Darius had already emptied his flask 3 times by this point, and according to the minimap, he was still at least a day away from the edge of the forest. This frustrated Darius greatly as he truly wished he had a better means of movement than just walking.
It really did not help that his Endurance stat was merely at 7. A fragile 13-year-old boy like he currently was could not muster the necessary stamina to compete with a full adult.
Fortunately, Darius had not encountered any other beasts ever since the Python. While he desperately craved EXP so that he could raise his stats and spells, he was far less interested in risking his life in a hot-blooded battle.
Such excitements might appeal to more vigorous men, but Darius preferred to use his mind over his body… or his life for that matter. With time having passed, now came an issue that he had to solve since the sun was setting slowly.
Where and how to sleep peacefully.
Naturally, it had crossed Darius' mind earlier to create a survival guidebook with his ability, but he had ruled that out for two reasons. The first was that until the reset, he was left with 1.79 Conversion Points, and the second was the fact that he could not become a seasoned wildlife traveler with just a single book.
Even with the Supreme System's Database helping him catalog all obtained knowledge, he would still have to read the book and understand what he needed to do.
If reading books could make a person a professional, then education would be solely about cramming as much knowledge as one could in one's heads within a limited amount of time.
… perhaps that was not the best analogy in this situation.
Darius rubbed his hair and pondered his options. He thought about gathering a bunch of leaves to create tarpaulin for a tent, but the issue with that was the fact that he simply did not know how to put a tent together.
Instead, he decided to try something clever.
[Would you like to change the Reticulated Python fang into a teleportation scroll? This will cost 11 Conversion Points.]
Darius frowned. Just slightly above his point cap, so he could not gain one yet. Nevertheless, he was happy that something like this existed in the world of Faust, meaning he would be able to acquire it eventually. Then again, in a world of magic, Darius would have been surprised if there had been no such thing.
During the time Darius had spent long-distance trekking, he had realized that there had been a flaw in his thinking from earlier during the day. He had neglected the fact that in the games set in those worlds full of magic, things usually developed in incremental stages, and did not start out at the perfect stage.
As such, he had attempted to transmute his spell manual into something more sensible.
[Would you like to change the empty spell manual into a small fireball spell manual? This will cost 5 Conversion Points.]
He had almost jumped for joy when he had been offered that option. It wasn't that he was a fire magic nut or anything, but everyone who was someone knew that the fireball was the base of all magic.
Unfortunately, he had nearly exhausted his points for the day, leaving him no choice but to wait for midnight in order to gain this new spell.
[Would you like to change the Reticulated Python fang into a small teleportation scroll? This will cost 3 Conversion Points.]
'Well… that was also a bust till tomorrow.'
It seemed like no matter how Darius tried to worm his way out of it, he would be spending the night in the middle of a forest with both prey and predators alike… great.
Darius was reluctant to do that for obvious reasons. Mainly the fact that he was sure he'd die before he could even respond to any attack while asleep. He wasn't delusional to believe that he was so amazing that all predators would gloss over a free meal.
The way he saw it, Darius had two choices. He could either hunker down somewhere safe and sleep, or resume his journey and hold out till midnight to refresh his points. As it stood, he was favoring the second choice more, for it would be significantly easier to deal with threats while awake than asleep.
Darius, therefore, re-filled his flask and continued walking along. He was initially tempted to try and make some coffee, but he was beginning to understand more and more that his Conversion Points were special.
The limited amount he gained every 24 hours would not be enough to support his ever-growing list of wants and needs, so he had to keep some on hand for much more important endeavors.
It was around 5pm, Darius guessed based on how the sun was almost beneath the edge of the horizon. He wasn't someone who could read the time of day like this, but it was just a guess based on the typical celestial movement on Earth.
He had to keep walking for 6 hours…? Darius refused to do so. He was already tired of walking, and even with the Pure Water cleansing away his fatigue and restoring his stamina, the effectiveness was lessening with each time, presumably because Darius was adapting to it.
As such, he decided to make the best use of the time he had until the Pure Water stopped 'buffing' him actively and only worked passively. He directly broke into a light jog, moving at a steady pace in order to control his exertion.
However, he hadn't even reached 500 meters when he was already panting like a dog, and he paused to take a swig of the water in his flask. Once he did so, he felt suitably refreshed and renewed, beginning the process of jogging once again.
After the same amount of time, he was once again flagging greatly. However, Darius had crossed about 1 kilometer in just 10 minutes, which was a big leap from his former pace.
He still had about 20 kilometers to go, which would have taken him a full day at his former slow walking pace, but while jogging, he could be out in about 3 hours!
With his zeal fueled by the desire to get out of this woodland hellhole, Darius continued moving along while relying on the almost magical properties of water to keep him going.
