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nDarius woke up the next day and headed to the library once again. The pursuit of knowledge was paramount to everything else, for the educated man was the most powerful man in the world.

nHe met the chipper young miss on his way there after he had taken his bath and breakfast, courtesy herself and some other servants. Portia had her own studies to attend to, so her ability to care for Darius was reduced as the days went by.

nThis pleased Darius and depressed Portia, but she rejoiced in the fact that they spent the whole day together discussing a wide range of topics. Portia quickly found that Darius was far more mature than anyone she had met, his insight into many things making her pause.

nAs for Darius, he first used his daily CP to make some more valuable conversions.

nWould you like to change the blank paper into a House Portal scroll? This will cost 0.5 Conversion Points.

nDarius changed 8 of them, making a loss of 4 CP. He also converted one his empty books into another spell manual, which took 5.9 CP as well.

nJust like two days ago, he was down to 0.1 CP!

nHowever, Darius was unbothered as he had now settled down and was in no rush to execute phase 3. Today, he continued what was leftover of History and combined it with Geography to fill in the blank spots he had encountered in his previous readings.

nDarius was partially speechless to find out that the Valkyrie race were not even a big deal in Elysium, merely the exotic foot soldiers of Odin's church. From what Portia told him, the first founder of Fraterina was a high ranking warrior who had discharged herself well during the war and was granted leave to explore the world.

nWhy did this sound like a slave owner releasing a hardworking slave as a reward for their suffering, mostly in order to motivate the other ones? Portia made it sound like that Valkyrie meant something to Odin, but that was what the history books wanted her to think.

nDarius found himself slightly more intrigued. Now that he was aware of the history of Andrato and the various continents around the world, he next needed to discover the system of power in this world.

nIt was imperative, crucial, and important that he did. As such, he first read through the combat theory books as well as corroborated his findings with Portia to see what she knew.

nApparently, Caesar hadn't been pulling the wool over his eyes. In the world of Faust - not just Fallon or any specific continent - there were the same Ranks the Artificial Intelligence mentioned.

nAmateur, Journeyman, Adept, Master, and Grandmaster. There were legends of a level above that one, but the people of Faust had no idea what it was called. It seemed that for now, only Darius knew about the Supreme stage, which was a great advantage.

nThey did not have the concept of 'levels', that level 1-20 was Amateur and level 21-40 was Journeyman, and so on. How they did differentiate was by the life level of the target.

nDarius scrunched his forehead when he heard the term. It seemed a bit strange for a world like this, but he continued reading to find out more.

nLife level simply meant the quality of power, lifeforce, and acuity any being possessed. This made Darius raise his eyebrows, for it sounded like they had a way to sense

/measure the Strength, Endurance, and Intellect of any person and used that criteria to measure their power.

nDarius thought that calling it 'power level' would be cleverer than 'life level', but he decided to keep his opinion to himself.

nAs it seemed, the denizens of Faust were not able to raise their stats or strengthen themselves in a way that allowed them to become stronger. It seemed that a person needed to undergo a special occurrence called a 'Spark'.

nWhen their 'Spark' occurs, they would then climb into the Amateur stage and be a different type of organism from those who haven't. They would be able to explore dungeons and kill the monsters within to strengthen themselves through the passive absorption of life force from slain foes.

nDarius raised an eyebrow once more. Wasn't that basically killing monsters to gain experience points? Darius felt like he was beginning to understand how things worked in Faust, but continued to read on.

nFaustians shared this same system of power no matter where they resided. However, the book made no mention about how one became a deity, only that the Gods and Demons

/Devils had existed long before man could first write.

nThere had never been any new Gods or churches, as it was believed that they were a different form of life. Gods and Demons could reproduce with lesser species, but not with each other, making their pure-blooded members finite permanently.

nThis rang a bell in Darius' mind as some data he had absorbed from the history books finally made sense. Why the Gods and Demons had fought what was a proxy war using their descendants.

nOf course, they wouldn't dare to fight, they were limited in number! One gone was one dead for eternity, with no hope of replacement!

nThis also answered the question Darius had, which was; 'is the Supreme stage the same as being a deity

/god?'

nThe answer - as far as he could verify - was no. Gods were born at the pinnacle of the Grandmaster stage and existed somewhere between Grandmaster and Supreme.

nThe book didn't know about the name of the Supreme stage, but there were some writings that described this ultimate stage as such:

"The highest of the highest, the God of Gods and the Demon of Demons. The greatest existence in the history of, and for the future of, Faust.

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nThis excited and depressed Darius, for once he became a Supreme, the whole world would be his for the taking.

nNaturally, on the flip side, becoming a Supreme would likely be more difficult than what Caesar hinted at.

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