Chapter 53

Darius hadn't spent any of his Conversion Points today, so he decided to do a little test.

[Would you like to change the Flawed spell manual into a Complete spell manual? This will cost 2 Conversion Points.]

Darius' eye flashed. To fix an Intermediate spell cost only 2 points? When he had tried making the basic Journeyman fireball, he had needed a whole 30 CP at first, and then 18 even after he used his loophole.

It had been the same for any other Journeyman level spell, which was why Darius hadn't wasted his time with them. Fortunately, he had eventually realized about being able to ask for less potent versions and his ability had luckily automatically translated his desire for basic spells.

Now he found that as long as he had a base spell manual, he could cut costs by restoring it to perfect shape.

Darius put the spell back and turned to Foldo. "Do you have any empty spell manual's here?"

Foldo was startled out of his reverie at Darius' plan and nodded. "I've acquired 6 through various means with differing amounts of quality."

Darius nodded sedately. "Good, bring them here. I'm going to inscribe a perfect quality basic spell into one of them for you, while the other 5 I shall take as payment for divulging a secret. Call it a tuition fee."

Foldo was immediately set alight by his words and excitedly extracted the empty manuals carefully from a trunk that was locked in a safe, behind a steel wall that required a special incantation to open.

After all of that, Foldo brought the 6 tomes to a speechless Darius who shook his head internally. However, he had learned something important about Foldo, and that was how meticulous he was as a person as well as how much he revered magecraft.

Both discoveries pleased Darius and convinced him that his previous choice was not the wrong one, likely even able to yield some benefits in the long run if things would pan out as they should.

Darius held the dusty manuals and flipped through them idly. As he expected, they were average tomes that weren't exactly an apprentice's first choice for learning, but Foldo already did well getting 6 of them. From what Darius had learned by asking Portia, a single magical tome went for the price of 500 silvers at the minimum.

In order words, these 6 tomes were worth at least 3 gold coins! This was why mages were so respected and were quite thin in terms of numbers above the Journeyman stage.

It was a costly field to practice in, but also a lucrative one if performed splendidly. Case in point, the apprenticeship system. Darius had read about it in Shank's library and it was frightening how mages made money to finance their work this way.

There were two types of apprentices, official and unofficial. Official apprentices were like contracted students or personal disciples. Instead of paying themselves, their education was covered by their master, who would spend most of his/her time teaching them magecraft as well as his own legacy of spells.

A mage had many obligations to his Official Apprentice that he could not shirk legally and socially, but the same was true the other way around as well, at least to a certain extent. As such, mages chose their Official Apprentices with extreme care, some having only 2 at most while others even chose to never have any.

As for Unofficial Apprentices, they were the norm in mage societies. Mages would take such apprentices into their fold and have them pay hefty tuition fees for mediocre training.

That was why Foldo didn't react when Darius said he would be taking 5 unused tomes, because Foldo's former masters when he had been still a noble had taken much more in exchange for a pittance than what Darius offered.

The average Journeyman mage might have 20 Unofficial Apprentices with Adepts and co having multiples of that under their wings. This was how they largely made money and kept the profession in check.

Because of that, many were forced to either become Unofficial Apprentices at a high price or learn on their own, the fate of the latter was perfectly demonstrated with Foldo's current situation.

Darius found this system clever and wise. Centralize power and accessibility to the profession, and you control who joins your ranks. He was in full support of this method as he even planned to exploit it once he reached a town or city.

"Tell me, what element did you attune to during your awakening?" Darius asked Foldo.

"When I awoke, my mentor at the time told me that I should be proficient with ice spells, Master. Unfortunately, he himself had an affinity for the earth element and I never found a suitable tome."

[Would you like to change the empty spell manual into an Ice Lance spell manual? This will cost 5.5 Conversion Points.]

Darius made the change and Foldo watched with a stupefied expression as the tome in Darius' hand suddenly glowed and became resplendent, like it held the knowledge of the ice element's core foundation.

The master tossed the book over to the Unofficial Apprentice as the tome started to freeze Darius' fingers over. He quickly inspected it while it was in mid-air to see how effective it was.

[Ice Lance Spell - Manual

Durability: 10/10

Description: Contained within is the required knowledge to cast the simplest spell of the ice element, Ice Lance. 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%.]

So it seemed as if the ability still made the base manual elite, which might be why the cost was higher than Darius expected. However, it was still better than having to change empty books to empty spell manuals first, and much more effective for him too.

Foldo caught the spell in a rush and was shocked at how quickly it began to freeze his fingers. Ignoring this, he quickly opened the manual and after glancing at a few pages, his expression had morphed many times.

Prevalent among his visages was shock, pure and utter disbelief. By the time he had read halfway, he closed the tome and placed it on his reading table.

Foldo went to his knees and stared at Darius with reverence and awe that came from the depths of his soul. He banged his head on the ground as he kowtowed to Darius.

"Master, I thank you for this gift you have given me. Rest assured, no matter what happens, I will make sure your will is done to perfection."

Darius felt pressured by Foldo's solemn vow, and he saw the fellow's 'affection' value had gone from Friendly level 1 to Worship level 1. If the Supreme System was to be believed, then Darius' position in this man's mind had taken the level of a God.