Merchant Of Yliaster

Three people stood beside a walled-off section inside the forest. The wall was made of smooth stone, suggesting that a mage created it by manipulating stone, and it had an aura of efficiency. No decorations or anything could be seen on the wall.

"So, this is the rift?" Darve asked, looking at the soldier beside him. The said soldier looked particularly unhappy about being their guide, as he sent nervous glances at Maxwell, who was standing beside Darve silently, looking at the wall.

"Yes, sir," the soldier said, mindful of the way he addressed Darve as the young man was one of the most important people in the city.

"How do we enter?" Darve asked, and received a nervous glance.

"By jumping over the wall, sir," the soldier said helplessly, and Maxwell almost broke character when he tried to stop his laughter. Darve just stared at the soldier in disbelief for a few seconds before jumping up to the wall without saying anything.

Maxwell, meanwhile, just floated up and landed beside him under the soldier's awed glance. He could see many soldiers hidden inside the forest, so the rift was protected despite its ridiculous appearance.

It was now in plain sight before them, and Darve was checking it out with interest, trying to glimpse what kind of terrain lay beyond the crack in reality.

Maxwell found the scene nostalgic. The rift was essentially a crack in reality with purple borders, and Maxwell could see a sandy terrain on the other side. It looked exactly the same as the ones on Zephyr if he ignored the immense concentration of space mana around the rift. There were also some other mana types in abundance, too, suggesting that the creation of a rift was not so simple. Somehow, that was not very surprising.

"You brought water?" He asked Darve who was still checking out the rift. The man was startled by the sudden question, as Maxwell had been silent for almost an hour at this point.

"Oh, yes. They said they could see a desert through the rift, so I brought a lot of water." Darve said. While they didn't need water most of the time, Maxwell doubted that the desert would be a simple desert. It was better to be sure.

"Let's go then, my creepy bodyguard," Darve said, and jumped off the wall dexterously. Maxwell, meanwhile, was busy sending the location to Blueberry. This time, he included an actual memory of arriving in the location, as he didn't want Blueberry to enter all the rifts this time.

Maybe the bird would manage to follow him into the rift. He was pretty sure that the bird would manage to get inside undetected.

After he was done sending the message, he floated down and followed Darve, who was stepping into the rift without a second of consideration. The young man was too excited for his own good.

As they stepped through the narrow crack in reality, Maxwell could immediately feel a wave of hot air striking him. It was immediately apparent that this was definitely not a normal desert, as the hotness was just something else.

"What the fuck!" Darve screamed, immediately starting to sweat. Unfortunately, though, his sweat evaporated immediately after leaving his body.

"Will you be okay?" Maxwell asked the young man with some sincere consideration. If Darve couldn't handle the environment, he would need to return with him, after all.

"I'm fine, this will be uncomfortable as fuck," Darve answered, taking out a bottle of water. Maxwell supposed he should warn the man to ration his water, but he supposed he had a lot anyway, considering that Darve's brother was the one who made the space rings.

He himself felt pretty fine, as his body was mostly made of darkness at the moment. Whatever physical side he had was also covered by darkness, and while the element was draining his mana slowly because of the immense amount of light shining on them, it was not beyond his regeneration.

Still, he did something, feeling pretty smart about it. The inner side of his clothes morphed slowly and formed five reduction runes on his arms, legs, and torso. He slowly infused them with fire mana, and he could immediately feel the heat almost completely disappear.

Actually, he could definitely feel that the heat was disappearing way too much, as his clothes started to stiffen with a layer of frost. He didn't expect the rune to be so effective. He toned down the runes for a couple of seconds as Darve examined the terrain with interest.

When he was done with the runes, he joined the man, glancing around in interest. In every direction he gazed, he could only see sandy dunes with weird gray plants littered on them. He could see no animal or anything, but he doubted that there wouldn't be any around. Otherwise, the rift would be quite pointless.

"Three parties went in before us, and not one of them returned. We'd better be careful," Darve said, giving him a piece of information he probably should have received long ago.

He checked around with his dominion and was surprised when he felt that his dominion had shrunk. So this world has more mana infused? He guessed. His dominion was only a hundred and fifty meters in every direction at the moment. Above the ground, there was nothing interesting apart from some small buried animals hiding in the sand, proving his theory that there were animals around, but the same couldn't be said about the ground below.

Below the sands, Maxwell could see numerous stationary creatures. They were not making even the most minute movement, so they were probably ambushers. They looked like fish, but Maxwell couldn't understand how they managed to move with such a body. They probably used something like his earth mana duality.

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"There are creatures under the ground," he said, and Darve looked at him, puzzled as a response. "There are?" he said, squinting at the ground, not being able to see anything.

Maxwell observed the creatures using his dominion to get a sense of their level.

Desert Trapfish - Level 24

Desert Trapfish - Level 28

Sun Octopus - Level 29

Is this a desert or a sea? Maxwell was dumbfounded. Even the levels of the creatures were not low. "Their levels are pretty high. Some are higher than you." Maxwell added, and Darve made a weird face hearing this.

It was not surprising that the previous parties were all dead; Maxwell was not sure who could fight these animals except for a few people he knew.

