In my time scouring the Library for Skill Encyclopaedias, I’d ended up skimming a few bestiaries out of boredom. In fact, that was one of the reasons I’d chosen this Job in the first place.
From what I remembered, Giant Slimes appeared when a slime developed a high Life Affinity. I think something else had to happen but I didn’t remember what, since it wasn’t really that important. Anyway, the main thing that I ended up reading was a list of its weaknesses, which I was actually able to memorise.
Strengths and Weaknesses
The Giant Slime will resist any attempt to manipulate it with Life spells, and a particularly large specimen may even absorb the Mana and become more active for a period of time, so a life mage must run if they encounter one.
If you must fight it with magic, then the best spells to use would be Fire or, if necessary, Lightning. The heat generated by these Affinities will disrupt the Slime’s cohesion and create an effect that is, in essence, its form melting. These magics will also be either unable to reach the core or conducted through the slime, leaving it largely unscathed.
So as it turns out, this was the perfect enemy for me. And it’s probably above level 10, so I’m sure that I’ll get the last bit of experience I need to level up. Hopefully.
I looked at the slime, sleeping peacefully, and counted myself lucky that it didn’t look at all friendly. If this was a wolf or something then I’d probably feel bad about picking a fight with it for purely selfish reasons.
Until now, the monster appeared to be sleeping peacefully, but as I started gathering Lightning and Mana for a fully Charged Lightning Bolt, it startled into wakefulness. Its form sloshed like water, though not a single drop ever separated from the whole, and began to make its way towards me.
For a moment I panicked and almost launched the Bolt early, but it moved comically slowly and I estimated that it would probably take a few minutes to reach me.
Didn’t the Farmer say it had been terrorising his farm for weeks now? Is this the entire area that it’s managed to get through?
I forestalled any further questioning indefinitely, because I had better things to do than research slimes, and focused wholly on my Lightning Bolt. Usually, I’d be able to do a charge with half my mana in seconds, but since I had the time I decided to experiment with taking it slowly.
The rate at which my Mana was drawn out of me slowed to a trickle, just barely faster than my recovery, but the ambient Mana being used to power it was barely affected. Looking at it now, I realised that this must be the way that Charge is meant to be used. As a way to increase the casting time in order to increase the power more than a mage would ordinarily be able to output even with their entire mana pool.
By the time I’d used half of my Mana the slime had just barely crossed half the distance to me, and I decided that I’d charged enough. Although I didn’t want to get any slime on me if I could help it, so I quickly took a few steps back.
As I did so the slime paused, as if it didn’t realise I could do that, before it vibrated violently and began to generate an ominous hum.
That doesn’t sound good.
After a moment of confusion, I broke out of my stupor and immediately took a Breathe and launched my Lightning Bolt. At the same time, the slime reared back and slammed its considerable bulk towards me, tearing off a chunk of its flesh directly at me.
Unfortunately for it, directly at me also meant it was launched directly at my Lightning. The Bolt, which at this point was more of a beam, obliterated the chunk and sent bits of slime flying all around.
Of course that barely slowed it, and the attack continued until it tore into the Giant Slime. I’d forgotten to take the range of the beam into account, but the shortened range actually helped me here. It travelled about halfway to the Core before dispersing too much to do any damage to it, which meant that I could still salvage it.
The same could not be said for the rest of the slime, however. Arcs of Lightning crawled across the surface of the monster, leaving trails of melted goo in its wake. The area directly around where I hit was most affected, with a massive crater looking to have been torn out of the slime. The dripping fluids almost made it look like it was bleeding, but I knew that each part of it was completely identical to any other, from the surface to the insides. Aside from the core, I suppose.
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I thought that it might have some last ditch effort to survive, but no. It quivered as it tried to keep its shape but, anticlimactically, after a short few seconds it simply collapsed into a pile of sludge.
Combat Cleared 1 Giant Slime [Level 11] Defeated
“That was… easy,” It must have been really weak to lightning, so I was left wondering just how much of an effect fire would have had.
“Oh, easy was it? Well sorry us Farmers can’t shoot massive fucking beams out of our hands.” Oh, someone was behind me.
“Oi! Jimmy, get yer ass back ‘ere!” An older man, maybe early 50s, came out from the wheat fields and grabbed a young boy that was at most 15 years old by the back of his shirt and pulled him away from me.
“Are you the guy who put out the job to deal with this thing?” I, redundantly, pointed at the pile of sludge behind me.
