Maxwell liked this new satchel a lot. 20 times the original space was a lot, even when the original satchel was pretty small. He could store many things in a space like that. Also, the tier of the thing suggested that it was very close to tier 3.

  Maxwell had been working on the satchel for almost 40 minutes now, and he could see Bob back in the fitness area he created.

  ‘’Was there any problem with the guy?’’ He asked him. He was lifting a weight almost bigger than himself as he answered:

  ’’No, No, He was getting a bit twitchy at some point, so I hit him softly, after that, it was good.’’ Bob said nonchalantly.

  ‘’Did you receive a notification? Maxwell asked in helplessness. Maybe he could give this boy some intelligence by trading the boy’s new trait.

  ’’No, I didn’t. What am I, an idiot?’’ Bob said, and Maxwell could swear that he saw a twitch on the corner of the boy’s mouth.

  ‘’Are you by any chance making fun of me?’’ He asked the boy in suspicion.

  ’’What? Of course not.’’ The boy said, but he could see the twitch much more clearly now. He sighed before sitting on the nearby bench to check his notifications.

  Prima Sense Leveled Up Lvl-45→47

  Guide Mana Leveled Up Lvl-55→58

  Mana Infusion Leveled Up Lvl-42→48

  Magic Theory Leveled Up Lvl-32→37

  Meditation Leveled Up Lvl-43→46

  Soul’s Voice Leveled Up Lvl-44→45

  Skill ‘’Runic Formations’’ Acquired

  Runic Formations: The world of magic is complex to traverse. With the help of the runic language, one can form mana into shapes that result in specific effects.

  Maxwell was delighted to see this new skill, as he suspected that this was one of the puzzle pieces he was missing all this time. He never understood how he could create specific effects with the mana he was controlling until now.

  Mana affinities had certain qualities, but his class didn’t give him any skill to actually materialize anything. He was still not sure how he could create something, but this was a step in the right direction, he felt.

  The system probably automated this for the normal class skills like his mana bolt skill, but his class seemed to expect him to figure out everything by himself in exchange for giving him the ability to guide all mana types.

  People probably had skills granting them these abilities, and maybe even the runes themselves. He would need to create them by himself at least for the first time.

  His visualization was really strong, and he could clearly imagine the space rune he saw just now. He imagined the space rune in the air in front of him and filled it with space mana as an experiment.

  This turned out to be a bad idea, as suddenly he heard a loud pang as air rushed into the new space. Immediately after this, he watched as the rune he created destabilized and simply dissolved. This by itself didn’t cause anything. But now, there was way too much air in the same space.

  Maxwell, even in the slowed-down world, felt himself slowly levitate off the ground as he faced the air particles rushing at him. He was launched backwards at a respectable speed and crashed into a wall of rock nearby their cave.

  Luckily, the wall was not infused and absorbed some of the impact by helpfully shattering.

  Maxwell stayed on the ground for a couple of seconds, not being able to think due to his brain rattling inside his skull. When he could finally form a coherent thought, he could feel that his body was broken in more than one place.

  I probably shouldn’t play with magic I don’t understand, Maxwell thought as he tried to infuse some blood mana into himself. He was a bit careful this time as he didn’t want to make himself explode from excess mana. After a minute of gradual infusion, he stopped.

  Vitality is increased by 90 for 2 minutes.

  It was not a very high increase, considering his body was taking only half of the vitality for regeneration, but his soul was insanely high anyway. He could feel that he was already getting better, but he also knew he wouldn’t be able to move properly for some hours.

  He could see Bob moving towards him in the distance. He stopped resisting and fainted.

  When he woke up, he could see that he was inside the cave. He lifted his hand to see if he could move, and everything seemed to be fine. Bob was sitting beside him, and his movement quickly drew his attention.

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  ‘’Are you okay?’’ He asked. Maxwell noted that the boy was not really concerned. Concern was a type of fear after all.

  “I seem to be fine,” Maxwell said in half surprise. Considering the state of his body before passing out, he was surprised that he could heal completely without medical attention.

  “How much did I sleep?”

  “Around a day. You were really bad at the start, but you got better quickly in the first couple of minutes. After that, you just slept.” Bob answered. Maxwell was unsure why the 90 vitality he infused affected his recovery so much at the start, but he would experiment with that later. He summoned the system interface to see what he had gained from this stupid experiment.

  Runic Formations Leveled Up Lvl-1→7

  Guide Mana Leveled Up Lvl-58→59

  Blunt Trauma Resistance Leveled Up Lvl-4→20

  Magic Theory Leveled Up Lvl-37→41

  Visualization Leveled Up Lvl-30→32

  It turns out that breaking most of the bones in your body could grant you a lot of resistance. He got a fast start with the runic formations, too, but he would much prefer a slower introduction.

  “Chirp! Chirp!” a blue blur entered the cave and landed on Maxwell’s head. Maxwell felt a rush of telepathic messages filled with concern coming. He petted the bird with his finger.

