《Merchant Of Yliaster》 Chapter 1: The Start of a Journey Maxwell Aurelius was a very successful man. He always prided himself in his ability to change any situation to his advantage. In his 54 years of life, he¡¯s done many things that other people from Zephyr would only dream of. He started his empire from scratch as a simple trading company when he was in his early twenties. The company''s name was Aurelius. It was a simple company that utilized the World Wide Web to allow people to exchange different things with each other. The risk he took was immense, as he invested everything he could save from various jobs he had done throughout the last years in the company. 17 years after he founded Aurelius, it was not hard to see that the risks he took paid off as he was the wealthiest man on Zephyr. He could rival the wealthiest country on the planet in fortune and he had scars to show for it. Many assassination attempts were made, but they learned the hard way that you couldn¡¯t kill the wealthiest man on the planet easily. Just as he thought he finally secured a semblance of personal peace when he was established on the top, something no one expected to happen. Fissures in reality appeared throughout the world, and otherworldly creatures of all kinds started to pour from them. The world was in shock for a couple of days, but Zephyr was a world acquainted with war, so the response was not late. All countries mobilized their forces, and the ensuing battle continued for years to come. The resistance they managed to sustain in the war was in great part thanks to the material named Etherium. It was a material they learned how to manufacture from a different civilization. Thirty years before the invasion, satellites sent from Zephyr were discovered by an alien civilization. Unfortunately, they were not friendly at all. After 11 years of war, humanity could repel them, and a treaty was signed. The civilization of aliens, or ¡°Etherna¡± as humanity named them, gave them the formula to make Etherium as compensation for the damage they caused. They didn¡¯t know then that this would be their only boon in the upcoming war. The creatures they fought were immensely resistant to conventional weapons, but they discovered in the first year that etherium-based weapons were quite effective against monsters. They might not be able to penetrate the monster skins, but the telepathic qualities of etherium were able to kill the monsters with good efficiency without touching any vital organ. Even though humanity could fight by using etherium, there still was a limited supply of it, and Maxwell worked for years organizing the whole world¡¯s supply to make ends meet in the war. He navigated through all the hurdles and managed to buy almost all of the etherium in the world before things escalated. He controlled the supply of etherium single-handedly in the following years and made access as efficient as possible for war. This way humanity could last 14 years against the invasion. He was not a hero or a saint who sacrificed himself for the world. He saw himself as someone who was barely not antisocial if anything. But he still did everything he could for humanity as a whole because even he could see that their survival depended on it. Now he felt bittersweet about the whole situation. ¡°So it was all for nothing...¡± Maxwell mumbled as he stared at the planet below from his spaceship in orbit. He willed different capitals from the planet to the screen in front of him and all he saw was destruction. In the last 2 days, things became immensely more difficult for some unknown reason. Creatures they deemed strongest before started to swarm out of the fissures like they were ants. Forts they thought unbreachable were breached in seconds or minutes. It was as if some higher being was bored with them. There was something different about these creatures apart from their strength. They seemed to specifically destroy all etherium they could get their various appendages on. As it was, almost all of the etherium was gone, but Maxwell couldn¡¯t care less about that, as the people who were going to use that etherium were gone, too. ¡°I will be the last one to die It seems,¡± he said considering that he was in the spaceship furthest away from the planet and concentrated to relay his last message. ¡°All units in orbit, this is Maxwell Aurelius speaking. Initiate Project Resurrection. Eject your etherium towards the planet and scatter.¡± He watched all of the indicators turn green signifying that the command was received. He probably had a couple of seconds more to send a message before they ejected their etherium cores. He concentrated and this time cranked the message range to full. This would reach everywhere if he had his way. He could at least give hope to the people below. ¡°Citizens of Zephyr, this is Maxwell Aurelius speaking. Project Resurrection is initiated. Humanity will live among the stars.¡± The simple message echoed through the minds of the citizens of Zephyr. It wouldn¡¯t mean much for a society with selfish individuals, but for citizens of Zephyr, who had been connected to each other telepathically for years, it signified that they didn¡¯t have anything to lose. Maxwell watched as the Etherium Web started to glow throughout the planet. Project Resurrection sent humanity among the stars for resurrection. But to be resurrected, one should first die properly. Maxwell watched as the last phase of Project Resurrection started on the planet below. He could see the worldwide web covering the whole world with etherium lines. A tool for communication and prosperity was starting to glow as the people got ready to sacrifice everything. Etherium web gave a sudden flash of light, drowning the world and billions of lives were sacrificed in a moment. It was not glamorous by any means but the resulting telepathic wave would kill everything in the star system. Maxwell closed his eyes and listened to the complete silence. This was the only telepathic silence since the World Wide Web was created. Unfortunately, it was interrupted by something unexpected. Anomaly detected... Scanning the star system for lifeforms... Life forms: 1 Complete extinction is expected in: 2 seconds Clarification needed... Emergency protocol 1 activated. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Initiating ¡°Soul Extraction¡± Maxwell always had a quick mind but he too had his limits. Before he could understand what was happening he was consumed by an excruciating pain all over. The pain seemed to come from his mind itself. After a hellish experience for a couple of seconds, he opened his eyes. Or whatever he was using right now to see. He was in an empty white space and he had no body as far as he could tell. It was a panicking experience to suddenly lose his body but luckily he had no lungs to hyperventilate with. He could now see the messages he heard before in front of him laid out in a simple interface. Just then new messages started coming. Memories analyzed. Unknown material with an isolating quality detected in high quantity. Material name set to Etherium from subject¡¯s memories. Result of analysis: Unknown material named etherium interfered with system initiation. ¡°So you are the system?¡± Maxwell asked to emptiness making the obvious deduction. He was answered with silence and he hummed before rephrasing his question. ¡°Clarification needed.¡± he said more formally. Analyzing subject. Subject is deemed worthy. Maxwell Aurelius of Planet Zephyr is given user privileges. World Leader status confirmed. WORLD STATUS: Life forms: 0 Status: Extinction Summary In the year 3290 of Zephyr the planet was scheduled for system initiation according to the scan made 30 years ago. In the following 30 years unknown material known as Etherium caused the isolation of the planet from the influence of the system. Dimensional fissures were opened as planned without giving the planet the tools to protect itself. With the organization of Maxwell Aurelius and the extraordinary telepathic properties of etherium, the planet could fight off beasts for 14 years. Life was destroyed when the fissures reached grade 4 by the sacrifice of inhabitants. Destruction of etherium from the overload enabled proper system initiation. You call this a proper initiation? Maxwell thought and just stared at the explanation numbly. It was ridiculous really. They fought the war thanks to etherium, almost worshipping it and now it turns out that it''s because of the etherium that they couldn¡¯t fight back in the first place. ¡°Clarification needed about Etherans.¡± He asked. He felt sick because of the new knowledge but he would deal with emotions later, now he needed information.. Analyzing... Clarification is unavailable. ¡°Do you have a paywall of something? Even after losing the fucking world Im dealing with broken programs.¡± Maxwell laughed. He was feeling hysterical. At least he saved his race so he could find some peace in that for whatever it was worth. ¡°What happens now? Are you going to kill me now that you pillaged my memories? That would complete the set I think.¡± He asked and this time system seemed not very concerned with the informal language as it just summoned a window as an answer. User status: Name: Maxwell Aurelius Age: 54 Class: NONE Nobility: World Leader World: Zephyr Traits: ???,??? Stats: NA User level not enough to reveal trait... Exception is being made according to emergency protocol 1... Trait revealed: Merchant of Yliaster The Trait is forcibly awakened. Merchant Of Yliaster(Unique Trait): A trait created for Maxwell Aurelius himself for his achievements and unique situation. Through the trait, equivalent exchange can be made with the system using resources in possession of the user or willing parties. Resource uniqueness must pass system evaluation to be eligible for use. May you grant yourself and others what their heart most desire. Maxwell suddenly felt like someone hit him with a hammer on the head and suddenly he knew what this trait meant beyond the description from the system. It felt very natural for him as if it was something he had since birth. As he understood he could give things he owned to the system with this trait and the system would give him something of equal value that he wanted. He felt a bit strange as this seemed to be a bit unbalanced but the uniqueness factor was probably the balancing factor. ¡°List exchangeable resources.¡± he commanded. Maybe he could get out of this situation using this trait. Resources eligible for trade: ZEPHYR ¡°Huh?¡± Maxwell reacted intelligently. ¡°I guess I do own the planet at this point.¡± he commented. He knew instinctively that the planet would disappear completely if he used it in the trade but Its not like it was useful for anyone. The fact that he actually didn¡¯t have any other choice helped his conscience too as he mentally selected Zephyr for trade. Planet Zephyr was selected for trade. Appraising value: Mundane planet 7 billion grade 3, 13 billion grade 2 , 23 billion grade 1 souls detected. Error... The transaction is too high leveled for the user. Selection is set to automatic. Transmigration rights are selected. Transmigration is ?? times more energy intensive because of the Trait:???. Initiating... May you once again reach great heights, Merchant. Maxwell, for the second time today felt that he was too slow to understand what was happening as notifications flew by at high speed. He suddenly felt like he was being submerged in water slowly. The last thing he felt was the faint hope for a better life before darkness consumed him. Chapter 2: A Few Accidents In a dark room with the constant whirring sound of engines, a boy around 15 years of age was lying on the ground. His complexion was pale as if he was going to die but a careful observer would realize that the process was backwards. People occasionally passed through the room but none seemed to care about the boy. To this world of immense kindness, Maxwell opened his eyes with a start and took a deep breath. The air was pungent with a smell that reminded him of his childhood when he was working in a gas station. Or previous childhood one might say. He just stayed on the ground for a couple of minutes digesting everything. It was weird being here immediately after speaking to the system. All he had known, his world, his empire was gone. But he made peace with that fact when he was planning The Project Resurrection. His people would live and he too might as well, it seemed. The whole concept of transmigration seemed ridiculous but he would use the hand he was dealt. He threw himself up as his body protested the unfair usage of it. He took a glance at himself from the wall with a metallic sheen. He knew he was transmigrated so, that meant he should, or rather the owner of this body should have died before his soul rudely intruded it. It was rather ironic that he died in a room clean enough to see your reflection from the walls. His looks were ordinary with black hair and eyes. He was clearly malnourished but his body seemed complete and without any big problems. He was relieved that system didn¡¯t give him a body with a missing appendage or an extra one maybe. He tried to summon the status window from before. Status: Name:6789(Maxwell Aurelius) Age:15(54) Class: Pending Nobility: None Traits: ???, Merchant of Yliaster Stats: Strength:6 Agility:9 Dexterity: 10 Vitality:8 Soul:17 HP:80 MP:255 He wasn¡¯t sure why his soul was so high but he figured it was something caused by etherium. His malnourishment was probably the cause for his very low strength. Despite his malnourished body, he felt more alert since waking up and he suspected that also was a boon coming from his high soul stat. As he was staring dumbly at his status he heard a sound. ¡°So you woke up after all eh? You looked broken bad just now.¡± A gruff voice echoed in the room. Maxwell turned to see a man in clothes fitting for a beggar. He had a dirty beard reaching his chest. ¡°Seems that way¡± he answered. ¡°A smart-ass you are huh. Come.¡± He said as he turned around and started walking. Maxwell shrugged and started following the man. He could detect no bad intent from the beggar. ¡°What''s your number?¡± Asked the man. After staring at him uncomprehendingly for a second Maxwell managed to say his ¡°name¡± remembering it from his status screen. ¡°Hmm then you are on the right wing huh. No shock that you were almost dead then.¡± The beggar said with a small laugh. ¡°Why do you say so?¡± ¡°So you became dumb after that eh?¡± Man said with the same irritating tone and they walked in silence after that. Eventually, they reached the right wing that the beggar was talking about. Maxwell could see that the surroundings were getting progressively more unkept as they went. They stopped in front of a sign that said ¡°6500-7000¡± and it was apparent that someone designed or at least tried to design this place a long time ago as a dormitory. There were many children with similar attires to Maxwell. Maxwell noted that one of them froze when he saw Maxwell but he seemed to be keeping his distance because of the beggar. He noted that a group of kids were also staring at him with no good feelings. Maybe these are the reason this kid is dead? Maxwell theorized. ¡°Nothing like home eh kid? I be off then.¡± The beggar turned back and started walking back the way he came. Maxwell looked at the man''s back thoughtfully. There was something really wrong about that guy. The child from before, seeing that the beggar was gone, quickly came near Maxwell. ¡°Hey, 78 the fuck were you doing with the cleaner?¡± He asked hysterically. He seemed to fear the man for some reason. ¡°He found me passed out and brought me here. I feel a bit unwell still. Who were you again?¡± Maxwell asked. He knew he might be making an ass of himself but he might as well come as suspicious to a kid rather than an adult. ¡°Enough with the jokes man, have you done the job or not?¡± The kid asked whispering. He was panicking visibly. At this point it was obvious that Maxwell was fucked as much as using this identity is concerned. For a second he tried to use telepathy to get a better feeling of the situation as an old reflex. He suddenly felt very strange as he felt a sudden mental surge coming from the kid. Memories fragmented and hard to decipher came and disappeared in a flash as he felt like he smashed something mentally. He watched dazedly as the kid¡¯s eyes rolled back and he tumbled to the ground like a puppet with strings cut. 6790 ¨C Warrior (Level 3) defeated. Experience pending until class selection. Maxwell thought two things at the same time. Firstly and most importantly kid was defeated but not killed and that was good. Secondly he now actually knew what the kid was talking about albeit it was fragmented because of the ridiculous telepathic exchange. He was meant to unscrew one of the ventilator covers for them to run away at night. This also explained why he was dead in the middle of a clean room as something must have happened while he was unscrewing the cover. From the kid''s name, it seemed that this kid was his roommate. That also explained why he was so familiar with Maxwell. His thoughts got interrupted by a system notification. