Something had to be wrong with the world, there was no other explanation for the strongest individual enemy we faced thus far to be a literal pile of shit. Once the slime was completely frozen, thanks to the expanded surface area it had gained by trying to squeeze through the fence, it could be shattered with a simple, if not easy, application of my Ice Magic. Apparently frozen sewage slime was close enough to Ice to fall under my magic and Overflow allowed me to channel enough Astral Power to accomplish the effect. And learn that the slime was a stupidly high level eighty, making me wonder just how that worked out. It certainly hadn’t moved around to destroy scores of enemies or something along those lines, it had, at least according to every bit of evidence we could find, done nothing but sit in the treatment pools and decompose.

This suggested that the slime had been able to gain levels by decomposing in an area filled with Decay Astral Power, making me wonder if I might be able to accomplish something similar. Although, had the slime formed due to the Decay Astral Power, or had the Decay Astral Power gathered because of the slime? I wasn’t sure, nor could I really tell. I had a feeling it was a bit of a synergistic effect, the slime decaying and decomposing, increasing the amount of Astral Power in the air, making it easier for it to continue. Whatever the case, was it possible to gain power by existing in the appropriate state while immersed in the correct Astral Power climate? If so, the right state for me might be existing while being frozen in a climate filled with Ice Astral Power. Like the Nexus I was aiming for anyway? If so, that might be a way to gain stupidly large amounts of EXP, though it would severely limit the amount of skills I’d gain on the way, to say nothing of other potential troubles. It might not be worth it for me, though I’d certainly look into the idea.

Either way, it was something to look into in the future, while we had things to do in the present. Namely, I had notifications to check and afterwards, we should check out the slime’s remains and the building it had been in. There might be parts of the slime that could become useful in the future, and a building filled with enough Astral Power to create a creature this powerful should also cause some interesting effects on the stored chemicals. Given that the primary Astral Power seemed to be Decay, corrosive and similar effects should be imbued into the chemicals here, so acids or bases would be magically amplified to stupid degrees. Maybe, if I understood the interaction correctly. I wasn’t an alchemist, so my knowledge in that regard was severely limited.

In regards to the notifications, I was now level sixty-seven, after previously gaining a level while teaching some of the locals a few days back, and had received skill increases in Ice Rune Mastery, now fifty-four, Ice Magic, also fifty-four, Water Magic, now nineteen, Water Rune Mastery, now twenty-three, Wind Magic, now twenty-five and, lastly, Earth Magic, now twenty-one. All in all, quite impressive gains for a single fight, though it had been an interesting one. It made me wonder if I could combine elements in a similar fashion to the way I had twisted Earth and Water together earlier when I tried to desiccate the slime, it had been a spur-of-the-moment idea, trying to get something that matched the weakness Luna’s strange divine ability had revealed to me. Not something I’d test normally, it was quite out there as an idea, but hey, it had worked. So, who knew what else could work?

Maybe I’d be able to twist Crystal Magic and Blood Magic together, giving people instant strokes. Hel, anything twisted together with Blood Magic would be a supremely nasty move against a living target, from Wind Magic to give people embolisms, to Fire Magic, giving them a serious fever. Any effect I could imbue into somebody’s Blood could instantly be elevated from unpleasant to fatal if used in the right conditions.

Just thinking back, there was a reason why Blood Magic was feared on Mundus, and it wasn’t just because its users could use others as magical batteries. That played into the fear, but it wasn’t the root cause, there was so much you could do with access to a person’s blood, it wasn’t funny, though the same went for other bodily links. Blood was merely one of the strongest while being fairly easy to draw at the same time. Sure, people could cause massive havoc if they had the bones of somebody, but once an enemy got their hands on your bones, you had other problems anyway. Granted, the bones, or flesh, of relatives could be used, too, and provide a link to a person. That was what the tribal shaman had originally used to curse Sigmir before we ever met, but neither Flesh Magic nor Bone Magic had a really good reputation. For just the same reason Blood Magic was spurred, it was incredibly easy to abuse and incredibly lethal. That it could also heal, and thus infringe on what some saw as divine privilege, only added insult to injury, giving various divine servants a good reason to dislike it even further, adding to the persecution.

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Alas, I had a feeling it was only a matter of time until such persecution would start up here, too, regardless of the efforts I made to educate people. I’d continue to try but a single person couldn’t hold back the flood. For everyone I could educate, the various clerics and priests already out there could educate one each, ultimately dooming me to failure, something even Hecate’s blessing couldn’t really stop. Shaking off these morose thoughts, I focused on the present and things I could actually change.

We all moved back into the treatment plant and split up once again. Lia and Alex were tasked with investigating the pool building, while Luna, Silva and I were assigned to check the slime’s body out from up close. I wasn’t sure which job was worse, the pool building stunk to the high heavens and the slime was even worse, though the slime was out in the open, so the stench could dissipate a little.

Looking at the slime’s shattered body with my magical sight, I could see some lingering Astral Power, diffuse and quickly dissipating, but it demonstrated just how magically powerful the thing had been. Essentially, a large pile of magically related material, animated by nothing but Astral Power. It made me wonder if I’d be able to create something similar by channelling Astral Power into an appropriately prepared solution, though I had no idea if I’d be able to control the result.

Thinking back, the constructs I had created for the lost spirits in the Nexus Valley had been working under similar principles. Sculpted, instead of a simple pile, but otherwise, it was nothing but magically appropriate material, animated solely by Astral Power. There, the spirits had provided the guidance, while here the guidance had given it nothing but a desire to feed? Maybe with some emergent intelligence as enough material and power was present, which would explain its ability to use ranged attacks, both with outside projectiles and by using its own material as a projectile. Neither was directly conducive to feeding, but it could ultimately enable more feeding by being combat-efficient.

Something to study in the future, for now, Luna and I managed to find something interesting, a crystallised core of some sort. Maybe crystallised Astral Power, maybe an actual slime core, maybe something that had crystallised due to my Ice Magic but hadn’t shattered, I wasn’t sure and I couldn’t tell. The crystal was composed out of Astral Power, that much was obvious, but the mixture was primarily Decay, with quite a bit of Ice seeping in. Uncertain what it meant in the long term, we stored it as securely as we could, making sure it had its own container far from everything else, just in case things went bad. Decay was one of those elements, just like Death or Fire, that one couldn’t be paranoid enough about, simply because it represented destruction over time, or destruction caused by time in some ways.

Almost nothing was truly safe from that effect, not unless I managed to imbue something with Stillness or Eternity, both concepts should provide resistance or immunity to this kind of effect. Sadly, both were high level, though I might be able to brute-force the Stillness concept with my Ice Magic, I was slowly getting there.

For now, Luna and I kept poking around the destroyed slime until Lia and Alex returned to us. Both were quite happy, Alex chittering excitedly about the chemicals they had found, making me think that this whole excursion had been a lot more successful than I thought at first. They’d be able to make something interesting with it, and I had the crystal to poke around with, matching the Void Crystal I already had. And hadn’t made any real progress with, too many things to experiment with, too many elements to explore. It was a good problem to have, but a problem nonetheless.