It took some time for Maxwell to get his bearings back enough for him to look around in a more human way.

  It was awesome to see pure magic, but his senses were overloaded in such a way that he couldn’t see much else.

  He checked on Bob, and he was surprised to see that the boy was squinting in apparent distress in the air in front of him.

  “Are your options really that bad?” He asked. He didn’t think Bob would get bad options after the things they had done.

  “What's wrong with these options? Every single one except one of them says I’m a rage monster without any rationality and the other one says I'm a coward!” Bob shouted in righteous anger.

  Maxwell slowly blinked and stared at the boy for a couple of seconds before sighing.

  Maxwell sighed. “You know how you are when fighting, right?” He asked.

  “That’s the thing, I don't remember much from any fights I had,” Bob mumbled.

  Maxwell was thoughtful. Maybe the boy had a trait or something.

  When the boy showed crippling fear again and again, he had an idea about what they could do about it. It might be the right time now to try it since they were starting their real paths, in a sense.

  “Wait while I check my notifications, and we will try something, " he said before summoning the system.

  Tier advancement successfully completed.

  Trait: [Partial Etheral Body] awakened.

  Some skills are being readjusted.

  Mana Manipulation→Guide Mana

  Soul Sense→ Prima Sense

  Telepathy→ Soul’s Voice

  …

  Skill “Elementary Soul Manipulation” unlocked.

  That’s a lot to take in. Maxwell thought. The trait probably was about the vitality aspect of the class, he figured before summoning the descriptions of everything new.

  Guide Mana: Basic skill of magic for Prima Soul. Convey to your mana what needs to be done and watch it unfold before your eyes.

  Prima Sense: Take a glimpse of shrouded reality and you shall see that all used to be one.

  Soul’s Voice: Use your soul to convey messages to beings by creating a soul channel.

  Elementary Soul Manipulation: You can slightly manipulate the soul energy.

  The descriptions were short and simple albeit being really cryptic. System didn’t seem to give you all the details, it wanted you to learn them by trying the skills.

  Apart from the flavour text the skills seemed to follow their previous usage with small changes. Prima sense was an exception to this as he felt it was on a completely different level than before from what he felt before.

  Partial Etheral Body: As your existence shifts towards the soul, your sensitivity to energies increases. Your body uses the soul for half of its nourishment.

  Okay, maybe this is why Prima Sense feels so different, Maxwell reasoned.

  He summoned his status to see how everything changed after the advancement.

  Name: Maxwell Aurelius

  Age: 15(54)

  Class: Prima Soul

  Level: 11

  Nobility: None

  Traits: Etherium soul, Merchant of Yliaster, Partial Etheral Body

  Stats

  Strength:19(-2)

  Agility:22(-2)

  Dexterity: 23(-2)

  Vitality:17(-2)

  Soul:66

  Free points: 5

  HP:405

  MP:990

  Class Skills:

  Guide Mana(32), Prima sense(20), Magic Theory(10), Infused Mana Bolt(11), Soul’s Voice(11), Mana Infusion(10), Infused Mana Burst(6),Elementary Soul Energy Manipulation(1)

  General Skills:

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  Blunt Trauma Resistance(1),Piercing Damage Resistance(1), Gaslighting(5), Observation(11), Atlethics(5), Meditation(20), Mental Resistance(4)

  He was still under the effect of the minor weakness, but his stats have undergone a real change with the advancement. He quickly put his remaining point in soul, bringing it to 71.

  The said attribute was becoming even more broken now that it was giving him health points, too. He suspected that his health might be higher than some warriors.

  He squeezed his fist to feel the new strength in his muscles. He would easily become a weightlifter in his last world he supposed. Real increase were in his soul of course but he felt that testing that would be quiet devestating.

  He looked at Gendor, curious about the man. He seems happy enough, he thought as the man was sitting with a smile on his face.

  Maxwell could see the agitated energy inside the man, so he figured he should be in the middle of his advancement.

  He turned his gaze back on Bob to see him looking at him curiously.

  “Are you done? What are we gonna do now?” He asked sadly. He was disappointed with his class options.

  To be fair, Maxwell was not sure that he could help remove the rage part from Bob’s future classes but he could at least try.

  “Look, I know for some time that you are very afraid of death. Am I right?” Maxwell asked, trying to sound sympathetic.

  “Of course I am! Why wouldn’t I be afraid of death? It’s death, you know.” Bob said righteously.

  He sounded prideful in the weird way that people are when they talk about a bad quality of theirs.

  “If you could stop feeling fear, would you choose it? You don’t seem to feel fear in battle.” Maxwell asked, probing the kid’s mentality.

  “I don’t know, man... There is something different with battles. No time to fear and stuff, maybe. I don’t really remember them anyway.” Bob said. “I’m not happy whining like a bitch whenever I’m in a bad situation, you know. I just can’t help it…” he added sadly.

  “Very g-”, Maxwell almost said “Very Good” as an answer but he stopped himself. That sounded a bit rude. “Very tragic.” He corrected himself.

  “Would you be willing if I tried a skill on you? I could potentially remove your fear as a whole and you might also get something out of it.” Maxwell asked.

