Merchant Of Yliaster

Maxwell landed in front of The Nest, softly, and let the wind mana disperse from his body. It had been a long but very fun journey here. Flying with the wind mana was truly an amazing experience, as it made the whole thing really pleasant to experience.

He could immediately see that the surrounding buildings seemed emptier than normal. He walked into the building, the organizer giving him a nod as he passed by.

So, Felix didn't eat anyone. That's good. He thought as he walked toward the elevator. He could see with his dominion and prima sense that the number of strong people in the building had increased. This probably meant that something really happened, and this something caused Rodricks to tighten security.

The elevator dinged, and he was relieved to see the familiar floor before him, Nesha being on the center, while Devon was drinking a drink like always. There was something different, though, as Nesha had Felix beside her. Maxwell observed them all to see how they progressed. Also, why the fuck Felix was so big? The dog was almost two times the size Maxwell had last seen him.

Devon - Brawler - Level 25

Nesha - Chef - Level 24

Felix - Puppy - Level 21

What? He was speechless seeing the level of the dog. It made no sense for it to level in a building with this speed. He figured others didn't bother observing the dog, but this made Maxwell realize what happened to the intruder almost immediately. He took a deep breath and moved toward the counter, not letting his thoughts show on his face.

He sat beside Devon, nodding. "You level fast," he commented, receiving a wide-eyed stare, before the man let out a booming laugh. After a few seconds, he could recover enough to speak.

"You truly observed me? You really are mysterious, friend." Devon said, sounding awed. Maxwell could also see that the man was behaving a bit differently compared to before. He seemed more present somehow.

"Did something happen?" Maxwell asked, looking around. Nesha was particularly busy, and there were a few more customers, one of them being a mage this time. Unfortunately, their level was too low for them to be interesting to Maxwell.

"There was a break-in, but we couldn't find the person responsible. I could feel them for a brief second, but they disappeared completely like the ground swallowed them." Devon said, sipping his drink thoughtfully. "The direction I felt the intruder was close to Nesha's room." He added, and he didn't need to continue. It was apparent from the hardness in the usually goofy man's eyes that he took his sister's safety seriously.

"Tightening the security should be enough," Maxwell lied as he glanced at Nesha. The woman looked the same as always.

"I hope so, if it's not, I will deal with it myself," Devon said, smiling as if he were imagining the scenario.

Maxwell let the man wander in his own imagination for a while and quickly sent a thought to Nesha.

"I assume the intruder didn't simply disappear?" He asked, and Nesha turned to him with a strained but still amused look.

"You should really tell people if you leave monsters with them," she answered, but Maxwell was pretty sure that the woman hadn't seen Felix's real form. Her thoughts simply didn't have the intensity they would have if she had. Telepathy was really useful when it came to things like this, when you were the more experienced side.

"Well, they wouldn't take him then, wouldn't they?" he asked, smiling. The woman just shook her head exasperately as if she couldn't believe his answer.

Felix, who was sleeping all this time, seemed to realize that something was going on, and he opened his eyes. He glanced around for a second before finally spotting Maxwell, and to his surprise, let out a whimper as he started running toward him.

The dog approached the counter from the inside and jumped into Maxwell's embrace like a missile. The only reason they didn't fly through the wall was Maxwell's dominion, as he put his everything into telekinesis to just slow down the dog enough to not launch him backwards.

"So you got stronger?" He sent the dog, and received a feeling of pure happiness as an answer. Maxwell was surprised that the feeling felt more like a human emotion this time. Apparently, the dog was developed mentally, too, when he was away. "Show me the person you ate." he sent, and the dog was surprisingly quick to understand him. Maxwell had a feeling that Felix just didn't want to bother with thinking, but was capable of it.

Soon, he had an image in his mind, but the perspective was a bit interesting. Was he sleeping on Nesha's bed? He didn't expect Nesha to like Felix so much. In the image, he could see a man standing over the bed, and it was apparent that the man's intentions were not good. Maxwell was not sure about the man's level, but considering Felix's increased level, it wouldn't be really low.

"Can you show me how you ate him?" he asked the dog, and soon he was sipping his drink with a disturbed face. Felix's actual nature was truly terrifying. This telepathic exchange also made him think of something. Considering that the Etheric Bond was so malleable, Maxwell wanted to try to extend the bond to Felix, too.

The long-distance communication he managed to perform with Blueberry couldn't be ignored, as it was too useful. And he was a bit curious if Etherium would change the dog's soul even further, like it did to Blueberry.

Maxwell sent the appearance of the intruder through the link with Nesha. "This was your intruder," he said, as a random drink landed in front of him. He carefully isolated any signs of the terrible sight he had seen just now.

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"Looks like one of the assassins from the Civil Militia. I'm surprised they took the job despite knowing Devon was here," the woman replied, her features relaxing a little.

"Civil Militia?" Maxwell asked curiously. The name didn't give him a good feeling at all.

"They are a glorified assassin organization. They do other things too, like thievery and kidnapping, but they mainly just kill people for a price." Nesha said.

"I guess the kingdom just allows them to be?" Maxwell asked. This kingdom was one of the most corrupt places he had ever seen. He was involved in politics back on Zephyr, but the rise of Etherium greatly inhibited corrupt politicians' ability to lie back then. Even the most corrupt countries on Zephyr were still fair on the surface.

