Chapter 208
[Transmutation - Unique Ability
Cost: Unique
Description: You are a living Philosopher's Stone, able to convert any substance or matter from one form to another. This ability has its own unique cost for conversion and ruleset listed below.
Rule #1: The ability to transmute is tied to your available Conversion Points. At your current stage, you will be capped at 100 Conversion Points.
Rule #2: Conversion Points refresh each day at 12 am. Unspent Conversion Points are discarded and replaced.
Rule #3: Only items and semi-sentient organisms can be transmuted at your current stage.
Rule #4: You can only transmute items that already exist in the world of Faust.
Rule #5: Items that are owned by the user can be converted into Conversion Points. Conversion Points gained in this manner can exceed the limit and will not be discarded upon reset.
Rule 6: Static Transmutation is possible.
Rule 7: Batch Transmutation is possible.]
Darius' body shivered. While it seemed like nothing much had changed, only three major things, these three were enough to change the way he used this ability from the ground up!
Firstly, Darius now jumped from a mere 10 CP to 100! What he could not even dream of making before could now be done easily. This didn't just concern the items he could make before which he could make in bulk numbers now, but items he simply could not reach no matter how clever he was about it.
For example, Intermediate spells. The initial fireball spell he had tried to transmute back then with a leaf had been 30 CP at first, but got reduced to 18 CP when he had attempted to use the empty spell manual as the base material.
Of course, Darius still preferred to buy shoddy Journeyman spell books and transmute them for a mere 2 CP into actually usable ones. This would be his go-to from now on, as he still had almost a hundred different defunct spell manuals in his Inventory that he bought from that one bookshop alone.
Nevertheless, he was sure that there would still be instances where he might end up having to either draft a spell for his specific purposes using the Magical Method or transmute one from scratch.
Either way, he now had enough points per day to do such a thing.
The second thing that changed was the addition of Static Transmutation. After his point cap increase, this was the other thing that moved him greatly.
What was Static Transmutation? It was basically - as far as Darius could tell - the ability to transmute something from itself to itself. Basically, one could change a conifer leaf into a conifer leaf of the exact same make.
This was useless and impossible with normal transmutation, for its fundamental purpose was to change something from one state/form to another. Who had so much free time to change gold into the same amount of gold?
However, this was different when concerning his specific Transmutation ability!
It has already exposed itself for being elitist, able to turn any chosen target item to the best possible form after conversion.
So what did this mean? It was quite simple really! Darius could convert average items into perfected ones!
This was not the same as making Intermediate spells through his usual method. In that, he was changing a flawed and incomplete item into a complete one. There was a fundamental change in the core of the matter.
However, he could now buy an actually completed and perfectly functioning Journeyman spell and 'perfect' it.
If someone brought him a well-made iron spear, for example, he could grab it and transmute it into one made through the Transmutation ability's elitist methods, which would become significantly stronger than its initial state!
The utility of this, whether for mercantilism or general use, was endless!
As for the final change, which was Batch Transmutation, it was more of a thing of convenience. It was something Darius very much appreciated after having had to slowly handle multiple transmutations one by one, which could become tedious, especially if there were severe time constraints.
With this though, he could likely convert a batch of items at once, as long as he had the required CP. The specific applications would have to be tested though.
Extremely satisfied with his Transmutation ability, Darius first took out the Bowl of Nuwa and the Pure Water. He poured the water into the bowl, filling it before leaving it on the table so he could observe the changes over time.
He had not dared do this before for fear he could be seen, but this spawning zone should be a secure location, so there was no issue now. Darius rose from his seat and patted Gunner on the back.
"Bring out the utensils and furniture." He instructed kindly.
Gunner nodded and walked around the cottage, removing two beds, some cabinets, silverware, and especially cooking utensils. Darius had already inspected the cottage when he had first spawned, so he knew exactly what it lacked.
As such, he prepared the necessary things to make it livable since he planned to stay here for a while, hopefully. While he watched Gunner do what he had to do, Darius grabbed another random wooden bowl and filled it with Pure Water.
He then concentrated.
[Would you like to change the bowl of Pure Water into a bowl of Lunar Dew? This will cost 345,000,000 Conversion Points.]
Darius stopped breathing for a moment. His expression warped greatly, his eyes blinking as if to make sure the number they were seeing was not a figment of his imagination.
However, no matter how many times he rubbed them, it stayed the same. Darius couldn't help but gulp and cast his eyes upon the Bowl of Nuwa that sat there plainly.
He gained a newfound respect for the item after understanding just how costly the kind of conversion it was making was. He had been slightly impatient about its 24-hour requirement, but now realized that it would be worth it, even if the process would take a year.
Darius tried once more.
[Would you like to change the bowl of Pure Water into a bowl of Dragon Blood? This will cost 6,770 Conversion Points.]
Darius wrung his lips. This one was also out of his reach for now, but he was not as disheartened. The price was steep, but if every new stage gave him access to 10x the CP, then he would be able to create this at the Master stage!