Merchant Of Yliaster

It didn't take long for the event to end, and people started to leave The Nest. Most people apparently didn't really use the rooms the establishment provided, as they all had their own homes to go back to.

As the crows got less dense in the room, Maxwell just watched the upper class of the city, examining them. If this was the first thing he saw after coming to this world, he would think that this was a world with a pretty good background, but the truth couldn't be more different.

Class difference was so intense in this world that most people living in it were no different from people in the ancient eras, while the nobles lived the life of relatively modern people. They had technology, and although it was very backwards, it was still enough to cause a rift to form between the classes.

If anything, the system could be seen as a light of hope for the regular citizen of this world, who didn't even know they were being discriminated against so severely. The majestic aura of nobles, backed by technology, would make the regular people unlikely to fight for their rights, as they would feel worship for the qualities they could not explain.

Without a doubt, though, there were some cracks in the system, as there was a rebellion going on. I wonder what that scholar is doing? He thought, remembering the scholar who fainted after watching him infuse the walls of the inn back then. Considering the title he gained out of the experience, Maxwell was pretty sure that the guy would turn into someone interesting in the future.

Not even a week has passed since he came to the city, but it feels like it's been at least a month. There were still five days until the level deadline for nobility ranks, and from what he was seeing, he was pretty sure that he was above almost everyone in this world.

Maxwell had been a bit speculative about the uniqueness of his case before, but things were not really questionable anymore. The influence of his traits was just too much for the average person to contend with him, and even the geniuses among the nobles would be regular people against him, considering his broken skills and attributes.

While this was a peaceful prospect, Maxwell could see this leading to stagnation. I wonder if different worlds have different power levels. He thought. It wouldn't make sense for the system to limit a world's power if the denizens used the rifts to level up beyond the ecosystem of the world at a consistent pace.

While this was highly unlikely in a backward world like this, Maxwell was pretty sure this would be the case in a more developed world. Making some rifts open to the public would allow the general population of the world to approach the world beyond the rift, and this would enable the general population to be able to enter even more dangerous rifts.

Despite being forbidden to almost all people, the rift he entered, for example, had more than enough beasts for everyone beyond it. Just the beasts inside the periphery of the rift would be enough to make the whole military of this city to become truly strong.

He could understand the reasoning behind the insane level of exclusiveness, though. The upper echelons probably wouldn't want other people to suddenly get powerful enough to question them, especially since these people were used to being above the public with a relationship comparable to a god and a believer due to technology.

His thought process was broken, as he felt Felix move downwards to his stomach, flowing like water over his skin. Next moment, he was bear hugged by none other than Nero, the bard himself. The man also didn't hesitate to shout near his ear, making his head ache.

"My benefactor! To think that I would see you here," the man shouted, his voice carrying a musical quality that annoyed Maxwell.

He wriggled out of the surprisingly strong grip of the man, throwing him an annoyed look. Luckily, Felix was fast enough, or the man would be the uncomfortable party.

"It was no big deal," he said, his clothes magically losing any wrinkles. Apparently, wrinkles were considered damage to his clothes, and Maxwell was infusing them with mana without stopping anyway.

"Maybe it wasn't for you, but thanks to you, my music reached a whole new level. I'm truly thankful for that," the man said, and Maxwell could almost feel the questioning glances he was receiving from Devon and Nesha. He turned to them before giving a simple explanation.

"We have met in the forest before I arrived in the city. I helped him get a resource," he said plainly. Nesha just looked content, but Devon was looking at him as if he expected more.

"Oh, Nero was pretty happy about being able to find thunder wood. Are you the one who gave it to him?" Devon said, and Maxwell could see Nero actually shiver as he heard the word "thunder". The man's fear of it was just too unnatural.

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"More like I left it beside him, but you could say that," Maxwell said, laughing. The mental image of the annoying man lying on the ground beside the tree was funny to imagine.

"Well, I was incapacitated at the moment, but I really appreciate it nonetheless," Nero said, smiling awkwardly, making Devon release a booming laugh. "We all have our bad days," he said, snacking the unfortunate bard's shoulder, making him groan.

Soon, they separated to their rooms, Nero actually choosing to stay in the Nest, unlike many others.