"Can you bring one of them up? We'd better get a taste of their strength while we are still close to the rift," Darve said, and Maxwell couldn't help but get surprised by the logical idea. He was starting to think most people around him were devoid of logic.

He nodded and grabbed the low-level trapfish with his telekinesis, feeling it wriggling as it felt the foreign influence. With a mental yank, he pulled the fish out before dropping it on the sand beside Darve. The young man was quick to draw his sword, and the fish soon had a blade of wind travelling towards it.

Something unexpected followed, as the fish finally touched the sands, but it did not stay above them like they expected. The giant sandy-looking fish was immediately submerged in sand, and Maxwell could see it travel towards Darve with speed one wouldn't expect from its level, completely dodging the wind blade.

Darve, though, seemed to have better battle sense than his normal senses, as he didn't waste time starting his blade dance, launching blade after blade to the ground. Soon, the sand before him turned blue with strange colored blood, and the animal was dead, minced into many parts by the rain of blades.

"Well, that was unexpected," Darve said, sheathing his blade while scratching his head with his other hand.

"That was level 24," Maxwell helpfully added. Fortunately, the animals seemed not to care about their friends, or they would be facing numerous fish right now.

"Thanks for the encouragement," Darve said. "Can you point out their locations?" He asked Maxwell, making him concentrate for a second before creating ten small balls of darkness. Three of the balls flew out and floated just above the creatures under the sand.

"That's where they are," Maxwell said, as Darve looked at him in surprise.

"Are you sure you are not a scout or something? How do you sense them so clearly?" he asked, but gave up after seeing Maxwell stare at him silently.

They started to walk towards the horizon, and Maxwell kept moving the balls of darkness around him to pinpoint the enemies. While he still hadn't seen something worth killing, if the average level were this high, he was sure that he would find something that could give him levels soon enough.

They moved through the desert for almost an hour, but the environment refused to change. In the end, they stopped on top of a dune to consider what to do. Darve seemed disappointed by the experience, as all they could see was sand and more sand, but Maxwell was pretty sure this was not all this world had to offer.

It was not hard to see that this desert behaved more like a sea they could walk on, and everyone knew that the depths were more dangerous in the sea. Now, knowing that was good and all, but Maxwell couldn't see how he could travel with Darve into the depths below.

"There are probably stronger beasts below the ground," he said to Darve. And as he expected, the man made a frustrated expression hearing this. "And how can we go there? Can you go down?" he asked, and Maxwell could see where this was going.

"Yes," he answered simply. While he could see the spoiled child in Darve slowly surfacing, he still wanted to fight some strong beasts.

"Okay, can you find something strong and lure it here? Then we can fight." Darve said. And Maxwell stared at the man for a couple of seconds before his form slowly got submerged in the sand below him. He found that submerging himself in the sand was much easier compared to dirt, and he could do it even without utilizing any earth mana. Just darkness was enough.

He dodged weak creatures and travelled downward for around a hundred meters until he felt something interesting. He could feel that there was a cave system below him, and it was not even small. He could sense numerous tunnels connected to each other, and Maxwell could sense even more as he moved towards the network.

Close to the network of tunnels, he could also sense some trapfish with higher levels, but Maxwell didn't have a way to bring these up without waking up the whole kingdom of these animals.

Desert Trapfish - Level 36

Hmm, Maxwell thought before he lost the battle against his greed. Tendrils of shadows started to move towards the fish, and it, too, seemed to have realized there was something wrong. It was already too late, though. The animal tried to dodge the tendrils, but it was gripped by numerous tendrils before it could escape.

Maxwell watched as the beast released a strange vibration, immediately breaking some of the tendrils of shadows, but even more immediately showed up as he summoned them directly from his body. He gave the mana a command to only absorb the creature's mana, and leave the body unharmed. He had plans for that.

He watched as the presence of the fish slowly diminished as his mana was absorbed by numerous tendrils. Maxwell was only five levels lower than the beast, and this was not a high enough level difference for the fish to show any meaningful resistance. Soon, it was dead with a completely intact body, but Maxwell didn't stop there.

He immediately used Soul Imbuement on the body of the creature, directing the skill towards the beast's core he could feel. Since this was not his creation, he knew the result would only be mediocre, but this was the only method he could think of to bring Darve to the caves below.

A green light flashed over the fish's body, and it started to show fresh signs of life. It was moving a bit weirdly, as if it was not sure what kind of body this was, but Maxwell hoped that the trace of soul inside its beast core would be enough to guide the newly born construct. He observed it.

Desert Trapfish - Level 25

So it dropped in levels, but is it still considered a beast? Maxwell was surprised to see that the beast was still considered as such. Maybe it was due to the completely compatible core and body, but this opened a sea of possibilities for his creations in the future.

Myriad Mana Constructs Leveled Up 86→87

Soul Imbuement Leveled Up 21→28

He quickly dismissed the notifications, as he failed to level up from the kill, and commanded the beast below to move towards him.

The fish clumsily moved, and Maxwell was pretty sure that the pressure was too much for it to be fast with its reduced strength, but it was still better than nothing. He guided the fish to the surface. Now, all of their problems would be solved as long as Darve accepted being gobbled up by a fish with hundreds of sharp teeth. Only temporarily, of course.