The excitement of a new class aside, Myles Chase slept like a well-adjusted toddler, very well and deeply.

Who knew that a day of dungeon diving, multiple instances of mana poisoning, a night of drinking, cooking, eating, and enslaving a dungeon by accident would really do a number on one’s will to roll out of bed in the morning?

When the time finally came to awaken, Myles was greeted by a calm day. Well, as calm as the Grand Dungeon of Kess got. There was little to be done with his classes other than adjusting to his new place in life. He had magic, he had a dimensional bag full of slime cores, and he had a feeling of contentment as he walked into the living room. Thankfully, the lack of duty meant that there was plenty to keep him busy this morning. Myles had more than enough ideas to keep himself occupied as it was.

First on his list, Myles wanted to check his interface to see if he missed anything from his nocturnal upgrade.

“Interface.”

Name: Myles Chase

Age: 18

Sex: Male

Race: Human

Patron: Unaligned

Primary Class:

Monster Tamer

Apprentice 1

Secondary Class:

Succulent Magician

Apprentice 1

Attributes:

Brawn - 15 (12+3)

Dexterity - 21 (19+2)

Will - 15

Influence - 17

Resources:

Soul Energy: 110/110

Mana: 20/20

Dough: 0/100

Elemental Alignment:

None

Monster Tamer

Skills

Traits

Essence Bond

Bait

Apprentice’s Stasis Gem Creation

Monster Lore

Species Nutritional Lore

Essence Bond

Succulent Magician

Skills

Traits

Enchant Dough

Glutenmancy

Phantom Oven

Food Lore

Taste Test

Ingredient Reference

Baking

Magical Cooking

Deft Hands

Resourceful

General

Skills

Traits

Keen Eye

Apprentice’s Item Lore

Aetheric Translation

Dagger Mastery

Resourceful

Mind over Matter

Toss of a Coin

No, everything was still as he had left it before passing into oblivion. Myles smiled a bit, enjoying the new organization that his status had undergone. He liked when things were a little more organized. It reminded him just a little more of the home he left behind. Reviewing the list, he closed it with another thought.

With that done, Myles moved on to his next idea and went into the bathroom.

After dealing with other urgent issues, Myles washed his hands, dried them off, and opened the shower to examine it. From the times Myles had used it, he realized that the door created a watertight seal between it and the outside. He’d figured this out the easy way, as every time he took a shower, not a drop got out onto the towel he left on the floor as a makeshift. His family had a good shower, but this one was on a whole other level. Runes inlaid on the inside of the door repelled the water from crossing the threshold unless it was on him, or the door was opened from the outside.

At the time, it had been interesting, but now?

Now it was something he was going to abuse the Mists out of if his plan actually worked.

With a little effort, Myles sealed the drain by shoving the bathtub plug into the shower drain with more force than was strictly necessary. When he was satisfied with the seal, he opened his inventory, removed four of his remaining clear slime cores, and placed them into the shower to reconstitute.

Closing the door, Myles felt pride in his makeshift slime corral, but he had to be sure of it. With a thought, Myles focused on the monster in mind and willed Monster Lore to trigger.

Information requested: Clear Slime

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Clear Slime

Dungeon Creature - Slime (Small)

Rank E Threat level

Best trait - Adaptability

Preferred Method of Attack - Absorption, Swarm

Known Drops: Clear Slime Core

Diet: Everything

Breeding Groups: Amorphous

Special Ability: Purification

Tame a Clear Slime to unlock more information.

Taming one was on his agenda for later, but something Will had said back in the dungeon clicked into place after a good night’s sleep. It wasn’t the slime itself he was interested in. Well, not entirely. It was the adaptability Trait he had his eyes on. A little more focus and direction gave him what he wanted to know.

Information Requested: Ability - Adaptability

Due to the direction of your Monster Lore and Prior Knowledge, additional information has been generated and added to the Clear Slime lore entry.

Adaptability

Trait

Description: Allows a creature to adapt in composition or form to better fit its environment. Adaptation will express itself differently based on the creature.

