While the search raged on, Darius himself was acclimatizing to the knowledge of this new element. Just as he had thought, it was the opposite element to Spirit, one that was not often present in fantasy charts but always subtly existed.

The Material element!

It sounded a bit underwhelming, and it was to those who were looking for raw offensive power. However, this element was so ungodly useful for those with professional

/lifestyle focuses that it even tickled True Lords to search him out.

Yes, the moment you heard it, the very thought must have appeared in your mind and you would not be wrong.

This new element was basically an EXTREMELY watered-down version of the Itemancer class mixed with Transmutation!

Even describing it as extremely underwhelming was already being nice...

Let's take a dive into the Material element, what it was and how it might change the scope of Faust going forward.

First things first, Darius was merely the first one to discover it. The element itself had already been pre-named by Vena when she had created it, so he didn't get to name it nor define its characteristics or features.

It was similar to how a person would discover a new continent - minus the naming right - and although this was a world filled with magic he couldn't just wave his hand, proclaim that this area would be a forest biome and that area would be a desert biome.

What he came to meet was what he would get.

However, as the Discoverer, he would possess the most intimate knowledge of it as well as the rights to build on what was already there and change a few things up in a way no one else ever could.

Darius would define the Material element as the element of all physical things and their relation to each other. Just as one might define the opposing Spirit Element as the relation of all things spiritual and how they interacted with each other.

The Material element focused on allowing a person to use magic to change the properties of any physical item from one state to another. It was essentially Transmutation, but in the weakest sense.

Before comparing the Material element to Itemancing

/Transmutation, it was necessary to mention its functionality and the Basic spell that came with it.

After all, the Basic grade spell of each element was like the foundation for the spells Journeymen mages and above would create on their own.

The basic spell of the material Element was called 'Stone to Mud'. Just as the name suggested, it allowed a person to infuse a piece of rock with mana that would soften it into mud or alternatively harden any amount of mud into solid stone.

Of course, the effectiveness of this - including the speed, the uniformity, the range, and the quantity - was dependent on one's talent and their level of practice with the skill

/spell in the Faustian Power System and on the amount of SP invested under the Supreme System's metric.

And so, this was how the functionality of all Journeyman and above spells would be built. There were many limitations with this element, firstly one could never reach Transmutation's level of changing anything to anything… from anything.

In other words, not even a Grandmaster grade spell of the Material element would allow you to change a leaf into a sword, then change another leaf to a spear. Neither was it possible to change a leaf to a sword then change the now transformed sword into a spear.

You'd have to manually make a spell for it.

For example, if you wanted to do what every alchemist wished to do with Transmutation and turn stone to literal gold, you would need to go through the entire Magical Method and create a spell for it.

A 'Stone to Gold' spell.

Even if someone were to deduce such a spell, it would be limited to those materials. This particular spell would be limited to turning stone into gold or vice versa. You could not change anything else to gold apart from the type of stone designated by the spell.

As was seen from Darius' own attempts at creating a spell, the broader one's terms in the matter of the spell's effects, the more expensive the spell was to make, the higher the chances of failure and the greater the mana cost when done.

In one word... Impractical.

Even the most talented bloke aside from Darius in this element would not be able to surpass this rule. The spells that would be made would be mundane, like turning water to oil, oil to water, pebbles to seeds, etc.

Darius could not fathom how anyone else would be able to make better spells than this that would function semi-competent without hundreds of years coming to pass and trillions of lives around Faust dedicating their lives to research more into it, like it had happened for the already discovered elements.

And this was where the importance of being the Discoverer lay. The greatest period of growth an element would experience had always been during its Discoverer's lifetime. This privilege couldn't be stolen nor could it be passed on willingly and would only ever belong to that one person.

If we are to put it simply and to cut out a long and methodical explanation, Darius would have a 200% higher chance of making successful spells in the new element compared to even the most talented person who might even naturally awake or spark with this element, regardless if they existed today or far into the future.

It wouldn't be wrong to say that a majority of the framework of the Material Elements spells would be created solely by him and passed onto the rest of the world.

That was why the True Lords had started to look for him, to request him to research spells that could change various things that they would need or could benefit from.

It should be known that unlike with other elements, where Darius' own stage capped him to a certain spell grade, as the Discoverer of the Material element he fell under no such limitations and could design spells of any grade.

Darius had a vague feeling that it might even allow him to come up with something beyond a Grandmaster grade spell… no, a level parallel to it but different in essence.

This was likely his first confirmation of a 'Divine' grade of spells and skills.

With this being the case, surely Darius' rating of the Material element was a bit harsh, no?