Merchant Of Yliaster

Maxwell floated in the air and watched the pandemonium he managed to cause. The farmland from before made a lot of sound, but the ground didn't fly up despite his expectations. Instead, it did the opposite, as it crashed down like someone suddenly increased gravity by couple of times.

Now, a completely flat ground of soil could be seen where the nest used to be. Also, it was probably important to say that this ground was about four meters below the ground level.

The fringes of the area were the only hint that something violent had happened in the area, as they looked like something had violently exploded at the center of the area, but Maxwell was surprised that the effects were actually milder compared to the time he used this rune against the wolf.

Though it was apparent that the effects were far from ineffective, as notifications were flooding his system interface as she slowly floated down. Also, the ant-shaped mana figures below the ground were also gone. Maxwell simply couldn't imagine how he could deal with something that survived the phenomena, and fortunately, he wouldn't need to figure it out for now.

He landed on the ground and summoned the notifications to see what he gained out of this.

Guide Mana Leveled Up 91→93

Prima Sense Leveled Up 84→86

Magic Theory Leveled Up 83→86

Soul's Dominion* Leveled Up 1→3

Mana Infusion Leveled Up 83→85

Infusion Empowerment Leveled Up 60→62

Runic Formations Leveled Up 26→32

Window Of The Soul Leveled Up 61→64

Athletics Leveled Up 23→25

Parallel Thoughts Leveled Up 52→55

Level-ups were pretty substantial, but Maxwell was a bit disappointed that despite using the skill for flying, infusion empowerment only leveled up by two. Guide mana was getting dangerously close to level 100, but after seeing the evolution of soul dominion, Maxwell wasn't so anxious about it anymore.

Skill "Flying" Unlocked.

Flying: You disrupt the order of things, as you invade the habitat of the avians. Be careful not to fly too close to the sun.

Flying Leveled Up 1→6

Oh, Maxwell thought as he saw the next notification. So that was the reason why he didn't get many levels of infusion empowerment. According to the information flowing into his soul, though, he could feel that this skill didn't exactly enable him to fly. It was more like a skill that helped you to use other means better for flying.

He tried it by slowly using wind mana to push himself up, and found the process much more controlled than before. Still, it felt a bit crude. He decided to try something else.

He slowly covered his body below his neck with darkness mana, making him look even creepier than before. The mask was so overpowered that he could use darkness mana better than even the metal mana, which was level 2 in the compendium. He was excited to record it and see what lengths it would reach.

He planned to try to lift himself up with the darkness mana, but he was not sure how. He tried to infuse his body with the mana type, imagining himself flowing into darkness. Darkness was not exactly something solid, so he doubted that it could push him up otherwise.

He watched his body with his senses, examining the changes. He had the ethereal body, so he supposed things like this would look better on him, but he was unsure about how much.

Soon, his body looked completely undiscernible from the darkness, as it took on the qualities of darkness. This works like this, too? He knew that the skill made his body gain qualities, but Maxwell always thought that they would be simple things, like an increase in strength. Turned out that was wrong, as he felt that he was not even completely material at the moment, his body flowing like darkness.

Partial Ethereal Body Ratio Updated.

New Ratio: 6.5 : 3.5

Huh? Was this a milestone or something? Maxwell was confused by the notification. His head was still completely material due to him not infusing it, but Maxwell could feel that this was causing an imbalance as he infused the rest of his body more. He was still human after all, and his brain couldn't use darkness instead of blood. Instead of stopping, though, he decided to include his head too in the infusion.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Soon, a figure of darkness was all that remained of him, as he infused himself with almost three thousand mana. He felt that he could do this with less mana in the future, but trial and error wasted some mana.

In the next moment, the figure slowly floated before turning into a streak moving upwards. Around 200 hundred meters from the ground, it abruptly stopped like momentum was a joke to it.

I think I just broke the system… Maxwell thought as he examined his present form. Staying in this form didn't have energy uptake, but he could feel the darkness mana slowly dissipating due to light bombarding it from all around. All in all, though, this opened a lot of possibilities.

He landed on the ground, devoid of any sound. It made sense that darkness wouldn't have any momentum, but having a body like this was weird. His arms didn't feel like arms, his mouth felt like it didn't exist anymore, and he was pretty sure that he would walk better by controlling the mana rather than his muscles.