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Conditions met¡­ The Trait ¡°Etherium Soul¡± has awakened. Skill ¡°Telepathy¡± unlocked. Etherium Soul(Unique Trait): A soul tainted and forever changed by the extraordinary substance Etherium. May your brethren endure through you. Increases Telepathy Efficiency Mind and Spirituality are fused prematurely into the attribute Soul Your soul is hidden. ??? Well, the last phrase of the description was weird but this trait at least explained what his soul attribute was. Telepathy was a welcome old friend. He was quite surprised that he could use the skill on people not augmented by Etherium though. Question marks were another source of worry but right now the unconscious kid in front of him beat this by a large margin when it came to being a problem. He quickly carried the boy to their room under the searching gazes of the other children. They seem to not care about the boy who Maxwell from now on decided to call Bob for his sanity. He placed the boy over one of the beds. He could only guess which was Bob¡¯s bed but he seemed to not mind it very much as he was. He sat on the other bed, took a breath to calm himself and summoned his status to see if he could select a class. Considering the hostile gazes of the other children it would do some good to have some way of fighting back in this world quickly. He was not sure what to make of the situation but he would think about that later. This life presented infinite possibilities he lost once already. He would first make sure that he won''t lose them this time too. Status: Name:6789(Markus Aurelius) Age:15(54) Class:Pending Nobility:None Traits: Etherium soul, Merchant of Yliaster Stats: Strength:6 Agility:9 Dexterity: 10 Vitality:8 Soul:17 HP:80 MP:255 He discovered that he could use his hands to manipulate the system interface but that seemed really inefficient. He didn''t have his hands back in the white space but he could still use the interface so he tried something different. He tried to focus on the class with his mind and that did the job. Class selection(Initiate): Welcome to the system, Merchant. Please choose one of the following classes: Citizen Warrior Gunslinger ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ The size of the list went on almost endlessly and Maxwell was lost for a second. But he realized that albeit being almost endless, the list only contained basic classes. No insane legendary class or something could be seen. He also saw something that made all the options quite pointless after scrolling through for a while. Mage: Manipulators of mana who can control the elements and much more according to their affinities. Bend mana and consequently the world to your whims. The summary felt a bit exaggerated he could admit. But it didn¡¯t change the fact that this was the class of magic. One would better know that magic was not something new for Maxwell. They fought against the beasts with all they¡¯ve got over the years in Zephyr and magic was something they faced frequently and most of the time in very unfortunate situations. They always dreamed of wielding it as they theorized that it was the key to harming the beasts but they were never successful. Now it was on his fingertips. He mentally selected the class without any more consideration. Mage class selected. Mage: You are now able to manipulate and sense mana and craft spells through the usage of magic theory. Let your enemies know the might of your arcane powers. +%15 Mana Manipulation efficiency. +%20 Mana Sense sensitivity. +2 to mind and spirituality every level. +1 to all remaining stats every level. +2 free stat points every level. Acquired skill ¡°Mana Manipulation¡± Acquired skill ¡°Mana Sense¡± Fused soul detected¡­ Mana Sense evolved to Soul Sense Acquired Skill ¡°Magic Theory¡± Acquired Skill ¡°Mana Bolt¡± Maxwell felt information flowing into his head about the new skills. They were simple enough considering this was a started class but his soul once again tripped something up. He didn¡¯t know what was the difference between soul sense and mana sense but he guessed he would learn soon enough. His class seemed basic enough but he was confused about how mind and spirituality would work with his stats. Would he even be able to spend the free points on Soul? Testing would be needed when he leveled up. Now though he was quite excited to test the new skills. He tried to use Soul Sense and it was a weird experience. Everything around him felt oddly cold. He could feel a bit of a warmth coming from the direction of Bob. Apart from the coldness he could also sense spots of ¡°something¡± around him. It was hard to describe them with shapes but he felt like he could control them if he wanted to. He took a deep breath and remembered the mediation techniques he learned in his past life. His life has never been without stress, and he had a lot of practice just meditating. He focused and felt his breathing and body. Slowly he widened his awareness towards the spots he was feeling. Skill ¡°Meditation¡± acquired. Skill Meditation Leveled Up (Lvl-1¡ú3) The notification broke his concentration for a second. He figured it was leveling this fast because of his experience from his past life. He quickly focused back on the spots and started his experiment. He tried to gather them in his palm and watched them as they lazily moved. When two of them touched each other they merged to make a bigger whole. More continued to gather as a couple of minutes passed. He could feel a strain but he was now holding a little ball on his palm. He was entranced by the phenomenon. It was honestly beautiful. Then it exploded at his face. Chapter 3: Unscrewing Some Screws Maxwell dreamed of blueberries. There were so many. They covered the world and Maxwell found a really big one. Just as he was going to bite it it exploded. Maxwell woke up drenched in sweat. His head felt like the time he acquired his first trait but that felt still better than the embarrassment. He was on the ground and he had a prime spot to see that his bed was gone. It seemed that your mana was pretty docile when it came to killing yourself so he didn¡¯t have any injuries as far as he can tell. What was up with that dream anyway? ¡°I wonder if they have blueberries here?¡± he mumbled. He checked his system notifications after gathering his bearings. Mana manipulation Levelled up 1->3 Soul Sense Levelled Up 1->2 You Learned The Skill ¡°Blunt Trauma Resistance¡± Blunt Trauma Resistance(Lvl 1): Damage reduction when facing blunt attacks. ¡°Maybe I should blow myself up a couple more times?¡± Maxwell scrutinized the screen. ¡°Blow me a couple more times what the fuck did you do?¡± Bob screamed. ¡°Oh Bob you are awake. That¡¯s good to know.¡± Maxwell said. He was happy that he didn¡¯t kill his first possible friend in this world. ¡°Who is Bob?¡± A confused Bob asked. ¡°Don¡¯t worry your head over it. Can you recap our plan, I wanna see if I¡¯m forgetting anything¡±. Maybe he would forget in time that he wasn¡¯t Bob. That would solve a lot of problems. ¡°You became so weird since coming back 78, you speak like you-¡° ¡°Just call me Max it¡¯s easier.¡± ¡°Exactly what I was talking about! Did you hit your head or something?¡± Bob screamed once more but got a hold of himself when a couple of children sent them strange looks. He seemed genuinely worried like a grandma. It was disturbing to see it from a giant kid like Bob. ¡°I told you that the cleaner found me unconscious right?¡± ¡°Wait, you were serious about that? Wait 78-¡° ¡°Call me Max¡± ¡°Fuck you, Max! Do you think we have a disease or something? Think about it, I fainted without any reason!¡± Bob started to become really distressed. Maybe he has a mental problem¡­ Maxwell thought. ¡°You didn¡¯t faint without any reason. You slipped and fell down don¡¯t you remember?¡± Maxwell lied lamely. After all the high-level corpo shenanigans in his past life, he was just trying to have fun at this point. ¡°Did I? I did, didn¡¯t I? I remember it now!¡± Bob said his voice progressively getting more hopeful. Maxwell just stared at him. Is this guy retarded? He asked mentally to himself. ¡°Why did you faint then?¡± He asked. He reminded Maxwell of a puppy he had in his past life. ¡°I slipped and fell¡­¡± ¡°¡­¡± Skill acquired : Gaslighting(Lvl-1) Gaslighting(Lvl-1): You got this skill from being all truthful. Don¡¯t you remember? It also helps you be right easier. After all, you are such an honest guy¡­ Maxwell has decided that there wasn¡¯t any notification. ¡°So the recap?¡± ¡°Sigh, okay. You were going to unscrew the ventilator cover and we were going to sneak out in night hours. Ventilators are turned off at night in this sector of the ship. We would be able to use it to reach the escape shuttles. We are scheduled to land tomorrow so this is the last night we have to pull it off. After landing on the planet we should lay low for some time though because Radam¡¯s forces would at least send out some warrant to the whole planet against us. You still know we are slaves right? I guess no one can hit his head hard enough to forget that.¡± Bob suddenly blurted a paragraph. Bob might never understand how much he explained to Maxwell with these simple words. However, it was apparent that he really thought about this a lot as he was probably not this coherent usually from the first impression Maxwell got from the boy. They were on an interplanetary spaceship. Maxwell already guessed that but it was good to know for sure. The fact that they were slaves wasn¡¯t hard to catch too considering their living standards and age. But the fact that they only had this night to run away was shocking. Maxwell couldn¡¯t believe how lax Bob seemed considering this but he figured he couldn¡¯t expect much from a 16-year-old boy. He got up and started moving at once. He needed to check the ventilator shaft since he didn¡¯t know if it was closed or not. He remembered the way he came well enough. He told Bob to stay in the dormitory despite his protests. He got out ignoring his migraine and moved as he tried to look ordinary. After going some distance and turning left from a corridor he was faced with three boys. He noted that these were the boys who looked at him funny back then. ¡°So you were just fucking with us huh?¡± The big kid on the front asked angrily. Maxwell was speechless. He had no idea what the kid was talking about. Don¡¯t other transmigrators get the memories of their previous hosts? What am I? A discount transmigrator? He grumbled mentally. Though thinking about the exchange with the system there was a chance that he might actually be a discount transmigrator. ¡°You won''t say anything after you played us like that? We thought you were dying you little bitch!¡± the big kid shouted and took a swing at Maxwell. It was a clumsy swing even for Maxwell¡¯s standards. He had some rudimentary training in martial arts in his past life but even he could dodge it without much problem. He quickly took a step back and stared at the boy. He activated telepathy to see if he could get a feeling of what the boy was feeling. This time though, he tried to do it more delicately. Immediately he could feel a jumble of emotions from the boy. Relief, anger, and surprisingly some guilt were present. So they did something that caused the previous host to die huh? He thought. He concentrated and tried the summon the feeling when he made Bob faint. He used as much effort as he used in his previous life for telepathic exchange like before. This seemed to be too much force with his current stats for these kids. He didn''t want to use his mana bolt as he didn''t test it yet. If he made the kid explode like his bed it would be bad situation from many perspectives. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Unsurprisingly, the big kid¡¯s eyes rolled back and he fell to the ground not knowing what happened. His two friends looked at him dumbly. Their whole worldview was shattered right before their eyes. People just didn¡¯t make others faint by looking at them. Maxwell quickly ¡°gazed¡± at them and before they knew what exactly happened they joined their leader on the ground. 6623-Brawler(Lvl-2) Defeated 6624-Ranger(Lvl-2) Defeated 6620- Fighter(Lvl-3) Defeated Level up. Stats distributed. Telepathy leveled up Maxwell closed his eyes and tried to sort the information coming to his mind as his migraine became even worse. Telepathy without etherium was very jumbled compared to what he was accustomed to. Combining the knowledge he got from the other two situations as he understood was like this; The kids found the original 6789 while he was trying to unscrew the ventilator cover. Being the kids they are, they wanted to have some fun so they started throwing things at him. It seemed innocent enough at first glance but this was after the initiation. Their throws were considerably stronger with their excitement. In the end, one of the stones they hurled hit the 6789¡¯s neck, and the next thing they knew they had a boy choking with a collapsed trachea in front of them. They tried to help him for a couple of seconds but in the end, they panicked and ran away. Maxwell contemplated this silently. This was one of the signs that how everything would change with initiation. Bullies in schools now could crush skulls with a simple stone throw. The previous 6789 was a simple victim of the start of this change. A casualty of old habits in a new world. He looked at the children sprawled on the floor thoughtfully. He guessed they wouldn¡¯t wake up until they were gone tonight. Bob took that long to wake up even with his little explosion but he hit them with a small telepathic attack each to be sure. He carried them to somewhere more concealed huffing and puffing before continuing on his route. He sneaked through the corridors until he reached his destination. On the way, he saw some soldiers with real guns too. This confirmed that at least some sort of enforcing power existed on the ship. The shaft he needed to open was a sad little rectangle near the roof. There were four screws on it on the four corners and he could see that one of these was a little loose. ¡°So I couldn''t even unscrew one of them huh.¡± He started to climb hurriedly as he didn¡¯t want to stay here more than he needed. ¡°Atlethics¡± skill acquired. Makes sense he thought. When he was close to the shaft he stopped and squinted to see how much he needed to turn each screw. ¡°Observation¡± skill acquired This is becoming distracting. He started unscrewing the loose screw with a metal piece they found near the dormitories. It came off cleanly. After unscrewing the other 2 he realized he had a problem. The fourth one was too far away for this little body. After thinking about it for a couple of seconds he decided to try something probably way out of his league. It was stupid and he could probably solve this problem by other means but he really wanted to try this. He focused and tried to turn mana in a way that will make the screw unscrew. He could feel the mana and since it could blow him away it should be able to turn a little screw too, he thought. This in practice proved a lot harder. After 10 minutes of anxious concentration, he had a little mana whirl going around the screw. He did manage to turn it a couple of turns too but he was getting really tired. But finally, the long-awaited moment came and the screw fell to the ground. Now a small tug should be enough to remove the cover. He was a bit weirded out that they didn¡¯t place any security around here but maybe they just underestimated children. Considering the effects of initiation that seemed like a bad decision but he was not new to bad management. He checked his notifications and there waited the fruits of his labor. Mana Manulation Leveled up Lvl 3-->8 Soul Sense Leveled up Lvl 2--> 4 Athletics leveled up Lvl 1-->3 He was quite pleased with himself. This might not be the most efficient way to do this but it was certainly one of the most silent and of course interesting ways. He couldn¡¯t help but be very interested in magic as it was something he always wanted to use. On the way back to the dormitory he tried to turn some mana around his arm in a similar way as before constantly. Maybe he could train his manipulation like this. There was an addictive quality to leveling skills. He checked his status. Name: Maxwell Aurelius Age:15(54) Class: Mage Level: 2 Nobility: None Traits: Etherium soul, Merchant of Yliaster Stats: Strength:7 Agility:10 Dexterity: 11 Vitality:9 Soul:19 Free Points: 2 HP:80 MP:285 Class Skills: Mana Manipulation(8), Soul sense(4), Magic Theory(1), Mana Bolt(1), Telepathy(2 General Skills: Blunt Trauma Resistance(1), Gaslighting(2), Observation(1), Athletics(3), His soul attribute became 19 with the addition of 2 mind and 2 spirituality. Maybe Soul was an average of both? It didn¡¯t matter for now he supposed. He tried to add one free point to his soul to see if there would be any problems and he was surprised to see it go up to 20 without any problems. Maybe the system makes sure that we don¡¯t face problems with free points... he thought and added the second point to his soul too making it a respectable 21. Bob was waiting for him when he was back. He once again had that disturbing worried look on his face. ¡°Everything is in order,¡± Maxwell said. ¡°You didn¡¯t fall again, right? It doesn¡¯t seem that you did.¡± ¡°Nope,¡± Maxwell said and laid down on his bed, or what remained of it at this point. ¡°I will take a nap before the night. I suggest you do the same. You fell down quite badly after all.¡± Maxwell said. Gaslighting leveled up 1-->2 Maxwell facepalmed under Bob¡¯s confused gaze. They rested for a couple of hours, waiting for the night time of the ship. Human beings needed artificial day cycles on these ships and these artificial night modes were the answer of the engineers for this problem. Now 15 minutes remained until the night mode. Maxwell could see that Bob was quite anxious to get out of the spaceship. He couldn¡¯t really ask any obvious questions at least now but he was quite curious about Bob¡¯s past. He didn¡¯t seem to have any other friends than him or at least they were not close enough to let them know of the plan. The system saved me from a spaceship and now I¡¯m saving myself from another. I hope this doesn¡¯t become a trend he thought. He looked at their dormitory and he found that he didn¡¯t feel anything. It was just another place to come and go he supposed. He could see Bob was quiet emotional about leaving the place though. They set out a couple of minutes after night mode kicked in. Enforcers would expect them to set out later so they felt that this was a better idea. Maxwell didn¡¯t know what level the enforcers were, but he knew they were at least level 10 according to Bob. That seemed like a level they couldn¡¯t fight now. Though from Bob he learned something really interesting too. This ship was en route when the initiation happened 2 months ago. That meant all staff had to fight each other as training to level up since they couldn¡¯t kill anything. He doubted that they were that much higher leveled than level 10 with this environment. As he was thinking they were nearing the spot where his adventure in this ship began. They could arrive at the spot without alerting anyone. However, there was a small setback. There was a smiling beggar just below the ventilator shaft, and he was looking at them. Chapter 4: Sneaking Not So Quietly Maxwell always believed in immediate action. When he knew something was wrong he never wasted any time to start working on it and that was why he was so successful in Zephyr. That¡¯s why it was unsurprising that the smiling beggar now had 10 mana bolts flying towards him. When Maxwell tried the skill before he was surprised to see that the skill had no cooldown whatsoever. You were only limited by how much mana you could control and how much mana you had. They were not that strong but Maxwell guessed that they would probably equal an arrow shot by a mundane bow. In slow motion, Maxwell could see the beggar''s eyes widen for a split second and he was consumed by a small explosion of dust. Mana Bolt leveled up These notifications were doing things quite anticlimatic Maxwell felt. Right about now, Bob came to his senses as he looked at Maxwell in shock. Not every day your best friend turned into a cold-blooded killer. As the dust dispersed they could see the beggar''s silhouette still standing and soon they heard his gruff voice too. ¡°Not very happy to see me eh?¡±Beggar asked, he sounded amused by the whole thing. ¡°You won¡¯t stop us!¡± Bob screamed and he dashed towards the man. It was a stupid thing to do but one should understand that Bob was a scared kid. He quickly reached the man and swung his metal pipe. Unfortunately, it was still too slow for the beggar. He grabbed Bob¡¯s hand and pulled him towards himself. He tripped him up with his leg and Bob fell down miserably. ¡°Well, you might want to listen to people before jumping them kids.¡± He said as he threw Bob back to Maxwell¡¯s side by pushing him with his leg. He was clearly trained in martial arts. ¡°I wanna get out of this shitty dynasty as much as you but I won''t let my only chance be muddled by two ignorant kids,¡± he said and took a deep breath. Maxwell noted that his attacks did actually take out something from the man to block as he looked a bit winded. Beggar pointed at the ventilator shaft. ¡°You did a good job with that but you don¡¯t know jack shit about the security measures. Follow me.¡± He said and started walking towards the place where Maxwell climbed before. His speaking is different now. Was he posing as a cleaner or something? Maxwell thought to himself. He was quite used to having spies in his organizations in his previous life but he never thought that they would meet a friendly one here. He used observation on the man. ??? - Lvl ?? Such a useful pile of information. Maxwell thought. ¡°Kid, don¡¯t use observation on higher-level enemies if you don¡¯t want it noticed.¡± The man said and pulled on the grate. It came off quite easily. Now Maxwell actually could see that the man was not really that old. His dirtiness and fake voice just made him look older. He also had a certain grace about how he moved. The man fluidly climbed to the grate like he was taking a walk. ¡°Thanks for the advice, I guess,¡± Maxwell said and paused to catch the grate man threw on him. He placed the grate on the ground and ¡±Who are you?