Chapter 32

Darius selected three different types of items for his experiment.

The first type were items that he had acquired with his own two hands, like the Grey Bear pelt, the various meats, and more. As a result, the following message popped up before him:

[Would you like to convert the Grey Bear pelt into a Conversion Points? This will yield ??? Conversion Points.]

[Error, Grey Bear pelt does not satisfy the requirement.]

Frustrated, Darius continued with the second category of items. Those were items he had acquired through the system, the various loot drops.

It didn't matter whether it was the coins, the potions, or even the Red Enchant, Darius got the same notification from the system on this matter.

Almost giving up, he had continued with the last type which were items he had picked up randomly. He went outside, took a stone by the roadside, and loudly declared that it was now his property, before attempting to convert it.

Unsurprisingly, that too had ended with failure. If anything good came out of it, then perhaps the Goddess Vena might have gotten some enjoyment out of seeing him act like a fool.

Darius pondered over the issue deeply. 'What exactly could be counted as an 'owned' item? No, I should perhaps ask myself what does 'ownership' of an item truly means? What qualifies a person to own an item?'

'Is it registration of the item? Recognition of ownership by external parties? Or… legal ownership of an item?' Darius considered these factors and felt that this might be the case.

To continue his experiment Darius would now have to 1. register an item with a legal entity and gain a deed of sorts, 2. Purchase an item from a legal - or hopefully nonlegal - seller or 3. Acquire an item in such a way that all affiliated parties agree to his ownership and recognize it.

For the first two options, Darius would need to reach a town or city to fulfill the criteria. As for the third one, he reasoned that he could fulfill this by running a dungeon or something with a party where the loot distribution was agreed upon generally.

Yes, that was something Darius had also discovered about Faust. Despite the residents not having things like levels, experience, or systems, they still had basic features resembling games from Earth.

This was in the form of dungeons, adventurers, guilds, and whatnot. Sure, people couldn't level up by gaining experience, but they could hone their skills until they naturally ascended.

Many used external items like potions or scrolls specially made from certain rare magical ingredients or monster parts found in said dungeons.

In other words, the ecosystem of Faust was tied intricately to the existence of dungeons. However, dungeons were not as widespread in typical games. Even the Andrato Kingdom only had about 25 known dungeons, all of them located near a town or city.

That was also the reason why the Anrato Kingdom had exactly 20 towns and 5 cities. Dungeons were like an economic hub if they were properly claimed and managed, producing endless profit for those that settled near it… provided they had the power to handle all that was inside.

That was as far as Darius knew anyway, the small infoblock hadn't been almighty. It gave him basic introductions to everything about the Andrato Kingdom… very basic.

Darius decided to put the matter of Transmutations' 5th rule aside for now. There was no good solution for it and he couldn't see any avenues in which to tackle its maxims that he hadn't already tried until he entered the nearest town from Poleria's Homestead.

This brought him to the second issue he had to verify, the Analyze skill that came with the Itemancer class.

First off, what or who was an Itemancer?

Darius had only seen the term pop-up once on Earth, during a romcom anime featuring transmigration that he watched at age 57 with his nephews.

It had been quite an amusing show, though Darius did not understand why the camera angles had always been so sexually provocative. Was it perhaps so that the adults had something to smirk at while watching it together with the young ones?

Whatever the case, the main character of that show – if Darius remembered correctly – had met a person with a class of the same name. That was why Darius had pegged this class as an appraiser/item changer class when he had seen it appear on the Dart of Chance.

In the show, the character had possessed the ability to tell the true nature of every item he saw and even modify or 'edit' them at will. That was probably the source of his Transmutation ability, but the one he had was of the Supreme Quality.

That character had seemingly been limited to items. However, in the last episode of season 1, it had been revealed that he had been the big baddie all along and that he had kept a truly vile aspect of his ability hidden.

He had actually been able to turn people into items all along!

It had taken Darius 3 hours to comfort the boys who had wanted to see more at any cost, even begging their uncle to buy up the entire animation studio to make it happen. Ultimately, he had died before he ever found out what happened next because the show had never received a continuation.

Darius leaned back and smiled, thinking of his two nephews, Jonas and James. The older one, Jonas, had gone on to become the head of an entertainment conglomerate Darius built up, while the younger one, James, had chosen to become the head of a private mercenary and security operation.

Darius wondered how the two were doing now. Had James finally managed to leave that rough life and settle down? What about Jonas? He had heard not too long ago that the fellow's firstborn daughter had become an idol of sorts?

Darius froze as his mind cleared. He laughed awkwardly as he remembered he was no longer on Earth to be considering such things. Not only that, despite trying to act like a young and nubile man, his mind would still make him slip into the habits he had developed as he had aged.

He was now 13. Even if he had lived for more than 70 years, he shouldn't act too mature on the surface, otherwise it would be quite suspicious if not outright disturbing.

As such, he pulled his mind back to his considerations. The Analyze skill and the System Brand sounded like they were part of a package. Not only that, but it overall sounded similar to that dastardly ability that character bearing the same class had possessed.

The difference was that Darius had other limitations, but it was time to test them.