Their little tree was already gone when Maxwell eventually realized he was standing inside a raging inferno.

  Maxwell watched as the tree burned with a blaze. Almost everything around the cave was on fire. Soon, the flames parted, and Bob hurriedly rushed into the cave.

  ’’Max? Are you okay?’’ He asked with urgency, his eyes scanning their room. The room was charred completely and once more empty as it was first carved, if you could ignore a lot of soot.

  ’’Yeah, just an experiment with unexpected side effects.’’ Maxwell summarised the situation. He received a puzzled glance from the boy.

  Maxwell moved towards the entrance of the cave. The fire inside the cave was almost gone as there wasn’t anything flammable inside. They were both much more resistant to smoke than normal people, but Maxwell still wanted some fresh air.

  His expectations were thwarted as he stared outside. Almost all of the vegetation around the cave was blazing with fire, and there wasn’t any fresh air to speak of.

  Wait, can’t I just-… An idea came, and he acted on it immediately. This time he imagined the fire mana inside the flames scatter. As he visualized, they were soon faced with a peculiar silence as all the crackling noise coming from the fire disappeared with a whoosh.

  I would make an amazing firefighter like this. Maxwell chuckled as he checked out the area around the cave. The only sign that there was a fire here just now was the apparent destruction caused by it.

  What little vegetation the place had was completely gone as ash swirled in the air like snow. Maxwell was surprised to see that ash also had a mana affinity he could absorb. What do you even do with ash?

  ‘’Neat trick’’ Bob commented. Maxwell had been getting to know the boy for a couple of days now, and he could feel that there was no trace of envy in the boy’s voice. He seemed absolutely happy with his own brutish skills.

  Maxwell sat on a nearby log, which used to be vertical to the ground a few minutes ago and checked his notifications. He burned their little haven, so it would better be worth it.

  Prima Sense Leveled Up Lvl-49→51

  Meditation Leveled Up Lvl-48→58

  Guide Mana Leveled Up Lvl-61→62

  Visualization Leveled Up Lvl-36→38

  Mental Resistance Leveled Up Lvl-22→40

  Parallel Thoughts Leveled Up Lvl-12→21

  The Compendium Leveled Up Lvl-1→2

  There were a lot of levels. The winners were obviously the meditation and the mental resistance, but the latter really started to get on Maxwell’s nerves because of the way skill improved. He still had geometry in the background, and he could feel it losing effect for some time now.

  Now that his mind helpfully detonated inside his head, he could actually change what his second mind was busy with. Albeit hating the memory part of this thing, Maxwell was really curious to see what would happen if he maxed out math by doing this.

  This time, he decided to keep it simple. I probably should have done this from the start.

  He chose his new expertise in mathematics, it being arithmetic this time. This way, he could continue to make it harder for his brain without changing the subject. He just needed to multiply bigger numbers with each other. He could probably do this with geometry, too, but this was much simpler.

  After the familiar process, his mind was up and running in the background. With some surprise, he felt that he could divide his mind into three right now. Skill levels usually didn’t have such a concrete effect, so it was a welcome surprise.

  The rest of the day was pretty eventless as Maxwell focused on gathering water mana for the compendium, sitting by the river. He progressed slowly this time as he didn’t want to cause a commotion like before.

  The next day, they woke up to see that it was raining heavily. Maxwell noted with some wonder that this was his first time seeing rain in this life. The air still had that smell of rain in this world too, but its fragrance was different. Here it felt heavier in a way.

  I’m bored, after examining the thunderclouds with his prima sense and discovering nothing groundbreaking, Maxwell had to admit that he was pretty bored. After 6 days in the wilderness, he was starting to get sick of this life.

  He was fighting with the idea of just going after the puppy with his current level. Maybe he could level a bit more on the way and have the necessary strength when he needed it. Of course, he could reach his destination faster than intended and die, but life always had certain risks.

  He was unsure if he should bring Bob with him, as this was a very risky endeavor. Also, he didn’t want to admit that he was risking his life for a puppy. He always had a soft spot for these animals. He really wanted one for himself in this world, too.

  ’’Chirp?’’ He heard Blueberry chirping. Did the bird feel the competition? Did you manage to use your telepathy like I told you? He asked the bird, suddenly remembering the subject. After the usual blank stare, he received an answer in the form of a memory.

  In the memory, Maxwell could see that the Blueberry was flying above the clouds. As always, the memory was expertly edited by Blueberry, and soon, he understood why the bird sent this memory.