¡±. He asked. ¡°You can call me Gendor for now. You kids are lucky that you haven¡¯t tried to leave the slave area. Initiation fucked up the camera¡¯s badly so they can¡¯t really put many eyes everywhere anymore. Come on.¡± He said as he gestured for them to come up. Bob seemed very confused by this whole spectacle which haven¡¯t taken more than 30 seconds. He gathered bearings and got up. ¡°So you won¡¯t stop us?¡± He asked looking at Gendor hopefully. ¡°Did I give your friend a concussion?¡± Beggar asked turning to Maxwell. ¡°No, he¡¯s not very bright in general.¡± ¡°Hey!¡± Bob shouted and hit Maxwell on the shoulder before jumping up to the shaft. Why the fuck it was me who was doing this job in the first place? Maxwell pondered as he watched Bob jump to the shaft which was 5 meters up He climbed up dejectedly and pulled himself up to the grate. It was not as dark as you would expect inside. Red neon lines were extending along the corners inside. Probably for the cleaners, Maxwell thought. He waited patiently for the man to do something. Considering the man¡¯s words there was probably a security measure they didn¡¯t know. Gendor casually caught Bob who was going ahead and looked at Maxwell approvingly before tapping a spot on the wall. With a small whirring red lights along the corners were turned off. ¡°While it¡¯s true that they don¡¯t have children trying to run away most of the time, they still have rats and other pests around to make them install security measures. Believe me, you wouldn¡¯t want them in a ventilator unit.¡± Man said and Maxwell noted that he used ¡°they¡± instead of ¡°we¡±. This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. ¡°Red lights are the security measures?¡± Bob asked. ¡°Yeah, quite ingenious isn¡¯t it? I guess they wouldn¡¯t hurt you beyond making you need a new skin but it would certainly alert the enforcers.¡± The man said if he was a tourist commenting about a landmark. They followed the shaft for a bit and a couple minutes later Maxwell could see that they were out of the ¡°Slave Zone¡± as Gendor called it. Rooms started to have a more tidy appearance and he could see more people just minding their own business moving around the place. He even saw a place resembling a bazaar but they seemed to be packaging up for the docking. It was weird to see so many people living a relatively normal life after the abandoned state of the Slave Zone. ¡°I see you are surprised. Were you born in the slave zone? It''s normal for you to be ignorant if that¡¯s the case.¡± Gendor commented. ¡°What¡¯s the mission of this ship anyways?¡± Maxwell asked. Seeing all the different rooms made him quite curious. ¡°You see Radam commissioned a city in this lovely planet we have below years ago, using a universal messager. He was told that the city would be ready in 35 years. It was a planet on a backwater sector and it took time to do any meaningful building.¡° He went suddenly silent as he felt an enforcer below. They waited a couple of minutes for the guy to leave. ¡°Where was I? Oh, I remember. So, Radam being as arrogant as he was wanted to enjoy his city in his good years and as you can imagine 35 years for construction was very overdue. That''s why he decided to start the space travel before he is sure that the city was constructed. That¡¯s why this shithole is so poorly governed. Everyone who is worth anything is in cryosleep waiting to wake up in the new city to take positions.¡± Gendor explained. He seemed eager to talk normally after his time as the ¡°Cleaner¡±. ¡°Why bring slave kids?¡± Maxwell asked. ¡°I assume you mean yourself? It¡¯s more of a resource problem. This ship didn¡¯t have any outposts to stop so they needed to do some good old ¡°resource management¡±. That meant they would have a hellhole for the orphanage but it was an orphanage only for the propaganda. In reality, what they were doing was just saving some children to gain some money on the planet by selling them. This planet has a barbaric population as you might guess from that fact.¡± Gendor said licking his lips. Maxwell would want to say he was surprised but he couldn¡¯t really be, as he knew that in high-level politics people usually fell down to levels similar to this in a relatively short time. He felt anger inside but he was used to dealing with things like this with ultimate response in Zephyr. Now he didn¡¯t have that power yet. He felt sympathy for Bob though. He seemed awfully silent and his clenched fists were trembling. It was probably a bad feeling to know that you were just a resource for someone higher on the chain. As they were talking, the scenery once again started to change. Now below, they can see the maintenance and manufacturing rooms. They were probably close to the drop pods. This whole thing was going suspiciously smooth but Gendor was probably shadowing them from the start. Maxwell felt a bit frustrated about the whole deal. All his life he was used to figuring things out and winning over adversity but this was not really his area of expertise. He could handle this ship¡¯s management just fine. Planning an escape plan without knowing anything? Maxwell used to pay other people for those things. ¡°We are here.¡± The man said. Maxwell looked down. The place was relatively deserted but there were still a couple of enforcers around. He stopped himself from using observation remembering Gendor¡¯s warning. He didn¡¯t know about Gendor¡¯s level but it was pretty likely that he would be similar to the enforcers on the level. He was sure that the man would be stronger than them though. You couldn¡¯t beat someone trained by hitting a little harder. ¡°What do we do now?¡± Bob asked fidgeting. He was hungry for action as he never was a person suited for sneaking. He needs to hit things to curb his fear I guess. Maxwell thought. Things were a lot different compared to the world before initiation though. He was not sure how much he could damage the enforcers with his attacks. Before the initiation, everyone could each other with relative ease. ¡°There are three of them near the shuttle 23. If we could get rid of them quickly enough I could override the shuttle for us to leave. It would be more straightforward if I was alone but you kids will have to try your chances if you want freedom.¡± ¡°How strong will our attacks be compared to their defenses?¡± Maxwell asked. He wanted to know at least how weak he was right now. ¡°With the attack you sent me before you might be able to injure one greatly if you surprise them. Don¡¯t forget that they could kill you with a flick though.¡± The man provided helpfully. Maxwell sighed and summoned his status. Name: Maxwell Aurelius Age: 15(54) Class: Mage Level: 2 Nobility:None Traits: Etherium soul, Merchant of Yliaster Stats: Strength:7 Agility:10 Dexterity: 11 Vitality:9 Soul:21 HP:90 MP:285 Class Skills: Mana Manipulation(8), Soul sense(4), Magic Theory(1), Mana Bolt(2), Telepathy(2) General Skills: Blunt Trauma Resistance(1), Gaslighting(2), Observation(4), Athletics(1) Apart from the observation that he used on everything since getting it, his status was pretty much the same. Maxwell had been in this world for around 14 hours now but it felt like it¡¯s been a lot lot longer. ¡°How do we do this then? Can you take anyone out quickly?¡± he asked. ¡°I can take on the 2 on the left but you guys will need to distract the one on the right at least for a couple of seconds.¡± the fake cleaner responded. ¡°Bob you are level 3, right? Do you have any useful skills?¡± he asked Bob. ¡°All my skills are useful. You can throw your balls after I attack.¡± Bob boasted as the kid he was. Maxwell could see that the boy was very nervous though. ¡°What a plan indeed. But it¡¯s not like you guys have many capabilities to choose from, maybe it¡¯s better to keep it simple.¡± Gendor commented. ¡°Fine, might as well do it now then. I¡¯m tired of this world already¡± Maxwell grumbled. His remark was not noticed by anyone as extraordinary as it was. ¡°When I reach one, we jump,¡± Gendor said. And counted from three with his hand. His hands were steady as if he had done this hundreds of times. When he reached one, they jumped down. Chapter 5: Thoughts and Explosions Maxwell usually preferred not to enter combat head-on in his old world because back there he was way too important to die to a random piece of sharapnel flying in the battlefield. He usually had a couple of secret and a couple of visible bodyguards back then even when he was going out for simple things. He wondered what they were doing now. He didn¡¯t need them in the spaceship so he sent them away with the Project Resurrection. Being important is so boring in a normal world, Maxwell thought. Now in this world, he could at least protect himself in the future if he reached high levels. Right now he was a nobody in this universe. No one would try to kill him specifically without any reason. It was similar to his youth. He took so many risks back then and he thrived thanks to them. As he jumped down from the ventilator shaft there were no thoughts in his mind about the responsibilities of a world he was taking care of. He was once again young and he was going to take risks like before. Only this time they felt a lot more interesting. He felt focused with adrenaline flowing in his bloodstream as he watched Bob touch the ground and immediately charge off to the enforcer''s back, knocking the woman backwards a couple of steps. He didn¡¯t hesitate to form his mana bolts at the same time and then he hauled them at the woman. As they were having this heart-warming teamplay Gendor swung himself from the shaft towards the other two enforcers. His movements were fluid as he pulled an enforcer¡¯s sword from it¡¯s sheath and cut the other one¡¯s chest open with it. It didn¡¯t kill the man as people were pretty durable after the initiation but it was obvious that the enforcer wouldn¡¯t be a serious threat with a giant cut on his chest. The man looked at his chest in shock before toppling over to the ground. Other enforcer was quick to react. He didn¡¯t hesitate to pull the trigger of his rifle aiming at Gendor. Unfortunately for him though rifles were not really weapons for melee range. He soon realized that fact when Gendor dodged his volley of bullets by moving faster than he could maneuver the rifle. With a quick sidestep, Gendor put the injured enforcer between them and kicked the guy toward the one firing at him. The guy flew at his friend at surprising speed dropping his pistol for Gendor as a welcome surprise. The unfortunate enforcer who was desperately trying to aim without hitting his friend was launched backwards by his more unfortunate friend. They landed on the ground as a heap a couple of meters away from Gendor. Gender kept smiling like he was having a stroll. He walked towards them casually with the enforcer¡¯s gun pointing at them and at this moment he heard an explosion from his left. Said explosion was of course the mana bolts fired by Maxwell. He finally touched the ground as his enemy was covered in an arcane miasma. He kept his guard up as he heard no notifications for the kill. Those mana bolts took 100 mp from him leaving him with 185. Bob was pushed back from the explosion but this time he was not surprised since he knew about it from the encounter before. He seemed hopeful that their enemy was already out of commission but the woman charging at him from the miasma proved him otherwise. Her armor was in tatters but she seemed relatively unharmed except for her twisted left arm. Maybe she used it to block the blast. She swung at Bob with the mace in her hand and Bob barely had any time to raise his pipe to block the hit. Maxwell was not optimistic about the fate of the boy if that hit connected so in a split-second decision he sent a telepathic burst to the woman. Immediately he felt something like a weight on his ¡°soul¡±. There was no better way to explain the feeling he got from it. The woman, unlike the others he used the ability on before, didn¡¯t lose consciousness but she looked at him, her eyes widening. Her hit then connected with Bob¡¯s pipe sending him launching backwards like a ragdoll. Her hit looked a bit less powerful than she intended and Maxwell hoped it was enough for Bob the survive. He quickly used observation on his friend¡¯s battered form to check if that was the case. Bob-Warrior(Lvl-3) Hp:14/150 He had no time to appreciate that Bob¡¯s name on the observation was actually ¡°Bob¡± as he started to form mana bolts with his all remaining mana. The woman was stunned by the telepathic exchange enough for him to gain some precious seconds out of it. He formed 17 mana bolts this time and the strain he felt was immense. He felt them disintegrating but he held them intact with his mana manipulation, at least he tried to. One of them exploded in the air sending dust swirling around it. That lifted enough burden from his mind and he was able to send the remaining 16 towards the woman. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. The level gap was not something you could cover this easily though. As the bolts were flying he could see that woman coming to her senses. She was shifting towards a more defensive position to minimize damage. Maxwell couldn¡¯t really let that happen as they were out of every resource. With his all remaining willpower, he screamed at the woman¡¯s head telepathically. It was a crude attack with the skill being merely a communication skill. But if even sound bombs could do a lot in certain situations Maxwell refused to believe a skill that transmitted thoughts directly into someone¡¯s head would be useless. The last thing Maxwell heard before all went black for the third time in the last 24 hours was a startled expression from the woman as she tried to understand what she was hearing and a white flash from the explosion. Both Gendor and the enforcer on the other side of the battlefield were taken aback by the whole situation. The injured enforcer apparently went unconscious when he impacted his friend not so softly. He was now lying on the other enforcer peacefully. His conscious friend was not peaceful though. ¡°I surrender. What the hell did you do to that boy?¡± He couldn¡¯t help but ask to Gendor. Even among the military in the ship, Mage was a very rare class. Since they didn¡¯t know how magic worked before the initiation most people shied away from it as it was very hard to make use of the class. Few who tried were incompetent to a funny degree as they couldn¡¯t even properly feel mana, let alone manipulate it. ¡°Apart from getting blasted by one of those, nothing,¡± Gendor said amusedly before putting a bullet inside the enforcer¡¯s head. There was no need to leave unnecessary threats. He quickly went to the pod and took out a small gadget from his pocket before inserting it into the controls. He could see the remains of the female enforcer Maxwell blasted with his magic. Gender could swear that the skull staring at him seemed to have a surprised expression. ¡°Kids these are scary.¡± He mumbled solemnly as the door to the pod opened. He quickly threw Maxwell and barely conscious Bob inside and hopped in himself. Bob made a grunt as he touched the floor and woke up with a start, looking around anxiously. ¡°Where is the enemy?¡± He asked frantically. ¡°You are probably breathing her right now,¡± Gendor said cheerfully under the confused gaze of the kid and pressed launch on the control panel in front of him. Maxwell and Bob were launched backward in the pod because of the acceleration. Gendor seemed to care only minimally about their well-being but Bob being the thoughtful friend he was softened Maxwell¡¯s impact. Completely intentionally of course. Maxwell chose to wake up just now. He felt incredibly tired as he looked around and took in the situation. His head was aching like his brain had ambitions that couldn¡¯t be contained by his skull. ¡°So everything was according to the plan I see.¡± He said weakly. He checked his notifications to see what changed. Mana Bolt Leveled Up Lvl-2¡ú10 Mana Manipulation Leveled Up Lvl 8 ¡ú12 Soul Sense Leveled Up Lvl 4¡ú7 Telepathy Leveled Up Lvl 2¡ú10 Meditation Leveled up Lvl 4¡ú6 Skill Mental Resistance Unlocked Mental Resistance Leveled up Lvl 1¡ú4 Mental Resistance: (Lvl-4) As you prefer hitting people with your mind this skill will help you not break it. How funny. Maxwell commented as he rolled his eyes. Is it too easy to level skills? He thought. He would ask Gendor some other time about it. Xaran ¨C Berserker(Lvl 11) is killed. (***************************) Level up! Stat points distributed. (x5) I guess killing someone higher-leveled nets you a lot of experience, he thought. His status once again had something weird though. Some part of the kill notification was censored and he was getting tired of it already. He quickly put all his points to the soul attribute. It was too broken to not take advantage of after all. This made his soul suddenly climb up to 41 which was probably way higher than it had any right to be. He would ask Gendor about that too later, obviously not mentioning the Soul part. As he was occupied with his status Gendor turned towards him. ¡°You got a bountiful harvest I suppose from the look in your eyes,¡± he said smiling. ¡°As for the plan, you can say that it did, but I never expected you to kill your opponent. How did you manage that anyway?¡± he seemed genuinely curious. ¡°I attacked with all my heart,¡± Maxwell said sarcastically while getting up. ¡°Max I was gonna ask previously but weren¡¯t you a thief before?¡± Bob asked. Well, that explains why I was the one taking out the cover I suppose. Maxwell thought as he considered how to answer. ¡°Don¡¯t you remember how I was embarrassed when selecting a class? I couldn¡¯t keep myself from choosing a cool class back then but I couldn¡¯t figure out how mana worked so I was too embarrassed to tell you...¡± Maxwell spat some bullshit. ¡°So you were never a thief?¡± Bob looked shocked. ¡°That¡¯s why you fell from the grate back then? I suppose all is well in the end huh...¡± He said thoughtfully. Any other person would be angry at Maxwell but Bob was a simple guy. All was well so it was fine for him. If he was being honest, Maxwell was getting a bit concerned about their future as Bob was like a dog that could be distracted by a piece of meat. Gaslighting leveled up (Lvl 2 ¡ú 5) Maybe this skill wasn¡¯t as bad as it seemed after all. Chapter 6: A Fun Ride Down As they neared the planet Maxwell could feel the friction slowing them increase. There was a slow rumbling coming from the pod as it was trying to push through the increasing force. ¡°This pod was pre-initiation made so I¡¯m doubtful that we will reach the surface without problems. ¡° Gendor said as if this was not his problem at all while he was fiddling with the control panel. Maxwell was not sure if this guy was reliable or an idiot. ¡°So will we be able to land or not?¡± He asked. ¡°Well, we will in some way or form,¡± Gendor answered cheerfully. I originally planned for us to land relatively close to a city but this ship seems to dislike that idea.¡± ¡°In other words, you lost control of the ship?¡± Maxwell asked. He supposed dying in a spaceship crash immediately after he transmigrated would be original enough for everyone. ¡®¡¯Not exactly I would say. We are still going towards the planet after all.¡± Gendor said. ¡°If I may be serious for a moment though you guys probably should find something to protect yourself. Especially you being a brittle mage and all.¡± He said pointing at Maxwell in the end. ¡°How funny,¡± Maxwell commented. Bob was panicking on the side. ¡°Are we going to die?¡± He jumped up from where he was standing. ¡°How are you guys so calm?¡± he shouted and he started pacing in the small drop pod. ¡°Be calm kid. If you die it will be over before you know it.¡± Gendor helpfully supplied but it didn¡¯t seem to help the scared boy. Now he was pacing even faster while muttering ¡°We will die... We will die...