He was getting more and more sure that this was the doing of his partial ethereal body, as it didn't make sense for a normal person to keep this up. Also, wasn't this creating darkness essentially? This was not just darkness mana behaving like darkness itself. He was pretty sure that his body was partially darkness, and not anything imitating it.

If I turn myself into fire and throw a part away as a fireball, would I lose an arm? He asked himself. It was not something he could easily try, as he didn't know if he could heal from losing a limb. He was pretty sure that, with the amount of mana he had, he would manage to do it, but he didn't want to test it for now. Still staying in the darkness form, he summoned the next notification screen. Ignoring the level-ups for empowerment for now.

Ant Queen - Level 27 Killed. Experience Rewarded.

Ant King - Level 29 Killed. Experience Rewarded.

There were numerous other kill notifications, but Maxwell ignored them. This proved that he would need to go to the rifts for sure, as these kills didn't even give him a level. He couldn't deny that they helped him use his skills better, though. It was disappointing that the king and the queen died before he could see them, but it was expected. Maxwell was unsure if even he could survive the blast from before.

Now that he was done with the notifications, he gazed around, examining the terrain he had created. The ground where the anthill used to reside was completely flat now, without any signs of life. It didn't help that it was almost four meters lower than the rest of the terrain. He was pretty sure that with how condensed the soil was, this place would turn into a lake soon.

He doubted that nobles would like that, but maybe they would like to have a small lake close by? The job reward was already given to the guild, though, so it was their problem that they didn't include any limits on how he could deal with the ants.

Not being able to get the cores of the ants was a bit disappointing, but Maxwell didn't want to dig for them. Wait, would that work? An idea suddenly came to his mind.

He slowly let the darkness mana dissipate before starting to infuse himself once more. This time, though, the mana he was using was earth mana. The process took longer this time, as his control over this mana was limited compared to others, but soon, he felt like plants could easily grow on his body. His skin cracked, and took an earthlike exterior.

This was not a very strong contender for the most useful form he could take, as he felt really brittle, but this was not the reason he was using it anyway. He closed his eyes and imagined himself getting submerged in the dirt below him. He smiled as he felt himself sink to the ground like it wasn't as hard as rock.

As he was travelling downward, he heard a loud ass notification from the system, but he ignored it for now. He wasn't sure why it was so loud, but he would check it out when he was done with this. He didn't want to end up superimposed with dirt due to a lapse in concentration.

The ground got thicker and thicker, but luckily, the ants and explosion softened it enough that it was still soft enough for Maxwell to push through with his new technique. Soon, he was more than five hundred meters below the ground.

He was surprised when he felt an empty space below him at the edge of his perception. He got closer to the space and could detect that it was a cave. The insides looked pretty beat-up, and that could probably be attributed to the space explosion, but the cave was still intact, to Maxwell's surprise.

He entered the space, and found himself falling down for around fifty meters as he hurriedly expelled the earth mana from his body as he fell. He didn't want to shatter into a hundred pieces as he contacted the ground.

After he landed, he could properly examine the space around him. The cave was around sixty meters in width and fifty meters in height. The air was surprisingly fresh, as this place was connected to the outside before Maxwell destroyed it. He could see the shattered bodies of ants covering the floor. This place seemed to be something like a royal court for the king and queen of the ants.

He observed the walls, as it was surprising that they survived the explosion. The ants probably died due to the vacuum effect here.

Reinforced Rock - Tier 2

A rock reinforced by the ant queen's continued strengthening. It used to be covered by fungi.

Maxwell was pretty sure that's how ants usually dug tunnels, but the queen reached a whole new level in construction. What she managed to do was probably better than what humans managed to accomplish so far. The fungi probably helped with the stability before, but the explosion probably destroyed it.

After scanning the place with his senses for some time, he managed to find the cores. Both of them were of the earth element. Maxwell had some ideas about what to do with these, but that would need to wait for some time.

He summoned the notification he received before to see why it was loud.

Infusion Empowerment Leveled Up 62→?

Skill effect cannot be calculated in tier one.

Tier advancement proceeding.

Detected that halting the skill would cause immediate death for the user.

Advancement postponed.

I definitely need to stop ignoring notifications… Maxwell thought, a drop of sweat sliding down from his forehead.

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