As excited as grandpa was, he decided to go all out the next day with talking, and get some rest after getting everything settled. We did talk a little, he had let me know that the golems destroyed the competition. That being some captured goblins, and then a round with some enslaved vampires. Kinda crazy that they allow that kind of thing, makes me happy for my current living situation.

All that aside, I decided to work on a slime crystal ball while mana forging. Morning came quickly enough and I was pulled out of my work by Gizmo Kneeling down with a large smile.

“Moor-nin gra-pa-a” I cheered.

“Mornin’. Ready for the talk of a life time?” he asked with a wide smile. I nodded with vigor.

“Well, go’n eat, and well talk at the table. The golems have brought you a small feast last I checked.” He said getting up from his squat. I get out of the dish and tug on Gizmo’s shirt as he was turning around.

“Hey-r-r” I said holding out my hand. I pulled the crystal through my body and arm, until it popped out of my palm. His eyes opened wide at the present.

“Well I’ll be..” He started as he grabbed it from my palm. He looked it all over with glee.

“I th-enk it wi-ll bee mag-ick-lee re-cep-t-eev. M-eye voi-ce reeng seem-ed to, ta-ch. Ta-ke well to man-a.” I said. I mentally grumble to myself at the difficulty with hard C’s and K’s.

“I can tell, the thing has great mana conductivity.” He said, having already put his goggles on.

“I couldn’t tell with your voice ring, since it had an enchantment already. Wow.” He murmured while holding up the crystal ball

“Well, let’s work on this later. I’m hungry.” He said smiling and pocketing the ball. He lead the way up stairs. I followed and went out the front door to see a surprisingly large pile of monster corpses. I guess Gizmo had already updated the golems like he said he would.

There was a couple wolves, goblins, stags, and is that a troll? It looked like a mix of a goblin and and a gorilla. It took a while to eat all the bodies, so long Gizmo had come outside to check on me.

“I guess it takes some time to eat all that huh?” he asked.

“Ye-ah.” I responded with my head formed on the rest of my blob like body.

“While it’s on my mind, could I get you to expel some of your waste slime in jars again? I have some new ideas” he said.

“Ly-k wha-t? Hy-droll-ecks?” I ask.

“Hydraulics?” He asked.

“Uhhhh.” I started realizing what I had done. With that I had passed the time while working on my meal by explaining the basic idea. His eyes seemed to grow with excitement. And now that I think of it, maybe my waste slime could be used as hydraulic fluid. I shrug after that thought.

“Watt did you-ou plan on do-oing with thee sly-m?” I asked.

“Oh, I was thinking, if the crystal is this good at conducting mana then what if I filled the material channels in the golems with slime gel as appose to metals. It would be cheaper and easier to work with. That’s only if it’s effective, mind you.” He started

“May-bee thah-t meth-od wou-ld hah-v ahn syn-er-gee bet-ween the sly-m an-d cry-st-ahl?” I asked.

“That’s what I was thinking too.” He said pinching and twisting his mustache. We had continued to talk about the possible use of slime as a material. I had finally finished the pile of monsters and we went inside. Gizmo sat at the table in the kitchen, and I sat at the end of the table, stretching myself up to lay my arms and head on the end of the table.

“So I think we should start at the beginning, your core.” He said.

“Ye-ah. It’s prett-ier no-ow. Now I cah-an con-troll more vol-ume. But I wah-nt boh-nes first.” I say. I get a little self conscious of my speech again. While Gizmo started speaking I tried to fix my throat a little, thinking that the crystal being at the back of my mouth was the reason for my speech impediment.

“I see, I can see the difference. Your form is not melding as much. And walking means that much to you huh? Well, the sooner you get that sorted out, you'll be able to wear some gifts I got for you.” He said.

“Ooh~?” I asked. I made my voice fluctuate in tone at the end to show my interest.

