Lapis was still staring at him, thinking, processing, and planning her next move. Meanwhile, Alwin was facing his own inner turmoil. Within his own mind, he was battling for control with the serious side of him. As amazed as he was at how the serious-him had handled the situation, he had to put a stop to it. That wasn't Alwin! Technically, it was, but it also wasn't. Too exhausted to untangle the psychological and philosophical knot forming, all he knew was that he needed to suppress the serious side of him again before he actually became a productive member of society. Wait, was he the bad guy? Nah, that couldn’t possibly be the case. Right?
On the outside, the inner turmoil displayed itself as a series of scrunches, lip bites, and head tilts. In other words, it looked the same as when Alwin was stuck thinking. It was technically the truth, but you know what? There's been too much of that word lately, time to toss it out.
Yes! It was working. With every random string of thoughts, every out-of-place observation, and every pointless tangent, the serious side of him began losing its grip. Alwin's power grew stronger—there was an urge to include another technicality building inside him, but Alwin said no.
All he had to do was overwhelm the serious side with stupidity, drown him out with ridiculousness, bury him in buffoonery, and suffocate him in silliness. Then, he'd go back to being his old self—no longer would he be plagued by logical thoughts, cursed by sound reasoning, and punished by common sense. A big fat NOPE, EGGS, ZEROES, HAITIENSI! What did that even mean? The answer was clear as mud, a solid win for the idiot side—the true side.
With the true Alwin back in control of his body, he rejoiced—he went nuts. All the emotions he was holding back, all the antics he had suppressed, all the jokes he was forced to bite down came rushing forth. Jumping for joy, rolling all over the ground, twirling about in a frenzy of hyperactivity—Alwin was throwing a party for himself. Celebrating the return of the one true Alwin, basking in the glory of his conquest. It all culminated into one glorious final act, a victory dance! A jiggle to the left. A jiggle to the right. A jiggle here, a jiggle there. A jiggle, jiggle, jiggle, everywhere!
At the end of his solo act, Lapis presented Alwin with a gift of her own. It wasn't the best gift, but it was the thought that counts.
"Begone, Demon! Return my precious slime boy student apprentice back," she shouted as a pair of drones swooped in on cue. One doused Alwin with what he could only assume was holy water, while the other held up a cross to Alwin's face.
"Lapis, it's me," said Alwin, spitting out mouthfuls of water.
"Yes! The exorcism worked!" shouted Lapis. "Good job, boys. Remember to mop up the place when you're done."
"I was never possessed... technically speaking." Darn it, he had done it again. The technicalities were slipping out, once more.
"Alright, demon. If that's the way you want to play it. Time for round two!"
"Wait, wait, wait!" Alwin's mind was racing, he didn't want a second impromptu shower again. Twice in a day was way too much—the impromptu part not the showering part, you filthy-bodied person! Just ignore that last comment. Anyways, time to focus. It was obvious that Lapis would not stop until he could convince her that he was Alwin. An idea popped into his head. Better hope it works. "Rambling!" he shouted.
The holy water-carrying drone paused mid-throw, splashes of water still escaped the container, slowly dripping to the floor. The cross bearing, though instead of lowering the cross, kept waving it around in front of Alwin's face. Lapis glanced over at Alwin, studying him carefully, looking for any signs of deceit.
A third drone appeared, instead of prayer beads, blessed salt, or even—thankfully—a silver bullet, it carried around a black marker. Please don't be a demon-drawing marker! The drone flew straight up to Lapis and drew a smile on her crystal face. "He's back! We shall celebrate with chocolate cake! Cake for everyone!"
Alwin breathed a sigh of relief. That was one situation taken care of, now onto the next. "Any idea what Milvus is gonna do?"
"It's most likely a fight," said Lapis.
"What kind of fight?"
"If I had to guess, it's going to be a hard fight."
Drats! A hard fight? That was one of the worst kinds of fights. Alwin was going to have to pull out all of the stops. Losing wasn't an option! If he failed, then Bion's name-calling would've been proven true. No, there was no room for failure! No room for Al-loser!
"No time for cake, Lapis. I've got to train! I'm going to train so hard that my soft squishy slimy body will transform into a hard solid slimy body. Onward! To victory!" Alwin shouted. Without wasting a second longer, he turned tail and dashed off back into Lapis' white training room. Not even the blinding, cornea-destroying lights could hold him back, now. Alwin was determined! He was going to get as much training in as possible.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Seconds turned to minutes, minutes to hours, hours to days. Theory became practice, knowledge transformed into power, and food converted into waste. Alwin had spent every waking hour practicing for his big test, even going so far as to spend every sleeping hour doing the same. Dreams were his sandbox, his playground for imagining various scenarios—all of which he emerged victorious because he was just that good.
The physical world was his laboratory for experimenting and refining his techniques, more specifically Mix, Spirit Bomb, and even Fire Blast—it's better to have more options than less. Even during Milvus' boring morning lecture, he spent the time theory crafting. Who cared about the best way to ambush a human? Or other human-related topics that Milvus discussed. It's not like humans were going to show up for his test. What was more important was becoming the best Alwin he could possibly be.
