Merchant Of Yliaster

Proceed with the trade. Maxwell thought, and he felt the world slow down to a familiar crawl. He was not sure when, but at some point, he started to find a certain sense of peace in the slowed-down time.

Now, though, he watched as his soul energy moved by itself, latching onto numerous people around him, forming small strings. Maxwell was used to this at this point, but this time, he concentrated on the memory manipulation aspect.

He watched as his threads entered the souls of numerous people, and he felt the parallel thoughts skill strain for a moment to focus on every single one of them before it failed miserably. His trait, though, did something quite more understanding than Maxwell would ever expect from its indifferent nature.

The soul energy threads fused and formed ten threads before entering the souls of only ten people, making the parallel thoughts able to keep up with the process despite still being strained. It was as if his trait understood that he wanted to watch.

Maxwell concentrated on the threads as they slowly moved inside the souls, targeting the last day's memories. Maxwell wanted to see how the threads would interact with the memories. While he could send and receive memories with his Soul's Dominion, he still failed to understand how these memories were stored. Even back in Zephyr, where he was considered a genius when it came to things about telepathy, he was completely clueless about how etherium interacted with memories.

Now, he watched as soul threads connected at seemingly random spots on the souls of the bandits, and he immediately could see the specific spots on these people's souls going a bit dimmer in his senses. It was as if that part of their soul now had less energy. So, memories give your soul energy? Maxwell couldn't understand how this would work.

The threads unlatched from the first group and latched again onto a different group. Maxwell tried to understand, but he still couldn't see the significance of the points where the strings latched. To his senses, they looked exactly the same as any other space.

This happened once more, and Maxwell was starting to get a feeling that he wouldn't understand anything today. The fourth group only had six people, and Maxwell had more mind capacity to allocate everyone, but still, Maxwell failed to see anything different on the spots where the threads connected. Souls in general just had the shape of the person they belonged to, and Maxwell couldn't understand how some threads pulled memories out by connecting to a finger, for example.

In the end, Maxwell couldn't understand the process, but at least, the process was done. He watched as the threads, now filled with soul energy, moved to the Knight. As the world was in slow motion, all of these happened only in seconds.

Romin was still staring at Maxwell, but his expression at the moment was a bit more relaxed. This immediately changed, as the threads fused to one before impacting something Maxwell could only feel after his soul threads impacted it.

Now that he felt it, he could actually see that this was a thread of mental energy extending to the distance. The energy, though, had traces of some other energy. This was probably something like what Maxwell managed to create by mixing his own mental energy with the darkness energy. Of course, this ability would be system-created.

This energy, though, Maxwell guessed, was responsible for the connection this man had to the king. Maxwell doubted that bonds such as this could be easily detected like this one, but this one was greatly weakened by his dominion as it was. The fact that it could still exist here was a testament to its strength. If his trait didn't reveal it, he wouldn't be able to detect it easily.

He watched as the soul thread he created lost some of its energy as it severed the thread of mental energy. He noted that any leftover mental energy was quickly absorbed by the thread before the bond dissipated. Just like that? It was a bit anticlimactic. The trade was still not done, though, so he waited for his threads to move once more.

He watched as his soul thread started to move from the knight towards the others around the camp, preparing to forge the same bond with the members of the camp. Why not just put a rule in his soul or something? It would be subjective, I suppose, but I think it would work. Maxwell thought. He was surprised when his trait suddenly froze, as the threads of soul energy came to a halt.

Trade modification found acceptable.

Maxwell dumbfoundedly watched as the threads dove back into the knight's body. Maxwell watched as they dissolved slowly, taking the shape of the man's soul. Maxwell could sense the energy as it covered the man's soul like a background.

The energy gave a brief flash before turning into mental energy, diving into the man's soul at the same time in all of its areas. So the modification needs to happen everywhere at once. Wait- Maxwell suddenly understood something.

I'm an idiot. He thought. What he had just seen proved that souls didn't have localized areas that did specific things. It was Maxwell's mistake to examine the soul like an organism. The soul was made of energy, and energy, by definition, didn't have any constructs in it. This gave birth to more questions, but Maxwell was pretty confident that he was on the right track now.

His mana threads from before did nothing complicated, as they just siphoned some energy from the bandits' souls, making them lose the last day of their lives. Maxwell wasn't sure how this would work when it came to deleting specific memories, but he was sure that his trait only used the most optimal course. There was simply no need now to specify memories. I need to experiment more.

Fundamental soul intent injection complete.

Trade concluded.

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Might as well call it brainwashing and be done with it. Maxwell watched as the world once again sped up to its normal speed, his parallel thoughts claiming most of his mind as a reflex as it started to use it on now expanded natural sciences.

He stumbled, as his trait used his resources as far as it could, leaving him terribly tired. Maxwell realized this long before; his trait used his body as much as possible when he was making trades. This was actually beneficial, as he could experience a lot more this way.

