Merchant Of Yliaster

A crushing force quickly embraced Maxwell as Bob hugged him as if he hadn't seen him for years.

"Max! You are finally here, save from this old creep!" Maxwell chuckled at the boy's antics, hugging him back.

He was pretty sure that he would have some broken bones if he were low leveled.

Gendor approached them casually before smacking the boy's head, not managing to move it at all.

"Who do you call old creep? You underdeveloped—" he stopped abruptly, looking at Felix. Maxwell watched in disgusted surprise as the man broke character and proceeded to pet the dog, smiling creepily.

So he is a dog person… he thought. Everyone has their weird traits, he guessed. He observed the man and Bob. He was curious if they gained any levels after they split up.

Bob - Warrior - Level-23

Gendor - Assasin - Level-23

Bob seemed to have caught up with the man, but the gap between them and Maxwell was even wider. This truly highlighted his ridiculous leveling speed.

After a few seconds, he managed to wrangle himself free from the kid, actually needing to empower himself to do so.

"What have you guys been up to?" he asked, but Gendor was playing with Felix, making baby noises like an old lady. The scene was ridiculous. Luckily, he still had Bob to speak to.

"Gendor found this place for us to open a shop. He says he will trade things with people." Bob said, sounding like he didn't plan to be a part of this establishment.

The concept was strangely similar to Ragnar's shop, but Maxwell figured that there weren't that many ways to set a shop in a medieval world.

Gendor seemed to come to his senses a bit, hearing that Bob was speaking about the shop. He straightened up, glancing at Maxwell for a couple of seconds.

You have been observed.

The man made a disgusted face as he apparently saw his level. Realizing Maxwell was looking at him with a knowing smile, his expression turned into surprise.

"You felt my observation? What kind of a sense skill do you have, kid? And the fuck happened to you? You don't look like a kid at all." He said.

The man clearly had a skill that made his observation less likely to be noticed. This also proved that observation was dependent on the user's capabilities as a whole instead of being a completely separate skill.

Gendor gave Felix a last glance and motioned for them to come inside the shop. They entered through the small door, and Maxwell was surprised to see that the area inside was not as small as he expected.

"Now that we are not shouting our intentions to the world, we can speak more openly," Gendor said, throwing an annoyed glance at Bob.

"I suppose you will not be selling things for the money?" Maxwell asked. Gendor would use this place to further his own goals, but Maxwell didn't think the goal was money.

"Well, of course not. Earning money is easy when you are an assassin, higher leveled than the general population. This place is intended for contacts. When we have the contacts, anything we want, we can make it happen." Gendor said. It was apparent that man put some thought into this. Maxwell was not sure about this method, though. His own contacts were probably already stronger, considering The Nest's prestige.

"How much money do you have?" he said, eager to get rid of the clutter inside his satchel. This way, he could also give Gendor the base merchandise he could sell in his shop.

"I have around a thousand gold coins," the man said, squinting. He didn't elaborate on the source of his money, as if daring Maxwell to ask. Maxwell just chuckled, seeing the man's face.

"I can sell you some stuff if you want. It would help you build up things to sell," he said. He couldn't care less how the guy got his money. Most of the people who were rich were scumbags in this country anyways, and he doubted that Gendor would pick a good one out of all the bad ones.

"What do you have?" the man asked, clearly interested. While he had money, getting a great number of things to sell and still having a profit margin was really hard when you were first starting.

Maxwell responded by starting to get things out of his satchel. At this point, its weight was something constant in his life, but his increased stats made it less of a problem.

As he kept taking things out, the ever-present weight slowly diminished, leaving its place to a weird sense of lightness. Gendor's eyebrow twitched as he watched him take out things without showing any signs of stopping from a tiny satchel.

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Maxwell kept things that were really unique, like the mind fruit Blueberry found back in the forest, but he put anything below tier 2 and anything he found uninteresting on the table, causing a pile to form on it.

"I have many questions, but let's ignore them for now," Gendor said, and he started examining the items. It didn't look like he had a skill for it as he checked the items meticulously, trying to understand what they were. Maxwell knew that trading with the man would probably cause him to lose money, but he didn't really care. At least in this world, money was not a great problem.

"Where did you find so many things?" Bob asked, ignoring the weird phenomenon caused by the satchel. The kid already saw that artifact when Maxwell first improved it, so he was unaffected by the scene.

"I picked them up on the way," Maxwell said, knowing how it sounded. Technically, he was not even lying; it was just that he left many things out.

Gaslighting Leveled Up 14→15

Well, it's been some time. Maxwell thought. Bob was a great target for improving this skill, though he had complicated feelings about it.

