When others woke up, Maxwell was done playing with fire mana. He was observing the forest around them under the morning light. It was a beautiful sight.

  He discovered that he didn’t need much sleep, even though he had not slept properly since entering this world. It was probably due to his increased stats.

  Bob groaned as he stretched on the ground. “Good morning,” he said, looking at Maxwell lazily. His brain caught up a couple of seconds later as he jumped up.

  “Max! You are alive!” He shouted, causing some birds in the distance to fly away from their trees.

  “I got that idea, too. I hope we are right,” Maxwell said, smiling. He checked on Gendor, only to see the man staring at him with wide-open eyes with a very unsettling expression. For a second, he was startled by the creepy expression, and the man started laughing.

  “Hehehe, got you.” He said before casually getting up. The man certainly held a grudge. He took a glance at the fire. Did you feed the fire all night? It should have gone out hours ago.” He said.

  “Something like that,” Maxwell mumbled. He didn’t want to explain that he played with fire through most of the night.

  “What will we do now?” Bob asked as he yawned.

  “We are further from the city than I intended, but we should be able to reach it on foot in a week,” Gendor said. “I don’t recommend that though. This kingdom will probably be Radam’s puppet soon enough. We should lay low for a while.” He added as he threw some dirt on the fire to extinguish it.

  “Some leveling and experimenting with our skills wouldn’t hurt,” Maxwell added. He really wanted some freedom to experiment with skills. Ever since getting his class, he couldn’t sit down calmly to test things out.

  “We can create a temporary place here to live. Animals seem to fear us after we killed that crocodile.” Maxwell said.

  “We don’t know if there are more powerful animals, though,” Gendor said.

  Maxwell couldn’t say much against that without revealing he was a transmigrator. He just hummed and got up. He was pretty sure that they wouldn’t see anything too strong for months.

  “I don't know what we will do, but I need a bath,” Gendor said before starting to strip. After a quick flurry of movement, a butt-naked Gendor flying towards the river was imprinted in Maxwell’s mind forever.

  “Ugh,” he groaned with disgust. But he knew that Gendor was right. They were covered with various grime and dirt. He was soon sitting inside the river, feeling the water passing by gently.

  He closed his eyes and focused on the sensation, relaxing. After so many years, a real rest felt good. Usually, he would need to think about his responsibilities even when taking a bath.

  His peace was interrupted by a splash. He opened his eyes and was annoyed to see Bob fighting for his life in the water. He was struggling in the water as his head went up and down constantly in the water.

  “Help!... I…. Don’t… know…” he shouted in parts and was interrupted by a kick from Gendor.

  Maxwell apathetically watched as the boy flew through the air and landed on the rocks near the river.

  “Thank you!” the boy shouted to Gendor in gratitude. Ironically, he was calm because he could not feel any fear.

  Maxwell smiled at the situation. In a relatively short while, they had become a ridiculous group. He summoned his status to see his last state.

  Name: Maxwell Aurelius

  Age: 15(54)

  Class: Prima Soul

  Level: 13

  Titles: [Expand]

  Nobility: None

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

  Stats:

  Strength:27(-2)

  Agility: 30(-2)

  Dexterity: 31(-2)

  Vitality:17(-2)

  Soul:107

  HP:685

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  MP:1605

  Class Skills:

  Guide Mana(40), Prima Sense(30), Magic Theory(21), Myriad Mana Bolts(21), Soul’s Voice(25), Mana Infusion(21), Infused Mana Burst(6), Elementary Soul Energy Manipulation(10)

  General Skills:

  Blunt Trauma Resistance(4), Piercing Damage Resistance(1), Mental Resistance(12), Gaslighting(6), Observation(17), Athletics(5), Meditation(35), Parallel Thoughts(1), Mathematics(37)

  His stats looked ridiculous despite the nerf from minor weakness. His mana was more than ever, and his HP was probably a lot higher than even Bob's. He was unsure how he would scale against the real outliers of this world, but he was pretty confident that he wouldn’t be any weaker than any of them on the same level.

  He watched as a couple of fish swam near his legs. After the recent increase of his soul attribute, he could comfortably keep his prima sense on at a moderate level. Even the most simple things were quite incredible to his new senses.

  “Chirp!” he suddenly heard a sound. He couldn’t find the source of the sound immediately.

  “Chirp, Chirp,” he heard once again. This time, it felt more insistent somehow. Maxwell also could finally locate where the sound was coming from.

  A small bluebird stood on a branch nearby, unassumingly. Maxwell knew this bird. It was the same bird he had observed before in the forest. He observed it once more and was surprised once again.

  Bluebird-Lvl-10

  Well, maybe I don’t compare that well to real outliers after all. Maxwell thought. He doubted that he was very talented if a bluebird could match his leveling speed. Just as he was having a crisis in his mind, he was interrupted by something even stranger.

