‘Mimicry - Kvasir! : Slime x 5, Wyvern x 1, Harpy x 1, Vampire x 1’
In Norse legend, born from the saliva of the Æsir and Vanir gods as a symbol of peace, Kvasir was considered the wisest of all beings. His knowledge was so vast that there was no question he could not answer. After his death, his blood was mixed with honey to create the Mead of Poetry, which imparts wisdom and poetic skill to those who drink it.
In his pursuit to collect information, Noah realised that he could just do it himself. This was where he came up with Kvasir. With the ability of a slime to spit out ten small, lesser, non-sentient yet intelligent copies of itself, Noah had utilised five stacked slimes to create fifty nifty little information gatherers. With the pitiful mana they possessed and their small, flexible bodies, each lesser slime snuck into places no human could to collect information. Furthermore, each lesser slime lacked the sentience to preserve its own life and therefore placed the mission above itself. If its intelligence decided that it needed to destroy itself to hide its own existence, it would not hesitate. The slimes could also sprout small harpy wings to perform flight in short durations to vantage points, though extended flight was impossible for them.
The best part about slimes was the magic. Slimes came in many different variants, differing from the way variants usually varied from their own species in that the formation of slime variants stemmed from knowledge, not genetic makeup. Frankly, there were all sorts of speculation as to what caused a variant to be born as one in the Calysta Continent. There was even good reason to believe that species variants were a result of a larger souls being born into a species that usually were of smaller soul sizes; that the increase in soul size forcefully triggered an evolution to its inherent abilities, such as an increase in strength between the orc as compared to the Orc Chief, or an overall upgrade to blood magic between the vampire as compared to a Vampire Chief.
Noah couldn't usually transform into variants. Even if he were to hunt down the Orc King, he would not be able to transform into it, since the Orc King was a rare variant, not a different species. Killing the Orc King would only give him the ability to transform into an ordinary orc, if he hadn't been able to already.
‘Strangely enough, when it comes to orcs, orc shamans are considered a different species, as the inherent sorcery shamans use is derived from engravings in their souls, so an Orc King is technically closer to the average orc than an orc shaman is, but that’s a different matter.'
'Point is, any lesser slime could transform into a variant lesser slime by irreversibly enchanting itself. Enchanting! That's Mia's schtick! And the slime can naturally pull off more complex variants if its intelligence crosses a certain threshold, so my lesser slimes have access to an infinite catalogue of slime variants, thanks to being slimes derived from a human’s intelligence!’
As the sun began to set, Noah swooped into the edge of the Demonic Forest where he had released his slimes, and patiently waited, still in his Kvasir form. The main body of the form was still that of Noah’s human body for the most part, but the pair of black harpy wings that sprouted out of his back as well as the red slit-like draconic irises made him resemble a fallen angel, and indicated that he clearly was transformed.
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He had flown around the area he had tasked his slimes to investigate to determine if there would be anything that might stop his slimes from doing their espionage, along with doing some of his own, and now all that was left was to patiently wait for his fifty slimes to group back up. Unfortunately, his mental faculties could not handle fifty streams of information at the same time, and thus chose not to receive a live feed of what his slimes saw. What he had devised as a workaround, however, was to individually retrieve the information of each slime once it reassimilated into him, allowing their memories to seep into him, experiencing what his lesser slimes had that way.
He waited, and he saw slimes of all kinds of colours show up in front of him, depicting the variants they had enchanted themselves into to maximise their capabilities. Unsurprisingly, given the mostly forest-like nature of the Demonic Forest, most decided to turn into the Nature Slime to use basic nature magic, while the occasional slime here and there were Aqua Slimes or Invisible Slimes (which weren't actually invisible, only much more transparent).
Noah had actually expected more Rock Slimes, considering that over half of the demons in the Demonic Forest lived in extravagantly decorated underground cave habitats, but it did make more sense for them to choose to be Invisible Slimes instead to lower their visibility. Rock Slimes were the form slimes would take to maximise their combat potential underground and wouldn't really be best for espionage when investigating such areas.
After an hour passed and the orange tint of the sun faded to a pitch black, Noah sighed. He had counted only forty-eight slimes in front of him. It seemed that two did not make it back.
‘Oh well. Good enough, I guess’
Noah then instructed the slimes that had neatly arranged themselves into rows to climb onto his back, and he took off.
After an hour of lazy flight, Noah arrived back at the estate, where he landed just a little ways away from the outdoor training area. Ariel was currently in training with Seraphina, and he didn't want to get in the way of that.
‘Mimicry - Kvasir’s Mead : Slime x 5, Vampire x 3’
After Kvasir's death, his blood was said to be mixed with honey to create a mead that imbued anyone who drank it with the gift of poetry and wisdom. Maybe the poetry part wasn't too accurate, but Noah, who was about to collect the information of the day, felt like he was drinking up information. Thus the name of this alternate form of Kvasir, Kvasir's Mead.
Now in humanoid form, like a mother duck leading its ducklings, Noah walked up to the patio overlooking the training grounds with his slimes following him single file and took a seat on one of the three chairs around. The slimes stopped as well, and Noah let out a short exhale upon seeing the long line of forty-eight.
“Alright. Everyone's here. Didn't lose anyone in flight like the first couple times I did this. Shall we start?”
As he ended his sentence, the first slime jumped and merged into him, and memories popped into Noah’s brain in a manner that felt like he was recalling a forgotten event that happened a long time ago.
Due to the nature of Mimicry, Noah unfortunately did not get access to the passive physical reinforcement that came with his Chief ranked warrior cultivation, as his body changed when he used his skill. This meant that his brain was not passively accelerated like other warriors’ were. He did, however, still retain access to the active mana reinforcement that he could trigger by circulating his mana, and he could make up for it by using the vampire form, which functioned mentally and physically at a level similar to the sovereign ranked warrior. When stacked, along with mana reinforcement, his mental faculties were boosted to a level that allowed him to parse through the memories of the slimes that merged into him at frightening speed.
Still, each slime still took at least a minute, and doing this for all slimes ended up takingjust under an hour.