¡± Maxwell could feel that shaking was getting worse as they progressed through the atmosphere but he was more concerned with what the planet would greet them with instead of their landing experience. If the initiation happened 2 months ago, beasts on the planet should have reached at least grade 2 he figured. In the summary from the system about Zephyr, it said that Zephyr was destroyed after grade 4 monsters came. With that information, he could scale the monster outbreaks back on Zephyr with grades. On Zephyr in the first month, otherworldly creatures as they called them were relatively weak. Only a limited amount reached the level where they were nearly immune to conventional weapons. That¡¯s why Maxwell could buy most of the Etherium back then. Otherwise, they wouldn¡¯t part with it no matter what. After the first month though some of the beasts reached new heights. Now they couldn¡¯t fight them with the projectile weapons they loved so much and only really big weapons like missiles were able to damage these beasts. In the third year some beasts now he knew to be third grade started to appear. These were completely immune to anything except etherium weapons. Luckily their frequency increased slowly over the years so they could handle them with the help of efficient etherium usage. The 14th year was the real catastrophe. The system said that level 4 gates were opened in that year in the summary but they never saw any stronger beasts than before when these new gates opened. What they saw was more grade 3 beasts than they could ever imagine. He was sure of this as he didn¡¯t see any grade 4 souls when he was trading Zephyr before his transmigration. He simply refused to believe that they could survive the Etherium wave. Now that he thought about it, the reason why the creatures were immune to conventional weapons probably was the absence of magic on the planet. Maybe man changed the planet in a more fundamental way than he thought. After all, after initiation if warriors couldn¡¯t kill beasts without mana that wouldn¡¯t make sense. Magic Theory leveled up Lvl-1¡ú8 He was dumbfounded for a second but when he thought on it for a moment, it was obvious that most people never saw a world with beasts but without mana. So Planet Zephyr¡¯s situation was probably a very isolated case that could be used to see the interaction between mana-based creatures and an environment devoid of mana completely. While he was thinking a very bold idea came to his mind. Wasn¡¯t their situation similar now? They were falling on a planet properly initiated with mana on a vessel that had been in space for the last two months. His logic told Maxwell that mana in space would probably be less dense compared to a planet¡¯s atmosphere. In theory, if he could somehow make the pod more ¡°manaful¡± as one might say maybe it would work as it was intended in the pre-initiation world. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Magic Theory leveled up Lvl-8¡ú10 It was a small increase this time but it was all the acknowledgment he needed before trying his theory. He took a deep breath and filtered out the shaking, Bob¡¯s mutterings, and the annoying face of Gendor. He focused and felt the mana around him. There were a lot more of the spots of mana right now compared to the time they were on the spaceship so he could at least see that his theory about the mana density in space was true. First, he took out a small sharp iron piece from his pocket. He carried this as a backup weapon as they didn¡¯t have anything like a real weapon in the slave zone. He focused on the mana around him and tried to gather them on the iron piece. He was not sure how he could make the mana be one with the thing but all he could do was try. First, he tried to push the mana into the piece but that seemed not much different than normally focusing mana. He stopped for a second and thought how he could do this. As a different approach, he tried to feel the mana inside the iron piece. Maybe there was something that made the mana in the iron piece and the outside mana different. As he focused more and more he could sense something in the mana particles. Some seemed to ¡°vibrate¡± in a different way compared to others. Mana he could feel in the iron piece was vibrating in the same frequency all over but the mana in the air was completely mixed. He could see some with the same frequency occasionally but he was quite lost on how he could differentiate between so many particles. Soul Sense leveled up Lvl-7¡ª>15 Shit... That¡¯s more levels than I had originally, he thought as the world became a lot clearer in his soul sense. This was the most noticeable change he ever felt when it came to skills leveling up. He could suddenly identify countless mana specks with different frequencies in the air just floating leisurely. It was a very intriguing experience but Maxwell focused on the job at hand. He started small at first. He tried to pull the particles with a similar frequency towards the iron piece but he found that he dragged a lot more than the intended particles. He pushed on anyway as he couldn¡¯t care about perfection right now. He directed the mana towards the piece and he was delighted to see that the mana with the same frequency lingered in it. As he was getting happy with his discovery he was disappointed to see that the attraction was not strong enough. Particles were slowly starting to disengage from the blade. He tried to keep them in the same place and it seemed to work for some time but there was still something missing in the equation. He thought about the situation on Zephyr. Was there no mana in Zephyr? He was inclined to say there wasn¡¯t but when one thought about it wouldn¡¯t the beasts at least bring some mana with them in 14 years? So there was something different than just placing the mana inside something as that could happen by sheer chance. The difference between other worlds with mana and the Zephyr was that they had the system. Also, his attributes suggested that spirituality attribute which usually supplied mana could be fused with mind to form something greater called the soul. He tried something according to this principle. When he was pushing the to the blade he imagined that the particles of mana were like people he used to use telepathy with. He tried to relay to them the idea to stay in the blade and connect with the other particles. It was quite a schizophrenic concept he was trying to prove but the strain in his mind was real as he tried to exert his will upon the particles. And surely little by little the particles started to stick together. Skill ¡°Mana Infusion¡± Acquired Mana Infusion: Infuse mana of compatible affinity to matter using your soul to cause various effects. Skill cannot be used on living beings other than the user himself. Cannot be used without Soul attribute. Meditation Leveled up Lvl-6¡ú12 Mana Manipulation Leveled up Lvl-12¡ú20 Maxwell let out a genuine chuckle for the first time in a long long while. He got up from where he was sitting and looked down at the planet. It was getting closer all right. ¡°How much time do we have for this thing to be inoperable?¡± He asked Gendor earning a calculating look from the man. ¡°So you have an idea? If we turn off the thrusters I guess it would take around 10 minutes for us to impact the ground. Though anything we do after 7 minutes or so wouldn¡¯t change much in this state since we would be already cooked alive.¡± he said. He was weirdly detached from the situation. ¡°Wait what do you mean we would be cooked?! You said we wouldn¡¯t die if we protected ourselves!¡± Bob whined. ¡°Well, it¡¯s not hard to see why I lied.¡± Gendor said cynically. Maxwell ignored the exchange. ¡°Then I have 6 minutes to fix this.¡± he said and closed his eyes. He tried to feel the mana on a more grand scale, encompassing the whole pod, and felt for the mana particles inside the outer part. It was the same particle as the metal piece in his hand as far as he could tell. He started to use the mana infusion skill on the shell of the pod. More and more mana rushed into the pod and he could see the density of the mana increasing in the matter. He found the process a lot easier now that it was a system skill. As they fell, mana density outside the pod increased, and as that increased he could pump more mana into the pod. After 5 minutes, beads of sweat were falling down from his forehead and his mana was almost completely gone. He could feel that the trembling of the pod was a bit less than before but he was unsure if this would be enough. ¡°Kid, whatever you did worked wonders,¡± Gendor said. There was a genuine quality to his happiness this time. ¡°It¡¯s still shaking though.¡± Maxwell half stated half asked. Then it occured to him that this was a fucking drop-pod. It never was something stable. If anything he shouldn¡¯t be able to stand upright at the moment but on the contrary, it was pretty comfortable. ¡°You look funny when you realize you are dumb.¡± Gendor chuckled as they continued to fall. Chapter 7 : The Ball That Fell From The Sky Maxwell stared at the planet below, comparing it to Zepyhr. When they were trying to figure out how to avoid burning in the atmosphere, they couldn¡¯t appreciate the planet''s beauty. The planet¡¯s name was Rokun. It was a terrestrial planet with more land than water on the surface. Thick forests covered the planet throughout making it seem like a paradise. Maxwell could see vaguely that someplace in the northeast seemed to have some sort of civilization, as the forests there had many blank spots. Unfortunately, they were going in the opposite direction. ¡°Civilization on the planet was cut entirely from communication until a couple of years ago. The colony our ancestors sent was apparently not as industrious as most so they have chosen a more primitive lifestyle.¡± Gendor said staring at the planet thoughtfully. ¡°Radam probably wants to be a sort of king coming here but he is in for a surprise when awakens because of the initiation.¡± He chuckled. ¡°Why didn¡¯t they wake him up?¡± Maxwell asked. Initiation was probably the biggest thing that could ever happen to society, and this man slept through it uninterrupted. ¡°Funnily enough, they can¡¯t. You see, Radam was not precisely a saint so he couldn¡¯t entrust his sleeping body. Seeing no other way he locked his body inside a safe in the ship. The controls are directly tied to the location system of the ship. Actually he should be having his first bouts of surprise right about now as we arrived our destination,¡± Gendor answered. They were really close to the surface now, and Maxwell could glimpse through the clouds that they were falling towards a lush mountainscape. The pod was equipped with thrusters to break their fall so he was not worried after the infusion that they would crash. ¡°It looks like we have a lot of mountain trekking in our future.¡± Gendor said. Just about now Bob seemed to come into his senses as he looked around dumbly. ¡°We aren¡¯t gonna die?¡± he said with immense hope in his voice, making Maxwell roll his eyes. This kid needed therapy as soon as they could reach it. ¡°We won¡¯t land near a city as I planned but we need to lay low for a while anyway. I¡¯m pretty sure a forest should have many resources we could use right now too.¡± Gendor stated licking his lips. Maxwell figured that he was talking about all the animals they could kill in a forest but he chose to not comment for now. He didn¡¯t really know how the man leveled up in the ship but he was probably hungry for more levels after not having any proper way of leveling up for 2 months. Soon they were around 1 km above the ground and thrusters started to do their job. They were working all right, but Maxwell realized that they were not as efficient as they should have been. I didn¡¯t infuse the pod beyond it¡¯s outer layer. These are just normal thrusters. Maxwell realized. It¡¯s not like he could infuse the engines even if he tried since they had so many different components with so many different frequencies. ¡°We will have a bit of a rough landing.¡±he said as he sat down on one of the chairs and started to strap himself down. ¡°You realized too? We should be okay though.¡±Gendor said not really concerned about the situation. He did sit on a chair nonetheless. Maxwell looked at Bob and he was surprised to found the boy sitting on one of the chairs already. He was using even the spare straps to strap himself on it if his life depended on it. ¡°This should be enough right?¡± he said hysterically. ¡°Yes, it should be enough, Bob.¡± Maxwell said. He was starting to get an idea about Bob¡¯s apparent abundance of fear. It didn¡¯t take long for them to feel the impact. It was rough but with their physique after the integration it felt like an amusement park ride rather than a rough landing on a pod launched from orbit. They skidded on the ground for a few seconds, along with Bob¡¯s manly screams and with a crash impacted a giant-ass tree. New atmosphere Detected. Vitality test passed moderately. Debuff ¡°Minor Weakness¡± applied for a day. Minor Weakness: Your body is not accustomed to this planet¡¯s microbiota. All physical stats (-2). So this is a thing? Maxwell thought as he felt a mild feeling of weakness seep into his body. He started trying to unstrap the tightened straps with his newfound weakness. He was a bit curious how they would survive different planets with different diseases and microorganisms but system seemed to take care of that in it¡¯s own way. He finally could unstrap himself and took a look around. Pod¡¯s window was gone and he could see that the front was almost completely ruined. Other parts except the outer layer were squished like they were cotton candy too so he figured tech in the pod would be unusable in the future. Stolen story; please report. He used observation on the tree they rudely smashed as it looked really unbothered by the whole exchange. Iron Tree - Level 14 A tree was higher leveled than him. He wondered if the tree would survive one if his mana bolt barrages. I probably shouldn¡¯t compare myself to something that can¡¯t move. He corrected himself before looking around. ¡°Everybody whole?¡± Gendor said as he approached the tree. ¡°Wow, even trees have levels¡­¡± He said, apparently having also used observation. ¡°Guys, what are those?¡± Bob asked, pointing at the right side. There were around 10 shapes about 100 meters away from them and they seemed really interested in this weird ball that fell out of the sky. Maxwell guessed they were something like a hyena but he was not really sure as they also had little horns on their head. He used observation on the biggest one as that one probably was the leader. Alpha Horned Scrax- Lvl-20 (Hungry) Maxwell realized that he could see more information with observation since he leveled up. He was curious about the skill as it seemed that it was also influenced by the increase in his soul sense. Maybe it was like an information manager using the user''s senses while being assisted by the system. This was certainly more plausible than the idea that a common skill like it would pull in all the information from the system. He quickly observed other Hyenas. They had levels ranging from 8 to 15. They were slowly closing down on them. He refused too call them scrax in his mind as they were way too similar to hyenas. Gendor licked his lips as he looked at the hyenas. ¡°Food in every sense delivered themselves to us hehe.¡± he said creepily. Bob was for once didn¡¯t look fearful as he looked at the hyenas with something like excitement mixed with anger. Maxwell realized that boy was not really fearful when it came to battle. The boy acted much more cowardly when there were things he couldn¡¯t control. He used observation on Gendor and the boy to see how were their odds against the hyenas. Gendor - Assassin-Lvl-10 Bob - Warrior-Lvl-8 Maxwell was surprised to see their levels as they are, one of them lower and one of them higher than he expected. He also noted that Gendor didn¡¯t realize that he used observation on him. ¡°Gendor why are you still level 10?¡± he asked. He didn¡¯t plan to hide the fact that he could see his level. ¡°I didn¡¯t like the new classes offered so I¡¯m waiting for new ones to show up.¡± Gendor said and he dashed towards the hyenas without waiting for a reply. He still had the sword and pistol from the enforcers and started firing as he ran. The pistol wasn¡¯t really effective but it was at least a distraction. Bob seeing this didn¡¯t wait as he charged too, along the man. They sure are bloodthirsty. Maxwell thought. And checked his mana to see it back to 315. So every point in soul gives me one and a half point in mana regeneration huh? He thought, noting that just five minutes ago his mana was almost completely gone. Mages were much more sustainable than he expected. Before starting with his mana bolts he tried to feel the beasts¡¯ minds. He was suprised to feel something quite different than a human mind. Their minds felt less attentive and more primal. There was a couple projects back on Zephyr to install etherium implants on dogs for better communication but they had much more pressing concerns at the time, so they were never properly funded. Beasts in front of him didn¡¯t use their minds to shape their behaviours like humans did. He felt that trying to take them out with telepathy would be quiet harder than normal people. Even if he could take their consciousness out they would still have their strong instincts. He started with 10 bolts this time and an idea came to his mind. He tried to infuse the surrounding mana into the bolts like he did on the droppod and was quite surprised to see them grow slightly bigger, eating up the mana he pulled from the atmosphere eagerly. He sent the bolts towards the three of the lowest leveled hyenas he could see, dividing the bolts into three groups. One hyena was closer to him and it was swallowed by an explosion before understanding what happened. Other two hyenas could see the mana bolts flying at them with impressive speed but unfortunately they were too slow to escape completely from the blast one losing half of it¡¯s head while other losing a big chunk from it¡¯s side. Albeit not completely annihilated like their friend whey were not higher leveled enough to survive such injuries. Horned Scrax- Level 8 Killed. Experience rewarded. Horned Scrax- Level 8 Killed. Experience rewarded. Horned Scrax- Level 9 Killed. Experience rewarded. Well that was easy. Maxwell thought. If he couldn¡¯t kill things close to his level easily with the broken soul attribute though, he probably didn¡¯t deserve it. Mana Bolt Skill Changes detected. Proceed skill readjustment? Yes / No Maxwell was surprised to see the last notification but mentally pressed yes. Mana Bolt Lvl-10 ¡ú Infused Mana Bolt Lvl-8 Infused Mana Bolt Leveled Up Lvl-8¡ú10 Skill readjustment complete. Infused Mana Bolt: Create bolts of mana and fire them at your enemies. Number of bolts created is connected to how much mana you can control at a time. Created mana bolts absorb the ambient mana in creation making them slightly stronger than normal mana bolts. Mana Manipulation leveled up Lvl-20¡ú21 Maxwell was pretty satisfied with the skill he readjusted as system put it but his satisfaction was interrupted by a hyena jumping at him from the side, taking advantage of his distraction. Maxwell frantically jumped back to dodge the hideously smelling hyena. From this range he couldn¡¯t really fire a bolt at the creature as he would also hurt himself so he was a bit lost for the moment. Hyena landed on the ground and somehow managed to look surprised. It didn¡¯t shy back from jumping once more toward Maxwell though and it was quiet faster than him too. Maxwell had no option other than to block the animal with his arm and he watched as its teeth sank into his arm. He