Creature Specific Adaptability: Clear Slime

Effect: Clear Slimes are a unique entity in that they are elementally deficient until they begin to eat. As they build up more of a specific element or combination of elements, their bodies will adapt to express this element.

Myles smiled.

In short, whatever he fed the slimes, they would begin to produce themselves by growing. Oh, the plans he had if this scheme worked.

To avoid any issues like the one back in the dungeon, Myles kept the greater core in his inventory. If this worked, he could try to grow and adapt it later in the barn. He did have a few more stalls, after all.

Closing the door and making sure it was firmly in place, Myles left the bathroom and had to answer a different call. His stomach was making demands that his body was lethargically trying to answer. In the small kitchen proper, Myles grabbed the first thing he found under a clean towel he’d taken from the bathroom and munched on some night-old bread. It was crusty and still soft in the center, but nowhere near as good as it had been the night before. The partial loaf did its job, however, and his stomach no longer wanted to eat its way out of his chest. If only he had some butter or honey for it.

Myles stopped at the thought and looked at the few bites he had left.

He did have honey… or at least the next best thing to it.

Focusing on the bread, Myles tried to will his enchantments to work. He’d never used magic before, but as he made his intentions clear, he felt something move through him like when he’d used the skill to create the stasis gem for Ashra. That had been his soul energy though. It had been something he knew about, something that just responded to him as if it were a part of him as natural as his hands.

Mana moved differently.

It felt like electricity dancing across his skull. The electricity had a purpose, an idea that it was trying to obey, but as he pushed, it scattered like herding feral cats in his head. Like hot oil in a pan, the more he forced the power to obey, the more it spread, and the more it hurt. Then, when he felt like his mind was going to break, a notice appeared.

This item is not compatible with your Skill - Enchant Dough.

Reason: This is not dough.

Myles groaned, rubbing his temples. The pain made him temporally absent-minded as the bread pressed against his head, so he stuck the loaf in his mouth and rubbed.

The pain was sharp like a needle piercing his skull and slowly spreading it wider. Is this what always happened when a spell failed? No wonder Will didn’t want to test out his skills out for the first time in combat. Knowing the limits of what a spell could do was important in the middle of battle. Not that his [Succulent Magician] skills were suited for direct combat. Myles couldn’t imagine dealing with that kind of pain out of nowhere like that while fighting for his life on top of anything else he had. Grumbling slightly, Myles sat on the floor, gnawing on his bread like a dog might a bone, and waited for the pain to subside.

Myles sat there for longer than he wanted to admit before he felt like moving again. The bread was gone as he rose, the heel of the loaf long since devoured as he looked around for his clothes, found them neatly folded as they always seemed to be after he slept, and got dressed.

Myles opened the door to walk outside and smelled the crisp morning air. It was cooler than it was back home, but it was nice. It smelled like autumn was coming, which should still be a while away. The third season might come sooner near the capital, but the only worry Myles really had was when they got to Frostfall. That was something he was not prepared for yet.

Maybe the mobs would start dropping winter clothes when that happened?

He chuckled at the thought and began to walk towards the barn. It hadn’t even been a week, and he was already used to how things worked. Life or death struggles did that though.

You adapted, or you died.

Opening the door, he was surprised to see Ashra, sitting in front of the other pen with some lettuce, ears and nose twitching as she looked out into the near endless shores of the dungeon core’s pen.

“It is peaceful,” Ashra said as soon as he closed the door and walked inside.

The sea air was worth it alone as he sat down and looked out into the endless ocean. “It is.”

There was a long silence as Ashra ate half the lettuce head before setting it aside. “We are going to rest today?” Myles nodded, and she seemed to contemplate something before speaking again. “Will the core awaken today?”

“I’m not sure,” Myles answered honestly. “I still don’t think my ability was supposed to work this way.”

“We will have to be ready when it is. I will not lose my bed to an encroaching dungeon.”

“I don’t think it can encroach.”

There was another long pause as the waves lapped against the shore, never passing beyond the gate as the two looked on.

“What will it become?”

“I wish I knew, Ashra.”

She nodded at that before looking at him. Her nose twitched in time with a rise in curiosity as she moved ever close to him. “Something is different.”