  “But don’t I need fear? What would happen if I charge into things like an idiot and die?” Bob asked a surprisingly intelligent question. He was getting a bit agitated again.

  “Firstly, you already do such things. Secondly, we might be able to get something out of this that will make you harder to kill.” Maxwell reasoned.

  “Hey! What do you mean I already do?” Bob said, clearly offended and maybe a bit alarmed.

  What the fuck is wrong with this kid? Maxwell thought.

  “Well, it can’t really harm you not to fear things when you can’t even remember pummeling animals using their friends, you know?” Maxwell tried to make the boy yield.

  To be fair he just wanted to use his trait after not being able to use it for a long time. If it could help his new friend Bob it would be an extra boon. He was also quite curious about the boy’s mentality.

  “I don’t know man… Are you sure it’s safe? Is this one of your new skills?” Bob asked. He was clearly considering.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s safe,” Maxwell answered, ignoring the other question.

  Bob took a deep breath. His fear of the unknown was clearly fighting with the desicion he was trying to make. “Will this help with my umm.. situation in battles?” He asked.

  “If you want it to help, it will,” Maxwell said, suddenly feeling like a swindler before shaking his head.

  “Okay. Do it.” Said Bob before closing his eyes and opening up his arms. His fists were clenched like he expected him to stab him.

  Maxwell shook his head in exasperation and triggered his trait.

  Trait [Merchant Of Yliaster] activated on the entity: Bob

  Listing resources that could be used with consent:

  Fear(Emotion)

  Maxwell smiled as his guess was proven to be correct. His trait said that he could use it on the others and use their “resources” if they consented. He refused to believe that such a trait was so simple as being limited to physical things. Turns out he was right.

  He selected fear and chose to proceed. The next moment, he felt his prima sense turn on without his input.

  Suddenly, he could see Bob in a more fundamental way than he had ever seen someone. He could feel the boy’s soul, and he felt his awareness shift towards it. His trait was controlling his awareness for him as he felt it function through him.

  He felt some colorless energy he guessed to be soul energy rush out from him as it grabbed a part of the boy’s soul with threads of energy.

  He felt a sudden tiredness as his mind got overwhelmed by the sheer detail of the kid’s soul.

  He couldn’t comprehend what was happening as his mind refused to see what his trait perceived through his awareness. Fortunately, everything turned back to normal after a short glimpse.

  Maxwell felt tired in a way that he never felt. His head was spinning and for a couple of seconds breathing was very hard. He stumbled as he fought to not fall down. That would hardly inspire confidence.

  “Max what’s wrong?” Bob asked in a startled voice. Boy didn’t seem to realize that a part of his soul was gripped by his trait.

  “I’m…” Maxwell took a deep breath. “I’m fine, " he said, sounding like he was in his dying bed. He forced himself to check his system notifications.

  A soul element selected for trade.

  Resources are deemed too complex for the user’s tier of existence.

  Error…

  Trait [Merchant of Yliaster] overriding protocols.

  Error…

  Resource acquisition complete.

  So, this trait can hijack the system? No… that shouldn’t be the case as it was given by it. It’s more like usual rules don’t apply to it, I suppose. Maxwell thought sluggishly.

  He hurried to the next screen as he was not sure how much he could function in this state.

  Trade initiated.

  Please specify your desire.

  Maxwell stared dumbly at this mesage as he was not sure what he should say to the system with his current broken state of mind.

  He could see that there was no input box or anything like that, and he instinctively felt that he could just think about what he wanted to do to make the system evaluate his offer.

  He looked at Bob, the kid looking at him with apparent worry. Maxwell knew he wouldn’t be able to get a coherent answer from the boy in a situation like this.

  He never expected that he would be able to get what he wanted with words, though. The fact that he also didn’t expect himself to be this fucked in this phase was something he chose to ignore for now.

  They waited for a couple minutes like this as he waited for his regeneration to give him some energy. When he had enough, he braced himself for the strain and prepared to test one more of his theories.

  He activated the Soul’s Voice, and he felt the skill create a channel for the first time. It was certainly different than the usual telepathy, but it was similar enough.

  In his own world, after they learned how to use telepathy thanks to etherium, they were quick to realize how this could be used for interrogation.

  It wasn’t easy for them to invent a way to use telepathy in this way, but one should never underestimate humanity’s stubbornness when things were about war.

  Maxwell was now trying to use this method in a way that it was outrageously unintended for.

  He felt the channel form as he tried to widen it until he felt that he could overwhelm the kid’s mind with a simple message. He probably wouldn’t be able to do this to people with strong minds but he somehow doubted Bob having a high mind stat.

  He felt like he was trying to lift an elephant with his mind despite this fact, but he was successful after seconds of agonizing concentration.

  They used to do this with multiple devices that could amplify telepathic waves, but unfortunately, Maxwell doubted he would ever have something like that in this world.

  After he had formed the channel, the rest was easy enough. He focused with the last trickle of his strength and sent a question to the boy’s mind, overwhelming it with the question.

  The question was simple enough as he felt it echo in his own mind too, due to its sheer strength.

  “What do you desire?”