Merchant Of Yliaster

Maxwell groaned as he walked with his satchel, which was once again full. He could only blame his greed for it. He managed to chip the tier 2 mana rocks and completely break the tier 1 mana rocks, so he stashed a lot of those inside the satchel.

He was not sure how he could decrease the weight of the satchel, as the space inside was still inside instead of being a separate space. He tried his new empowerment skill on his body, but without knowing the specific affinity needed for strength increase, it didn't do much beyond increasing his strength by around 30 points, even after using a lot of mana.

He was not unhappy about the situation, though. His satchell was filled to the brim with different materials, them mostly being tier two, with some being tier one but having rare to find affinities. These would serve as his affinity bank.

He watched Felix as it ran among the trees, eating some things as he ran. Maxwell was a bit alarmed at first, seeing the dog eat weird looking plants all over the place, but it seemed normal for the dog. He even leveled up once just by eating those.

Even an idiot would see that Felix was dangerous if they knew his backstory, but right now, Maxwell was completely clueless about how he would fight. Maybe I could make him fight something soon. The animals were slowly returning towards the forest, but everything daring to come here had been a bit too strong for the dog until now.

Maxwell himself was quite bored of staying in the same level for this long, but he supposed that would be fixed soon with the existence of rifts.

As they walked, it didn't take them long to find something strange. Maxwell raised his eyebrow as he was using his prima sense to scout ahead. Blueberry also did this, but Maxwell was still better at detecting things when they didn't have a mind.

In the distance, he could see a human-shaped mana mass on the ground. Considering Blueberry's silence, they were probably not conscious. They walked towards the place to find someone familiar.

Huh? The soldier from before… What was her name? Maxwell thought as he gazed at the sprawled form of the woman. At a distance of a couple of tens of meters, he could also see the woman's friends. They seemed to be in a much worse shape than the woman, though.

There was a human imprint on the tree near the woman, so it was not hard to decipher what happened before.

"Ellie?" Maxwell tried to wake the woman up, finally managing to remember her name. This was quite unsuccessful, but in the next second, Felix's tongue was more than enough.

"Ugh, the fuck?" The woman groaned before she jumped in fright, seeing a tongue near her face, eagerly licking her. Felix seemed not to understand the reaction as he looked at her, tilting his head in incomprehension.

Ellie finally managed to look around, and when she saw Maxwell her face turned strange. Maxwell couldn't understand what could have this kind of an effect but woman looked, scared, excited and in awe at the same time.

"Your pets are getting weirder." She said, stating the obvious, as she regained her composure while looking around.

"What in the hell happened here?" She glanced at the tree with the imprint, looking a bit angry for a moment before moving suddenly.

Maxwell watched in interest as the woman used something like a strengthening skill and punched the tree. The said tree was quite undisturbed by the event, but the woman was determined.

After a couple of minutes of persistent and angry pummeling under Maxwell's amused gaze, the tree finally toppled with an oddly metallic groan. The woman was breathing heavily, apparently having used most of her resources on the task.

As a show of goodwill, Maxwell infused the woman with a generous amount of blood mana; he was amused, if anything.

"Payment for the show," He added as the woman threw him a startled glance as she apparently got the notification. Maxwell was not sure how many vitality points she received but he doubted it was few.

"I see you are a merchant through and through," The woman replied, as she creepily licked her lips.

What's wrong with this woman… Maxwell thought. He has seen many women who openly flirted, but this was a lot more than that.

"This fucker deserved what it got," Ellie said, before spitting on the ruined form of the tree. It was a metal-infused tree before it was destroyed.

"That's good and all, but are you not worried about your friends?" Maxwell reminded the woman. He was examining the rest of the party in the last minutes and from what he has seen they were alive and well, albeit being a bit beat-up.

"Oh, shit!" she shouted briefly before running towards her friends. All illusion of care was shattered when she proceeded to kick Erne on the head.

"Wake up!" she shouted as the kick connected, sending the poor guy into a weird, slimy tree. Maxwell turned his head away in disgust. The woman either knew something about Erne's durability that he didn't or she was retarded.

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Next moment, Erne proved that it was the former as he stepped out of the weird goo. He spat some of the goo on the ground before looking at Ellie in anger. Surprisingly, he was totally unharmed by Ellie's kick.

"What was that for?" he asked stoically, but Maxwell could detect a faint anger in his voice.

"You looked kickable,"

"I see," Erne replied, before starting to examine the landscape. This place was a bit more normal than the core region around the cave, as some trees were still unchanged instead of being weird variants, but the place still looked otherworldly.

"What in the world happened?" The man asked, giving a weird look at Felix before quickly turning his eyes away.