In just one week, he had covered an incredible amount of ground—what would've taken months was accomplished in a single seven-day stretch. Perhaps the serious side of him still lurked in the deepest trenches of his subconscious mind, secretly influencing Alwin into actually being productive.
No time for ruminating! Instead, woe to his enemies for they underestimate the might of Alwin the Slime. From perfecting the basics of Mix to honing his Fire Blast, working out the kinks of Spirit Bomb, and creating a plethora of new combinations through Mix—most of which were useless. Nevertheless, each combination added something different to his arsenal, and Alwin was sure that they'd come in handy eventually. Maybe not soon, but definitely someday. Please make it happen, future him! It took past him so much work and effort, don't let it go to waste!
In fact, Alwin was going to put it to good use right now. Time to show off how useless some of those combinations really were. It may have already been shown once, but nobody said that it couldn't be shown twice!
Introducing a Spirit Blast combined with another Spirit Blast. What was the result? A Spirit Blast twice as big as a regular Spirit Blast and twice as powerful, but more importantly it costs more than twice the mana! So basically, useless. Yay!
But why stop there? Following the trend, it was time to see the results of combining other skills with…
Drum roll, please!
Themselves!
A Spirit Scatter Blast mixed with another Spirit Scatter Blast created a Spirit Scatter Blast twice as big as a regular Spirit Scatter Blast, with twice as many mini Spirit Blasts inside, and as per usual, cost more than twice the mana. Same thing for a Spirit Burst Blast. Twice the size, twice the amount of raw mana, and more than twice the mana cost. No prizes for guessing what happens when you combine a Fire Blast with another Fire Blast, but Alwin still wanted to say it anyway—twice the size, twice the firepower, and more than twice the mana cost! Good thing Alwin was a master of copy and pasting.
Yin-Yang Blast with another Yin-Yang Blast? Turns out there was practically no difference with just shooting two Yin-Yang Blasts out with proper timing. Bigger explosion and bigger symbol. No point wasting the extra energy using Mix.
During his little training montage, Alwin had gotten the hang of Spirit Bomb. The trick was to run away immediately upon casting. That way when the Spirit Bomb inevitably crashes onto the floor, he wouldn’t get knocked out from the resulting explosion. What was the result when you mixed them together? Yeah, even Alwin was getting tired of this bit. Moving on!
What do you get when you forcefully merge two Spirit Hands together? A ten-fingered Spirit Hand! Now, that's a birth defect if Alwin ever saw one. The same could be said about Mixing Spirit Feet with another Spirit Feet, producing a ten-toed Spirit Foot. If Alwin ever wanted to start up a circus troupe of freaks, he'd know exactly where to recruit his star performers.
Mixing a Dark Tackle with another Dark Tackle? Yeah, Alwin didn't know either. Projectiles were easy to Mix, but he still hadn't figured out how to Mix a skill that affected his physical body. Same situation applied when he attempted to Mix Fire Bite with Fire Bite—literally nothing.
Could he have asked Lapis for help? Yup. Should he have asked her for help? Of course! But that would have invalidated much of the serious-side Alwin's big speech to Milvus. As much as Alwin hated him, he was technically still a part of him, so he had to try his best to uphold his word.
Time to segue into something more practical.
There was another revelation to be had during his afternoon training sessions. Remember when Alwin's Spirit Blast ranked up to S? Well, Alwin remembered too. Turns out the 'S' had another meaning behind it, Silent! The effect? Well, it was self-explanatory, but for all those folks who struggle to comprehend such complex terms, here's the answer—Alwin no longer had to shout whenever he used Spirit Blast. Of course, he still could if he wanted to.
Going down the list of benefits, a bunch of system prompts interrupted Alwin during his training session. Here's a little snippet of it.
Skill Mastery Increased: Spirit Scatter Blast(A) → Spirit Scatter Blast(S)
Skill Mastery Increased: Spirit Burst Blast(A) → Spirit Burst Blast(S)
Skill Mastery Increased: Spirit Hands(A) → Spirit Hands(S)
Skill Mastery Increased: Spirit Feet(F) → Spirit Feet(S)
Skill Mastery Increased: Spirit Bomb(F) → Spirit Bomb(A)
Skill Mastery Increased: Fire Blast(F) → Fire Blast(A)
Skill Mastery Increased: Mix(F) → Mix(E)
That's right. During his attempts at Mixing his skills, his mastery over them had improved by leaps and bounds. However, Mix was a tough cookie to crack. But, that would be a problem for future Alwin. Screw that guy. Now, he could silent cast most of his main arsenal of skills! Now, he no longer had to shout out skills like a buffoon! Alwin the Assassin could make an appearance sometime in the future—hopefully near future.
Eventually, the dreaded moment arrived. A day where class ended an hour early, just for Alwin—he was that special. The fateful day that determined whether he would get ripped away from Lapis' care. After all, how bad could it possibly be? All Alwin had to do was prove himself and win against whatever Milvus threw at him. A small doubt started to gnaw at him at the back of his mind—it wasn't the serious side of him, Alwin checked. But, a small part of him wondered that maybe he should've paid a bit more attention during Milvus' class. It could've been useful. Maybe.
"Are you ready, Alwin?" asked Milvus.
"Ever ready!" Alwin shouted back.