The last skill Danika gained before seeking out the slime at the bottom of the vale, was one from the tailor. He taught her binding, which he used on hems with thread and needle, but since it was basically a knotting skill it could also be used to bind larger things together with larger strings.
Learning binding made Danika wonder what would have happened if she'd tied a knot without the skill. She looked it up while eating bread, cheese and apples for supper. She was still afraid to eat the apple she had in the game.
According to other players, those accessing the game through VR could actually do things like tie knots without any skill proficiency. However, using real world skills without having a related skill on your character sheet wouldn't improve the skill if you obtained it later. No one had yet reported having taught themselves a skill directly, although a number of people had learned branching skills in their chosen path, apparently triggered by using related real world skills in combination with their path skill.
Her character sheet before her battle with the slime read:
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ZipZing, a Fairy Dragon and a Novice.
Karma: 14
Reincarnations: 0
Accumulated Level: 11
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Skills:
Flight, natural: 1
Breath, exhaust: 1
Dazzling: 0
Light, cantrip: 1
Plant Growth, spell: 1
Restore, prayer: 1
Binding String: 1
Stealth: 1
Evasion: 1
Identify Animal: 1
Identify Plant: 1
Assimilation: 1
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Danika returned to the game and descended cautiously farther down the vale than she'd yet explored. She had the wizard's apple, half a large loaf of bread from the baker, and a spool of sturdy thread from the tailor in her storage ring inventory.
She continued practicing making lights along the way. The duration was equivalent to her skill, so the lights faded before she'd moved very far from each one. Before she reached the bottom of the vale, she heard that soft distant chime again, and stopped to pull up her character sheet again. Her light had gained a level.
The vale narrowed toward the bottom and cut downward between rocky cliffs that rose like a pair of stones that the giant roots of the great tree had shoved out of the ground an age ago.
There was a narrow passage between the two large stones, and in the center sat what had to be the slime. Danika wondered if it had a cute appearance in the mobile interface, here it looked a lot like a big slimy slug.
The slime didn't have eyes, like many illustrations of slimes portrayed. Something like a shiny coin glittered from the center of its gelatinous mass. It didn't look like it breathed, and she wasn't sure that she'd even be able to tell if it had been slowed anyway, it wasn't moving very fast.
A resounding thump rang off the stone suddenly, and the slime sort of dissolved into the rock and vanished. A moment later the traveling merchant walked through the gap. Danika stared at him in surprise.
The merchant winked at her. Danika rolled her eyes and asked, "Why do I need to defeat the slime if you can just scare it away like that?"
The traveling merchant turned and watched the slime sliding out of the stone. "For money?" he suggested.
"Why does it have money? That really is a coin in the center?" Danika questioned. As an after thought she added another, "How did it carry the coin into the stone when it …uh, dissolved its way in?"
The merchant grinned and replied, "I can't answer the last one, magic? It is, and it isn't a coin, it's the slime's heart. It also contains the metals the slime extracts from the ore in the rock it travels through. Almost all mining is done by slimes, flocks of them are raised around good deposits in the stone and are harvested when grown."
"The coins of the Jade Empire are slime hearts?" Danika asked uncertainly.
"It's the most common currency on land," the merchant informed her, "but mermaids and other sea folk generally prefer their traditional shells." He looked at her dubious expression and added, "You might think that means money is free on many beaches, but the shells that commonly wash up are perhaps equivalent to a penny in your world."
Danika shook her head and asked the critical question, "How are slimes harvested?"
"Every mining ranch and slime hunter has their own tactics, I couldn't possibly list them all to you in any reasonable amount of time," the merchant informed her with evident amusement. "However, most beginners simply cut them apart when they come out of the rock to clarify themselves in the sun."
"How can someone my size cut that apart!?" Danika asked with dismay.
The merchant squinted at her and replied cheerfully, "Oh, I'm sure you'll be able to do such a thing eventually, but for now I suppose you'll have to come up with an alternative." With that, he departed for the village.
Danika considered chasing him, but decided that it was already fairly clear that the traveling merchant wasn't going to help her defeat the slime, and she needed to do it herself. She studied the slime for awhile, before she thought to use the lens from her menu system on it.
She quickly pulled up her menu and clicked the two icons required to bring up the lens. Through the lens the slime had a tag on it. It was more informative than the title of her mentor had been, it read: "Slime: Level 3, Health excellent." When she tapped on it, it expanded to read: "Identification: Classified as both plant and animal. 99% water, 1% heavy metals. Grows cloudy after feeding on metals, must charge in sunlight to condense metals into its heart coin. Extremely flexible, can pass through stone and earth."
Danika felt trapped in a conundrum. The skill she could learn from her mentor after she defeated the slime had the potential to be extremely good against slimes, but first she had to defeat the slime…