Chapter 13. Learning about transfiguration

The next day, Tirus went to greet his master in the morning.

"Hm, you've reached rank 1 acolyte within a week, quite impressive." David said with a smile on his face, visibly satisfied by Tirus's talent.

"Okay, Tirus, since you've broken through to rank 1, I'll explain the information that was in the crystal ball in a more comprehensive way, after we are done with that you can start helping me out in experiments." He said.

"Yes master."

"Tirus, last time when I asked you what transfiguration was you gave a good enough answer, but that was still not complete. Actually, transfiguration can also be called transformation magic as well.

A magus can modify their skin to become extremely hard, allowing them naturally increased defense, or they can use other methods to make their bodily fluids poisonous, but that'd would make them unable to have any descendants since all their bodily fluids would be lethal to the other party."

"But since transfiguration can allow a magus to increase their battle strength and even allow them to have some trump cards, it has become a subject practice by many magi, but it has it's flaws, any small error can lead up to fatal damage to the experiment subject and also the one who is conducting experiment, sometimes they lose their physical bodies."

David explained the contents that were already inside the crystal ball the other day. Although Tirus had already comprehended all the contents, David could give him a better explanation due to his experience in this field.

The reason Tirus wanted to learn transmutation so much was because body modification was a concept which intrigued him a lot, alas in the canon, it wasn't used by Leylin that much since he already had a strong physique due to his bloodline.

…

4 months passed like this,

During these 4 months, Tirus had read all the books in the library that were available for free. He was currently broke, so he couldn't buy more advanced information but since he had grade 5 talent and had a likeable personality, his master, David, gave him advanced information about transmutation.

Tirus had read all the free books about necromancy, transfiguration, and even potioneering. Regarding potioneering, he had all the basic information about it, now all he needed was how to conduct potion refinement properly and recepies of potions. He could do basic transfiguration easily now but that was because he had helped his master in many experiments, but it wasn't the same with alchemy.

"A.I. chip, show me my current stats!"

[Beep! Task established! Calculating data.]

[Name: Tirus Van Elrod, Occupation: Knight, rank 2 acolyte, strength: 3.1, agility: 3.4, vitality: 3.5, spiritual force: 4.2 (magic power is in sync with spiritual force) status: Healthy]

'I have broken through to rank 2 acolyte, now I will go complete missions, earn enough money to learn alchemy from master so that I can have a stable supply of money to buy further education.'

He thought as he closed the book in his hand.

His pet eagle, Hawke was going to die within a few weeks, he wanted to get additional information on the subject of beast contracting and necromancy, but that information was in the advanced knowledge section for which he'd have to pay magic crystals.

'Is this how poor magi of the canon felt? Really, Leylin was one hell of a lucky guy!'

'He had an extremely pure bloodline of a rank 4 beast and also had a high-grade meditation technique, could catch the glimpses of future events due to sacred flame technique and had an all powerful A.I. chip, but he always said, "I don't believe I'm lucky, I'm just hardworking" and he dared to say it's all just hard work, like come on man what the hell!'

'If not for him doing the fighting, I would have believed that the real main character wasn't him but the A.I. chip.'

'Enough complaining, not like it's going to help me… Maybe I'll also become as lucky as him with time! Who know, right?'

After a while, he went to the mission board where the missions were being distributed.

He wasn't going to choose a mission that'd have a lot of killing involved since he was still too weak to fight several monsters or beasts. It was true that he had broken through to rank 2 acolyte and was a knight, but he still hadn't learned any spell, he didn't have any accumulation at all and this made him have pathetic battle strength according to him.

[Mission: Gather 40 kg of gray sickle grass.

Difficulty: Medium, may encounter poisonous insects.

Reward: 20 magic crystals]

"Hm, effortless, I'll take it." He told the red robed old man next to the board.

"Okay, write your name here." He pointed on a blank space of what seemed to be a contract.

.....

After a day, Tirus returned from his mission.

Small cuts were all over his hands and feet as he went straight to the receptionist carrying many bags which were full of blade like gray sickle grass.

He luckily didn't encounter any beasts, but he underestimated the difficulty of this mission.

Grey sickle grass was a refinement material excellent for potioneering of health recovery potions, but the problem was that each piece of the gray sickle grass was as though as steel and sharp as a blade. Which caused it to be extremely difficult for most acolytes with weak bodies to collect it.

Even with his strong body, he felt that it was extremely difficult to collect it.

After retrieving his reward he went straight to buy a spell.

'I think I should buy one spell and save some magic crystals to get advanced knowledge about potineering.' He thought.

At the spell shop,

"I want a rank 0 spell."

"Hm, here choose which one you want to buy." The shopkeeper said without much interest.

A level 2 acolyte could access a magic spell's formula and cast the spell in its complete form. Level 2 acolytes are able to cast some rank 0 spells. Though these are simple ones, they bolster their battle abilities to such an extent that they surpassed the Knights. To reach rank 2 acolyte one has to construct 24 mind runes. Construction of these 24 mind runes was not so difficult for Tirus due to A.I. chip and his high natural talent.

"Here, I choose this." Tirus took a spell book as he paid 10 magic crystals to the shopkeeper before taking his leave.

….

In his dorm,

Tirus sat cross-legged while he put the spell book in front of him.

"Hsyvaytic" He said as the lock on the spell book automatically opened.

After quickly flipping through the pages and storing the information in the A.I. chip, he told the A.I. chip to create a spell model.

[Beep! Task established…construction of the spell model will take 48 hours.] The A.I. chip loyally intoned.

'Just two days? Maybe because it's just one spell.' He thought.

[Shadow bind : Summons shadow chains that bind the target to the shadows and stop any movement. Construction of the spell model currently at 1.23%]

"Hm, good, I just needed this."

Tirus had a knight level constitution and good enough battle experience from back when he was in the Silmore empire. His real ability lied in his agility, so if he could bind his targets in chains, completely preventing them from moving them, then Tirus could easily kill them.

There was another reason why he chose it and that was that this spell was really cool. Just that. But if this technique wasn't so practical, then he wouldn't pick it.

'Now, I'll learn alchemy from professor and then earn a lot of money, then I'll have a stable source of income.'

Thereafter, he bought the advanced knowledge information about potioneering and recipe for strength potion. He focused all his attention on potioneering knowledge as normal meditation wasn't going to help him that much. When he could start selling potions, he'd be able to buy a lot of other potions to aid him in his cultivation sessions, that'd be more effective.

A month passed like this,

Now, Tirus was ready.

He revised all his alchemy lessons as he got ready to do his first-ever potion refinement.

To be continued...