  Maxwell suddenly felt a telepathic probe trying to enter his mind. He could clearly feel the attempt at the periphery of his mind, as it couldn’t penetrate through his natural defenses. Maxwell let the intrusion in because he felt that it was not harmful.

  In his mind, an image appeared. A bird was standing on the mouth of a crocodile, slowly pecking at the remains of its previous prey between its teeth. The crocodile was familiar.

  As Maxwell kept accepting the thoughts, a different image appeared. In the new image, Maxwell could see that the crocodile was hunting new prey, and the bird was flying above. He could discern that this was after the system, as the destruction caused by the crocodile was too great for normal animals.

  Maxwell focused on the bluebird for a moment. He was surprised that a bird could use something like a rudimentary telepathy. He figured already that the crocodile they killed was probably the bird’s best friend in this world. He used Soul’s Voice on the bird.

  He felt a connection open, and he focused on amplifying the bird's already existing ability. Receiving images was good and all, but he would much prefer a normal memory.

  Bluebird tilted his head and stared at him with one eye for a second before accepting the connection, making Maxwell's work much easier. A couple of seconds later, there was a solid channel between them.

  The bird seemed to understand that now, it could send better messages. As expected, Maxwell started to feel a new message coming soon. This message was much more sophisticated than before, and soon, he had something like a memory playing in his mind.

  In the memory, the bird was flying over the river, surveying the areas around it. The memory was probably about what the bird would find as it started moving downwards a couple of seconds later towards a shape it had seen in the forest. Maxwell was quite impressed by the bird's vision as he experienced it firsthand through the memory.

  The bird landed on a branch, and it could see that a tiger was sitting on the soft soil near a tree. Maxwell felt the bird do something, and for a second, he was confused about what it was.

  Did it use observation? So their system is not text-based, huh? He thought. He couldn’t really understand what the information was as he was not very experienced in thinking like a bluebird, but he could guess that this was a high-level beast.

  Memory was cut here, as apparently, the bird deemed the rest of the memory unimportant. The scene transitioned into a different one, as he could see that it was inside the crocodile's mouth again. This time, he felt what the bird was doing, as he was used to doing it himself. It was using telepathy or some lower version of the skill on the crocodile.

  The memory once again transitioned, as he was now seeing a battle through the eyes of the bird. Below the bird, the crocodile was fighting against the tiger from before. The tiger was elegant, dodging most of the crocodile’s attacks.

  Maxwell could see that this was not a fight that the crocodile would win. It apparently did, though, as it would need to survive this fight for Maxwell to kill it.

  As the battle progressed, wounds accumulated on the crocodile while the tiger remained unharmed. An unexpected change happened when the battle was coming to an end, as Maxwell felt that the bird was once again using telepathy.

  Everything happened in a second as the bird sent its intention to the crocodile before diving toward the tiger. It flew with incredible speed, and with a quick attack with its claw, it managed to scratch one of the tiger's eyes.

  The tiger roared in fury as its eye bled, but the battle was not over yet. Using this small window of opportunity, the crocodile attacked with renewed vigor as it jumped at the neck of the tiger. Not being able to see properly, the tiger was unable to dodge the attack this time.

  Maxwell watched with the Bluebird as life drained from the Tiger’s eyes slowly as the crocodile ripped its throat apart. The last thing he saw in the memory was the crocodile resting after its hard-earned win as mana swirled around him faster and faster. It was advancing a tier after the battle.

  The memories ended there, and he was in the present moment once again. He looked at the bird in wonder. It was probably a genius among geniuses as far as bluebirds were concerned.

  So you are a warrior, huh? He thought also transmitting his thoughts to the bird. It wouldn’t understand words, but their meaning would still be roughly understandable, he guessed. His affirmative feeling after the question he sent also supported that theory.

  “CHIRP, CHIRP, CHIRP.” He suddenly heard a deafening chirping sound in his head. Apparently, the bird had figured out how to use the two-way connection.

  Fuck, my head… Be quieter, please. He sent. He hoped the bird would understand him. The feeling the bird’s message gave was like listening to music with terrible-quality headphones at a very high volume.

  “Chirp, Chirp, CHIRP,” he once again heard a message, this time more controlled, albeit still a bit too strong at the end. “You want me to be your new crocodile?” he asked, as the meaning he could understand from the message felt like the bird was asking something like that.

  The bird answered his question by flying to his head. It landed on it gracefully and proceeded to treat it as its nest.

  “Hehehehe,” He could hear Gendor laughing in the distance as the man witnessed the situation. He closed his eyes and just waited for the inevitable.

  “Boy, you are making a fashion statement, I see,” the man commented while laughing.

  Maxwell didn’t know what to think about the situation. He gazed at the bird from the reflection on the water and saw it comfortably trimming its feathers.

  “Well, It’s cute, don’t you think?” He answered Gendor as he let out a chuckle.