felt burning pain in his arm as hyena proceeded to shake his head in a respectable attempt to tear his arm off. He gasped with pain and tried to focus through it as he tried to find a way out of this situation. He pulled his free hand back and concentrated before striking the animal with his fist in an act of desperation. Hyena seemed amused by the feeble human¡¯s attempt but it was in for a surprise. As Maxwell¡¯s hit the animal, a devestating amount of mana spread out from his hand in a burst. The unlucky animal kept shaking his head in ignorance as his lower body exploded in a shower of blood, leaving Maxwell staring at a hyena head with bloodshot eyes clamped at his arm. Chapter 8: A Disgusting Aftermath There are two possibilities when something dies; either it goes slack or it doesn¡¯t. Unfortunately for Maxwell, this was one of the situations where the second possibility won over the other. As he stared at the head, he tried to pry open it¡¯s jaw but he was not very successful at it apart from inflicting an immense amount of pain on himself. He gave up after a while and checked the others to find a weird scene before him. On one side, things were as expected as Gendor was fighting the leader and a very angry-looking hyena while 2 others were sprawled dead near them. It was Bob who was in an unexpected situation. Maxwell watched in surprise as the boy was pummeling two hyenas using an other very desperate-looking hyena. The fact that he was giggling like an idiot didn¡¯t help make the situation look any more acceptable. After a moment of deliberation, he decided that the boy was fine by himself and decided to help Gendor. The man looked rather beat up. He had a few claw marks along his body, and he was trying to fight a higher-tiered monster by himself while being outnumbered. His latest stunt cost Maxwell about 100 mana as what he did was simple and crude but effective. He just tried to expel his mana violently from his hand at the time in desperation not expecting the devastation it would cause on the hyena. He felt the information about the skill flowing in his mind but he would check his notifications after the battle as he didn¡¯t want to be distracted again. He had a little more than a hundred mana left so he needed to be careful after this. He created a single bolt and carefully threw it at the angry-looking hyena he identified to be level 16. It apparently didn¡¯t expect someone other to join the battle and it was too late to notice the bolt, allowing it to detonate squarely on it¡¯s head. For a second, the creature seemed afraid as it¡¯s head was swallowed by an explosion but it was surprised to feel that the bolt only moderately managed to damage him. There was a limit to how much damage a mana bolt made of 10 mana could cause. It quickly reoriented himself and looked around to find the pest he was attacked by. Maxwell didn¡¯t try to hide from the animal. He intended to draw the beast to himself anyway. The hyena, now even angrier than before, quickly charged at Maxwell. Maxwell prepared to do something more risky than he had ever done in his two lives, positioning himself in a way that made it look like he was going to punch the hyena. Maxwell focused on his arm as the creature ran towards him, which still had a hyena head clamped around it. His plan was based on a single phrase from the skill description of mana infusion. Mana Infusion: Infuse mana of compatible affinity to matter using your soul to cause various effects. Skill cannot be used on living beings other than the user himself. Cannot be used without the Soul attribute. The skill description clearly stated that Maxwell couldn¡¯t use it on the other living entities, but that also meant that he would be able to use it on himself. He was quiet sure that the ability he used just now wouldn¡¯t be able to kill this other one, but he would add a little oomph to this one. He focused and started pulling mana into his arm, trying to keep all this mana in it. He didn¡¯t need them to stay there for a long time, so he was not selective about what type of mana he pulled. Time slowed in his perception as he felt mana build up in his arm. They said that imminent death was a great motivator, and he could clearly feel that. Whoever that ¡°they¡± were, they were probably right. The angry hyena was a bit confused when its enemy stood there, seeming to be doing nothing, but it didn¡¯t think too much about it before jumping towards Maxwell¡¯s neck. Lets see how this goes then. Maxwell thought before delivering the same fist he used to kill the hyena before into the creatures mouth. This was usually a very bad idea as normally these mouths were filled with things called teeth but Maxwell had a plan. He tried not to panic as his hand traveled, and when he felt the beast¡¯s teeth on his forearm, he knew the time had come. When he was infusing mana he communicated with it to stay where it was. Now he did the opposite. He concentrated on the mana in his arm and while activating his new skill with his whole remaining mana he told the mana to get the fuck out as fast as possible. Maybe the least important and immediate result of this move was the most agreeable disintegration of the hyena head clamped on his arm along with his clothes covering the said limb as mana rushed out. The angry hyena meanwhile had eaten something quite more spicy than it would expect. Maxwell heard a dull thump coming from it¡¯s insides. Following the noise Maxwell felt a certain kind of looseness around his hand as the insides of the hyena were pulverized by the violent mana. He was then forced to close his eyes because the hyena''s eyes exploded, directly spraying their contents on his face. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. He stayed still for some time, taking in the situation and trying to get over the rush of adrenaline. He was not sure how much time he stayed like this. His mana pool was completely empty, and he was exhausted. I didn¡¯t pass out this time so I call this a win, he thought. He looked at the hyena to see if it was dead but it looked like it had never been alive. It looked weirdly fluid and proceeded to pour down on the floor from his arm with a sickly sound. Maxwell looked at the pile of skin filled with sludge on the floor disgustedly. Ok, no close-quarters combat unless I¡¯m really desperate from now on. He thought, fighting the urge to puke as he was faced with a horror that was unfortunately not quite beyond his imagination. He tried to distract himself from the liquid hyena by checking on his friends. He was faced with Bob repeatedly punching a dead hyena while laughing as he was kneeling over it. It was pretty important to say that it was apparent that the hyena was dead for quite a while. Gendor on the other hand was sitting by the now dead alpha¡¯s carcass leaning on the animal. He too was watching Bob with tired eyes that hinted at the possibility that this had been going on for a while. Maxwell looked unbelievingly at the situation before sending a telepathic burst at the psychopathic boy. It was not very strong as he was far from optimal condition himself, but it looked like it did the job as Bob fell silent before falling down on the hyena he was pummeling. Maxwell felt anger rising as he heard the boy snooze. He took a deep breath to calm himself before going near Gendor. ¡°You okay?¡± he asked before sitting down near him. ¡°Never been better.¡± the man said in a very tired voice. ¡°We should probably leave this place quickly because of the blood smell. Maxwell said, not sounding enthusiastic. They then proceeded to sit in silence for a couple of seconds, and Maxwell finally found the time to check his notifications. Since he had so many he fiddled with the system to show them in groups. Horned Scrax¨C Level 10 killed. Experience rewarded. Horned Scrax¨C Level 16 killed. Experience rewarded. Level up. Stats distributed(3x) Remaining experience pending until class change. So, experience only takes effect after the battle is completely over, he theorized. He was still level 7 throughout the fight, so that should be the case. Mana Manipulation Leveled Up Lvl-21¡ú32 Soul Sense Leveled Up Lvl-15¡ú20 Infused Mana Bolt Leveled Up Lvl- 10¡ú11 Telepathy Leveled Up Lvl-10¡ú11 Observation Leveled Up Lvl-6¡ú10 Mana Infusion Leveled Up Lvl-1¡ú10 Meditation Leveled Up Lvl-12¡ú20 Athletics Leveled Up Lvl-1¡ú5 It was apparent that the system rewards for battles with a high risk of death were bountiful. He felt conflicted about his meditation skill leveling up so much from something it was unintended for, but he would take whatever he could. Etherium Soul probably helped him more than he realized at the start, as his skills were leveling up quite fast, even though he didn¡¯t have anyone he could compare them with. He checked the next notification to see what his new skills were. Skill ¡°Piercing Damage Resistance¡± Acquired Piercing Damage Resistance(Lvl-1): It¡¯s resistance against piercing damage¡­ Whats wrong with this system when it comes to resistance skills? Maxwell though while shaking his head exasperatedly. Skill ¡°Mana Burst¡± Acquired. Mana Burst Leveled up Lvl-1¡ú4 Mana Burst Changes Detected Proceed Skill Readjustment? Yes / No Maxwell quickly chose to proceed with the readjustment as it seemed to do nothing harmful to him from what he understood. The new skill quickly appeared before him. Mana Burst(Lvl-5)¡ú Infused Mana Burst(Lvl-3) Infused Mana Burst Leveled Up Lvl-3¡ú6 Infused Mana Burst: Violently release mana from your body to release a wave of destructive energy. Skill can be charged with environmental mana for increased capabilities. Excessive charging may result in bodily harm. Skill Readjustment Complete Maxwell was quite conflicted about this new skill. From what he understood from his class, he expected this skill to be quite useless in the future, but the system seemed very flexible in modifying skills, so maybe he could change it to something useful in the future. Right now, he was quiet happy that he had a way to protect himself in close quarters. He looked up from his notifications for a second to see Gendor standing. After a couple of minutes of rest, the man seemed better now. ¡°We should go before we get outnumbered 100 to 1.¡± Gendor said. ¡°I guess you would like that¡­¡± Maxwell said, remembering the man¡¯s excitement before. ¡°Maybe some other time kid,¡± Gendor said good-naturedly before kicking Bob on the ribs. Maxwell could see the visible confusion in the boy¡¯s eyes as he opened them to a mangled corpse of the Scrax before him. ¡°Ew,¡± Bob commented before proceeding to puke on the corpse, making it even more disgusting. Luckily, he looked like he was over his psychopathic episode. ¡°Get up kid. We should leave here before we become food.¡± Gendor said and it seemed to work. Bob looked around gazing at the corpses around them before getting up. They started to walk towards the forest as fast as they could manage in their sorry state. When they were a bit further away from the battlefield, Maxwell gazed at his last notification. The level limit for tier 1 reached. Proceed tier advancement? Yes / No Chapter 9: A Beautiful World They stumbled through the forest, Gendor leading the way as he cut branches with his sword. The thing was in a bad state, being pre-system made, and it made Maxwell curious to see if he could fix those items by infusing mana. He was starting to get a craving for magic. He chased away a fly buzzing annoyingly near his ear as he thought about their situation. They probably needed to camp soon enough to recuperate, and they would need to find a new water source soon. The food problem could wait a bit longer, but it was still a problem as they couldn¡¯t choose to find only low-level animals to hunt. He was not thrilled to face something he couldn¡¯t possibly beat when trying to hunt a bunny. ¡°There is an open area about 100 meters ahead according to one of my skills,¡± Gendor said. Maybe he has something like echolocation? Maxwell theorized. They still didn¡¯t trust each other enough to tell each other completely about their skills. ¡°Everyone should have their tier advancement pending, right?¡± Maxwell asked. ¡°I had mine pending for a month¡­¡± Gendor said dejectedly. ¡°It turns out you can¡¯t get a good advancement when you are an assassin who never killed anyone with a skill,¡± he complained. ¡°I have mine pending too,¡± Bob said. He seemed dazed by the open space of the forest. Maxwell found it natural as the kid had probably been in a spaceship since birth. ¡°We should camp and deal with it as soon as possible. I don¡¯t like going around weaker than everything that moves.¡± Maxwell said. He was a bit grumpy because his right hand burned feverishly as adrenaline slowly left his body. ¡°If only we had an open spot 70 meters ahead.¡± Gendor joked, slowly regaining his cheerfulness. They continued to move with an agonizing pace through the forest, and Maxwell could see that the sun was slowly going down. Now that they were relatively free to look around, he was examining the plants around him. While they were different from the ones in Zephyr, they were still similar enough. It was food for thought that even in another universe, life was almost identical to one on his own planet. Soon, they reached the place Gendor was talking about. It was not remarkable, but it would do. There was an area about 10 meters wide covered with soil where they could comfortably rest. Roots covered the ground like a cobweb. This planet would be a wet dream for Sarah, he thought, smiling faintly. Sarah was his secretary from his previous life. She was moderately obsessed with tropical life. They worked together for years before he sent her away with the Project Resurrection. To say that she was not amused by the idea would be an understatement. ¡°Kid, did anyone tell you you looked disturbing when smiling?¡± Gendor asked him, poking him on the arm. ¡°Fuck you,¡± Maxwell countered maturely before settling on the floor. He summoned his status for the last time before advancement and quickly put his remaining points into the soul attribute. Name: Maxwell Aurelius Age: 15(54) Class: Mage Level: 10(Pending Tier Advancement) Nobility: None Traits: Etherium soul, Merchant of Yliaster Stats Strength:15 Agility:18 Dexterity: 19 Vitality:17 Soul:53 HP:170 MP:795 Class Skills: Mana Manipulation(32), Soul sense(20), Magic Theory(10), Infused Mana Bolt(11), Telepathy(11), Mana Infusion(10), Infused Mana Burst(6) General Skills: Blunt Trauma Resistance(1), Piercing Damage Resistance(1), Gaslighting(5), Observation(11), Athletics(5), Meditation(20), Mental Resistance(4) He thought it would have been better if he had made a trade with his trait before advancing, but there was hardly anything unique around him to trade with. Also, he felt that nothing could live up to his first trade with the system anyway. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. After a moment¡¯s hesitation, as he once again considered whether he missed anything, he initiated his tier advancement. First tier advancement initiated. Unlocked: Title system Showing current titles in the order of qualification: [???], [Merchant of Yliaster], [Transmigrator], [Premature Soul], [Etherium Telepath], [Space Traveller], [Magic Prodigy], [Unnatural Mana] Maxwell was surprised to see the new system unlocked, but it seemed logical for the system to have something like a tagging system for people. Most of his titles were self-explanatory, apart from the one with the question marks. He was a bit tired of routinely seeing question marks when dealing with the system but hoped that time would solve these mysteries. He focused on some titles he was curious about to see if they had any explanation. Merchant of Yliaster: You trade with the system as others only receive what they are handed obliviously. May your resources be bountiful as you reach the unimaginable. This title was not surprising as it was his first feat in this new life, but he had to accept that the wording of the explanation was a bit too grand for the moment. Premature Soul: Your mind and spirituality were fused prematurely by unnatural causes. Etherium Telepathy: To your tainted soul, telepathy comes completely naturally. He was starting to think that system didn¡¯t like etherium at all. Magic Prodigy: You touch subjects reserved for only the most knowledgeable and thrive in them despite your ignorance. That''s a bit rude now, isn¡¯t it? Maxwell couldn¡¯t help but comment while laughing softly. The system was weird with its rare sense of humor. Unnatural Mana: You have mana in quantities way beyond your tier. Maxwell wasn¡¯t amazed to see this last one, as his soul attribute was not hard to decipher as overpowered. He let the System continue as he was satisfied with the explanations. Titles are being evaluated. Time since integration: <24 hours Oh, so it¡¯s important how fast you are, Maxwell thought, mentally congratulating himself on his decision not to wait and grind skills before tier advancement. Showing possible advancement options: Great Mage: You showed aptitude in magic as you controlled the arcane. Now, you may continue the path as you bend the elements you synergize with. This seems to be the default option for advancement. Maxwell thought. Magic Knight: You used mana to annihilate your enemies in close combat. You show no fear as you dive into the combat with whatever you can get your hands on. May your enemies fear when they see your form approaching. Oh no, thank you very much. Maxwell discarded the option immediately. Metal Mage: You commanded metal affinity without any previous teaching or learned methods. Continue on the path of metal to show the world how undurable their forms are. This was probably not a very bad option, considering the conditions for achieving it, but it was too basic and limiting for Maxwell. Prince Of Zephyr: Your brethren died in their last battle as their souls fueled your journey. Become the conduit for their return as they show the universe Zephyr¡¯s might. Maxwell was dumbfounded by this class. It hinted at the possibility that his civilization could be revived, but it felt a bit weird. Is this class something like a prophet? He theorized. It had a certain creepiness to it. He checked his last options. Soul Mage: The concept of the soul is not known by many, but you already wield it to your advantage. Use your superior soul and let them tremble with a weight they don¡¯t understand. This is interesting, but what about the magic? Maxwell grumbled. Yes, the class seemed very powerful, but it appeared solely focused on his soul attribute. He figured it could also do other magic, but it sounded a bit too specialized for his tastes. He quickly checked the last class with hope. Prima Soul: You use your soul to communicate with the world as it follows your will. Prima Soul guides the world to the path they desire as others try to bend it futilely. Maxwell immediately knew that this was the class he was going to pick. Albeit its description was a bit cryptic, it was also worth taking a small risk. It felt like an advanced form of the soul mage, but he could discern no specialization of any kind from it. It also hinted at the use of telepathy, which was one of his strongest points. Maybe a specialization would be stronger, but Maxwell really wanted to try all forms of magic he could get his hands on. It surely beats being a prophet. He thought before finalizing his choice.
Class ¡°Prima Soul¡± Selected. Prima Soul: Your etherium soul communicates with the world, guiding the particles to where they should be for your desired reality. Do not concern yourself with your compatibility with affinities as you guide them all the same. Enables elementary soul energy manipulation. Increases ability to guide and sense mana greatly. Your existence shifts towards your soul as it partly replaces your vitality. Soul (+13), Strength(+4), Agility(+4), Dexterity(+4) and 5 Free points every level.
