Finally, they were all done with their tier advancements. Maxwell felt really tired after all that had happened in the last 24 hours.

  He had done very exhausting things repeatedly as he depended heavily on his soul’s high regeneration to stay awake.

  He had a migraine for hours, and just as it was gone with the advancement, it came back with Bob’s trade.

  Long story short, Maxwell was exhausted. The fact that the ship's night mode was almost deliberately unsynced with the nighttime on the planet didn’t help his nerves, either, as he didn’t even feel sleepy.

  As if these were not enough, he now had an indecisive assassin in his camp, and the topic of his indecisiveness was disturbing.

  He got up and stretched his body. “We probably should find something to eat and drink.” He said.

  They were not hungry as the advancement seemed to restore them to their peak condition, but they would be hungry and thirsty soon enough.

  Finding water was a bit of a matter of luck, but they could find something to eat easily enough. They just needed to find something to eat. He turned at Gendor. “Do you have a skill for hunting or something? The skill you used to find this place was useful,” he asked.

  “I can’t say it’s a skill about finding things, but we don’t need that anyways. I’m a fairly decent camper myself.” The man said smugly. “There is probably a stream close enough, but at worst, we could function with dews and fruits.” He added.

  “Oh, I saw a stream that way when we were falling,” Bob said, not sounding interested.

  Gendor and Maxwell, who had been ignoring him for some time, now looked at him disbelievingly.

  “You did?” Maxwell asked. He found it difficult to believe that Bob could see things in his fearful state back then.

  “Yeah, it was just over there.” Bob swung his arm relaxedly towards the same direction he pointed, and Gendor started laughing.

  “How did you see it? Weren’t you paralyzed with fear?” Maxwell asked. He was starting to get genuinely curious about this broken kid.

  “I was paralyzed… Can’t I see when I’m paralyzed…” Bob said, feeling a bit ridiculous.

  “Whatever, good job,” Maxwell said, shaking his head before moving in Bob's direction. After a while of cutting through the forest as usual, they started to see that it was getting a bit less thick. They could also hear the sound of a stream, as Bob said.

  “Well, some people really surprise you,” Gendor said between swings. He was the one with the sword, and he didn’t seem to mind being the gardener of the forest.

  Maxwell ignored the man as he tried to observe everything for the skill to upgrade. He sure didn't want to be regular if this was how regular people leveled skills.

  He also experimented with Prima Sense a bit. The skill was overwhelming in its natural state to the degree that it made seeing everyday things hard.

  After some tweaking, he was able to activate the skill less powerfully, but it still was not very sustainable if he wanted to keep it on constantly. He probably shouldn’t have been doing that, but it was slowly becoming apparent that his old rationality was a bit weak towards anything magical.

  After some walking, they stopped cutting plants as the forest was thin enough to walk through. Maxwell could see some small animals from time to time. He used observation on them as they were going.

  White Streaked Sparrow - Lvl-8

  Caterpillar - Lvl-1

  Forest Snake - Lvl-6

  Bluebird - Lvl 8

  Snail - Lvl-1

  He absent-mindedly went through the notifications, also trying to see the stream they were heading towards. Something surprised him, though, and made his gaze return to the notifications.

  A level 8 bluebird? He asked himself. Leveling probably worked differently for animals as some animals wouldn’t actively kill things, but a bluebird living in the same place as a sparrow being higher leveled than it was a long stretch all the same.

  He searched for the bird, looking back at where they came from, but it was gone. He shrugged before continuing on the road.

  They could see the stream a couple of minutes later. Now, the forest was thin, as there were spaces as wide as a couple of meters between different trees and plants. They could see a wide range of animals coming and going, as the stream was a precious water source for them.

  Maxwell was surprised to see a crocodile in the water looking at a bunny without any intention of attacking.

  Maybe they eat prey above a certain level? He thought before observing the crocodile, too, as he was using observation on everything.

  Moonlight Deer - Lvl 13

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  Bunny - Lvl 2

  Metal Crocodile - Lvl 29

  He knew he was an idiot immediately after seeing the notification. This sentiment was proven as the crocodile directly locked onto him when he used the skill, and the creature seemed far from impressed.

  It started swimming towards them at a burst of speed nobody would expect from a creature before the system, and Maxwell found himself flying under the startled gazes of his friends. There was a dull thud as he impacted a tree and a creaking noise as the tree toppled over.

  “Ugh…” Maxwell groaned. It indeed looked bad, but surprisingly, he felt pretty fine. He had the Partial Etheral Body, after all. He checked his HP to see it was 350/445. What really wounded was his pride.

  He could see the crocodile in his previous spot, completely unaffected. Bob and Gendor were quick to get their bearings as they made a pincer attack on the beast. Bob swung his fist simply as Gendor attacked with his sword, which was covered with a black miasma.

  Crocodile let a growl as he received the attacks without trying to dodge. There was a very loud “GONG” as hits connected. Bob’s fist left a barely visible dent in the creature’s side as Gendor’s attack left a painful-looking gash.

  It has a hardening ability. How inconvenient, Maxwell thought. He started charging a mana bolt.

  The creature’s poise changed after it took the attacks, and it suddenly turned around itself with impressive speed, attacking Gendor and Bob with its tail.