"I can give you about a thousand gold coins for these," Gendor said. Maxwell had the suspicion that the man was just throwing the number because it looked tidy. He doubted that the man knew how much money all of the things he pulled out cost in the local market.

"Just give me some of the ownership," he said, rolling his eyes. What he put out was a lot more than what he sold the Ragnar, so he was pretty sure that it was worth at least fifteen hundred gold coins. It was a bit funny that he got worse prices from his friend compared to a random merchant, but he couldn't blame the man. It was hard for Gendor to know the local commodities as well as Ragnar knew.

Gendor stared at him for a second, weighing his offer. Overall, Maxwel thought his offer was pretty good. Gendor didn't even value the shops' further profits beyond the contacts. What Maxwell was offering was precious beyond the money; it provided him with a way to get goods to sell.

"How much do you want?" Gendor asked. This meant that he had accepted, but he still didn't want to give too much.

"I think you wouldn't do me injustice, right?" Maxwell countered, not falling into the trap. He wouldn't give a number as he didn't know the expenses behind the shop. Gendor, though, knew the expenses, and if he gave a bad offer to him, Maxwell soon learn about it, placing the man in an awkward spot.

"I can give you 30 percent, but I make the decisions," Gendor said, looking a bit disappointed that his trap was dodged.

Maxwell couldn't detect mental waves from the man, as his concealment skill was still active, but he had been a businessman for years. He knew that this building wouldn't cost more than a hundred gold coins, and even that was a high estimate. He could roughly guess this from the cost of living he had seen outside.

This meant that the goods he was offering were worth more than 15 times the business itself. Getting just 20 percent out of this was at the very bottom of acceptable deals.

"I assume you think I know nothing about this?" he asked, not really accusing the man. He himself abused his fair share of ignorant entrepreneurs back in the old days. It was a part of the business.

"Kid, if I hadn't been on that ship, I would think you are a mole placed by the federation." The man said, shaking his head. The knowledge Maxwell had about worldly matters was simply inexplicable for the man, as he should have been in the slave zone since his birth, completely isolated from the civilized world. He sighed before speaking.

"You can have 40 percent, I still keep the decision-making rights," he said.

"Give me 49 percent, you can keep your authority, I don't really care about that. Just don't go bankrupt without letting me know," Maxwell said. If Gendor decided to do something drastic, causing the shop to go bankrupt, Maxwell would sell his side of the ownership before it happened.

Gendor looked at him disbelievingly, looking more surprised due to his knowledge rather than the deal itself. "You didn't learn all of this after we landed, right?" he asked, sounding scared by the implication if he did.

"I visited the library when I reached the city," Maxwell said, smiling. He knew what the man would think, but it was still better than not having an explanation. Being a genius was a blank card you could use as a reason for many illogical things you did.

"I don't envy your future enemies, you have a deal," the man said, and they shook hands over the items. Maxwell felt a bit nostalgic as he hadn't done this in over 14 years. After the war, people didn't haggle with him; if anything, he needed to be careful not to abuse them.

When you managed all the war resources, people gave you what you wanted, as everyone wanted to win the desperate war. After the first few years, anyone who wanted to prosper after the war by profiting from it disappeared, as the battle was way too desperate.

Skill "Business" Acquired.

Business: You probably know what this skill is. High time you got it.

Business Leveled Up 1→18

Gaslighting Leveled Up 15→18

The system explanations were getting a bit unhinged lately, but he didn't dislike the sarcasm. It didn't help that it was right. He thought about doing something like opening a shop to use his trait, but he didn't think that a world like this would have a lot of resources that his trait would accept. He could always trade in souls, but that seemed like a fast way to form a bad image. The last thing he wanted was to unite the world against himself by creating an image similar to a devil.

Title Acquired: Businessman

Businessman: You own a business. It remains to be seen if it will be profitable.

Knowing Gendor, he was pretty sure it would be. The man certainly wouldn't limit himself to legal boundaries for one thing.

"Can you deal with the legal stuff? I don't think I have a record in this kingdom." Maxwell said. Even if he owned 49 percent, it wouldn't matter if it was in words only.

"Do you have a preferred name?" Gendor said, smiling like he requested something really fun to do. It seemed the man really loved doing his job.

"Maxwell Aurelius, Male, 20 years old. I was born in an isolated village destroyed by the initiation, and arrived here a day before. My records were created by my mother, who brought me here when I was a baby," he said, before stopping to consider if he forgot anything.

He quickly realized that Gendor and Bob were looking at him as if he were an alien who had replaced the original Max. Bob was in a worse situation, as he knew the previous host of Maxwell's body. The jump from that person to now was too much for the boy to comprehend.

"Ehem, why don't you write down the details you want?" Gendor said. He looked like he was done with trying to comprehend Maxwell's personality.