Chapter 45

Darius was excited by the rate at which he was patching the holes in his knowledge and the filling of his Database. To others, what he was doing might seem tedious and boring, but this was the action that separated a genius pragmatist from the average bloke.

Besides, Darius was past the age of his youth where he was in a hurry to see things develop. He had gone through old age, where the lesson every elderly learned was patience and to take life slowly.

The next day, Darius spoke to Portia slowly. "Today will be the last day I follow you to the library. After I read up on magical theory, I will have to return to my experiments as they are of paramount importance."

Portia's excited demeanor as she walked with Darius shriveled, but she mustered an understanding smile and nodded. "If that is what Master Darius must do, then I support you."

Darius chuckled and patted the young lady on the head, which was quite strange since they were about the same height and age. However, Portia responded positively to his pampering, mistaking it for a different kind of affection.

Darius entered the library with her and began reading up on the magical theory that was actually the most prevalent type of book here. It seems Shanks had hopes that his little girl could spark and become a mage.

Whatever the case, he found himself engrossed in the many books about magical theory, learning how the magical profession worked, how mages ranked their power, and how they progressed.

Surprisingly, a lot of it was what Darius predicted when he first unlocked the Magus class and began using spells.

Firstly, spells were separated into their own ranks. Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, Master, and Grandmaster. Seeing as his Lancer Arts were also prefixed with 'basic', it seemed as if this criterion held true for all skills as well.

In the list of known spells mentioned, Sparks was present, and so was Ember. He also saw Ice Lance, Water Shot, Wind Blade, and Earth Spike among others for the basic spells.

It seemed that each element only had one basic spell, but their numbers ballooned above that Rank with many versatile combinations. The books here did not teach the spells, as that would require a spell manual.

They just had general knowledge regarding how magic worked. Mages created spells through a process called the magical method. Most spells were not given to them by deities or were a heritage from an old era.

Minus the basic spells that existed as a sort of law of the universe, everything above that was created by the hands of various mages over the years. The lower the rank of the spell, the easier it was to create, but it required great talent still.

Darius did not pursue this, but rather checked more on basic spells as he wore a deep frown. Something had been bothering him ever since he acquired Sparks, and it became even more serious as he created Ember.

This was the power and growth of basic spells or spells in general. As far as Darius could read, spells were locked to the stage of the mage. An Adept mage cannot cast a Grandmaster spell and an Amateur mage certainly cannot cast an Intermediate one.

Basic spells were only used to guide Amateurs and help them raise their magic and mental power. Apparently, they had extremely horrible utility in battle, with Ember only being able to singe foes while Sparks only acted like a taser at best.

In fact, the basic spells had a more unofficial name that many who were into fantasy magic like Darius on Earth would know: cantrips.

They were just a form of simplistic magic, on the same level as party tricks. That naturally begot the question, why were Darius' Sparks and Ember so potent in comparison?

Darius formulated three possible answers:

The first was that the Magus class, as a Supreme class, passively increased the power of all spells.

The second was that Sparks had been enhanced to the Supreme rank by the system as it came as a freebie when he first got it. Ember was meant to be average, yet got boosted by the effects of the transmuted spell manual.

The third was that the system passively enhanced all his skills and spells to the level they were at.

Despite the first answer seeming the most sensible and reasonable, Darius was inclined to believe the second. Not because he enjoyed being oblique and contrarian, but because of what had been bothering him about Ember's creation.

The Unused Spell Manuals created by his Transmutation ability were not average. Under the hands of the elitist ability, they were raised to the highest possible quality, and inspecting them through the system told him that the spell had an extra 100% chance of being learned as well as having its power boosted by 500%.

Yet when he learned the spell, it had the description of dealing 5% fire damage. So exactly where did that 500% boost for the spell disappear to?

Darius' theory was that Ember - and the original Sparks - were supposed to deal 1% damage when learned by a normal mage, yet his spell manual had raised Ember to 5%. One might miss this detail because Sparks and Ember seemed to start off with the same power, but it was not so!

More importantly, Darius believed that it was strange for Sparks and Ember to grow by 5% damage per skill point allocated. He had been positively surprised when he first leveled up Sparks and it went from 5% to 20%, but that was when his doubts also deepened.

After all, just look! Sparks at level 20 did 100% damage! If a basic spell was able to become so powerful when maxed out, then mages should be invincible within their stages.

50 damage per cast was amazing at the Amateur stage if Darius was to use himself as a gauge. He currently had 150 HP even with 15 Strength and 10 Endurance, meaning that should a clone of him appear, he could be killed in three casts!