“Oh?”

She nodded again. “You smell like magic.”

“You can smell magic.”

“My sense of smell is excellent,” she explained. “You used to smell like bread and monsterkin, but now, you smell like lightning on a storming sky… and bread.”

Myles made a mental note of that to test later and chuckled slightly. “My Class changed.”

Her ears perked. “You are no longer a [Monster Tamer]?”

“No, I still have that one. I’m a [Succulent Magician] now.”

She tilted her head, ears moving slightly as curiosity took a firm hold. She leaned in, trying to discern something as she stared through him. “What can it do?”

“Bake, really,” he explained. “I can enchant my doughs and make golems made from bread I think.”

“I see. It is fitting.” There was another silence as she picked up and began chewing the lettuce before putting it back down. “Will we be practicing today with your skills?”

***

“This is not what I imagined.”

“Magic isn’t just fireballs.”

“Entertaining magic is.”

The training Myles had in mind was something like the night before, mixing flour, water, yeast, salt, and a pinch of sugar into a simple but effectively universal dough. Once the dough was mixed properly, a prompt appeared.

Action requested.

Compatible resource: Dough has been found within the influence of your IMA.

Absorb?

Yes, Myles prompted.

A moment later, the pile of rounded, proofing dough vanished, and a new message replaced it.

Resource absorbed.

Dough: 2/100

A quick calculation told Myles more about his resource than he already knew. A unit of dough was about equal to a pound-ish of dough. So, his two pounds of dough, now stored in his resource space, wherever that was, wouldn’t take up inventory space, but also wouldn’t generate itself.

A smile crossed his face at that thought, and he focused on retrieving the material.

How much Dough should be removed from Resource Space?

A moment later, half the pile reappeared, and the message flashed back to life.

Resource removed.

Dough: 1/100

Yep, he could retrieve it easily enough.

Reaching out for the dough, it felt warm to the touch, warmer than it should have in fact. It was rising, proofing to its proper state without more than a thought. His dad would have sold the family cat to be able to do this.

Well, if they had a cat.

Three more times, Myles practiced retrieving his dough from storage and returning it from whence it came. Each time, the dough came out round, proofed, lightly floured to not stick to his hands, and warm to the touch. In other words, it was perfect to be worked with.

So, he did just that.

As Ashra followed his directions to make more dough, Myles began carefully crafting the dough into the shape of something simple, a long rope the likes of which he’d use to begin making pasta. With the general shape established, Myles began to focus on his dough snake and forced his will into it. Instead of the sparks he felt the first time he’d tried magic, his glutenmancy skill guided the magic and his will where it was intended. The dough glowed faintly, then settled.

When nothing happened, Myles sighed in disappointment.

At least, he was disappointed until the dough snake jumped up and wrapped itself around his neck like an overly enthusiastic scarf.

The dough snake was stronger than it looked.

His hands gripped the doughy body in a flash, pulling at it, stretching it out of shape, and breaking its hold before it could do anything more than that. With a plop, the now lifeless dough fell to the counter and floor where Myles flung it.

Ashra’s amusement bled through the link as Myles gave her a hard stare. “I’m glad you find it funny.”

“I find it funny because it was.”

“If it had killed me?”

“It would not have killed you.”

Myles grumbled, but he hadn’t given the dough an order to kill. He’d simply told it to ‘do something.’ Apparently, he had to be more careful with the orders he gave the dough.

A wicked grin crossed his face as he began picking up the dough. He carefully set them on the counter and walked away as Ashra stood there, slightly confused.

“Myles?”

As he turned and watched from the other side of the room, Myles’s smile only grew. He now knew he could leave at least three simple commands at his level: Wait until I leave, stay still, and pounce.

As the barrage began, Ashra cursed and began to kick and punch the flying globs. One managed to stay on course. With a satisfying soft thud, it smacked her on the forehead and matted into her fur. The cursing only got louder as she attempted to pull it all free, and Myles laughed.

“You will regret this, Myles!”

Myles greatly doubted that, but he had been wrong before as a wad of ripped dough slammed into his chest