Merchant Of Yliaster

Two figures repeatedly clashed on a field, bodies lay scattered around them without a shred of blood on the ground. One of the figures was graceful as he blocked his enemy's attacks with his shield, and he attacked with his sword with a practiced ease. The other figure, on the other hand, looked more like he was using a club as he repeatedly smacked the shielded figure in every opening he could see.

These figures were, of course, the knight and Maxwell, and they were fighting a ridiculous battle. Maxwell had no experience in using a sword, and to be fair, he was using it just for fun at the moment, but this gave the fight an absurd look, as he was just moving clumsily, really fast.

His body was infused with a mixture of wind and metal mana, giving it toughness and speed. Maxwell wouldn't be able to match the knight's movement otherwise. Even now, he wouldn't do this if he didn't have a very big health pool.

"You don't know anything about swordfighting, don't you?" the knight said, as they danced around each other. At least the knight did so around Maxwell.

"I'm not exactly a swordsman," Maxwell answered as he smacked the man on the shield with his construct. Part of the reason he could exert enough force with the construct was due to him also controlling it separately with his guidance. This whole thing felt like he was just posing as a warrior, but it just felt right to fight a knight like this. It was not like he was in any real danger.

The knight was pushed a few meters back by the force, and quickly dashed forwards again, his sword doing a piercing movement, forcing Maxwell to swirl to the side, smacking the man on the side with his construct once again. It should be said that Maxwell was way beyond a normal human when it came to dexterity, so doing movements like this was no problem, even though he was untrained.

The construct he was holding had the shape of a sword, and Maxwell was sure that it was sharp, but in the end, it was just a construct and not a solid object. He had been repairing the construct since the start of the battle, but the construct exploded into mana at last, launching the knight almost twenty meters away.

To the man's credit, he managed to block the explosion, but due to the explosion using Maxwell's soul attribute, his arm holding the shield was shaking like he blocked something way beyond his strength.

"That's some power," the man said, as he took a more defensive stance.

"Why are you working with them? They won't hear, so you can speak openly." Maxwell asked, a new sword forming in his hand. His body shone with a metallic green light due to duality, using different mana types at the same time. If he could actually use a sword, he would look really good while fighting.

The man seemed to be thoughtful for a second before smiling at him. "I will tell you when you beat me," he said calmly, and dashed with a renewed vigor.

Maxwell would be an idiot if he couldn't learn at least some swordsmanship from fighting with a good one with his soul stat. Their clash continued for a couple of minutes, and Maxwell could feel that the former slaves were watching them from the hill. A few of them tried to help him, but he told Blueberry to keep them out.

Maxwell's movements slowly started to mimic what the knight was doing, albeit they were really awkward compared to the man's. He slowly accumulated injuries as they fought. At one point, he even tried to turn his arm into metal and try to block one of the sword hits, but that only made him receive a nasty cut on his arm. After that, he stuck to using his sword.

When your body got tired was mainly connected to vitality, and secondarily to the stat you were mainly using. If your agility was high, for example, you would get tired more from using excessive force, but you would run for hours. In Maxwell's case, this meant that most of his stamina came from his soul, and he could see that he was slowly outlasting the knight.

The man was breathing heavily despite being relatively unharmed. There were some signs of damage on his armor, and his shield looked like he tried to block an army by himself, but Maxwell was sure that the man's HP was close to full. This, though, started to change as the man got more and more tired, and after some point, the man jumped backwards, widening the space around them.

His body gave a golden glow, and Maxwell was surprised to see some of the man's stamina returning as his body once again moved fluidly.

"What even is your class? How can you last so long in a physical battle?" the man asked. He was right to be confused, as Maxwell had many wounds all over his body, which should have drained his stamina long ago.

"It's complicated, maybe I will tell if you beat me," Maxwell said, smiling. He really was having fun. There was a certain sense of feedback that close-quarters combat gave, which couldn't be replicated by ranged combat or magic.

The man dashed once again, and this time, Maxwell met the man at the halfway point, dashing himself. He slowly let go of looking normal and started floating in the air with the wind mana, suddenly moving faster than ever, and speed meant more momentum.

They clashed, and Maxwell's momentum was incomparable to what it was before due to his increased speed. The knight's shield seemed impenetrable still, but he was launched backwards with his shield like a ragdoll, crashing into a distant rocky formation near a hill. Maxwell stared at the construct in his hand, surprised that it survived the clash. It seemed that his creations were getting better.

"Ugh," the knight groaned in the distance as he pulled himself out of the rubble. The man was like Gendor in a sense. It was apparent that he had been a knight even before the system initiation, as his movements were too practiced to be learned after the initiation. This was why Maxwell didn't immediately defeat the man with magic. Also, what would be the fun in that?

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"I know you are probably still holding back, but I can't give up without giving my all," the man said, and the glow on his body intensified. Maxwell let the guy do whatever he wanted, as he was curious about what a knight would have as a trump card.

The glow around the knight slowly turned white, and heat started to radiate from the man. The small bruises around his body healed at a visible rate, and Maxwell was surprised to sense that even his soul was covered with the light. If his Drakhabgar personality were a real person, this would be a very hard opponent for him, as his light directly countered darkness.

