Merchant Of Yliaster

It didn't take them long to get on the way towards the city. Erne was a lot better after a night of sleep, but he still looked a bit weak. Neivor, on the other hand, was back to his usual serene mood.

They were walking in the forest briskly, Erne going on the front as the man was very good at finding a good path.

The forest was almost back to normal now, and apart from an occasional plant that was extra susceptible to mana intrusions, everything looked normal. Maxwell wanted to gather these materials, too, but his satchel was already much too heavy.

According to Erne, their journey would take a little less than a week. Maxwell also learned that the group was pretty big at the start. He already knew that Audra and others were with Ellie, but apparently, Erne had a group too. Only Neivor was alone, as he apparently came here of his own volition.

Consequently, as they walked back towards the city, their group progressively got bigger. Erne's group was a mercenary one, and they looked pretty unassuming, mainly wearing leather armor. The group was an assembled one, so they didn't have much cohesion. They simply followed them, not talking much.

Ellie's group, on the other hand, was mainly composed of the military Maxwell saw when he was travelling toward the cave. This group was much different as they had a clear hierarchy, just as armies usually did.

It was weird seeing people being respectful to Ellie, as the woman was an oddball, but she didn't look that out of place if he was being honest. Her quirkiness worked well with managing people.

People threw weird looks at Maxwell as they walked, his clothes making him look like he was magically summoned here. He looked way too simple for someone in a forest, a week away from the closest city. I probably should change how it looks. He would need to do that when they reached the city, though, as people would be quite curious where he got the new clothes if they suddenly changed.

Soon, they reached where Audra and the initiates were and approached the group. For a second, the trio was startled by the noise, mistaking them for wild animals. Amusingly, Maxwell could see visible panic appear on Audra's face for a second as she saw Ellie among the group.

"Didn't I tell you to go back?" Ellie said, smiling creepily. The initiates looked at each other before deciding that this was beyond them and simply stepped back.

"Umm, I'm sorry?" Audra tried, visibly panicking.

"How did you survive the beasts rushing back?" Erne interjected with a curious tone. The ground was littered with many marks, and it was apparent that a great many beasts had passed through the place not long ago.

This question made the panic become deeper on Audra's face, though, as it only served to prove Ellie's point. She threw a pleading look at Erne before turning towards the angry woman.

"All three of your training times are tripled for the next month," Ellie said, her face softening. Maxwell could see that she was checking the group for any signs of injury. "All in all, I'm glad that you guys are okay," she added, before hugging Audra in a bear hug.

Audra nodded stiffly, clearly not expecting the treatment she got, but the initiates had desperate faces after hearing the verdict.

Erne leaned towards Maxwell before whispering, "She is her sister,".

Maxwell was trying to understand why the two women were so awkward, and this certainly explained the reason. It would certainly be awkward to have your bigger sister above you in the military. Why was she so afraid, though? Maxwell thought, petting Felix absent-mindedly.

The dog was sleeping on his arm, as he was too tired. The fact that he would get tired from walking a little made Maxwell question life, but the puppy was just a baby; it was probably normal for him to sleep all the time.

Maxwell, though, looked ridiculous with a puppy in his arms and a bird on his head. Now that he thought about it, that might be the reason for the looks he was receiving too. Can't you go inside my mind like you did with the wolves? He sent to Blueberry, trying to salvage the situation.

"Chirp!"

"What do you mean it would be boring?" Maxwell thought, exasperatedly. It was good knowing that she could do it, though. After the battle, the bird was just a step away from reaching level 20, standing at level 19. The fact that Blueberry was stronger than most of the soldiers could be added to the list of reasons he was receiving weird looks.

After forging the Etheric Bond, their telepathy was on a completely different level. Maxwell could clearly understand the bird now, and she didn't look at him with incomprehension whenever he said something a bit complicated. He didn't know what other effects it would have, but the bond had its own little window in the system interface.

Maxwell actually could feel the bond with Prima Sense, as their souls had something like a string connecting them, but he was not sure what the bond could do. He was also quite curious how it would work when they were apart.

"Merchant?" he realized that someone was speaking to him as he was lost in his thoughts. I really need to stop doing this.

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Audra was beside him, apparently managing to run away from her sister, and she was looking at Maxwell with the same excited eyes as before. Oh, here it comes. Maxwell thought, seeing something familiar in those eyes.

"Can you enhance this?" The girl pushed a stick towards him. On a second look, Maxwell could see that it was a wand. Greed looks the same anywhere. He thought before observing the wand.

Wand Of The Occult - Tier 1

A wand crafted for the occult arts using the wood of a tree grown by watering it with blood.

Lightly enhances the potency of Occult Arts.

Maxwell's eye twitched as he checked the wand. He didn't expect to meet with something occult this soon. When he saw the witch class, he assumed that it was similar to the mage class, but it looked like it was completely different.

