Merchant Of Yliaster

Maxwell stood on the platform as he considered the last fight. At first, he was a bit angry, so he used a particularly traumatic memory on the woman, but she coped better than he expected. As he could feel pretty much everything the woman felt inside his own mental world, he could tell that she experienced the whole pain of a woman losing her child. Recovering quickly was not something everyone could do.

Forming a contract he couldn't use for an unknown amount of time was a bit of a dumb choice, but he didn't really care much. Even if she became very powerful in the future, Maxwell didn't think that the woman would be a threat to him. Mental abilities were a joke against etherium from what he had seen so far, and he had his own pride, too, when it came to those abilities.

When someone was inside your mind, you could easily get a reading of what kind of person they were, and Maxwell was also a bit surprised that Ella didn't feel like a bad person at all. If anything, her mind was filled with curiosity above all else. There was no trace of the sadistic tendencies Maxwell first suspected.

Even as a mental practitioner himself, it was easy to be biased against people utilizing mental abilities. Maxwell judged the woman after she tried to use trauma, but he ended up doing the same thing to show her how bad it could be. From what he felt from the woman's mind, his message was probably understood, so he let her go without doing much.

The "battle" also gave him a few things, apparently, so he summoned his notifications.. While he did nothing new from his perspective, the use of mental space was new to this world, so the system had been sending him notifications nonstop.

Skill "Mental World" Acquired.

Error.

Immense experience with the skill is detected.

Skill is being upgraded to tier 2.

Skill "Dimension Of Shackled Pain*" acquired.

Dimension of Shacled Pain Leveled Up 1→68

A fitting name, I suppose. Maxwell thought in melancholy. He had complicated feelings concerning Mental World techniques. While they helped him immensely throughout the war, now that it was over, Maxwell didn't really know what to do with the state his mind was left in.

He thought of using his trait to remove the bad memories, but he knew enough about the mind to see that if he did that, he would lose a great part of himself, too. Maxwell was good at isolating his own personality, but this personality was shaped by the things he had seen in other people's traumas, too. Memories couldn't be removed without also removing the associations, and doing so cripple his mentality.

Even his trait gave him terrible feedback when he thought of the idea, so he was procrastinating for some time about the ticking bomb inside his mind. As his soul stat increased, it became more and more probable for him to enter the space without problems.

Back on Zephyr, a couple of sedatives did the job and gave him a few minutes to arrange his mind without feeling much, but he doubted that his new body would be sensitive to any kind of sedatives. He would need to fix this himself. Maybe this new skill would help him.

Dimension Of Shackled Pain*:

Once, a leader tried to hold everything together by himself. He inherited the responsibilities of the dead and the suffering of the living.

In your mental world, the suffering of the countless remains shackled by the joy you carefully woven shackles with. The shackles can direct the suffering to any intruders in your mind, and they can temporarily suppress the pain you feel.

In your mental world, you will feel emotions more intensely; the greater the amount, the greater the effect will be. Any memories are much easier to access, and almost perfect recall can be achieved when watched in real time.

Be joyful, and you can shoulder the pain of a world without getting crushed.

You never sounded this much like a psychologist, Maxwell thought as he read the description. The skill wasn't his strongest Tier 2 skill, but maybe it was the most useful. He knew more than anyone how many memories he had received over the years. There were times that he used them instead of war reports, and his mind was filled with countless moments of war, trauma, and pain.

At the time, he had no reason to hold back, as he didn't expect to live more than a few years at most, but now, it posed a real problem. If he had a worse life before the war, he wouldn't even be able to use the joyful memories to shackle the bad ones in his mind, and he didn't want to imagine what would happen if that were the case.

Ella almost lost herself with one of the memories he had, and that was with increased mental stats. Back on Zephyr, the only reason Maxwell could handle this was his etherium implant. Here, though, he would need to trust his soul to be strong enough with the boosts from etherium. For now, apart from the depression he felt after entering his mental world, everything seemed to be fine.

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It didn't take long for the platforms to start to move, and the room suddenly went silent as the attention of the people around them was focused on the two contenders. The man with the knife seemed as calm as ever, but in his eyes, a different light shone after his last fight.

Before it, everything ended with a single swipe, yet the last match was apparently harder than he expected. Maxwell was pretty sure that the ranks of nobles would change over time, soon leaving almost none of the current members.

After all, reaching level 50 was hardly a good indicator of strength. Someone could be focused on honing their skills, and they wouldn't be here due to that. It was people like that who were truly dangerous.

As Maxwell thought, his platform landed on the arena for the last time, and he glanced at the man before him. Just like before, he had no mana in his body beyond the amount that is needed to stay alive, but his body exuded a sharpness even he could feel.

None of the concepts he knew were compatible with this man's powers, and Maxwell was excited to see them upcose. For starters, he observed the man, and as he did so, he felt a probe of observation impact him.