“Yea, I had a hard time finding something you could wear. And even made some request that got me some odd looks. But hey.” He shrugged getting up. He went to the side and opened up a small chest. He showed me some leather dresses, and wax treated dresses. The dresses seemed simple, and the leather ones seemed to be sturdier. I would probably be ones I would do work or venture around in.

I felt conflicted. My old identity was fighting the idea of being excited over dresses, however here I am. A slime girl. My new life. Instead of thinking of it from the perspective as my old self, I decided to think of it as my new persona. And on top of that, seeing how cute my new form looked in the dresses seemed like proper motivation to get over my internal strife.

“WoOow. Th-ank you-ou!” I cheer as I made my way over to him. Investigate the chest which he sat on the ground for me to sift through.

“I had to make sure that I got you clothes that would last a while when you wore them. Water proof clothing like this isn’t an every day request.” He shrugged. I smile as I sift through them. About four wax treated sun dresses, one yellow, two white, and a orange one. Then there where actually two leather dresses. One looked more for adventuring, like some sort of battle dress. The other seemed to be more of a workshop type dress. It resembled a maid dress, only slightly, with many pockets.

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“Tha-nk you s-oo Mu-ch!” I cheered. He doubled over for a second cupping his ears.

“I’m happy you enjoy the gifts. Just maybe though, control your excitement a little. I didn’t know you could be that loud.” He chuckled. I nod, not realizing I had practically yelled. He smiled at that and went back to sitting at the table.

“Now about you’re emm… new upgrades. Could you explain what you feel comfortable about?” he asked. I was I little shocked by the direct question but I understand his desire for knowledge.

To that I explained best I could about nerves, and how I modeled sensory nodes. In the process, I realized I should add pressure as a sensory input. I could feel it roughly, but not precisely. Gizmo seemed elated at the revelation.

He went on to explain how no one knows how the body truly works, and that the assumption is that everything is magic. I retorted that magic became a blindfold hiding the truth. He had laughed and said “That seems to be the case”.

The rest of the day was spent in the workshop. Gizmo had already started on another golem, and I had started filling some jars with waste slime. Before I had just expelled it the bathroom, which seemed fitting. Aside from that everything was going pretty normally until Gizmo brought up a unique subject.

“So, I was wanting to ask. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to find out what you are. Do you have any insight? Why are you different from a normal slime is what I’m trying to find out.” He asks.

I think for a moment, wondering if it’s a good idea to reveal the truth. I mean, Gizmo has been nothing but supportive and protective of me. So it might not be a bad idea. If there’s any one to tell this to, it’d be him. Not that I have any one else. He seems to notice me taking a moment and puts his tools down to give me his attention.

“I… ahm… re-incar-nay-ted. Was hoo-man. A-nother-er world.” I say. I avoid looking at him, worried about his reaction.

“Is- is that the truth?” he asked.

“Yeah-s” I answered.

“Hmmm…” he started twisting his mustache.

“Is that why you have so much knowledge on the worlds mechanics?” he asked.

“Y-eah. No mag-ick in the worl-d I came fr-om. Sad-lee.” I said.

“A world without magic? How does that work? How does anyone do anything with out magic?” he asked dumbfounded.

“Dea-ths, time, an-d sac-rific-es. Knowll-edge gain-ed fro-om tri-al and err-err-or.” I explained.

“So people died to learn things in your old world? People wouldn’t go that far here. They want the fame of the discovery for themselves.” He sighed.

“Know-ledge was pass-ed to the ne-xt of li-ne. For pro-gress-ing soc-iet-y. Peop-le were sel-fish, but meth-ods even-tuall-e spr-ead. Pro-gress was in-evita-ble.” I shrugged.

“I guess some things don’t change. Though breakthroughs are guarded heavily for honor and wealth. What about the inventions that were shared in good faith? Any of those?” he asked.

“Mech-a-nisms for ev-ery day use. Coo-king, clean-ing, a-nd ev-en heat-ing and c-ool-ing hom-es.” I said.