“Yeah, I was hopin’ it’d just go away if I left it alone, but then it settled down to sleep just yesterday,” He took a small sack of coins from his pocket and handed it to me,” Got the coppers ‘ere, and ye can take the core as well. All this slime’ll make fer some good quality fertiliser so I don’t need it. Looks like you’ve already done half the job o’ spreadin’ it for me!” He cackled at his own joke for a few seconds before he quieted enough for me to talk back.
“Thanks, I guess I’ll just grab the core and be off then,” He looked like he wanted to ask me a question, but decided against it when he saw that I looked like I knew what I was doing.
And I did, for once. This was going to be my first field test of my Telekinesis Equivalent! I was so glad that I learned this, since otherwise I’d have to trudge through slime in order to even reach the Core, and then I’d need to somehow wipe everything off of it. But not with this!
I grinned and sent a beam of Lightning at the Core, which branched out into several more as it touched it. After a second they’d all connected at the other side and I pushed a little more Mana through the connection, allowing me to easily lift it into the air.
As I reeled it in, the Lightning surrounding it created enough heat that the remaining slime sloughed off of it, which meant that once it reached me it was just a little moist. My grin widened, it had worked perfectly! Not that there was much of a chance that it wouldn't, but having it confirmed for me was pretty nice.
It was only as I held the fist sized chunk of green crystal that I realised I had neglected to grab my pack before I left, so I was left to simply carry it with my hands.
Or with my Mana.
It would make for good practice if nothing else.
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Path Skills Lightning Generator 14 Lightning Bolt
12 Lightning Cloak
2 Charge
9 General Skills
MAX Walking
9 Breath Of Mana
3 Sense Danger
4 Channel Mana
7 Meditation
3
I didn’t actually level up in the fight, but it was at least decent for my skills. Breath Of Mana and Charge both levelled up during the fight, but Channel Mana only levelled sometime during the walk back to the city, since I was using it to carry the Core the whole way.
It didn’t actually drain my Mana as much as I expected, since I was able to reduce my output to just barely enough to keep the Core aloft, which meant that I’d probably be able to do this for half a day if I had to.
Getting into the city was no problem, I just had to explain that the floating crystal beside me was the Core of a Giant Slime that I’d just killed and they let me in without issue.
From there, I just had to figure out where to sell the crystal. Obviously, I wouldn’t be making use of it, and Finch only seemed interested in Unaffinitied monster parts. That left either selling it to an Alchemist or an Enchanter.
Actually, I didn’t know any Enchanters, and most of the Alchemists I’d spoken to had refused to sell to me for some reason, so I guess the choice was pretty simple.
It was beginning to get late, but as it turned out not quite late enough that Pill would close shop. I opened the door and soon Pill emerged from the back door, looking mildly surprised to see me but even more so once he saw the Core floating beside me.
“Is that a Life Core? I take it you came across a Life Slime in your travels.”
“I had a job to kill a Giant Slime, that’s where I got it.”
“Yes, that’s the same thing. Life Slime is the more accurate name, but I supposed you’re not here to learn why, are you? You want to sell it to me?” I almost thought he was about to start talking about alchemy or whatever, which might have actually made me leave the store altogether.
“Yeah, I heard it was valuable to Alchemists.”
“Very much so, any self respecting Alchemist has at least a small part of a Life Core, for some of the more potent healing potions and such. This isn’t the largest I’ve seen, but it will certainly be good for a dozen shards or so.”
“Yeah, yeah, that makes sense,” It did not, why would they want one of these? Wouldn’t it get used up when they made a potion? “So how much is it worth then?”
“Let’s say 20 silver,” I opened my mouth to speak but he quickly cut me off, “No, wait. You were about to accept weren’t you? I understand that you’re not an Alchemist yourself, but I just told you how valuable this is.”
Why did he say 20 silver if it isn’t enough then? Am I missing something?
“One of this size would typically sell for 30 silver, so let’s do that, hmm?” I was mildly suspicious that this was somehow a trick, but I trusted Pill enough so that was just a passing thought.
“Ok, sure. For real this time?” He sighed before nodding, so I floated the Core above his waiting palm and dropped it, then walked over to physically collect the silver because using Telekinesis for that somehow felt rude.
After that we quickly exchanged pleasantries and said our goodbyes, before I left to finally return home. As I did so, I noticed Pill switch the sign from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’ and heard the click of a door locking.
It is getting kinda late. At least it’s not dark yet.