To his surprise, he felt like some part of the skill got through, but he was not sure what part. Since coming to this world, this was the first time that someone's observation managed to penetrate his innate defences. What his observation gave him was even more ridiculous.

Herman - Butcher - Level 50

A fucking butcher of all things? Maxwell was starting to feel a bit done with these things if he could be honest. Among the people who reached level 50, almost half had been profession classes, and in a manner, that was acceptable.

The thing is that half of the remaining contenders also had been people with profession classes, and that didn't make any sense. If profession classes could do things like this, then what was the purpose of the battle classes?

His thought process was cut short as the man before him spoke for the first time since entering the space they were in.

"Your body is strange. Are you an elemental?" the man spoke, staring at Maxwell as if he were an interesting specimen. Maxwell would be lying if he wasn't creeped out.

Is he talking about a partial ethereal body? Maxwell theorized as he tried to understand how the man before him functioned. As far as he knew, his body's differences couldn't be felt without a very good observation skill, yet the man before him immediately could see them. It should be known that Maxwell was completely physical at the moment, as he hadn't turned himself into an element yet.

"How do you even turn into… this, starting as a butcher?" Maxwell was a bit taken aback, too. The man looked at him in surprise, as none of the people before had shown signs of seeing his class. Maxwell was pretty sure that they would show a sign if they could manage to use observation.

"I found that the system is pretty fluid. A bit of philosophy and a bit of practice went a long way," the man said, smiling like a sage. In the meantime, he pulled out his sword, which was a proper sword now.

So his skills have an abstract element? He didn't really understand how someone could turn into something more just by philosophizing as a butcher, but he wouldn't complain that he finally got a strong opponent.

He glanced at the sword the man was holding, and was surprised to see that the sword, for once, actually conformed to the shape of the scabbard. Still, it was not a sword a pure swordsman used, as it was shaped more like a matchette, but it looked much more like a proper weapon.

The Butcher, too, seemed to be surprised as he glanced at the sword with interest. "You have no individualistic quality? No, my sword cannot detect it, huh? The old way, then," he spoke to himself and swung as Maxwell watched intently.

He had no idea what the man was talking about, but Maxwell still ducked as his senses screamed for him to dodge suddenly. With his senses, he could see the air rip in two on the spot he previously occupied.

The distant arena wall, too, was cut, and without a sound, a deep horizontal line was etched into it. As before, there was no sign of any energy moving for Maxwell's senses.

Maxwell infused himself with lightning and immediately started to form constructs behind him made of metal mana. It was too early to use the Last Flash, so he imbued the constructs with rudimentary souls and directed them to attack the man while dodging his slashes.

He dashed towards the butcher, and as he ran, he created a simple armor over himself. He didn't know whether it would help or not, but he used life mana to create the armor.

His speed while using lightning mana was immense, and he appeared before the butcher in the next moment, clearly surpassing the fastest speed the man before him could reach. With an awkward slash, the butcher swung, and Maxwell punched the side of the blade, using his construct control to increase the impact.

Immediately, the butcher was launched back as a ton of electricity left Maxwell's body, flowing into the middle-aged man, but Maxwell was not better off. As he punched, the sharp side of the man's sword faced his left arm, and he could feel that the arm was now cleanly cut off under his armor.

The attack didn't even harm his armor, yet it seemed to have no problems directly cutting off his arm. He immediately tightened the armor in the shape of his body and absorbed the life mana from it into his arm, fixing the appendage quickly. None would believe that his arm was separated just a moment ago.

The life armor, though, was a good call. He watched as the butcher came to a stop almost a kilometer away. His casual clothes were filled with burn marks, and his hair was frizzled due to the immense voltage he was exposed to, but he seemed fine otherwise.

"You are fine?" he asked, like he couldn't understand, and his eyes went to Maxwell's arm. Just now, the metal constructs were done forming, and he was assaulted by an assault of almost a dozen small, sharp disks.

He swung his sword, but the construct dodged out of the way like it had a mind of its own. The man tried a couple more times, and Maxwell started to charge lightning mana.

In the end, he fired a bolt of lightning, and his intention was to hit one of the metal disks he created. The butcher, though, was a formidable opponent. As he weaved through the disks, he took a single swing towards the bolt, and a great part of the lightning disappeared like it never existed.

The remaining part struck a disk and jumped from disk to disk before striking the butcher with a loud bang, but the man had no problem withstanding the blast. It was apparent that the man was not fast enough to dodge Maxwell's fastest attacks, but he was also insanely durable.

The man jumped backwards, as the disks stopped for a moment before continuing their movement, and sheathed his sword before unsheathing once more with a different blade. The new blade shone blue, and the man swung.

Maxwell's eyes widened. His connection to his constructs was cut just like that.