Tier advancement initiating. Your breadth of existence is widening. Maxwell felt a cold stream of pure energy enter him as he read the class description. He could feel his body and soul change as the energy passed through him, making it more. His breathing slowed as if his body was partially unshackled by such mortal concerns. He felt his injuries cease to exist as if they were too material for him to care about. He took a deep breath, and it felt like there was more to the world than before. When he could feel the changes settling, he opened his eyes, and for a second, he couldn¡¯t recognize where he was. In the air, countless particles of differing colors were dancing as they twirled around each other. As he looked around, he could see a colorless light exuding from things alive, pushing out the most mana particles while taking in a selective few. He couldn¡¯t understand what he was seeing for a moment before realizing that his soul sense was turned into something more advanced with the advancement. Despite knowing that he should check the system messages, he couldn¡¯t find the willpower to turn his gaze away from the scene before him. The world was welcoming him with a show he would never get bored of as long as he lived. It was beautiful Chapter 10: A Question Hard To Ask It took some time for Maxwell to get his bearings back enough for him to look around in a more human way. It was awesome to see pure magic, but his senses were overloaded in such a way that he couldn¡¯t see much else. He checked on Bob, and he was surprised to see that the boy was squinting in apparent distress in the air in front of him. ¡°Are your options really that bad?¡± He asked. He didn¡¯t think Bob would get bad options after the things they had done. ¡°What''s wrong with these options? Every single one except one of them says I¡¯m a rage monster without any rationality and the other one says I''m a coward!¡± Bob shouted in righteous anger. Maxwell slowly blinked and stared at the boy for a couple of seconds before sighing. Maxwell sighed. ¡°You know how you are when fighting, right?¡± He asked. ¡°That¡¯s the thing, I don''t remember much from any fights I had,¡± Bob mumbled. Maxwell was thoughtful. Maybe the boy had a trait or something. When the boy showed crippling fear again and again, he had an idea about what they could do about it. It might be the right time now to try it since they were starting their real paths, in a sense. ¡°Wait while I check my notifications, and we will try something, " he said before summoning the system. Tier advancement successfully completed. Trait: [Partial Etheral Body] awakened. Some skills are being readjusted. Mana Manipulation¡úGuide Mana Soul Sense¡ú Prima Sense Telepathy¡ú Soul¡¯s Voice ¡­ Skill ¡°Elementary Soul Manipulation¡± unlocked. That¡¯s a lot to take in. Maxwell thought. The trait probably was about the vitality aspect of the class, he figured before summoning the descriptions of everything new. Guide Mana: Basic skill of magic for Prima Soul. Convey to your mana what needs to be done and watch it unfold before your eyes. Prima Sense: Take a glimpse of shrouded reality and you shall see that all used to be one. Soul¡¯s Voice: Use your soul to convey messages to beings by creating a soul channel. Elementary Soul Manipulation: You can slightly manipulate the soul energy. The descriptions were short and simple albeit being really cryptic. System didn¡¯t seem to give you all the details, it wanted you to learn them by trying the skills. Apart from the flavour text the skills seemed to follow their previous usage with small changes. Prima sense was an exception to this as he felt it was on a completely different level than before from what he felt before. Partial Etheral Body: As your existence shifts towards the soul, your sensitivity to energies increases. Your body uses the soul for half of its nourishment. Okay, maybe this is why Prima Sense feels so different, Maxwell reasoned. He summoned his status to see how everything changed after the advancement. Name: Maxwell Aurelius Age: 15(54) Class: Prima Soul Level: 11 Nobility: None Traits: Etherium soul, Merchant of Yliaster, Partial Etheral Body Stats Strength:19(-2) Agility:22(-2) Dexterity: 23(-2) Vitality:17(-2) Soul:66 Free points: 5 HP:405 MP:990 Class Skills: Guide Mana(32), Prima sense(20), Magic Theory(10), Infused Mana Bolt(11), Soul¡¯s Voice(11), Mana Infusion(10), Infused Mana Burst(6),Elementary Soul Energy Manipulation(1) General Skills: This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Blunt Trauma Resistance(1),Piercing Damage Resistance(1), Gaslighting(5), Observation(11), Atlethics(5), Meditation(20), Mental Resistance(4) He was still under the effect of the minor weakness, but his stats have undergone a real change with the advancement. He quickly put his remaining point in soul, bringing it to 71. The said attribute was becoming even more broken now that it was giving him health points, too. He suspected that his health might be higher than some warriors. He squeezed his fist to feel the new strength in his muscles. He would easily become a weightlifter in his last world he supposed. Real increase were in his soul of course but he felt that testing that would be quiet devestating. He looked at Gendor, curious about the man. He seems happy enough, he thought as the man was sitting with a smile on his face. Maxwell could see the agitated energy inside the man, so he figured he should be in the middle of his advancement. He turned his gaze back on Bob to see him looking at him curiously. ¡°Are you done? What are we gonna do now?¡± He asked sadly. He was disappointed with his class options. To be fair, Maxwell was not sure that he could help remove the rage part from Bob¡¯s future classes but he could at least try. ¡°Look, I know for some time that you are very afraid of death. Am I right?¡± Maxwell asked, trying to sound sympathetic. ¡°Of course I am! Why wouldn¡¯t I be afraid of death? It¡¯s death, you know.¡± Bob said righteously. He sounded prideful in the weird way that people are when they talk about a bad quality of theirs. ¡°If you could stop feeling fear, would you choose it? You don¡¯t seem to feel fear in battle.¡± Maxwell asked, probing the kid¡¯s mentality. ¡°I don¡¯t know, man... There is something different with battles. No time to fear and stuff, maybe. I don¡¯t really remember them anyway.¡± Bob said. ¡°I¡¯m not happy whining like a bitch whenever I¡¯m in a bad situation, you know. I just can¡¯t help it¡­¡± he added sadly. ¡°Very g-¡±, Maxwell almost said ¡°Very Good¡± as an answer but he stopped himself. That sounded a bit rude. ¡°Very tragic.¡± He corrected himself. ¡°Would you be willing if I tried a skill on you? I could potentially remove your fear as a whole and you might also get something out of it.¡± Maxwell asked. ¡°But don¡¯t I need fear? What would happen if I charge into things like an idiot and die?¡± Bob asked a surprisingly intelligent question. He was getting a bit agitated again. ¡°Firstly, you already do such things. Secondly, we might be able to get something out of this that will make you harder to kill.¡± Maxwell reasoned. ¡°Hey! What do you mean I already do?¡± Bob said, clearly offended and maybe a bit alarmed. What the fuck is wrong with this kid? Maxwell thought. ¡°Well, it can¡¯t really harm you not to fear things when you can¡¯t even remember pummeling animals using their friends, you know?¡± Maxwell tried to make the boy yield. To be fair he just wanted to use his trait after not being able to use it for a long time. If it could help his new friend Bob it was an extra boon. He was also quite curious aboutthe boy¡¯s mentality. ¡°I don¡¯t know man¡­ Are you sure it¡¯s safe? Is this one of your new skills?¡± Bob asked. He was clearly considering. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯s safe.¡± Maxwell answered ignoring the other question. Bon took a deep breath. His fear of the unknown was clearly fighting with the desicion he was trying to make. ¡°Will this help with my umm.. situation in battles?¡± He asked. ¡°If you want it to help, it will.¡± Maxwell said, suddenly feeling like a swindler before shaking his head. ¡°Okay. Do it.¡± Said Bob before closing his eyes and opening up his arms. His fists were clenched like he expected him to stab him. Maxwell shook his head in exasperation and triggered his trait. Trait [Merchant Of Yliaster] activated on the entity: Bob Listing resources that could be used with consent: Fear(Emotion) Maxwell smiled as his guess was proven to be correct. His trait said that he could use it on the others and use their ¡°resources¡± if they consented. He refused to believe that such a trait was so simple as being limited to physical things. Turns out he was right. He selected fear and chose to proceed. The next moment, he felt his prima sense turn on without his input. Suddenly, he could see Bob in a more fundamental way than he had ever seen someone. He could feel the boy¡¯s soul, and he felt his awareness shift towards it. His trait was controlling his awareness for him as he felt it function through him. He felt some colorless energy he guessed to be soul energy rush out from him as it grabbed a part of the boy¡¯s soul with threads of energy. He felt a sudden tiredness as his mind got overwhelmed by the sheer detail of the kid¡¯s soul. He couldn¡¯t comprehend what was happening as his mind refused to see what his trait percieved through his awareness. Fortunately everything turned back to normal after a short glimpse. Maxwell felt tired in a way that he never felt. His head was spinning and for a couple of seconds breathing was very hard. He stumbled as he fought to not fall down. That would hardly inspire confidence. ¡°Max what¡¯s wrong?¡± Bob asked in a startled voice. Boy didn¡¯t seemed to realize that a part of his soul was gripped by his trait. ¡°I¡¯m¡­¡± Maxwell took a deep breath. ¡°I¡¯m fine, " he said, sounding like he was in his dying bed. He forced himself to check his system notifications. A soul element selected for trade. Resources are deemed too complex for the user¡¯s tier of existence. Error¡­ Trait [Merchant of Yliaster] overriding protocols. Error¡­ Resource acquisition complete. So, this trait can hijack the system? No¡­ that shouldn¡¯t be the case as it was given by it. It¡¯s more like usual rules don¡¯t apply to it, I suppose. Maxwell thought sluggishly. He hurried to the next screen as he was not sure how much he could function in this state. Trade initiated. Please specify your desire. Maxwell stared dumbly at this mesage as he was not sure what he should say to the system with his current broken state of mind. He could see that there was no input box or anything like that, and he instinctively felt that he could just think about what he wanted to do to make the system evaluate his offer. He looked at Bob, the kid looking at him with apparent worry. Maxwell knew he wouldn¡¯t be able to get a coherent answer from the boy in a situation like this. He never expected that he would be able to get what he wanted with words, though. The fact that he also didn¡¯t expect himself to be this fucked in this phase was something he chose to ignore for now. They waited for a couple minutes like this as he waited for his regeneration to give him some energy. When he had enough, he braced himself for the strain and prepared to test one more of his theories. He activated the Soul¡¯s Voice, and he felt the skill create a channel for the first time. It was certainly different than the usual telepathy but it was similar enough. In his own world, after they learned how to use telepathy thanks to etherium, they were quick to realize how this could be used for interrogation. It wasn¡¯t easy for them to invent a way to use telepathy in this way, but one should never underestimate humanity¡¯s stubbornnes when things were about war. Maxwell was now trying to use this method in a way that it was outrageously unintended for. He felt the channel form as he tried to widen it until he felt that he could overwhelm the kid¡¯s mind with a simple message. He probably wouldn¡¯t be able to do this to people with strong minds but he somehow doubted Bob having a high mind stat. He felt like he was trying to lift an elephant with his mind despite this fact, but he was successful after seconds of agonizing concentration. They used to do this with multiple devices that could amplify telepathic waves but unfortunately, Maxwell doubted he would ever have something like that in this world. After he had formed the channel, rest was easy enough. He focused with the last trickle of his strength and sent a question to the boy¡¯s mind, overwhelming it with the question. The question was simple enough as he felt it echo in his own mind too, due to its sheer strength. ¡°What do you desire?¡± Chapter 11: A Question Hard To Answer Bob looked at his friend as he was really worried about him. The boy he had known for years had behaved entirely differently in the last 24 hours. He looked like he could die any second as he was concentrating on something Bob had no idea what. Bob was skeptical about this whole thing. He felt that Max - as the boy wanted to be called Max, he would oblige- was overestimating whatever his skill was. A couple of minutes ago, he felt the boy do something, but it didn¡¯t feel like much. Now he had something like an itch somewhere he wasn¡¯t sure where. The fact that the boy went white as a sheet immediately after feeling this didn¡¯t fill Bob with high levels of confidence. Nonetheless, he would be happy enough if this could help with his fear problem even a bit. He had been a coward all his life. Even in the memories he could only faintly remember from the time before he was in the slave zone, the memories were tinted with paralyzing fear. He didn¡¯t know why he was like this, but he couldn¡¯t control his fear no matter what he tried. While he was thinking his attention was taken by Max as his friend¡¯s eyes opened slowly. Bob realized then that he was looking at the boy¡¯s eyes for the first time since his apparent advancement. He had known Max for years, and he was pretty sure that the boy¡¯s eyes should have been black. But the eyes he was seeing now were a sparkling green, and he felt himself getting absorbed by them. He couldn¡¯t look away as he felt his mind slow down and come to a complete stop. He felt like he was staring at endless possibilities in these eyes. It felt forbidden but also enticing. He felt his mind dissolve as his world got consumed by a green light. When he opened his eyes, he saw he was in a crib. His mind seemed to work as it should, but he felt his body was completely different. I¡¯m a baby! He realized. A woman above him was looking at him with an emotion he was quite unfamiliar with. The woman turned back as he stared at her and spoke to someone he couldn¡¯t see. ¡°He is so cute, isn¡¯t he?¡± she said with delight. ¡°Indeed, he will be a lady killer when he grows up. " A man answered, laughing. Bob was confused. Where was he? He felt himself getting lifted from the crib. It was his mother who was lifting him, he realized, and he felt his body instinctively hug the woman. He felt a warm feeling of peace as his eyes closed in contentment. When he opened his eyes again, he could see outside through the window. His mother was speaking to the man, but his attention slipped from the dialogue as he saw something strange outside the window. A masked man was looking at them from outside, and he was holding a rifle. Bob felt the paralyzing fear rise in him. He was once again getting consumed by it. He tried to move, do something to warn his mother, but he couldn¡¯t control his body. Fear kept rising as the man outside lifted the rifle towards them. He could see his eyes through the mask, and he seemed to look at him for a moment before pulling the trigger. The deafening sound of the rifle drowned all noise after that. He was consumed by fear, barely acknowledging the outside world, but his mother was still at the center of his attention. He watched as she was riddled with holes, still hugging him. He watched as she shielded him in panic, not even looking outside to see what was happening. He glimpsed the man his mother was talking with, looking with grim determination outside as he was pointing a gun outside. Everything inside him screamed for him to help them, but he was powerless as the world went black. He opened his eyes again, and his fear was gone. This time, he was in a more familiar environment. He felt dread, as he did remember when this was. So, the baby was really me? he thought as he felt the body, which was once again outside his control, look around. He didn¡¯t want to see the rest, but he had no choice. There was a boy near him, and they were walking in the slave zone near the dormitories. His number before he was reassigned was 114, as he was too small for the other dormitories. The boy near him was around 8 years old, like himself at this time. He was his roommate back then. He watched desperately as a group of children appeared from the corridor to the left. His roommate was never liked among the children as he had a very hot temper. With Bob¡¯s timid personality though, they were surprisingly suitable as they became friends years before from this memories point of refference. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Bob felt the fear coming once again as these guys were some of the children whose dislike for his friend had reached different heights. He helplessly watched as his body once again froze with fear as one of the boys hit his friend in the head. 113 was a fierce boy. He was quick to answer in kind, and his answer was rarely limited to his fists. He was quickly between the boys, kicking, biting, and scratching whoever he could reach. Bob wanted nothing more than to help his friend, but once again, he found his body disagreeable. He watched as 113 slowly got more sluggish. Inevitable happened after a couple of seconds as he was hit with a kick at the side of his head falling down to the ground. One of the kids screamed, ¡°You fucking killed him, you idiot!¡± as he punched the other boy who kicked 113. The said kid looked terrified himself and soon they were running away. Bob watched as they disappeared into the corridors. He could feel that his fear was slowly turning into guilt. He felt his body walk shakily towards 113. The boy was rigid and shaking on the ground, and foam was coming out of his mouth. The boy¡¯s eyes seemed to accuse him of inaction, and he felt guilt consume him. Soon, the boy stopped breathing, and Bob felt his world go dark again. Yet once again, he couldn¡¯t protect someone. He opened his eyes once more. This time, he was seeing a very recent memory, as he could see Max in the periphery of his vision. They were walking once again, just like in the memory before, but Max was a quiet boy like him, so they didn¡¯t have any enemies. The thing was that this was just after the system integration. Soon, he could see once again a couple of boys coming from a corridor. Fights in the slave zone never really followed a surprising pattern. He watched them come closer as he saw Max tense up. He thought Max had chosen the thief class back then, but he was still classless, as he was unsure what he should choose with his fear problem. The kids approached them, and one of them spoke to his friends. ¡°I think I¡¯m close to another level. Let¡¯s beat them up.