“Your nobls must have been living the good life.” He sighed.

“Ev-ery one had ac-cess t-oo tho-se tech-nolo-gies. Th-ough one c-ould ar-uge the c-ase of hid-den slav-ery. Work-ing for the u-se of lux-uries. But th-ats a wh-ole oth-er con-ver-sation.” I sighed.

“I see, well, that aside, I’m wanting to know how you ended up here. How did you become a slime? I didn’t dabble in any soul magic, so how did you end up in that slime?”

“No cl-ue. I d-ied, then I w-oke up in y-our la-b.”

“Really?” he asked. A couple moments went by of silent contemplation. Then I decide to change the direction of conversation by suggesting that Gizmo heat up the waste slime to make it a gel, and lining the material channels with that.

While Gizmo worked on the golem, I continued to prefect the form of my mouth, and get better control over the timing and activation of my voice. Talking with it felt like trying to talk with a high ping some times, not to mention that I have to worry about mouth formation and even tongue positioning.

All in all, it wasn’t bad for both, my first attempt at a voice, and first day using the voice ring. I got the best results by housing it at the bottom of my neck, and forming a throat to that point. Any further, the sound was to muffled, and higher, it messed with my sense of mouth control.

And it turns out relying on membrane control over just a bunch of muscles was another pain. Everything being the same “muscle” that just flexed in different ways at different parts was kinda hard to get use to.

As I practiced speaking, and Gizmo worked on the new golem we talked about various things. I talked to him about the idea of invisible light, aka infrared, and told him that his golems would be able to see in the dark while the enemies wouldn't. He seemed excited over that. It did mean that I had to explain the light spectrum however.

He told me about stuff, like the monsters and types of people. Things from goblins, blood bears, Fox bats, to more arcane things like elementals and mana beings. As far as people go, they had divine gifts that aided them in their path in life.

Thats when I had asked if monsters could evolve like I could. I was surprised when Gizmo had told me evolving wasn’t a thing. Monsters underwent adaptations, but never turned into another monster.

“A goblin could adapt into a swamp goblin, or tundra goblin, but never change into something else like a hob goblin. Those sort of things are determined from birth for monsters.” Was what he explained.

Then we went on the theory craft about me and my Adaptation. Did it have to do with my Monarch title? What happened when a monster adapts into something like that. We stopped thinking about it after to long since Gizmo enjoys magic enchants and theory crafting new magical formulas rather than philosophize over monster adaptations. We chopped it up to the idea of a human soul inhabiting a monster body caused a humanization adaptation.

Though it got to be night time by the time we were clearing up information regarding light, sound, and other things we had covered before my voice. He started getting more sleepy by the time I talked about the different gases in the air, how fire worked, and other things.

“Little Guinevere, I want nothing more that to continue this conversation, but I just don’t have it in me.” He sighed in defeat.

“That-s okay.” I replied. I was finally to a point where the hardest part of talking was multiple syllables, or words with to drastic of changes in mouth formations. A word that comes to mind for practice would be “cholesterol”. I don’t think I’d even have to mutter the word in this world, but the “muscle” memory and training should help.

“Well, ill head to bed. And wonderful work on you’re voice.” He smiled softly. “Don’t think I hadn’t noticed you improving throughout the day. Amazing work.” He said patting me on the head before turning towards the stairs.

“Good night, grand-pa.” I said watching him retreat for the night. Following his lead I went and prepared my dish. I sit it it, relaxing as much as I really could. I revved up the mana cage to third gear and decided to put some of my mass to use. I started small shards through out my body that would make up some of my main bones.

As I did this I went over how nice it was to talk with someone. Even if it was mostly over information, it was fun talking about uses and possible creations that could be made. More importantly, I hadn’t realized just how much I missed actually conversing with someone, and being heard.

I finally sunk into a meditative state, with my two tasks being worked on and let the time slip by.