  Maxwell was surprised to see Gendor disappearing, leaving a residual black smoke as he dodged the attack with a new skill.

  Bob, meanwhile, took the attack in his solar plexus as he braced for impact instead of trying to dodge it.

  Things progressed differently than most would expect. The tail stopped abruptly as it hit Bob. The boy grunted as he was hit with immense weight, and another gong sounded on the battlefield.

  Maxwell chose this moment to send his enormous mana bolt towards the beast’s head. It whizzed like a torpedo and connected with a blast, sending dust everywhere.

  Meanwhile, Bob held the crocodile's tail under his armpit as he felt the blast’s force. He was not harmed, but the light the explosion released blinded him.

  He figured he didn’t need eyes as he started punching the creature’s side repeatedly, releasing a gong again and again.

  Meanwhile, Gendor was using the pistol he had on the beast to see if he could harm it, but it was apparent that he wasn’t successful as the beast didn’t even seem to realize he was attacked. He threw

  Maxwell chuckled at the comical scene as he prepared something different. His previous attack seemed to harm the beast as it was disoriented enough not to react immediately against Bob, but he needed more penetration.

  The beast was hardening itself like metal, So he would try to fight fire with fire or metal with metal.

  Since the last time he used this affinity, he found it much easier to move the particles as he felt them coming toward the mana bolt he created. He imagined it having the hardness of metal as he focused through the “Gong” sounds

  He cranked his prima sense to maximum as he felt his migraine returning.He could see how much metal mana density the crocodile’s skin had. When he judged that his mana orb’s density was high enough, he let the agitated mana bolt go.

  The mana bolt was silver, unlike the normal blue ones. It left a streak of white light behind it as it flew with a speed Maxwell could barely see. A tearing sound was heard as air parted in front of the needlessly material mana bolt, and it finally hit the crocodile on the midsection.

  Maxwell watched in surprise as the bolt proceeded to pass through the creature as if it didn’t exist. The hole it left behind surely existed, though. After leaving the crocodile’s body, it kept going and vanished into the forest. Maxwell could see a couple of unfortunate trees toppling as the mana bolt traveled along its way, unbothered.

  It couldn’t activate its hardening in time…. Maxwell realized. It made sense for the creature to focus on Bob’s attacks after all. It didn’t expect a different mana bolt to arrive at speeds it could barely react.

  Maxwell was unsure why the bolt was so fast but strongly suspected the other mana types he pulled along with the metal affinity.

  He made the metal mana density in the bolt comparable to that of the crocodile, but as a side effect, he pulled in a large amount of general mana from the atmosphere. His mana infusion and mana guide were far from perfect, after all.

  He could see that that bolt took almost 500 mana from him. And that was not counting the ambient mana it absorbed. A distant explosion coming from the direction of the mana bolt also supported this theory.

  “Well, that was anticlimactic,” Gendor commented as he carefully let the dark energy from before disperse from his sword. Maxwell noted the affinity for future experiments.

  He excitedly opened his notifications to see what he gained. It was really fun to improve like this.

  Mana Infusion Leveled Up Lvl-15 →20

  Guide Mana Leveled Up Lvl-34→36

  Magic Theory Leveled Up Lvl-10→12

  Prima Sense Leveled Up Lvl-30→31

  Meditation Leveled Up Lvl-25→26

  Blunt Trauma Resistance Leveled Up Lvl-1→4

  His meditation was still going up as he did things unintended for the skill while using it. He was surprised that it had not been readjusted yet.

  Infused Mana Bolt Skill Changes Detected.

  Readjusting Skill.

  Infused Mana Bolt→Myriad Mana Bolts

  Myriad Mana Bolts: Create mana bolts and fire them at your enemies. The number of bolts created is connected to the amount of mana you can control at a time. Created mana bolts absorb the ambient mana in creation, making them slightly more potent than regular mana bolts. Users can infuse the bolts with different mana types by charging the skill.

  Myriad Mana Bolts Leveled Up Lvl-11→21

  Oh, that's nice, he thought. This was a readjustment with minimal impact as he could already do what the new skill said, but it would enable him to do it easier. System explanations were steadily getting longer though.

  Metal Crocodile - Lvl-29 Killed. Experience Rewarded.

  Level up. Stat points distributed. (2x)

  Maxwell really liked this immediate strength boost. He could feel it in real time as his body got stronger and more durable.

  Improvements in the soul attribute, on the other hand, were very weird. It was harder to see the difference when one's soul increased. Maxwell just felt normal, but his normal also increased with the increase of his capabilities.

  He felt he could slow the world down to a crawl and use his awareness as it was, but that was not the default mode.

  Maxwell didn’t feel very bad about this as it would be quite painful to speak with people when your mind was incredibly fast.

  He quickly put the rest of his points in the soul attribute. With this addition, his soul sat at a comfortable 107. He was probably ridiculous at this point, as his class heavily relies on this stat.

  At last, he looked up from the stat sheet to see what the others were doing. He felt like he was moving through the mud as he lifted his head for some reason.

  Am I that tired? He wondered.

  When he finally managed to look up, he saw a world slowed down to a crawl.