¡± Suddenly, they were running towards them. He saw Max brace himself with an iron shard he found from somewhere, but he could again feel the fear coming. As far as his memory was concerned, he didn¡¯t remember anything after this, but the memory he was seeing now seemed not bothered by the fact that he actually didn¡¯t remember it. With shock, he realized that something was different this time. He felt the fear inside him turn into something else. Pure anger rushed out as he felt his mind get faint. His body was getting anything but fainter though, as he felt himself focus on the system and choose a class almost randomly. Oh, so this is how I became a warrior? A small part of his still-awake mind thought faintly through the anger. Warrior Class Selected Mind Instability Detected Analyzing.. Hidden Trait: Primal Fear Revealed. Primal Fear: Animals sometimes freeze from fright when they are preyed upon. Your inner self refuses this reality. Let its prideful anger consume you instead, and watch them realize what primal fear feels like. The system interface is locked until the user¡¯s mind stabilizes. Bob watched in disbelief as his past self bit one of the boys¡¯ neck as he was punching another. He tasted blood in his mind and felt exhilaration. He was giggling like he was doing something very fun as he proceeded to pummel the boy in front of him with his fists. They looked at him as if he was something out of stories, as he fought them with sheer abandon. He himself wasn¡¯t much different from the boys now. He would feel sick, too, if it wasn¡¯t for the immense anger he was feeling from his memory. The fight was over soon enough, and he could see Max looking at him. The boy seemed to be trying to decide whether he should run away from him. Bob was a bit heartbroken for a few seconds until he realized his anger was not lessening. This turned into horror as he felt his body charge in the direction of Max with no good intentions, proving the other boy right. He could glimpse a horrified look on the boy¡¯s face before he darted away from him in fear. He could see that the boy would be faster than him in his normal state, but this angry state he was in apparently didn¡¯t care much about that fact. He was steadily gaining over Max. Stop! Fuck! The fuck am I doing? Bob screamed in his mind. He was happy for a second that he was not helpless like before, but this turned out to be even worse. If this continued, he would kill his friends himself instead of just watching them die. Fortunately, he knew that Max had actually survived this, so he tried to calm down. He watched to see how the boy managed to avoid him in this state. No wonder all the advancement options were about him turning into a mindless berserker. I was already a mindless berserker after all¡­ he thought. Fortunately, Max was good at running, and after a couple of minutes of high-tempo chase, Bob could feel his anger dwindling. Even this trait seemed to have a limit after all. Max seemed to realize this, too, as he was constantly turning back to see if he was still there. After a while, Bob was feeling really tired. The last thing he felt in this memory was his body slumping to the ground from exhaustion as, once again, the world went dark. Bob was curious about the next memory, but this time, the darkness was longer. After a couple of seconds of darkness, he suddenly felt something weird in his mind. There seemed to be a foreign thought, or rather a question, inside it. ¡¯What do you desire? Bob felt his mind strain under the heaviness of the question, and he pondered. After his journey through three different but similar memories, it was apparent to him what he actually desired the most. He wanted to protect. Chapter 12: A Brand-New Bob Maxwell has seen many tragedies in his life. As a telepathy user, he felt many of those through projection when he wanted to learn more about some people¡¯s situations. However, this still didn¡¯t prepare him for the anger he felt when he was connected to Bob through Soul¡¯s Voice. He has seen many people with crippling fear ,but he has never seen someone with such anger. As Bob watched his memories through his own body, Maxwell was tagging along all the time as a silent partner. It turned out that feeling a trauma firsthand could actually affect you pretty badly. This certainly didn¡¯t help Maxwwell¡¯s tired mind, but he was a bit better, as his helpful soul stat was already regenerating his resources. System surely doesn¡¯t care about privacy¡­ he thought as he checked the system tab for the trade. The answer is received in the form of soul intent. Deciphering¡­ Evaluating the trade. The System Accepts. Maxwell checked on Bob after reading the notification. Soul intent? So that¡¯s something like an amalgamation of memories? As always, his thoughts were interrupted by the new notifications. Hidden status removed from the trait [Primal Fear] Soul Amputation commencing. Resource successfully acquired. So it didn¡¯t take the trait? Maxwell questioned mentally. It didn¡¯t make sense to have the trait when Bob couldn¡¯t feel fear. He turned on his prima sense to sense what was the change he caused to the boy. He could see that something was missing from the boy¡¯s soul as he tried to perceive it as he did when he was using his trait. He wasn¡¯t very successful, but he was startled by a sudden wave coming from the boy¡¯s soul. It strangely gave a feeling of¡­ safety? Trait ¡°Primal Fear¡± is being used as a framework for the new Trait. Calculating. Trait modification in process. Trait Modification successful. Trait: Protector of the Dawn Created. At the same time with this notification Maxwell felt the feeling of safety he was feeling erupt like a torrent suddenly, before dissapearing completely. He quickly checked the trait¡¯s details as he was really curious about what the system created. Protector of the Dawn: In the dawn of creation, fragile beings known as humans hid in caves, hiding from the beasts hunting them. They shivered in fear due to their lowly place in creation. All changed when some chose to discard their fear as they faced certain death for the protection of others. They fought as none expected. They fell but were replaced. Through the Merchant of Yliaster¡¯s grace, you shall now taste their glory as you stand before all horrors without fear. May your body be the shield humanity needs. Cannot Feel Fear Immunity to Losing Consciousness Increase in physical stats when injured Increase in all parameters when protecting someone Death is delayed by 1 minute. ¡°The fuck¡­¡± Maxwell couldn¡¯t help but swear out loud. He expected something good to come out of this trait but didn¡¯t expect to create a mythological creature. The system was cryptic with values as always, as it was just saying ¡°increase¡± instead of giving any numbers, but Maxwell was quite sure that these ¡°increases¡± were not small. He turned his eyes to his notifications. There were quite a lot of changes. Soul¡¯s Voice Leveled Up Lvl-11¡ú22 Elementary Soul Energy Manipulation Leveled Up Lvl-1¡ú10 Meditation Leveled Up Lvl-20¡ú25 He guessed his soul manipulation leveled up because of the trait¡¯s forced usage of his energy. He wouldn¡¯t probably level that skill for some time without things like that as the usage of the skill was quite hard to grasp. Soul¡¯s voice was expected as he used it in a pretty extreme way. He didn¡¯t expect meditation to level up but it was a welcome surprise. He was suddenly knocked a couple steps back as he felt Bob¡¯s weight crush into him unexpectedly. He gave Maxwell a bear hug as he was smiling like an idiot. ¡°Thank you,¡± Bob said simply. There were no words for what Bob was feeling. He was finally free from his fear. He could feel the difference immediately. Any fear that this might have bad consequences was nonexistent, too, as he couldn¡¯t feel it. The excited boy calmed down after a couple of seconds and sat down on the ground. ¡°I will check the advancement options again, " he said. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. ¡°You haven¡¯t yet?¡± Maxwell asked sarcastically. Bob sure didn¡¯t waste time. ¡°There IS a different option!¡± Bob screamed, and Maxwel could clearly imagine the system screen in front of Bob as his hand moved to press on the class without a second thought. Maybe he lost his consideration with fear? He thought in exasperation. Maxwell didn¡¯t know how fucked up the other options were before, though, if he knew, he might have understood the boy¡¯s agitation. ¡°Here is the summary,¡± said Bob and started to read the summary of the class without any consideration. Protector of The Cave: You protect the weak as your predecessors did in ancient days. Be the shield they can count on against the world they cannot understand. Without armor, without a weapon, you shall prevail. Unarmed damage is significantly boosted. Unarmored defense is significantly boosted. You can¡¯t be poisoned by eating your prey. Efficiency boosted for all physical skills and stats. Vitality +9, Strength +8, Agility +5, Dexterity +4, Mind +1, Spirituality +1 every level. Bob finished speaking breathlessly. It was pretty respectable for him to manage reading the whole thing before actually entering the advancement trance. Maxwell noted that stat points from the class were lower than his. This would probably significantly increase the power level between people in the future. The class was still awesome though, considering Maxwell was an anomaly among anomalies. He had a soul stat, so his stat points were broken beyond repair. ¡°Seems really good¡± he commented. ¡°Right? Hahahaha.¡± Bob shouted, laughing and Maxwell could see mana was gathering around the boy slowly as the boy slowly entered a trance. Maxwell watched as Bob¡¯s body was invaded wth energy. It was not the environmental mana as it seemingly appeared from nowhere not dissimilar to their new mana when they were gained with stat points. He felt his mind strain as he tried to pry upon what the system was doing in advancements. He felt the strain increase as he focused on the boy¡¯s body. He could sense that the warmth coming from Bob increase as advancement progressed. His looks haven¡¯t changed much but he could also clearly see that some of the malnourishment vanish from the boy in real time. Now that he thought about it, the same thing was the case for him too. He gazed at the boy¡¯s wounds and he felt a sudden increase in strain in his mind. System probably didn¡¯t want them to know how it worked. He quickly turned his gaze to other parts. I might as well start slow¡­ he thought, not realizing that things he were trying to do were taboos. As he watched the system move mana he could see it infused it to Bob¡¯s body in more complex ways than he could hope to understand. It seemed to choose specific frequencies though. These frequencies were probably different affinities as the system used the word repeatedly when choosing his class. He looked at the particles and tried to isolate one of them with the highest concentration from the ambient mana. This was his first usage of mana guide after the advancement and he found the attempt much easier than before. He could feel the mana particle coming to his hand as he willed it to move. Well then, what are you? To his eyes the particle seemed red but that didn¡¯t really give any information to him. He tried to use observation on the particle but all he got was question marks. Well, good old experimenting then. He though before isolating willing the other particles eith the same affinity to his palm. 2 boys stayed unmoving one in bliss from the advancement and one in concentration as Gendor opened his eyes. He cracked his neck and gazed at the boys. His hand went to his sword as he seemed to consider something. After a couple of seconds of deliberation the man shook his head helplessly and let go of his sword. Soon his usual smile was in place once more. ¡°So we are fine?¡± Maxwell asked as he turned to Gendor, holding a part of his concentration on keeping the concentrated mana in his palm. ¡°You¡¯re getting scarier and scarier, kid.¡± Gendor said. He was feeling a bit weird getting caught like a child. He gazed at the boy¡¯s hand as he could feel something gathering inside but he couldn¡¯t tell what. He was wary of the boy now that he reached second tier and he was ready to dodge if this was an attack. Maxwell stared at the guy for a couple of seconds weighing him up. He was distracted before because of the man¡¯s questionable movements and he almost caused the ball in his hand to explode. He was trying to not show his panic as he almost exploded himself for the second time immediately after getting his new class. He gazed at the red ball of mana in his hand thoughtfully. It seemed like a waste to just let it disperse but even when concentrated it didn¡¯t seem to be doing anything. He once more gazed at Bob and focused on the mana to track where it was going. He could feel the familiar strain once more as he tracked the mana. He could see that advancement was coming to an end as the flow of mana was slower. He was starting to get a migraine as he tracked it inside Bob¡¯s body. For a second, he could feel it go in a complex pattern inside Bob¡¯s vessels before he couldn¡¯t look anymore because of the pain. Now, he had two options after learning this information. He could let the energy disperse, as he didn¡¯t know what the system was doing with the energy. That would be the smart thing to do he guessed. The second option was to try to infuse the mana in his vessels like the system was doing on Bob. This was considerably more dangerous as he didn¡¯t know what the energy was. Maxwell, of course, was a responsible person who organized a planet for many years. He was quick to choose the best path immediately. Mana moved as he pulled it inside his pinky, infiltrating the blood vessels with the energy. He couldn¡¯t feel the energy with precision inside his pinky as the vessels were very small, but he felt the temperature of his finger increase as if it were infected. He hoped the system would end his suffering by creating a skill or something, and he was not disappointed when he heard a notification seconds later. Mana Infusion Subskill Created: Blood Infusion. Blood infusion: You infuse the blood inside an entity with blood affinity mana, temporarily increasing their vitality. Scales with the amount of mana you infuse. Why didn¡¯t metal create a subskill? Maxwell wondered. He was not upset about it though since it seemed that subskills were there to clarify what you were doing. He couldn¡¯t see a level indicator for the subskill. He quickly pulled the remaining mana inside his vessels to see how much this mana could change now that he new it was harmless. Vitality increased by 10 for 5 minutes. Welcome! My most underwhelming skill! Maxwell thought to himself sarcastically. He concentrated for minutes to gather that mana and it was a relatively small increase making it redundant in battle. Of course this didn¡¯t mean this was a fruitless endeavor. Mana Infusion Leveled Up Lvl-11¡ú15 Guide Mana Leveled Up Lvl-32¡ú34 He was getting a bit spoiled, as the level increase looked small to his eyes, but he suspected that his leveling speed was quite high. He sat on the ground and turned his full attention back on Gendor. The guy was back to being his usual self, but he could see that it was a bit unnatural. He used Observation on the man. Even if Gendor felt the skill, he didn¡¯t really care, as the guy gave him a pretty good reason. Gendor - Assassin - Lvl-15 So the classes are still shown as their starting archetypes he thought. Maybe that wouldn¡¯t be the case with higher observation, but skill didn¡¯t have an easy way for him to level it up. Also, Gendor¡¯s level seemed really high, considering that he advanced just now but he also said he was delaying his advancement for quite a while. Still, Maxwell was pretty sure that most of the guy¡¯s experience came from the leader Scrax, whom he killed in the recent battle. He turned his gaze to Bob as he felt that the mana storm around the boy die down. The boy opened his eyes couple seconds later. He seemed a bit startled as he started checking out his body like it was something alien. He probably feels different after the evolution, Maxwell thought, watching him. ¡°Hey Max, I feel amazing, man!¡± He shouted. He picked up a rock from the ground. ¡°It¡¯s like I could crack rocks with my hands!¡± He said in wonder as he squeezed his hand. Poor rock gave a sad crack before crumbling in his hand. ¡°Wow,¡± Bob said in awe, looking at his hand dumbly. Maxwell laid his back on a tree as a smile slowly formed on his face. At least he had someone dumb enough never to betray him, it seemed. Chapter 13: Different Balls, Different Strengths Finally, they were all done with their tier advancements. Maxwell felt really tired after all that had happened in the last 24 hours. He had done very exhausting things repeatedly as he depended heavily on his soul¡¯s high regeneration to stay awake. He had a migraine for hours, and just as it was gone with the advancement, it came back with Bob¡¯s trade. Long story short, Maxwell was exhausted. The fact that the ship''s night mode was almost deliberately unsynced with the nighttime on the planet didn¡¯t help his nerves, either, as he didn¡¯t even feel sleepy. As if these were not enough, he now had an indecisive assassin in his camp, and the topic of his indecisiveness was disturbing. He got up and stretched his body. ¡°We probably should find something to eat and drink.¡± He said. They were not hungry as the advancement seemed to restore them to their peak condition, but they would be hungry and thirsty soon enough. Finding water was a bit of a matter of luck, but they could find something to eat easily enough. They just needed to find something to eat. He turned at Gendor. ¡°Do you have a skill for hunting or something? The skill you used to find this place was useful,¡± he asked. ¡°I can¡¯t say it¡¯s a skill about finding things, but we don¡¯t need that anyways. I¡¯m a fairly decent camper myself.¡± The man said smugly. ¡°There is probably a stream close enough, but at worst, we could function with dews and fruits.¡± He added. ¡°Oh, I saw a stream that way when we were falling,¡± Bob said, not sounding interested. Gendor and Maxwell, who had been ignoring him for some time, now looked at him disbelievingly. ¡°You did?¡± Maxwell asked. He found it difficult to believe that Bob could see things in his fearful state back then. ¡°Yeah, it was just over there.¡± Bob swung his arm relaxedly towards the same direction he pointed, and Gendor started laughing. ¡°How did you see it? Weren¡¯t you paralyzed with fear?