"In theory, no. Practically, yes. Authorities kill any militia members if they catch them on the job, but the whole point of the job is not getting caught, so they don't face much of a problem. They don't get raided, for example, and even have a headquarters in the capital." Nesha sent him. I should probably tell Gendor about them.

He was not sure why, but Maxwell was slowly getting the urge of trying to fix this fucked up planet. Maybe I had had enough of a vacation? He had been feeling this shift in his mentality for quite some time now, and he suspected that it started when he first entered the city borders.

The recovering city was too familiar for him to completely ignore the events in it. Also, the censorship of knowledge was something he couldn't ignore, no matter how he tried. He was usually apathetic towards such things, but ever since he visited the library, there was a strange feeling inside him. If anything, this feeling would be the reason he finally made his move.

After living with stress for many years, his life now felt strangely empty. Having a purpose once again wouldn't be so bad, he felt. Also, this time, he was pretty sure that the danger level was a lot lower compared to the desperate odds he faced back in his old life.

Putting Gendor in the civil militia, Bob in the military, and himself, or more accurately, Drakhabgar, in the mercenary guild would give him a secure grip on every aspect of the kingdom. He was pretty sure that neither Bob nor Gendor would remain as underlings for long after all.

"You look like you are planning something disastrous," Nesha said, looking at him questioningly.

"I wouldn't call it disastrous… maybe," he replied. If he became a noble through the system, and killed the king to take the throne or something, would it be disastrous? He supposed it would be. Before doing something like that, though, it would be better to get to know the king. Some leaders were prisoners of their positions after all.

Also, there was a threat of Radam on the horizon. He found himself not very bothered by this fact, as he didn't have enough time in the ship to truly hate the man, but it was apparent that the world would be a bad place if the man managed to control it.

As it was, Maxwell doubted that he could, but he was a bit concerned about there being proper scientists with classes catered towards doing science. That would mean these people would soon have the means of technology on their side, and their tech would be much more advanced compared to a medieval world in which even access to knowledge about technology is limited.

Maxwell didn't want to imagine a fully effective nuke in this world. However, he was also pretty sure that the magic would have a response ready in case those ever came into being. The order the system wanted to create wouldn't make any sense otherwise, as it would be shattered by uncontrolled technological advancements.

Maxwell took the last sip of his drink before getting up. He actually wanted to eat too, but he had things to do now. He had an idea to enter the rifts faster, and had a deadline approaching. He suspected that different noble ranks would have different level requirements, so he was curious how far he could go up the chain if he made his level truly high.

"Thanks for taking care of Felix," he sent to Nesha, preparing to move. He was surprised as the woman's face fell as if she had received very sad news.

"Oh, you are taking him away?" Nesha asked, sadness radiating from the message.

"Unfortunately, he needs to level up, too, you see," Maxwell replied sincerely. He truly planned to leave the dog with Blueberry so that they could level up together when he was off being Drakhabgar. While the bird could hide herself in her mind, he doubted Felix would want to, even if he could.

"I understand. You can leave him here whenever you want," the woman said hopefully.

Maxwell smiled, hearing the response. To see a cold woman like this quickly gripped by a dog's cuteness was funny. "I will be sure to bring him from time to time, don't worry." He replied. Was that some redness he was seeing on the woman's face?

"Thanks," the woman replied out loud, making Maxwell and many onlookers confused. Fortunately, Nesha has been using telepathy on many people these last few days, so it was not as weird as before.

Maxwell said goodbye to thoughtful Devon, not really explaining anything to the man. He was pretty sure that if he did, the man would get suspicious of him, too, in his overprotectiveness. He was soon outside the nest with Felix on his arm like before. The dog, though, was almost too big for the position now.

He floated slowly before moving towards the camp, making the dog bark excitedly. He seemed to enjoy flying. When they were out of the city borders, Maxwell landed on the ground before preparing to try the thing on his mind.

He felt for the etheric bond and tried to see how it was different from his normal soul channels for it to be so long. For one, his usual soul channels were made of usual mental energy, but this channel contained a little bit of soul energy he didn't realize before. Maxwell was not sure what this caused, but it made it very hard to create another bond without any system assistance. He still couldn't handle the soul energy itself very skillfully.

Instead, he decided to try something else. Similar to the time he used the bond to create a long-distance soul channel with Blueberry, he focuses on the bond. This time, he imagined it splitting into two, and surprisingly, he found that the channel was cooperative with his wishes, albeit the end result was a bit different from what he expected.

He was afraid that the main connection would weaken due to this, but that didn't seem to be the case. Instead, a small thread split from the bond, and he felt that he could form a different bond using this thread. How is this not a skill? Maxwell questioned. The system still showed the bond in a separate interface, and the interface had no titles or anything. Maybe this is one of the locked functions, like the title system? This theory made more sense to him.

He instinctively could feel that the split part would fuse to the whole if he let his concentration slacken, though, so he quickly got to work. He imagined the split thread of mixed soul and mental energy connecting to Felix, and the bond moved accordingly. It connected to Felix, and he felt the dog accept the bond without a single shred of hesitation. His trust in him was certainly tear-inducing.

The last thing Maxwell expected, though, was to see the dog suddenly dissolve into a mass of green filaments behaving like a fluid, as he felt a strange mind connect to his own.