapon that was the best for ranged fighters. It boasted accuracy and safety if one could get into a superior position. Its weakness was close combat and the limitation on ammunition.
The first would not be easy to negate unless he could invest AP in Agility and Intellect, while the second was negated by his Inventory.
Hm…
Darius ruled the sword out straightaway. Even though it pained the inner boy in him who had at one point dreamt of wielding (or dual-wielding) two legendary swords with amazing, as well as flashy skills, practicality won the day.
He had to choose between the spear and the bow. Both had their pros and cons, especially when linked to his subclass as a Magus. With the spear, he could strike foes physically and if he encountered someone with too strong of an armor, hit them with a spell point-blank.
With archery, he wouldn't even need to confront an enemy. He could just fire an arrow with a spell attached to it or follow right behind it to double the power.
So, which one to go for?
Cadeaux
-- Cadeau
reçu État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
200+ Classement
Power Stone 
27 Power
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