"I have no idea, too," Ellie replied while glancing at Maxwell, asking him the same question with her eyes. Maxwell couldn't help but feel the need to answer when Erne turned to him, too, seeing her glance.

"There was an immensely dense zone of mana inside the cave; it exploded on touch," Maxwell explained, spouting some half-truths.

"Why would something like that form in the middle of nowhere?" Ellie asked, she did not seem really convinced by the explanation. Maxwell could see this too, but there wasn't much he could do.

"Beats me, mana is weird," he said, throwing the ball to the mana itself.

The woman gave him a scrutinizing glance as a reward, but she didn't seem to plan to pursue the matter anymore. Erne, on the other hand, seemed more than happy not knowing.

"I want nothing to do with this, the reward was mediocre at best, and weird shit has been happening all throughout the mission. Where is Neivor?" Erne asked as he patted his clothes from the slimy substance he was covered with. It didn't seem to stick much.

Maxwell just pointed at the forgotten priest as he was lying a couple of meters in the distance behind a tree.

They approached the guy and were welcomed by a strange scene. Neivor was lying on the ground, and that much was usual, the man's lips were moving silently, as if he was praying even when he was unconscious but even that was acceptable to a degree.

The strangest thing was that there were a multitude of small animals snuggled tightly to the man. Small rabbits, birds and even insects were unmovingly staying on the man's sides, covering him in a man shaped outline.

The animals stared collectively at them, forming a very creepy scene, before they scattered casually like this was completely normal behaviour. Immediately after they scattered, the man opened his eyes widely, looking at them with unseeing eyes, before speaking in a voice that was not his.

"The God of Heavenly Kingdom sends his regards, Merchant."

The man's voice had a different quality, and Maxwell was sure that he would be crippled by hearing it if it wasn't for his new mind skill. It felt more than a mortal mind could handle.

So the gods can see us? And what's with all the regards? Maxwell thought as he looked around. Everything was back to normal, and others seemed completely unbothered by the message.

"Neivor? Are you awake?" Erne asked as he pulled out something incredibly smelly from his pouch. Maxwell really hoped for the man to be awake.

"I am. More than ever," the man replied in a dreamy tone. His eyes widened when he saw Maxwell, but he chose to stay silent.

So there is at least someone who remembers. Maxwell thought. At this point, it was really obvious that his trait was more than a boon given to him by the system. If even the gods were giving him special attention for it, that meant that it probably came with some baggage of problems.

Maxwell really didn't want to deal with these for now. He wanted to live a peaceful life as much as he could. That didn't mean he would stay weak, though. This time, there were means to protect his peace, and he would. Ellie's voice pulled him back to the real world.

"Amazing, he is even nuttier than before," the woman said, looking disgustedly at the priest.

The man was unperturbed as he got up, like he had just woken up from a nap. His clothes looked oddly clean. There was a strange sense of peace on his face. Maxwell observed the man due to his weird behaviour.

Neivor - Level 22 - Vassal

So he is now a vassal to a god? Maxwell didn't know what to think about the situation. Just a day ago, he thought there were no gods; now they popped around like they were common.

Title Acquired: One Watched By The Gods.

Title Acquired: Favored of The Traveler

I'm starting to think that the system needs a push to do its job. Maxwell lamented, looking at the new titles. His next evolution would be interesting if anything. He summoned the explanations, as any information was welcome at this point.

One Watched By The Gods: You possess things even the gods don't understand. A few who know watch you closely to see how you proceed from now on.

Be careful, Merchant, for the gods are selfish.

Favored Of The Traveler: The Traveler favored you as they passed away, giving their only child to you. Some powers shouldn't be underestimated, even when the owner is dead.

It was nothing new, really, there were people beyond his power watching him, trying to maximize the profits they would receive, it was almost comical how it was similar to business. The traveler literally gave him his contacts as he passed away, making him receive attention. Now he would need to prove that he was dangerous enough to not side against him.

Maxwell's eyes glinted with a new light.. He liked the competitive nature of this new reality. He would make these gods realize that he was not a pushover soon enough.

They would eventually side with him, whether they liked it or not. It was apparent that there was something preventing them from doing anything too drastic in this world yet.

He looked at Neivor with a new sense of motivation. He liked his peace, but he would admit that he also liked competition. Why not be peaceful when you know you are going to win?

Neivor was visibly startled by the look he received, sweating a bit. It was not a big reaction, but it really showed on the man's blank expression.

"Are you okay?" Erne asked the guy in a concerned voice. "You are sweating a lot," he added.

"I'm just a little bit tired," the man answered before turning in the direction of the city, running away from the looks he was receiving. "Let's go back to the city," he said, once more returning to his peaceful tone.

So they started to walk.