  He felt Blueberry use its telepathy, and he could feel that it encompassed a great area shallowly. So it uses it like a sonar? He continued watching as the little bird suddenly dived.

  Maxwell watched as the bird went below the trees in a flash before expertly catching a rat hiding under some soil. The rat was completely hidden from sight, but Blueberry apparently felt it with its telepathic sonar.

  Maxwell was really impressed. He was puzzled about what Blueberry would do with the rat, though. Bluebirds were not omnivores as far as he knew.

  He watched with increasing disbelief as Blueberry flew up, still holding the rat. It was a comical scene as the bird was almost five times smaller than the said rat. Maxwell watched in horror as Blueberry simply dropped the rat intentionally when it reached a high altitude.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  You farm experience like this? He asked the bird. If this was the case, this might be one of the reasons why the bird had limited options for advancement. It was hunting lower-level monsters to level after all.

  Blueberry sent him an affirmative response along with some other horrifying memories of creatures getting dropped from the sky.

  Maxwell sighed as he scratched the head of the terrifying creature. He somehow managed to find a bloodthirsty bluebird. He wondered if these animals would gain humanlike intellect as their mind stat increased. It would be interesting to see Blueberry with that level of intellect, not that it wasn't very smart already.

  By the way, are you male or female? Maxwell sent a question to the bird that he had been curious about for some time. The bird was confused as to it, these concepts were more like the one who coveted and the coveted. It sent Maxwell an image of other birds singing in front of it as an answer.

  ’’So you are a female huh? Explains the chirping you make, I suppose.’’ Maxwell commented out loud, making Bob throw him a weird look. Female birds usually didn’t produce very diverse sounds, while male birds could produce a lot of different sounds to attract females.

  ‘’Chirp! Chirp?’’ Blueberry suddenly chirped as it turned towards the forest. There seemed to be no problems as the bird was quite calm, but there was certainly something among the trees causing the reaction.

  A moment later, they could see the source of the bird’s surprise. A familiar face walked out from the forest towards them, but he was almost too clean for them to recognize.

  Gendor was back, and he apparently managed to take a proper bath and shaved his disgusting beard. He looked like a mediavel hunter.

  ‘’Hey, kids! Miss me?’’ He asked. Maxwell noted that the man seemed a bit annoyed for some reason.

  ’’Why are you back so early?’’ Maxwell asked as he used observation on the man.

  Gendor? - Assasin - Lvl-20

  Maxwell was both disappointed and satisfied to see the man’s level. On one hand, this proved that he and Bob leveled very fast compared to the average as this man was traveling through a wild forest, hunting beasts as he went. Also, he was an elite fighter from what Maxwell has seen.

  On the other hand, though, his level proved that there were no beasts with very high levels in this world. This was a bit depressing as they would need to wait for the world to catch up to them.

  ’’Don’t show so much love, it will make me cry.’’ Gendor said sarcastically. ‘’Turns out becoming a superhuman increases your travel speed. I made some arrangements in the city so I can even say that I was a bit delayed.’’

  ‘’DID YOU BRING CLOTHES?’’ Bob screamed at the man, making Maxwell’s eardrums rattle. He threw a mana burst at the boy as a reflex, and they watched the boy soar through the sky before disappearing into the trees.

  Infused Mana Burst Leveled Up Lvl-31→32

  ’’Not much changed here, I see,’’ Gendor said, smiling. He threw a look at Maxwell’s clothes. ‘’You found a wardrobe in the forest?’’ He asked in a genuinely curious tone.

  ‘’There were some guys passing by, they were happy to sell these for a beast core.’’ Maxwell lied shamelessly.

  ‘’You gave a core for these clothes?’’ Gendor looked at him, squinting his eyes. Maxwell could clearly see that the man was questioning his intelligence.

  ’’I don’t believe you are that dumb kid, but I will let your secrets alone if you don't wanna share.’’ He said good-naturedly. So, beast cores are really valuable? Maxwell theorized.

  They sat near the river as Bob too joined them with even more ragged clothes after a few minutes.

  ‘’So what have you been up to?’’ Maxwell asked. He would be lying if he said he was not curious about the city. It was their only chance for a while for any contact with civilization.

  ’’Well, I went to the city obviously, and I can say that they were pretty chill.’’ He said as he threw a stone in the river. They watched as it skittered on the surface. ‘’It’s a medieval city and they just recently managed to stabilize themselves after the initiation. The average level is pitiful, but they apparently managed to make all of their military tier 2.’’

