Merchant Of Yliaster

"How does fire burn?" It was a question with many layers, and one could answer the question on many different levels of depth.

This, though, was an elementary school class, and Maxwell was pretty sure that this was constructed after a real memory of his. Everything around him was familiar, and with his soul attribute, he could vaguely remember getting asked a question like this before when he was a small kid.

He thought for a second, trying to find an answer suitable for an elementary school student.

"It uses oxygen as a fuel?" He said, not being sure if he got the complexity right. It was hard to remember what elementary school education equaled. His teacher, though, seemed to be satisfied, looking at her expression.

"Very good." He said, and started to pace before the whiteboard, apparently preparing for a long explanation.

He approached the board and drew a triangle on it. It was apparent that the man was practiced, as the triangle was suspiciously perfect. He wrote a word on one of the corners. "Oxygen," it said.

"Yes, we found one of the corners thanks to Mr Aurelius. But! There are still two left." The teacher looked at the class expectantly.

Maxwell found the man's enthusiasm respectable. This teacher was one among many in his childhood, but with the eyes he had now, he could see that the man had great potential in teaching.

Unfortunately for him, though. Maxwell was poor in his childhood, and this was just a public school in an equally poor neighborhood.

He watched as silence consumed the classroom, and it was too loud for his teacher at some point.

"Ehem, I guess no one knows? I will teach you then." The man quickly started to fill the other corners.

"We have fuel, of course, whether it is wood or your homework depends on you, though." He said, managing to bring some laughter out of the class.

"And, lastly, but more importantly, we have heat to start everything." He said, and scribbled a small campfire in the center of the triangle.

"Every single one of these is a must for fire to burn, and I think we can draw different shapes for different things. Remember that nothing is completely pure in their accomplishments in life. Everything is a symphony and we are the listeners." The man said, definitely forgetting that this was a classroom filled with 8-year-olds.

Please let it not be that simple… Maxwell thought as he glanced around him at the classroom, reminiscing about the world he lost. He had no long-term friends he made in this period, but he found himself nostalgic nonetheless.

This was, after all, a time that his world was still whole, and not broken like it would be later due to constant attacks.

As he watched, the world around him started to show cracks, as if he were watching it through a mirror. It cracked, a green glow shining through the cracks, and shattered.

Maxwell found himself in his soul space, the compendium shining brilliantly as ever. He blinked, and he was back in the real world.

The world was still in slow motion, as his trait was still not done with the work. With his inflated domain, he could see the cave system slowly absorbed by the system, his soul grabbing them before they inexplicably vanished from the world.

Maxwell noted that the phenomenon was quite different from usual, as it looked more like teleportation instead of disintegration. So, even the system finds these mushrooms unique? He thought. He still had one of the husks in his ring, and he would examine it in the future. Maybe he could create his own Reverend in the future? One could imagine he supposed.

Slowly, the domain shrank, and eventually, only the core region remained. While the creature didn't have eyes in the usual sense, Maxwell felt a mental awareness lock onto him, as Reverend was watching him.

"So I was right in the end. You are no human. You got something out of this? I feel so. You don't feel confused anymore." The Reverend said. Its messages were weaker now, and Maxwell could feel that the creature was not even in tier 3 anymore. Similar to the kings Romin talked about, it seemed to get its power from the habitat it created. At least that was Maxwell's theory. Now that he thought about it, the reason could also be that the creature was literally burning his soul in its last attack.

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"Did I feel confused?" Maxwell asked, feeling his domain shrink back to a kilometer. They only had seconds left now.

"You humans really like to divide the world into small parts, yet nature is rarely simple like that. I would enjoy seeing your interpretation before I pass," it said, and the domain now stood at 700 meters.

Maxwell wouldn't deny a dying soul its last request. It didn't matter that it was a mushroom monster he ruthlessly killed. The human hypocrisy didn't faze him, as this felt right in a twisted way.

He focused, forcefully dividing some control from his trait, and imagined. It was not something he hadn't tried before, yet he had a feeling that this time would be different.