While he stumbled, Romin just tumbled to the ground like his strings were cut. His armor made a clanging noise, and the man didn't even make another noise before passing out.

I guess your soul getting reprogrammed as a whole can do that. Maxwell thought. His soul was even more ridiculous than before, so he could immediately feel himself recovering from the fatigue.

After a delay, the bandits too started to fall down one by one. Maxwell figured they would get better soon.

All around the camp, people were staring at Maxwell, as they couldn't see threads from before. This situation was starting to become a common thing, as people couldn't really sense souls, and most of the things Maxwell did were related to them.

He could see Tom near his hut, but the boy too seemed to be absorbed by the scene, looking at him in awe like the others. Maxwell sighed before sitting on a chair carved by the boy.

"Can some of you carry these guys away? Don't kill them, though." Maxwell said. He hadn't been able to check his notifications for a long time, and he really wanted to. He was pretty sure he got something out of the fight against Romin, too.

While people around the camp started shuffling nervously, he summoned his notifications, and met with a wall of text as they were stacked on top of each other for quite some time.

Guide Mana Leveled Up 91→93

Prima Sense Leveled Up 88→90

Magic Theory Leveled Up 92→95

Myriad Mana Constructs Leveled Up 72→83

Soul's Dominion Leveled Up 7→12

Etheric Duality* Leveled Up 1→8

Elementary Soul Energy Manipulation Leveled Up 37→44

Window Of The Soul Leveled Up 67→71

Mind Of The Merchant Leveled Up 2→3

Physical Resistance Leveled Up 8→16

Athletics Leveled Up 63→66

Parallel Thoughts Leveled up 57→77

Visualization Leveled Up 87→89

Flying Leveled Up 7→18

Gaslighting Leveled Up 18→20

That's a lot to take in, Maxwell thought. This time, the stars were parallel thoughts and flying. Mana constructs, too, received a sizeable level up, and Maxwell was not sure why. He supposed the system took using them as a means for flying as a big thing. He promptly ignored the gaslighting level up.

Skill "Close-Quarters Combat" Acquired.

Close-Quarters Combat: You use your body for combat despite having better means of fighting. Perhaps you should find yourself better hobbies.

Close-Quarters Combat Leveled Up 1→14

I will consider that. Maxwell thought, smiling. One could always trust the system to be sarcastic. Maxwell could imagine this skill fusing with athletics in the future.

Title Acquired: Unpredictable Fighter, Memory Thief

Unpredictable Fighter:

Your fighting style makes no sense, as people fail to discern your next moves.

Memory Thief:

You steal people's memories when they are inconvenient for you. Remember that some things leave traces behind.

Is this a warning from the system? Maxwell was surprised to see the notification. He knew that etherium interacted directly with the soul, so it made sense that some traces would remain in someone's brain. But he doubted that they would be that important. From what he understood, without the soul, the brain was just hardware. It was still an important point to consider, though. This title, though, would probably give him a skill about memories in the next skill selection.

Romin - Knight of Radiance - Level 27 defeated. Experience rewarded.

The last notification was simple enough, as it was just the system acknowledging his win against the man. He watched as the people in the camp carried the unfortunate guy to a bed nearby. He seemed healthy, so Maxwell was not really worried about the man.

"Chirp?" Blueberry asked from beside him, noticing his glance.

"He is not a pet. Why are you so obsessed with this?" Maxwell asked, sending his amusement through the link with the message.

"Chirp." The bird answered righteously.

"How do you need underlings? Nothing here can really harm you anyway." Maxwell asked the bird, smiling at her antics. This made him remember the former title he received. He had better check out Felix soon. Maxwell didn't want to find a crater instead of the Nest when he returned.

He got up and turned to Tom before speaking.

"I will be going. If anything happens, Romin can help you without a problem. He is no longer bound to the king," he said. He had places to be and tasks to turn in. "Do you want to stay here?" he asked Blueberry, and received an affirmative chirp. The bird seemed to enjoy being seen as a saviour.

"Just like that?" Tom said, looking at him strangely. He didn't seem to comprehend how someone would help others without expecting anything in return.

"Just like that. If you want to repay me or something, you can try to increase the average level of the camp population. Initiation is an opportunity for these people, so make them use it." Maxwell said. He was not entirely honest about his intentions, though. Anyone with an eye could see that this could be considered a rebellious organization, and Maxwell didn't find the idea very bad.

If he really needed to enter politics and become a noble, he might as well pick a side that was more aligned with his morals. He threw the mind fruit Blueberry picked up from the forest to the bird, as he supposed her level was now high enough to consume the fruit without something bad happening. Her appetite made him assume she could safely eat it.

His form slowly turned ethereal, and he was carried away by wind mana, flying into the distance, leaving an excited bird and an awed boy behind.