Merchant Of Yliaster

Tom's father used to say that he was a pretty talented woodworker, but Tom always took the compliment with a grain of salt, as it was only natural for his father to compliment his son.

Now, he was watching the other camp residents build wooden houses, and he was starting to think that his father was not exaggerating. Everywhere he looked, he could only see badly cut wooden planks with chips and uneven surfaces, and every single piece of woodwork around the camp just made his brain ache when he looked at them.

It was to a degree that he tried to do everything by himself first, but that proved impossible pretty quickly as he was buried under so much work in the last day that he couldn't even eat properly.

As he was squinting at a nearby resident who was trying to do his work while he was getting a staredown, he started to hear something weird. It was like a whizzing noise, as if something was moving through the air at high speed. He immediately glanced at Blueberry, alarmed that this could be a strong creature. The bird seemed calm, though, as it stared in the direction from which the noise was coming.

Soon, a blur entered his field of vision, and Blueberry's master suddenly came to a stop before him. He glanced around for a moment before doing a thumbs-up with his hand, still hovering above the ground.

"Good job with the… whatever this place is. Here is a new friend," the man said, and tossed him something yellow. That something apparently also barked, and Tom found himself staring at a very curious-looking golden puppy on his arm.

He glanced up to ask what he was supposed to do with a puppy, but he was dumbfounded to see that the man was already gone. Why was he so loud before if he could move quietly? He thought, before glancing back down at the puppy to see that it was still looking at him curiously.

Now that he was over his surprise, Tom could actually see something. This puppy was really cute.

Maxwell chuckled as he landed in the forest near the city. Tom's expression before was too funny not to laugh at.

As he chuckled, his mask slowly started to appear on his face directly from his soul space, and his chuckles gained a creepy echo, making him cringe immediately.

He turned his body partly into shadow before continuing on his journey back to the city. His form flew a couple of centimeters off the ground, and shadows got dragged with him as he passed them by.

Duality skill's applications were truly limitless, but for now, the best element for it was still darkness, as he got boosts to the element from his mask and the compendium.

He tried some other elements with the skill, but any element not getting boosted by compensium had a lower rate when he was turning his body into the element. Even with the first level of recording, the difference was huge.

He was not sure if he should focus on darkness and his own elements or get many to level one, but focusing on some really useful ones made more sense in the short term.

He was really curious what space mana would do, for example, but he refrained from using it due to his previous violent encounters with the element. Turning your body into space without having good control over the element sounded like a bad idea.

Soon, he was back before the mercenary guild building, but this time, he wanted to check some things out. He entered one of the numerous shops around the guild and was not surprised when he saw the clerk in the shop looking at him like he had seen a ghost.

The shop he chose was a simple-looking one with various trinkets on display, so he thought it would be a good place to see what kind of things people had in this city. He was particularly interested in the storage artifact the mercenary Gray used.

He ignored the man momentarily and observed the artifacts on the display. Most of them were tier 1, as forging an artifact of your tier was probably hard for the average crafter, but there were some interesting things.

There was a tier 2 fire affinity staff and a chestplate that gave protection against magic. The effects, though, left much to be desired. The fire staff only gave an affinity boost, while the chestplate gave only a minor protection due to its effects being too broad.

"Are there any storage artifacts?" He asked the clerk, still cringing at his voice.

The man didn't seem to acknowledge that he was talking to him first, as he stared at Maxwell's mask with empty eyes for a few seconds before coming to himself with a start.

"S-storage? Oh, storage artifacts!" We have those, sure, sure," the man said, stammering as his brain functions returned.

He dived into the door behind him as if he thought that Maxwell was going to eat him, and soon returned with a small box.

"We have some pouches and rings, but the rings don't have much space." The man said as he placed the box on the counter before opening it.

Maxwell glanced inside, and he could see a row of identical rings and a couple of pouches inside. He could see that the pouches worked exactly the same as his satchel with a simple glance. But he was a bit confused about the rings. He observed one of them.

Storage Ring - Tier 1

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

A space ring crafted in bulk by an artisan with space affinity.

The ring contains a core of space affiniated material which contains a small dimension inside.

How do they even interact with this? This was yet another artifact that could only work due to the interference from the system. While the ring had a separate dimension inside, it didn't exactly have a way to put things in and out. Since they were selling it, though, it apparently could.

He observed the pouch too to see the result it would give.

Expanded Pouch - Tier 1

A crude artifact endowed with an amplification rune utilizing the space element.

The effects will degrade over time.

"Who crafts these?" he asked the clerk, who was watching him carefully.

"These are crafted by one of the young masters of House Leyn, sir. Other artifacts are simply incomparable to his."

No surprise that my satchel is the same, then. Gray probably used a space ring for his bow, but he was pretty sure that his was better, as these rings only had around a quarter cubic meter. You could hardly fit a bow inside a space like that.

