"A pop quiz?" Alwin stared at his mentor. His stomach did a flip. "What if I say no?" He tried to keep his voice steady, but it came out shaky.

"You can say no all you want, but you still got to answer my questions. If you pass, I'll forgive and forget, but if you fail... you don't want to know what will happen when you fail." Lapis' Spirit Hands cracked their knuckles, the sound echoing in the quiet room.

Alwin swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry. This couldn't be good.

"So, my dear grand great student, are you ready?"

"Never ready." His mind raced, trying to anticipate the questions she might throw at him. Quizzes were the worst. He had been caught red-handed—or rather, slime-handed—and there was no easy way out.

"Too bad. Now first question, why did you shoot at my pancake?"

"I..." he stammered, trying to buy himself a few precious seconds. Alwin rattled his mind searching for an answer to provide Lapis that would get him out of this mess, but all he found was a big ole pile of nothing. Not even a little nugget of an excuse that might buy him a bit of mercy from Lapis. Since his brain couldn't come up with anything useful, he decided to be blunt and honest.

"I was testing out a new skill?"

"You were?" Lapis sounded surprised before her tone switched back to an aggressive one. "Oh, yeah? Then why test out your Fireball on my pancake?"

Since Alwin had given an honest reply, it was only natural that his next response would be a lie. Or maybe Alwin was just messed up like that.

"It was a... trick shot. And, it's not a Fireball, it's a Fire Burst Blast. There's a difference."

"Well—wait." Lapis was momentarily taken aback. "Did you say Fire? I guess I said Fire too. So you've created Fire Mana and even integrated it with one of your skills? That was fast. You completed step one of my plan and even jumped ahead to step two. Well, there goes my hopes of slacking. Why couldn't you do all that slower?"

Alwin blinked, momentarily disoriented by the unexpected turn in the conversation. Shouldn't he be given praise for going above and beyond expectations? Instead, he was being chastised for being too efficient. "It's because..." he began, searching for the right words. "It's because I'm a genius, obviously. But enough about me being too smart for you to handle. You broke your promise! Not just any kind of promise! It was a pinky promise! The most sacred form of promise! What do you have to say about that?"

Lapis gasped, her Spirit Hands flying to her chest as if wounded. "Are you crazy?! Me break a pinky promise? I would never!"

"But I caught you red-handed—I mean Spirit Handed, cooking instead of doing research like you promised me!"

"That's where you're wrong my young dumb student." Lapis shot back, wagging a finger at him "I promised I wouldn't bake cake, not cook pancakes. Checkmate!"

"Oh yeah, you promised that you'd research too! But here you were flipping pancakes! Explain that—double checkmate!"

"It's part of my process! Cooking helps me think! Now here, my young dumb pupil." A drone descended down the stairs and into the white training room. Atop its head was a stack of pancakes, golden brown and steaming. Syrup and half-melted butter dripped down its circular peak. The tantalizing aroma filled Alwin's slimy nostrils—did he even have nostrils—almost making him forget the rage that had been simmering within him.

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"While you munch on my pancakes with homemade Avocardoor butter and syrup extracted from rare Blue Brownberries, let me enlighten you."

Alwin's resolve wavered as the drone floated closer, the intoxicating scent of the pancakes enveloping him. "Well, I suppose I could have a bite," he conceded, reaching out to accept the plate that the drone extended towards him. "But, that doesn't mean I forgive you just yet."

He took a tentative bite, and his eyes widened in delight. The pancakes were fluffy and rich, the Avocardoor butter adding a creamy texture, while the Blue Starberry syrup provided a perfect balance of sweetness and tartness. "These are... amazing," he mumbled between mouthfuls.

"Of course they are," Lapis replied smugly. "Now, as you enjoy my culinary masterpiece, let's discuss my theory about your rapid progress."

As Alwin munched on the pancakes, he listened to Lapis' long lecture about her theory on why Alwin was able to create Light and Dark Mana with ease and how he was able to learn at such a fast pace. How long was the lecture? It was so long that Alwin had to get eight refills on his pancake mountain!

To spare everyone from Lapis' ramblings, on what was only a theory, here's the cliff notes version of what she thought was happening. And since even the cliff notes version was too long, here's an even shorter dumb-downed version, because Alwin may or may not have been focusing too much on the pancakes.

Since Alwin was a kid, his brain was highly 'plastic', which basically meant it was super easy and barely an inconvenience for him to adapt and reorganize concepts easily. Thanks to that handy information download, he skipped the basics of "monster functionality." Using his flexible brain as a shortcut, what would normally take weeks to understand, took Alwin a fraction of that time. Plus he had that additional benefit of reworking how he associates things—which was the basis of how his mana was shaped in his core—which meant that shaping his mana was so easy even a baby could do it.

That was the cliff notes and abridged version of Lapis' explanation on how he was learning things so fast and creating Light and Dark mana so easily. Did it make sense to him? Kinda. Did it matter? Honestly, not really. Alwin was just enjoying the pancakes and using Lapis as entertainment as he munched on his food. Everything Lapis said, just reassured the slime boy that he was undoubtedly a genius.

"Did you get all that young pupil of mine?"

"Yes, teach. Now can we get to the part where you teach me how to refine Fire Essence. Theory is boring! Long live practical experience!"

"That's the spirit! But I still need to tell you the theory part if not you'll go about bumbling aimlessly. You'll waste your time and mine. Boys!"

Lapis' drones wheeled in a whiteboard, the wheels screeching along the surface of the room as it came to a stop right in front of Alwin. They began to draw diagrams as their master gave an explanation of the whole process.

"Here's how I refine Fire Essence. It's pretty much the same thing as refining regular Essence and creating Fire Mana. I just mashed them all together and out pops Fire Essence. It's super time-consuming but better than nothing."

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but can you explain a bit more? Do I just throw Spirit Essence into a pot and call it a day?"

"That's the gist of it, except that you've got to make sure the Spirit Essence can catch on fire."

"So flammability? That should be easy."

"Well, that's one, but next you've got to make sure that it's hot enough for the Essence to combust. I'd argue that's the hardest part of the process, other than the waiting."

"So I need to generate enough heat to ignite the Spirit Essence?"

"Exactly," Lapis confirmed. "And maintain that heat consistently until the transformation is complete."

"That's pretty much everything. In hindsight, it's quite a simple process. I didn't even need to get the whiteboard out."

Alwin pulled himself from his spiraling thoughts and looked over at the whiteboard, his focus finally zeroing in on Lapis' latest “diagram.” He squinted, trying to make sense of the scribbles, but the more he looked, the clearer it became: it was a cauldron over a campfire, with curly wisps of smoke trailing out the top.

"Still took me a while to develop it though, no idea how long it's going to take for you to get a hang of it. So, after this, I'll give Milvee a call and get him to excuse you from classes until you evolve. No biggee."

Alwin's eyes lit up. "I get to skip class? Awesome!"

"Yup! Now remember to Devolve back to that Dark Slime form of yours, my precious grand great student! With you here it'll make my research a heck of a lot faster!"

With that last remark from his mentor, Alwin felt himself changing and transforming back into a Dark Slime. Finally, another chance of evolving into something, not a slime. This was going to be fun, except for the whole refining essence part. That was going to be boring, but everything else? That was going to be fun. Probably.