"How does your magic work?" He asked, quite curious about the girl's brand of magic. Occult arts didn't seem like something that would have a clear-cut system like his magic.

"This is a bit embarrassing, but I'm not really sure." The woman said, looking at him apologetically. "They are not very logical, I'm afraid," she clarified.

"Can you show me a spell at least?" Maxwell asked, and the woman nodded as she took the wand back. Maxwell fully turned on his prima sense.

Audra, meanwhile, glanced at a tree before focusing for a moment. She lifted her wand and made a complicated gesture towards a tree. Maxwell watched as some of the woman's mana moved towards the wand, and eventually disappeared. It was like the wand was a portal for the mana to move through.

There was a sudden crackling sound, and the tree suddenly burst into flames. To Maxwell's surprise, this was not done by gathering fire mana at all. The tree simply started burning out ot of nowhere. Maxwell was grateful that skill at least used mana to work, but it still didn't make any sense. What even caused the fire?

"What's your affinity?" He asked the woman. He truly didn't see any way he could improve this wand without using his trait.

"Apparently, it's water, but that does not limit witches," Audra said, sounding a bit prideful for a second.

Maxwell couldn't blame the woman as he was pretty happy with not being limited by affinities himself, but he at least still used their mana to produce effects.

Aren't occult arts usually about rituals? Does she sacrifice her mana to cause things? Maxwell thought. The theory made sense in a vacuum, but in the real world, it was preposterous. Who even received the sacrifice to cause the effect?

"Can you do rituals and stuff?" he asked, trying not to sound like a weirdo. He was still not very used to magic being real, especially when he was talking about it with people.

"I can, actually, that makes up the most of my class. What you saw now was a hex, "Hex Of Fire" to be precise." Audra answered, clearly not seeing the problem. Probably, to her, her class was unrealistic, like any other.

Maxwell could see magic happen with his senses, but her kind of magic didn't make any sense.

"Can you use it again?" He asked, and the woman obliged.

This time, Maxwell completely turned down mana sense, using the newly discovered function of his skill, trying to see if anything else was happening. It was clear that whatever was happening happened through some other medium.

Once again, though, he was stumped as another burst into fire without showing a single sign beforehand.

"Chirp?" Blueberry sent a message to him, questioning why her human behaved like an idiot. Apparently, she couldn't see anything wrong.

"Huh?" Maxwell was startled, suddenly looking at the bird dumbly for a second before laughing like an idiot. "Thanks, you are right, I'm an idiot," he sent to the bird.

"Again," he said, as he watched with a new sense of direction. Audra looked at him, looking a bit concerned, it was not normal for people to laugh out of nowhere after all.

Once again, she cast the hex, and this time, Maxwell did something different. He turned on Soul's voice, and tried to expand it like Blueberry did with her telepathy when she was trying to detect presences. The skill was not exactly designed for this, and most of the work fell on him.

This was something he could already do when he was focused, though, so he eventually managed to use the skill that way. In theory, he would be able to detect thoughts this way, but in practice, everything he received would be a mess, as there was no channel for the thought to move through.

Once again, the mana moved towards the wand, as he didn't bother to turn down the prima sense this time. Now, though, he could sense something completely different. He could sense mental energy condense around the tree, making a shape around it. He couldn't feel it in enough detail, but he was almost sure that if he could, he would see the shape of the fire that was going to erupt from the tree.

So something like visualization? He thought and watched as a stream of mental energy moved from the woman towards the tree. Actually, he could see that the mental energy was coming out of the wand in the woman's hand instead of her brain, like it was supposed to.

Suddenly, mental energy disappeared, and the third unlucky tree burst into flames.

So she can turn mana into mental energy, and then mental energy into reality? Maxwell thought. It still made no sense. Mental energy was probably connected to the mind attribute, and Mana was connected to the spirituality attribute. Maxwell felt that he was on the right path, thinking about it like this, but this didn't change the fact that he was stumped.

The girl's magic didn't do anything truly powerful, but the way her magic did things meant that the girl could do anything she could imagine. However, as this was a system-assisted skill, he could guess that she was actually a lot more restricted than that.

He would certainly need to work on this more to come to a definite conclusion. Albeit being a bit annoyed, Maxwell was quite sure that he would manage to replicate the girl's magic soon enough.

It didn't seem to have any component that he couldn't use. Mental energy and mana were hardly foreign to Maxwell. The possibility excited him; if he could manage to do this, he would finally manage to create elements too.

He sighed, trying not to get too excited. This would take a lot of time after all. He pulled the mana out of the blazing trees absentmindedly, extinguishing them suddenly. He didn't want to create a forest fire once more.

His action, though, was completely unnatural for Audra. She was startled as her magic suddenly disappeared with a glance from Maxwell. She looked at him, trying to understand what he had done.

Maxwell chose to ignore her stare; he couldn't help it, being mysterious was fun.