He also realized that the system was quite stingy with the types of runes it gave to people. Among the items displayed in the shop, only the chestplate had a rune he didn't know already, while the fire staff also had the amplification rune.

"I will buy that chestplate, also give me a space ring," he said. He would buy the space ring, as this artifact didn't seem to have the same weight limitation as his satchel had. At this point, the weight of the satchel was hardly a problem, but it was still important as it slowed him greatly.

The clerk hurriedly shuffled around before putting the chestplate in a box containing something like straw. It was interesting to see how medieval shops packed things like this.

"No need for a box for the ring," he said, and put the ring on his middle finger. He could see that Clerk was trying not to react, but Maxwell, too, was surprised to see the ring immediately turn pitch black as soon as he put it on.

"That will be ten gold coins, sir," the clerk said, his voice still quivering.

Am I that rich? Maxwell was surprised to hear the price. While he knew that the lower class couldn't see gold in their lifetimes, he still expected things like these to be more expensive. He could also detect no falsehood from the man, but he doubted that with his current looks, anyone would try to scam him.

"Here," he said, giving the man his coins before going out. He bought the chestplate due to it having another rune he could learn from it, and he could upgrade the rune just by infusing the core with space mana. At least, that was his theory. First, though, I had missions to hand in.

He returned to the Mercenary building, entering without wasting time. As soon as he entered, he could see people locking onto him with interest. Some were awed, some were looking at him with challenging eyes, and low-level ones were just terrified.

Maxwell directly moved towards the stairs, and to his surprise, the guard beside the stairs didn't ask for his card, immediately moving to the side. In a way, it felt nostalgic to see people behaving this way.

He was soon back before the cubicles, and he was surprised to see a familiar face. One of the organizers had Erne before him, and they were in a heated discussion about something. This brought questions of privacy to his mind, but he realized that before, Dave had put the missions directly on paper, not really saying anything important about them.

Erne's organizer, though, seemed more enthusiastic about the subject to care about such things.

"That area is probably worth millions of gold coins! What do you mean you want to share the location?" the angry organizer shouted as Erne grimaced.

"I don't need millions of gold coins," he said simply before getting up. Under the shocked glance of his organizer, he started to walk towards the door, sending Maxwell an interested glance. Maxwell observed the guy as he passed by.

Erne - Archer - Level 28

It was a respectable level, and Maxwell could see that people were slowly catching up to him, as there were no higher-level beasts around. He would need to enter a rift soon if he wanted to get a truly good nobility title.

Erne nodded to him, showing no fear, and passed him by, going down the stairs. The discussion before was probably about the field The Traveller infused with random mana, as it contained an innumerable amount of resources. It was admirable for Erne to let something like that go so easily. He doubted Neivor would be interested, so only mercenaries and military personnel knew about the area.

He walked and could see that Dave was behind his tediously tidy table again. The man gave him an appraising look, and he sat on the chair.

"Are you done already?" he said, a trace of surprise in his voice.

"Yes, the bandits were already dead," Maxwell said, still feeling a bit ridiculous about sending Blueberry after the bandits. Even if the bird understood him perfectly, it would still be hard to conceal her involvement, but now, it wasn't worth the effort without a doubt.

"Oh, that sometimes happens. You are lucky, I suppose. Fortunately, the missions offer no refunds, so you will still get paid. I'm more curious about how you handled the ants." Dave said, leaning towards him. The man was really curious.

"They will probably regret not putting a condition of keeping the field fertile," Maxwell said, laughing inside.

"Oh? So, you poisoned them? It makes sense with your abilities, I suppose. Still, having a poison strong enough to kill everything is interesting enough," he said, assuming a lot of things, and helping Maxwell along the way.

"Something like that," Maxwell didn't overly explain the situation. If they checked the field soon, they would understand that that was not exactly what he did to the ants. The important thing was that they were dead.

"I would normally require proof to reward you, but Veterans have some privileges. I will take your word for it and enter the bandit mission as your first mission. That will give you your veteran privileges in a proper way." Dave said, closing his eyes. Maxwell could feel a stream of mental energy and pure mana radiate from the man, travelling to and back into the man's mind from a place behind the cubicles.

So, there is an equivalent of a mental computer back there? The system made interesting things possible for sure. Maxwell knew the guy who designed the World Wide Web back on Zephyr, and the guy had been a genius to even think of the project. With the system, though, they had something similar here already, albeit on a smaller scale. A lot smaller.

"Here is the reward," Dave said, and took two pouches out from a drawer nearby. The man was apparently sure that he would finish his tasks, so he prepared the money beforehand. "200 gold coins for the bandits, and 400 for the ant nest. Pretty good if you ask me." Dave said.

Maxwell, who earned more than a thousand gold coins, found this prospect a bit weird, but it made sense. The zone created by the Traveller was not something usual after all.

"Well, what kind of a mission do you want?" Dave asked the question Maxwell was waiting for.