He imagined a brilliant ball of fire above his hand, hovering like a sun, and commanded the mana. He didn't just imagine the looks of the fire, but the way he saw it with his prima sense. He had been trying to create fire using fire mana, but that was the exact thing the mushroom accused humanity of.

Maxwell, while being pretty exceptional in many cases, was essentially only a human. He had seen a world of complexity when he first advanced to tier 2, energies and mana type intertwined with each other, as they moved like a symphony. Yet, as time passed, he couldn't help but think in a simpler way.

Now, he forced himself out of the pattern. The fire burned, yet the mana inside was not only fire. The wind mana came with the oxygen, and a trace of nature mana interacted with the mass as carbon burned.

Mana mirrored reality, and fire was just a byproduct, the fire mana not being the cause, but the end result of a process. A spark was enough to start a fire, yet numerous sparks hardly did anything other than create a brief wave of heat.

Now, though, he imagined, and in a way, deluded himself into believing that he was really seeing the fire before him. Before him, mana moved, mirroring the motions it would go through if there were a real fire. Maxwell felt the mana interact with each other, but there was still something missing. While the mana moved in the same way it would if there was a real fire, there still wasn't one. Simply making the mana move failed to summon the fire.

He didn't give up, though, as he was sure he was on the right track. He knew two things which could create elements from nothing, one of them being the influence of etherium, and one of them being the system. While he was barred from the system's help, he was sure that he could use the abilities of Etherium himself. His duality was proof of that.

The mana moved, and he focused. He activated the soul imbuement skill, the skill giving an almost confused reaction as it was used on nothing. Maxwell, though, didn't need the skill to work. As it activated briefly, Maxwell mentally grabbed the construct the skill created inside his soul, forcefully pulling it out towards the fire he was imagining. No, just the fire.

A shaky thread of soul energy left Maxwell's soul space, this being Maxwell's first time managing to create something similar to the threads his trait created. The thread moved, and while being weak, it was enough as it connected to the fire. As soon as it touched the fire, something seemed to click.

With a sound of crackling, Maxwell felt heat on his hand. A brilliant ball of fire hovered, looking surreal, burning nothing visible, but still existing. In Maxwell's senses, this was hardly the case, as he could see natural energy permeating the fire, forming minuscule molecules for fire to burn using his soul's influence.

He didn't even need to supply the wind mana, as the world had a lot of it anyway. Not that the phenomenon was real, wind mana seemed to flow into the fire without any challenge as if the fire was completely natural.

"You… If you are a human, I will die corrected, as your kind seems to be capable of truth after all. I, Great Phyr, find you worthy of my death," the mushroom said, its voice getting weaker and weaker as Maxwell felt his domain shrink even faster.

Only a second later, the domain reached 250 meters, and the mushrooms around him disappeared like they were illusions all along. Great Phyr, too, vanished, albeit slower than the others, but Maxwell knew that the creature was already dead. The mushroom was dead the moment it lost its home.

World resumed, and Maxwell felt melancholic looking at the now-empty cave. Great Phyr, while it tried to kill him, didn't feel like a bad guy until the end. Seeing it disappear like this was just sad. Maxwell couldn't focus on these emotions for long, though, as his mind was immediately assaulted by multiple notifications.

That wasn't even everything, as he suddenly felt like he was trying to breathe through a straw. He stumbled, barely managing to hold himself up as he tried to understand the problem.

Skill changes detected.

Guide Mana is Reacting.

Mana Infusion is Reacting.

Visualization is Reacting.

Commencing Skill Fusion.

The skill tier is too low to contain advancement.

Fusion into tier two skill commencing.

Skill tier is too low to contain advancement.

Fusion into tier three skill is commencing.

The tier of the user is insufficient.

Calculating.

Skill fusion commencing.

The resulting skill will not level until the user reaches tier 3

With this notification, Maxwell felt the pressure on him decrease as if something was lifted off his shoulders. He groaned, but the notifications didn't stop there.

Unique skill created: The Delusion Of The Guider