The knight sent him a challenging look and disappeared from where he was standing, appearing before Maxwell like a mirage. Maxwell almost couldn't block the attack as the man swung at a speed that was hard to track, his sword being a streak of white.

He blocked the blow, but this time he was the one who got launched away. He flew in the direction of the camp, and fortunately, he could change his mana type to earth fast enough to sink into the ground instead of completely demolishing the camp like a meteor. This did mean that he faced an immense amount of friction going through the ground at high speed, though.

When he could finally return to his previous spot, he had around 600 of his HP missing, which was a little more than a quarter of his whole pool. He didn't even realize that his construct had blown up in the conflict, and he couldn't blame it. I probably shouldn't let people charge up in battles.

As he surfaced once more, he was unsurprised to see a sword inches away from his face. He changed his body completely to wind, moving to the side with haste. Even then, the sword scratched him a little on the arm. He quickly turned back to metal, but he didn't have time to recreate his construct. He punched the man on the side, his hand getting burned as it touched the man's armor.

He released the infused mana in his arm with the punch, the impact making a loud gong as the man was once again thrown away. This time, though, he just did a backflip before landing steadily. He glanced at Maxwell's body with a questioning glance. "Are you even human?" he asked.

Maxwell grinned at the man before infusing himself partially with fire, making his body look like liquid metal as two affinities mixed inside his body. Below his feet, a construct appeared, and Maxwell stepped on the construct before using it to fly as if he were using a hoverboard.

As his enemy got stronger, he was starting to take the fight more seriously. A sword appeared in his hand, and he charged at the knight. The knight took a defensive position, and Maxwell swung his sword only to get blocked by the man's shield.

The knight made a victorious grin as he swung his own sword at Maxwell, but he was interrupted by Maxwell's kick connecting with the side of his head from a completely unnatural angle.

Maxwell felt the man's skull crack as the construct below his foot hit the man's head, throwing him to the side violently. Oops, I hope he's still alive, he thought. He got too excited and gave the construct too much mana, causing it to move too fast.

Even before the recent level-ups, Maxwell's metal constructs moved with blinding speeds, and it was no surprise that they would be even stronger now.

He hovered towards the spot where the man was sprawled. The right side of his head was caved in, and his jaw was definitely broken, but he seemed like he was still alive. This was proven when he gazed at Maxwell with exasperation in his eyes. He tried to get up, but he fell down immediately, groaning.

"You.. you kicked me!" he said, as if he couldn't believe what happened. To be fair, Maxwell never used kicks since the start of the battle. The man probably thought that he forgot about kicks because he was a rookie before this.

"I did…" Maxwell replied, and waved his hand, making the rubble around the man float away. The knight watched the rocks float away absentmindedly. He was probably thinking about how he could counter the skill if Maxwell used it in the battle.

Maxwell stared at the man for a second before deciding to do something stupid once more. He imagined light and blood mana flowing into the man, and the world responded as always. The man gave him an astonished look as the mana flowed into him, making the man heal at a visible rate.

Light mana fueled the man's own skill, making him heal even faster, pulling him from the death's door. The man quickly got up and made a boxing stance. "You want to continue?" he asked. He apparently lost his shield and sword when he was flying. Maxwell guessed that the man's consciousness was momentarily gone when he was flying.

Though he didn't see a point in continuing the fight, he supposed a demonstration would do the deed and conclude it.

Romin stared at the weird man with a challenging look as he formed a boxing stance. At least he hoped that he was looking challenging with a caved-in skull.

The kick before was completely unexpected, and he still couldn't believe the force exerted by the weird movement. He had been a knight for almost fifteen years, and every part of his instincts told him that one's body shouldn't be able to move like that.

"You want to continue?" he asked, and the man threw him a weird glance before everything slowed down as one of his skills activated, greatly boosting his perception.

Slowly, an immense amount of mana started to move, and Romin could feel it even with his weak mana sense. Immediately, tens of constructs formed behind the man, and more kept forming. Romin realized these were the same as the sword the man was using before, only now there were tens of them. This was just the start, though.

Condense

The man uttered, and a strange pressure quickly swept through the area as his eyes released a green light for a moment. Romin felt his mind ache as it was struck by the light, and even more mana flowed into the constructs, making them look like real swords with random colors.

He took a defensive stance and prepared to take the attack. His conviction would remain unshaken even if he died here. He focused on the swords and prepared to move when they got launched. Huh? He was startled. Where are the swords? A moment, swords were behind the man and he could clearly see them. In another moment, he was just staring at a lonely man with nothing behind him.

His thoughts were interrupted as from behind him a deafening explosion sound and a shockwave came, throwing him down to his knees. He glanced back, still not understanding the situation.

Where a hill stood before, behind him, now lay a pile of rubble, completely annihilated by the man's attack. He simply couldn't imagine how someone could release an attack like that on their level. On our level? Romin suddenly stopped his thought process. He suddenly remembered that he couldn't see this weird man's level. He smiled with a relaxed expression and turned toward his opponent, glancing at him.

He is not even that old. He thought. Some people were truly monsters.