Feeling my mana pool full, and my body as rested as it was likely to be while being limber still, I got up and took a final sip of water before crossing to open the door a couple of minutes before the timer finished for the rest window.
After completing this series I was going to have to take Sula up on her offer to train me on combat forms, the guards I spent my few weeks of basic with taught me some very simple things but mostly strengthening exercises, and in hindsight its clear they were trying to ensure I wasn’t combat ready to encourage me to stay a town healer.
Sula had explained to me that combat healers died, often. Getting stronger via combat was risky, and it's why hunters were promised things like crafting contracts to get them to take on some combat cards to join new settlements. However I couldn’t help feeling a deep frustration at finally becoming an adult, and still having had those around I trusted decide to treat me like a child who didn’t know what they really wanted.
Sighing I moved to the entrance to the arena, Sula had helped me work out the hows and whys of why I had been undertrained and with the last trader that swung by to drop off pay confirmations plus supplies to sell to the town she had sent back a letter formally making a complaint about how it risked the settlement to under train me just to try to keep a local healer that because of my age or because they wanted someone who could properly restore scar tissue to new flesh.
I even held off on messing with the other mana paths I could feel in my body, apparently you could accidentally merge poorly made ones together making it harder to improve the resulting skills beyond certain limits, until Sula and I could do some training together. Being over levelled this shouldn’t really cause any issues with this dungeon instance, as its more my experience holding me back then system skills.
Trying to distract myself I wondered when I would actually need to spend money, particularly as there was no bank in town so I would have to go back home to Trivis to where the nearest branch was to withdraw my pay. Then again my food was covered, no rent so long as I was available as a healer and I could trade for most of the things I needed to grow so maybe it would be a while.
Shaking my head I made my way through the doorway, stopping almost immediately to read the prompt and determine how rough this would be.
Welcome young one to the series boss. Defeat this combatant to earn a reward. Quick completion will award greater rewards. Once completed you must exit and cannot challenge the next series immediately.
Current opponent: Large Slime
Slimes weren’t anything too new to me, I had heard some people even kept some as pets as they were a good companion and if well cared for could even produce resources, act as guards, or a huge range of other useful talents depending on what type and how it was cared for. Despite that I hadn’t even heard of one as large as the creature ahead of me.
Standing up to about my shoulder in height, and slightly longer than that, kind of an oblong sphere shape with a clear blue colour that let me see through to a ball about ten centimetres across that had to be its core.
Slowly moving towards it I wondered how this would play out, it wasn’t an elemental slime as I think their names contain their element, and the special ones should be similar. So really I should be able to pull it apart steadily until I can crack that core.
As I walked up to it the slime ignored me, just slowly shifting in an expand then retract way that looked like breathing but slightly off. Suddenly it lurched towards me once I was only a few steps away, and in a panic I ignited my hands and shoved at it to push it back away from me.
Choking on the thick tar like smoke coming off the slime I realised ‘just burn it and get rid of it’ might be a bit trickier then assumed. Crouching down to be below the smoke I half crawled half walked back toward the door until I was breathing clear.
Looking up the smoke was steadily unforming in the air, so it should be okay if I can keep the smoke to a minimal amount. Checking out the slime I started to feel bad, the flame that had gotten on it was still slowly burning away at it producing smoke slightly slower than it was breaking apart in the air, but the slime was just rotating around trying to work out how to put out the fire.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Realising the smoke was increasing I noticed that either something had gone wrong or the slime had tried to pull the burning part inside of itself to suffocate the flames. Instead this made it massively expand.
Watching over the next ten minutes as the slime deformed and died slowly felt like watching someones dog or cat pass away, I knew logically it was meant to be a challenge boss and a creature that could suffocate you if you just burned it was definitely tricky, but I had won by accident which just felt empty.
Once the smoke cleared enough to be comfortable I stood up, having had to sit down near the door to avoid the smoke that was filling the room above around my waist height, and walked over to where the slime had burned away to check out the slime core. I knew slime cores weren’t like our cores or most other core holding creatures, in that it was both their skills source but also their only real body the rest being more an external extension of themselves.
I also knew that the cores were useless, famously so, to the point where even I had heard something referred to as being as useless as a bucket of slime cores.
Confirming the core looked like it had cracked from the flames, and shouldn’t reform with how it was mostly in various pieces on the floor, I headed back into the rest area. I did wonder why it didn’t notify me on kill, but it must be part of the fact that this is a training themed dungeon so it wants me to get used to having to check my own kills.
Stepping through the doorway granted enough blue boxes to make me miss the soothing reds of my own personal status window, but going through them I am very excited by both the reward offers and some of the information provided.
Congratulations on completing the first series, you are now in return able to challenge the next series. Determining rewards.
Suitable bloodline present: Granting knowledge on bloodline and minor bloodline refinement.
Information: Bloodlines of some clans follow different paths than other species. Your clan Phoenix uses the following grades: Basic, Common, Uncommon, Rare, Mythic, Unique.
As bloodline quality improves from refinement, rewards, and rare unique events the bloodline holders skill with related skills and mana types will improve. Bloodlines may also cause physical changes to the holder's body as it refines.
Upgrade granted: Bloodline improved from 7% refinement to 35% Reward for defeating series (Reduced due to multiple attempts): 1x copy of ‘Slimes of the world (Slime raising for the new tamer)’. Reward for defeating series boss: 1x Copy of ‘close combat techniques of the wild clans: An introduction’.
Reward for completing hidden objective (Destroy slime core preventing reformation): 1x Common Slime Core (Soul imprint available).
Oh books about the wild blood clans were rare, but considering this instance was clearly for people like me or from them it made sense to get it. Otherwise I had no idea what I was going to do with a slime core, soul imprint implies its tamable but hopefully the book has some good information.
Collecting the items as they appear I was surprised at how small the slime core was, about the size of a marble and as clear as high quality glass, yet surprisingly heavy. As soon as I grabbed it I felt a link form which explained how the soul imprint for tamable creatures worked I guess although this might be because it's a reward from a dungeon.
Tame soul imprint: Common slime core is now bound to you. Creatures will have basic soul links and will understand basic commands when bound. Damage to the soul may occur if bound creature dies or wilfully breaks soul imprint
Well lovely, this thing could kill me if I don’t make it happy living with me, but I have heard of slimes as fantastic pets who could grow to fill a roll so hopefully this works out for the best. Stepping through the door to find myself coming out of the cave, a sensation I doubted I would ever get used to, I was excited to read through my combat book and discuss it with Sula.