Maxwell chose a room for himself, but he had no intention of sleeping. He was still curious about his new skills, and he really wanted to test recording a construct. Night was a great time to actually spend some time on an intricate construct.

He sat on his bed and started to brainstorm about the things he could create. He didn't want to create a shadow construct here, so that was out of the question. Maybe metal would be a good base? He thought.

As he thought about what to create, Felix flowed onto the ground, turning back into a puppy. He seemed unbothered by the world and crawled beside Maxwell before immediately falling asleep. Blueberry, on the other hand, finally left Maxwell's mind. "Chirp!!" she complained.

"What do you mean my mind is boring?" Maxwell asked, offended. The bird apparently found his mind too organized to be fun, and Maxwell was a bit lost. While he hadn't intentionally organized his mind, he still had years of practice using telepathy and mental interfaces. It was no surprise that his mind would be organized.

With Blueberry perched above his head once more, he refocused on his project. He started by creating a simple construct of Metal mana, but it was apparent that this wouldn't be enough. He was not sure how he could create real metal, though. How was metal even created in the world? Wait a second. He suddenly had an idea and summoned the skill description once more.

The Delusion Of The Guide**:

The delusion of the guide is the world's reality.

When your delusion is accurate enough, you can actualize it using the unique properties of your soul.

Skill is not limited to any elements or aspects, but actualization needs great efficiency with the mana types used for the creation.

The skill actually said nothing about knowing how to create things. All he needed was to know the properties of something accurate enough to imagine them, and he would be able to actualize them. He smiled as he felt his natural sciences skill activate as he tried to imagine the molecular structure of metals.

Maxwell, not being a scientist, greatly limited his knowledge about this subject, but he was pretty sure that metals were supposed to have electrons floating around or something. His senses were still, but he couldn't see to that degree, but he was pretty sure that having this knowledge would actually make this a bit easier.

He imagined a closely packed structure of atoms and electrons floating between them. He had no idea if he was being accurate, but this was all he got for now. His skill, though, seemed to accept this, as his construct slowly took a more and more real appearance, actually turning into metal slowly.

Maxwell was not sure what metal it was turning into, though, maybe it was iron? It was hard to tell. If he wanted to make steel, would he need nature affinity? How did even alloying work? The prospect of learning these actually made him a bit nauseous, as he could see that this would become a trend in the future. For now, the ironlike material formed before him, though it would be enough.

With the amount of mana Maxwell was infusing the construct, it could hardly be called iron anyway. Even the stones Maxwell infused were insanely durable, so iron would be even more so.

As the creation finally stabilized, he had a small iron arrow floating before him. Creating elements for the first time took time; this arrow by itself took almost 5 minutes to create, but this only proved that the Record Of Curiosity would be beyond useful in the future. While he would get faster in creating all elements, Maxwell was pretty sure that this skill's automation would still be better than his.

Now that the arrow was done, he thought about what he could add to it. Just a metal arrow would hardly be anything worthy of the skill after all. Lightning? Fire? Maybe wind? He was a bit lost, but he decided to start with lightning. Iron was a good conductor, so he supposed it would work well.

As a person from a modern world, his understanding of electricity was not too bad, so creating lightning and electricity didn't take much time. Stabilizing it, on the other hand, was much harder. After a few tries where he got really close to burning a hole through one of the walls, he decided to do something different.

He tried to create the electricity directly inside the arrow. And commanded the element to stabilize inside the arrow as he visualized it. He was happy to see that his efforts worked, as the arrow started to show visible sparks, but still, something felt missing. As it was, if something touched the arrow while standing on the ground, they would undoubtedly be electrocuted, but this attack was actually pretty useless against flying things.

Am I an idiot? Maxwell asked himself, noticing a fundamental error in his thinking. This electricity wasn't natural after all. If he commanded it to flow into something, it would flow even if there were nowhere to go. This meant that he would need no grounding to make the electricity flow. Maybe it can even do that itself with some soul infusion. He thought and started to shape the construct of iron in a way to store the electricity better.

Hours passed, as people slept in the nest. One person, though, stayed awake, as he tinkered with magic, unknowingly stepping onto a path that would eventually disregard all natural laws.