Darius made the conversion and watched as the book changed significantly. It became a large tome with many markings on its spine and covers, while the pages glowed with a soft blue light.

Darius inspected it.

[Unused Spell Manual – Material

Durability: 200/200

Description: An empty spell manual of the highest quality, any type of spell can be safely stored within and will never drop in quality. All users who read this have an extra 50% chance to perfectly comprehend the spell within.]

Darius clicked his tongue. As was to be expected from this elitist ability, it made the best possible spell manual for the situation. He wasn’t sure what exactly the value of this would be among mages, but Darius could hazard a guess and say it would have to be extremely valuable.

Darius sighed. He could easily make a huge merchant association in this world with his Transmutation ability alone, but that would bring more problems than solutions.

Where did he get his raw materials from? Which craftsmen did he hire to make such high-quality goods? In that hypothetical scenario, if answered that he himself made everything he sold, the next reasonable question would be where did he learn such skills?

Of course, one could choose not to answer, but that would raise suspicions. Once that happened, the ensuing events could be easily pictured, Darius would be harassed until he spilled the beans.

As such, he decided to go about this from a different angle. Darius gazed at the System Brand on his finger. This tool would be his path to success, enabling him to raise cannon fodder to the Grandmaster level in different aspects of life.

[Would you like to change the empty spell manual into a fireball spell manual? This will cost 18 Conversion Points.]

Darius sighed. It seemed like the jump was still too high for him at the moment. He would have to accumulate enough points for a one-time conversion, or he could try to partially convert it and see.

[Would you like to change the empty spell manual into a 1/10th completed fireball spell manual? This will cost ??? Conversion Points.]

[Sorry, partial conversion is not available at your current stage.]

He grimaced slightly. At least he had been told that it wasn’t completely impossible, so it wasn’t completely off the table. Darius put the spell manual into his Inventory and rose to his feet.

He had rested enough and the carcass of the Wild Boar was beginning to smell. Flies had also converged on the corpse for their daily bread, and Darius was sure that sharp-nosed predators were not far off.

He quickly left the clearing and resumed his trek through the thickets. He was not interested in fighting any more wild beasts compared to reaching his destination.

However, Darius had to pause when he noticed a large python crossing between two trees. He could not even see its head, but only the length of its body as it slowly snaked along.

Darius was not too knowledgeable on animals in the wild, but his perception warned him of imminent danger. This should be one of the traits of the Intellect stat showing itself.

It was a faint feeling that tingled at the back of his mind, and interestingly it had nothing to do with the serpentine torso moving along stately in front of him but… something to his left?

Darius didn’t turn his whole head, but only moved his eyes to the corner of his vision on the left. Had he not been a grown man who had experienced the vicissitudes of old age, he would have flinched and screamed.

The head of the python in question was lowering itself from a nearby branch towards his body. It was moving slowly and gently so as not to alert its prey – him. While he was distracted by the moving torso, the head would strike and subdue him quickly.

The body length needed to achieve this was too scary to consider. Darius began to sweat as the fear surged through him, but he forcibly calmed his mind, which had always been his forte, and began moving his right hand slowly.

It was a strange period of silence where Darius was getting his hand into position for casting while the python got its upper body into a firm spot for lunging. The only difference was the fact that the snake was unaware that Darius had spotted it.

Unfortunately for the snake in this case, Darius only needed to point a single finger in its direction, not move his whole arm that way. Immediately, he cast the Sparks spell and jumped back.

At that same moment, the python, which had a faster reaction speed than a human boy of age 13, lunged at him with fangs bared. However, it came into contact with the electrical sparks from the spell Darius cast, much of which entered its mouth and eyes.

It froze and fell limp for a few seconds, twitching violently as its eyes and mouth smoked slightly. Darius quickly Inspected the snake to assess his fighting chances.

[Reticulated Python – Level 2 Beast

HP: 5/8 MP: 0/0]

It was a monster one level higher than he was, and its health was greater than the boar from before for obvious reasons. Still, Darius was surprised to see that his Sparks spell appeared to have done 3 points of damage instead of 1.

Unless the snake had entered this fight with some sort of hidden injury, he reasoned that his own attack must have benefitted from a multiplier of some sorts, whether an elemental weakness – which was a bit far-fetched –, an improvement technique – which was unlikely for a level 1 spell he had learned just today –, or a critical hit. According to the principle of exclusion, the last option seemed to be the most likely one.

Darius recalled that the Sparks had entered the Reticulated Python’s eyes and mouth, before dealing its damage. Since those could be considered weak spots on any living organism, it was reasonable for such an attack to become a critical hit.

Going by the damage caused, critical hits seemed to make attacks 3x as effective. At Darius’ current stage, that was marginally useful, but at the higher levels where his damage was bound to increase, this would be an important mechanic for him.

Darius didn’t waste this chance. He quickly ran up to the still dazed Reticulated Python and opened its lower jaw, pointing his finger inside.

Many would call him foolish, but once the Sparks spell spread out within the beast, taking away another 3 points of health, all such fellows would be forced into silence.