  “I’m okay, don’t worry,” he told the concerned bird. He was surprised by the bird. He didn’t expect the bird to connect to him this strongly after such a short length of time.

  Did you find any prey? I slept for a day. It would be good to see some action, he sent to Blueberry. He was also curious if the bird managed to use its telepathy like he suggested.

  “Chirp.” Blueberry chirped affirmatively and took off. Maxwell wanted to gain some levels quickly so that he could search for the puppy he had seen in the memories of the mercenary. He was really curious, but he still didn’t want to die facing a beast a lot stronger than he was.

  He started following Blueberry and noted that Bob was following him.

  “Can you just watch this time? I want to try fighting by myself.” He asked the boy.

  “Sure. But you do the same when I fight,” the boy answered. Maxwell accepted it as it was only fair.

  What is the prey? He asked Blueberry mentally. He was answered with an image as before. He could see a tiger in the image. It was travelling from the south, probably running away from whatever beast was making that place deserted.

  Soon, they were close to the area where Bluebird first saw the tiger. Maxwell once again turned up his senses to avoid getting ambushed. He still didn’t have a sensing skill that was more catered towards detecting enemies, but Prima Sense could work in that direction to a degree.

  Soon, he could see a roughly tiger-shaped mana mass among the trees. Before they could position themselves, though, he detected a sudden movement towards their right. A blurry black figure suddenly appeared as it pounced on Bob, pushing the boy inside the trees.

  I couldn’t detect it until the last second. Maxwell thought in surprise. It seemed that Bob would get his fight sooner than he expected. He watched Bob as the boy got slowly pushed into the forest in his slowed-down world.

  It was unsettling to watch the boy in situations like this, as he was smiling excitedly. Apparently, what was attacking him was another tiger, which was pure black.

  Maxwell figured that it specialized in stealth. If it wanted to fight Bob face to face, it was in for a surprise if that was the case. He stopped paying attention to Bob and turned to the other figure among the trees. He could see that it was approaching him really fast.

  Soon enough, it leaped directly towards him from the thick forest and landed in front of him. It started to circle Maxwell, weighing him. Maxwell observed the animal.

  Bloodstained Tiger - Lvl-28

  This would be a hard fight all right. Maxwell was starting to become puzzled about where all the beasts with middling levels were. Everything they fought seemed to be in the high 20s.

  His thoughts got interrupted when the tiger started to let out a red glow as its muscles grew in size. It stopped moving for a second before directly pouncing on Maxwell.

  Maxwell responded by quickly creating a wall of metal mana and throwing the wall towards the beast like a shield. They met in the air with a loud sound, and the beast was pushed away a bit, apparently not expecting such a weird attack.

  Maxwell imagined arrows forming with metal mana on their tip behind him. He didn’t care about the other parts of the arrows, as any mana would do. About 30 arrows formed behind him, and he started sending them towards the tiger in groups of three.

  As the tiger dodged the first trio, he sent the other in the opposite direction. To the tiger’s credit, it could dodge around four groups of arrows before actually getting hit by one of them. It let out a growl as an arrow made a gash along the side of its body before exploding.

  Maxwell didn’t let this go to waste, and he continued to send his remaining arrows. When he ran out of arrows to fire, the tiger had five gashes from different arrows. Maxwell realized something weird, though. The blood coming out of the tiger seemed to increase the red light around it.

  Proving his theory, the tiger once again pounced on him, and this time, the wall he sent towards it was pierced through without much resistance. The tiger clawed at him at a speed that he was sure he wouldn’t be able to dodge, so he decided to answer in kind.

  He infused his hand and punched the tiger with a mana burst. Both the animal and himself were launched in different directions with immense speed as a result. Maxwell once again felt some his bones break as he found himself in a tree trunk. He checked his health to see that he only had half of it remaining.

  The tiger, on the other hand, was shaking its body as if it was trying to come to its senses in the distance. One of its paws was mangled pretty badly from Maxwell’s mana burst, but Maxwell could see that it was even stronger because of the injury. The animal was similar to Bob in a sense.

  He knew that he wouldn’t beat this beast without taking any risks. The best way would be to kill it with a single hit, but Maxwell was not sure how he could do that. He watched as the animal once again charged at him. In a show of skill that surprised even himself, Maxwell managed to launch himself upwards with a mana burst from his feet, managing to dodge the beast.

  While he was flying over the beast, he created a spear below him and launched it at the beast’s back. It left a painful-looking wound before dispersing, and he landed on the ground. He was welcomed by a claw as the beast turned around at a speed faster than he could react to.

  He was once again launched backwards, feeling blood spreading on his chest. He was grateful that he only took one claw due to the momentum, throwing him away as he got up from yet another toppled tree.

  The tiger was not giving him any time to recover, though, as he could see it running towards him with immense speed.