¡± Maxwell asked. He was starting to get genuinely curious about this broken kid. ¡°I was paralyzed¡­ Can¡¯t I see when I¡¯m paralyzed¡­¡± Bob said, feeling a bit ridiculous. ¡°Whatever, good job,¡± Maxwell said, shaking his head before moving in Bob''s direction. After a while of cutting through the forest as usual, they started to see that it was getting a bit less thick. They could also hear the sound of a stream, as Bob said. ¡°Well, some people really surprise you,¡± Gendor said between swings. He was the one with the sword, and he didn¡¯t seem to mind being the gardener of the forest. Maxwell ignored the man as he tried to observe everything for the skill to upgrade. He sure didn''t want to be regular if this was how regular people leveled skills. He also experimented with Prima Sense a bit. The skill was overwhelming in its natural state to the degree that it made seeing everyday things hard. After some tweaking, he was able to activate the skill less powerfully, but it still was not very sustainable if he wanted to keep it on constantly. He probably shouldn¡¯t have been doing that, but it was slowly becoming apparent that his old rationality was a bit weak towards anything magical. After some walking, they stopped cutting plants as the forest was thin enough to walk through. Maxwell could see some small animals from time to time. He used observation on them as they were going. White Streaked Sparrow - Lvl-8 Caterpillar - Lvl-1 Forest Snake - Lvl-6 Bluebird - Lvl 8 Snail - Lvl-1 He absent-mindedly went through the notifications, also trying to see the stream they were heading towards. Something surprised him, though, and made his gaze return to the notifications. A level 8 bluebird? He asked himself. Leveling probably worked differently for animals as some animals wouldn¡¯t actively kill things, but a bluebird living in the same place as a sparrow being higher leveled than it was a long stretch all the same. He searched for the bird, looking back at where they came from, but it was gone. He shrugged before continuing on the road. They could see the stream a couple of minutes later. Now, the forest was thin, as there were spaces as wide as a couple of meters between different trees and plants. They could see a wide range of animals coming and going, as the stream was a precious water source for them. Maxwell was surprised to see a crocodile in the water looking at a bunny without any intention of attacking. Maybe they eat prey above a certain level? He thought before observing the crocodile, too, as he was using observation on everything. Moonlight Deer - Lvl 13 This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Bunny - Lvl 2 Metal Crocodile - Lvl 29 He knew he was an idiot immediately after seeing the notification. This sentiment was proven as the crocodile directly locked onto him when he used the skill, and the creature seemed far from impressed. It started swimming towards them at a burst of speed nobody would expect from a creature before the system, and Maxwell found himself flying under the startled gazes of his friends. There was a dull thud as he impacted a tree and a creaking noise as the tree toppled over. ¡°Ugh¡­¡± Maxwell groaned. It indeed looked bad, but surprisingly, he felt pretty fine. He had the Partial Etheral Body, after all. He checked his HP to see it was 350/445. What really wounded was his pride. He could see the crocodile in his previous spot, completely unaffected. Bob and Gendor were quick to get their bearings as they made a pincer attack on the beast. Bob swung his fist simply as Gendor attacked with his sword, which was covered with a black miasma. Crocodile let a growl as he received the attacks without trying to dodge. There was a very loud ¡°GONG¡± as hits connected. Bob¡¯s fist left a barely visible dent in the creature¡¯s side as Gendor¡¯s attack left a painful-looking gash. It has a hardening ability. How inconvenient, Maxwell thought. He started charging a mana bolt. The creature¡¯s poise changed after it took the attacks, and it suddenly turned around itself with impressive speed, attacking Gendor and Bob with its tail. Maxwell was surprised to see Gendor disappearing, leaving a residual black smoke as he dodged the attack with a new skill. Bob, meanwhile, took the attack in his solar plexus as he braced for impact instead of trying to dodge it. Things progressed differently than most would expect. The tail stopped abruptly as it hit Bob. The boy grunted as he was hit with immense weight, and another gong sounded on the battlefield. Maxwell chose this moment to send his enormous mana bolt towards the beast¡¯s head. It whizzed like a torpedo and connected with a blast, sending dust everywhere. Meanwhile, Bob held the crocodile''s tail under his armpit as he felt the blast¡¯s force. He was not harmed, but the light the explosion released blinded him. He figured he didn¡¯t need eyes as he started punching the creature¡¯s side repeatedly, releasing a gong again and again. Meanwhile, Gendor was using the pistol he had on the beast to see if he could harm it, but it was apparent that he wasn¡¯t successful as the beast didn¡¯t even seem to realize he was attacked. He threw Maxwell chuckled at the comical scene as he prepared something different. His previous attack seemed to harm the beast as it was disoriented enough not to react immediately against Bob, but he needed more penetration. The beast was hardening itself like metal, So he would try to fight fire with fire or metal with metal. Since the last time he used this affinity, he found it much easier to move the particles as he felt them coming toward the mana bolt he created. He imagined it having the hardness of metal as he focused through the ¡°Gong¡± sounds He cranked his prima sense to maximum as he felt his migraine returning.He could see how much metal mana density the crocodile¡¯s skin had. When he judged that his mana orb¡¯s density was high enough, he let the agitated mana bolt go. The mana bolt was silver, unlike the normal blue ones. It left a streak of white light behind it as it flew with a speed Maxwell could barely see. A tearing sound was heard as air parted in front of the needlessly material mana bolt, and it finally hit the crocodile on the midsection. Maxwell watched in surprise as the bolt proceeded to pass through the creature as if it didn¡¯t exist. The hole it left behind surely existed, though. After leaving the crocodile¡¯s body, it kept going and vanished into the forest. Maxwell could see a couple of unfortunate trees toppling as the mana bolt traveled along its way, unbothered. It couldn¡¯t activate its hardening in time¡­. Maxwell realized. It made sense for the creature to focus on Bob¡¯s attacks after all. It didn¡¯t expect a different mana bolt to arrive at speeds it could barely react. Maxwell was unsure why the bolt was so fast but strongly suspected the other mana types he pulled along with the metal affinity. He made the metal mana density in the bolt comparable to that of the crocodile, but as a side effect, he pulled in a large amount of general mana from the atmosphere. His mana infusion and mana guide were far from perfect, after all. He could see that that bolt took almost 500 mana from him. And that was not counting the ambient mana it absorbed. A distant explosion coming from the direction of the mana bolt also supported this theory. ¡°Well, that was anticlimactic,¡± Gendor commented as he carefully let the dark energy from before disperse from his sword. Maxwell noted the affinity for future experiments. He excitedly opened his notifications to see what he gained. It was really fun to improve like this. Mana Infusion Leveled Up Lvl-15 ¡ú20 Guide Mana Leveled Up Lvl-34¡ú36 Magic Theory Leveled Up Lvl-10¡ú12 Prima Sense Leveled Up Lvl-30¡ú31 Meditation Leveled Up Lvl-25¡ú26 Blunt Trauma Resistance Leveled Up Lvl-1¡ú4 His meditation was still going up as he did things unintended for the skill while using it. He was surprised that it had not been readjusted yet. Infused Mana Bolt Skill Changes Detected. Readjusting Skill. Infused Mana Bolt¡úMyriad Mana Bolts Myriad Mana Bolts: Create mana bolts and fire them at your enemies. The number of bolts created is connected to the amount of mana you can control at a time. Created mana bolts absorb the ambient mana in creation, making them slightly more potent than regular mana bolts. Users can infuse the bolts with different mana types by charging the skill. Myriad Mana Bolts Leveled Up Lvl-11¡ú21 Oh, that''s nice, he thought. This was a readjustment with minimal impact as he could already do what the new skill said, but it would enable him to do it easier. System explanations were steadily getting longer though. Metal Crocodile - Lvl-29 Killed. Experience Rewarded. Level up. Stat points distributed. (2x) Maxwell really liked this immediate strength boost. He could feel it in real time as his body got stronger and more durable. Improvements in the soul attribute, on the other hand, were very weird. It was harder to see the difference when one''s soul increased. Maxwell just felt normal, but his normal also increased with the increase of his capabilities. He felt he could slow the world down to a crawl and use his awareness as it was, but that was not the default mode. Maxwell didn¡¯t feel very bad about this as it would be quite painful to speak with people when your mind was incredibly fast. He quickly put the rest of his points in the soul attribute. With this addition, his soul sat at a comfortable 107. He was probably ridiculous at this point, as his class heavily relies on this stat. At last, he looked up from the stat sheet to see what the others were doing. He felt like he was moving through the mud as he lifted his head for some reason. Am I that tired? He wondered. When he finally managed to look up, he saw a world slowed down to a crawl. Chapter 13:: Doing Things A Bit Differently Maxwell looked around, trying to make sense of his situation. He could see birds flap their wings in the air, but he could barely call the motion flapping as they just swayed slowly. He could see Gendor¡¯s eyes move slowly as he read his system notifications. He could see Bob in the middle of a cry, but he had no idea what the boy was shouting about. All he could hear was a slowly changing, drawn-out "a" sound. He also wished he wasn''t looking at the boy, as he could see inside his mouth in slow motion as his face morphed to make the sound Maxwell couldn¡¯t understand. He suddenly started to hear a very high-note sound, but luckily, this one was coming from inside his head. He could guess that this was a system notification. Soul Stat Reached 100 Tutorial Mode For Spirituality Stat Terminated Tutorial Mode For Mind Stat Terminated. He could clearly see what the tutorial mode for the mind stat did, as his mind was working at its standard capacity now. While this would not cause any immediate problems for his physical well-being, it would definitely cause some problems for his mental well-being. He was much more concerned about what the tutorial mode of spirituality stat was in charge of as that could become dangerous fast. He activated his prima sense fully as he concentrated on himself. And he found what he was looking for pretty fast. Before this, he couldn¡¯t control his mana as it traveled through his vessels like blood. Maxwell never even considered how it traveled through his body in these last hours because he was quite busy for obvious reasons. Now, he could see the mana not traveling as it should. It moved like a sluggish stream as it pushed on the walls of his vessels. If the feeling he got from his body was right, these vessels were not happy about being pushed around. He would probably have a stroke if he didn¡¯t figure this out. The thing was that he had a fuck ton of mana to work on. He took a very very long deep breath to calm himself down but it only agitated him more as he waited for a cycle of breathing to end. Everything was stupidly slow in this world he found himself. He couldn¡¯t help but be a little grateful for the mind tutorial termination. If it didn¡¯t end, he would need to actively focus on achieving his current state, as it was pretty helpful for controlling mana. He quickly started guiding the mana through his vessels bit by it as some places were more problematic than others. Small vessels were overcrowded with mana as his body didn¡¯t know where to direct the mana First, he started to fix the vessels in his brain, as he didn¡¯t want to have a stroke while prioritizing elsewhere. With his mana control right now, it was unrealistic for him to control mana at a very microscopic level, but he focused on retracting the mana from the important organs. He could feel that there was a primary path for the mana to travel on. Right now, it seemed to think that his capillaries were very spacious, but he would need to change its idea if he didn¡¯t want all of his tissues to explode. He slowly and carefully pulled the residual mana away from his brain little by little. He couldn¡¯t tell how much time was passing but guessed it was not much as Bob and Gendor still hadn¡¯t moved. Are they even slower than before? He thought, but he fought back against the desperation that came from that possibility. He would deal with his mind later. Surely enough, when he stabilized his brain, he found that the world was almost 2 times slower than before. Turns out your brain slowed when it was being pressured by countless mini mana vessels. Maxwell let out a maddeningly long sigh as he continued downward in his body, reorganizing mana. He checked his brain from time to time to make sure that there was no relapse but mana seemed to understand where it should travel after being set in a path once. He could hear a system notification coming, but the unending sound deafened him. He wished he could mute it, and he was surprised when it worked. Maybe I can tweak the fucking speed too. He thought, but that was something he would work on later. When he was done with all of the mana in his mana, he could feel little drops of sweat all over his body, traveling as adhesion dictated. He could clearly sense them coming out of his skin as they spread over it. He had many things to say to the system, none of which were pretty. He focused on the whole mana stream to see how it was moving. Apart from being a bit unrefined, it seemed to follow the right path. He tried to increase the speed of the mana as he felt that this might stabilize it. He was happy when he saw the mana move neatly along with his normal circulation. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. It was still far from perfect, but he suddenly had an idea. As he was fixing the circulation, he realized that the path mana and blood followed was the same. Maybe he could link them together for better circulation? I might as well try, he thought as he focused on the stream. He was not sure how he could feel his blood, though. He was a bit lost for a moment, but an idea came to him. Could it be so simple? He thought as he remembered how he infused blood affinity in his blood. At that time, he didn¡¯t actively direct his blood affinity to his blood. Just infusing it inside the vessel in a general direction was enough for it to attach itself to his blood. Now, he planned to take advantage of that. He focused on his vessels as he tried to differentiate the blood affinity in his blood. Soon enough, he could sense it faintly outlining the blood in his body. Right now Maxwell didn¡¯t have much mana inside his small blood vessels as he couldn¡¯t control mana on a microscopic level. But he didn¡¯t need to. Guide Mana was a skill different from regular manipulation. He concentrated as he activated Guide Mana and Soul¡¯s Voice at the same time. He focused on the mana stream as he sent his intention to it. He could feel a weak channel form and he was embraced with a feeling of familiarity. He felt then that he was not communicating with the individual mana particles. This stream he was communicating with would exist as long as he existed. It actually felt like it existed even before the integration, as it was fundamental to his existence. It was the manifestation of spirituality. How much mana it contained was an entirely different matter. He kept sending his intent and was delighted to see mana change its form as it started spreading out. It filled his capillaries like before, but now it behaved like it knew how much those vessels could take. Maxwell, of course, did not delude himself into believing that it knew anything, at least not beyond following blood affinity mana. What Maxwell told the mana stream was simple. In other words, it could explained like this: Follow the blood affinity mana, keeping it in the center of the stream. Keep the mana stream size proportional to the blood mana quantity. In word form, it looked like something Mana wouldn¡¯t be able to understand. Luckily, Maxwell could simply send abstract ideas using his Soul¡¯s Voice. When one thinks about it, the whole point of his class was this principle. He didn¡¯t need to control mana actively. He just needed it to understand where it should be. How does it know, though¡­ Maxwell couldn¡¯t put into words how he felt about this. For his method to work, mana needed to have at least a basic awareness. That, on the other hand, was not very realistic. More questions, even less answers¡­ Maxwell thought. His mood became better when he checked the stream once more. It was completely aligned with the vessels throughout his body. Maxwell probably could map out his blood circulation just by feeling right now. And the best part? He didn¡¯t even need to control the mana to achieve this. Now that he was done with his spirituality, he could actually deal with his almost broken mind. Even his migraine felt slow to his senses as he tried to find a way to get out of this situation. He already realized that the feeling of making things slower before was just a system assistance. He didn¡¯t feel like being able to do that in reverse right now. I definitely don¡¯t want to live like this. He thought as he saw Bob talking with him. This time, all he could hear was a consonant sound, and he couldn¡¯t even say which one it was. Wait, what language is this? Maxwell suddenly thought. He was startled. Since coming to this world, he has never had any problems understanding people, but that used to be the case in Zephyr too because of the telepathy, so it never came to his mind that there were actually different languages. How do I even not think about this for a day? he thought, feeling like an idiot. Maybe the system inserted the language in his mind during transmigration, but that seemed idiotic. Languages had different thought patterns attached to them, so it shouldn¡¯t be possible to translate them seamlessly. He focused on the language he had been speaking since coming here, thinking about the different moments they had on the last day. He was clearly speaking in his native tongue, Universal Zephyrian¡ªat least that was its name after they united the world. I should probably think about this later, too. He thought, returning to his subject at hand. He was still stuck in this slow-motion world, after all. He brainstormed for some time, but every solution he could find led to turning himself into an idiot or limiting his mind somehow. He was unsure how he could accelerate his perception of time without actually limiting his mind''s capacity. Wait. He was suddenly interrupted by a lightbulb going on his head. Wasn¡¯t that the thing the system did before the tutorial was terminated? He was a bit too prideful to limit his mind actively, but the system didn¡¯t care about his pride before he had 100 in his soul. Before, he could slow down time by removing that limiter in battle automatically because of the system, and just before this ordeal, he also realized that he could do it on command. So, the regular way of getting out of this situation was actually limiting the mind somehow. Maxwell really disliked that idea. He wanted his mind to be awake at all times. If he needed to awaken his mind whenever he needed it it would be more like a skill than an attribute. He decided to try something absurd, but he felt that it might work. He tried to remember the math he had learned in school in his previous life. He could still remember the general format, and that would be enough. Harder was better for him right now. He slowly started solving random equations he had made up in his mind. Slowly, he increased his focus on the subject. He could feel that he was solving the equations and making up new ones faster and faster. Quantifying how much of your mind you were using was a bit hard, but Maxwell had a very large mind to practice with at the moment. He didn¡¯t need to solve the equations in high efficiency or even correctly. He just needed them to be there using some -or most in this case- of his mind, keeping it occupied. He started to feel the effects soon. As he increased the amount of his mind he was using, he focused on the feeling of equations being solved faster. He thought of himself as a bystander as equations were solved by someone else at faster and faster speeds. He couldn¡¯t even differentiate between equations at some point, and he smiled. He probably created a new kind of mental disease. He couldn¡¯t care less though as he opened his eyes he could hear the snores coming from Bob very clearly.