  ’’What is the highest level you have seen?’’ Bob interjected. He rarely did in these kinds of conversations.

  ’’The guard captain was level 19, and that was the highest I observed. There is an mercenary guild in the city, though, I doubt that would be the highest level we would find in the city.’’

  Bob was satisfied with the answer. Maxwell could see that the boy was happy having the same level as someone important.

  ‘’Anyway, this brings me to my next topic. Apparently, there are these things called rifts through which beasts consistently invade this world from some other place.’’

  Maxwell’s breath hitched for a second before he gained control of himself. From Darve he already heard that there were rifts, but the fact that these rifts were the same as the ones back on Zephyr was a new information.

  Gendor seemed to realize his lapse of self-control, but the man didn’t comment beyond sending him a questioning look.

  ’’What’s important about these rifts is that while they spew monsters with relatively weak strength, you can actually go through them. ‘Why would I do that?’ You may ask.’’ He stopped for a second, looking at them in expectation.

  ’’Or you may be a boring little shit. My point is that it’s possible to travel through these rifts if you have a high enough level. The kingdom controls these rifts as much as they can, and they prefer to send people working for them, but I don’t think it would be too hard to find some spots.’’

  ‘’What is it like on the other side?’’ Maxwell asked. He was still excited, but it was a good kind of excitement this time. This was their way out of their leveling problem.

  ’’I’m not sure on that, but the important part is that there are higher-level beasts on the other side. Many say that these are placed in the world to encourage progress, but I personally think they are there to produce outliers.’’ Gendor said uncharacteristically seriously.

  ’’You mean people like us?’’ Bob asked. He was locked in on the conversation immediately after hearing that he could fight higher-level beasts. The boy became a quite a battle junkie after losing his fear. Also, it looked like he was not very humble as he immediately claimed the distinction for himself.

  ’’Well, I guess we could be counted as one, but not in the way I mean. What I mean is that when the highest level on the planet is 24, for example, these rifts could produce an outlier with a level of 30.’’ Gendor explained.

  ’’Then let’s go!’’ Bob shouted excitedly, getting up from where he stood.

  ’’I guess we could. Laying low like we intended won’t be as necessary as I thought before. Initiation made this kingdom have a much more plausible governing system, so I doubt Radam could easily suppress it.’’

  Maxwell was thoughtful as he listened to the others. If they went to the city now, he would probably miss the thing in the south, whatever it was. People already knew about it, so he wanted to take a look himself before others did something stupid.

  Yes, he really liked dogs. So what?

  ’’You said you made some arrangements. Do you have a plan?’’ He asked Gendor. A plan was slowly forming in his mind.

  “I forged an identity as a travelling merchant. You would be surprised how little people care about the giant assassin word over my head when everyone has some stupid shit like it. We could stay in the inn for a few nights before actually finding some money to get a place for ourselves.’’ Gendor said.

  ’’Will we be able to enter the rifts like that?’’ Bob asked.

  ‘’This is just a starting point, kid. You can do whatever you want after we settle in the city.’’ Gendor answered impatiently.

  “I still have some experiments I would rather not make close to a crowded city. You guys go ahead. I will catch up a couple of days later.’’ Maxwell lied smoothly.

  ’’What kind of experiments would need to be away from the city?’’ Bob asked, clearly not liking the idea.

  ’’Don’t you remember the fire?’’

  ’’Oh,’’ Bob yielded after remembering the catastrophe.

  Gaslighting Leveled Up Lvl-10→12

  ‘’I guess all is settled then? Max, are you going to be able to travel without problems?’’ Gendor asked, showing a rare moment of concern.

  ‘’Well, I have the highest level here, so I doubt I will have much problem,’’ Maxwell answered back, boasting not quite unintentionally.

  ‘’Ehem. Okay then.’’ Gendor awkwardly replied. ‘’No need to lose time, I suppose. Shall we go dumdum?’’ He asked Bob.

  ‘’Who are you calling dumdum?’’ Bob shouted angrily, but started walking all the same. ‘’Don’t be too late, Max! I don’t want to live with this shitty old man alone for too long.’’ he shouted as they slowly walked away into the forest.

  Maxwell watched them go as he contemplated what he would do now. This was the first time he was alone in this world after all.

  ’’Chirp, Chirp!’’ Blueberry protested.

  Apparently, he was not as alone as he thought he was.