“Describe the monster again, for me” Guild Master Springroot demanded. He stared down at the three aspiring adventurers who claimed to have found the intruder that had spooked his newest employee.

At nearly seven feet tall, the willowy elf stared down at most humans, and had no reservations about using the intimidation it brought to keep people in line.

Springroot had thought the incident was merely a case of foreign agents attempting to drive away his staff. It wouldn't be the first time outside forces had tried to weaken their foothold in new worlds, but most wouldn't dare escalate matters into an actual fight. Not when the guild could call in its actual powerhouses if push came to shove.

That's why Springroot had no qualms about sending the novices out to search for the offending party. Quality over quantity, as they say. And if the fool ended up killing a few of Springroot's trainees, that would give him an excuse to bring the hammer down on them.

Instead, it seemed to be some kind of mutated monster. Something that shouldn't happen in a beginner's spawn zone like this one. The constant spawning of low level monsters in the area made abnormal spawns even less common than areas with little to no mana density.

“The fair maiden appeared before us without warning, with a regal bearing, an otherworldly air of beauty, and brilliant blue eyes that seemed to glow with-” William began, before Springroot cut him off “Not you.”

“William was right about the glowing eyes though” Sarah noted.

“And it did appear before us without warning” Ava added.

“Plus, it was quite beautiful” Sarah admitted softly.

“Enough” Springroot sighed heavily, before turning to Kevin and his tag-along sister. He hadn't agreed to hire her, but Springroot would never turn down free help when it was offered. “Does this monster sound familiar to you?”

“Nope!” his sister Amy chirped. He leveled his steely gaze at her before Kevin clarified “We did mention that we weren't able to get a good look at it.”

“What I meant to ask was if either of you had ever heard of something like this.”

“A transparent ghost-like creature that's able to carry things around? Rocks and bones, was it?” Kevin asked, looking at the trio of novices. Sarah nodded in confirmation.

“Haven't got a clue” Kevin shrugged “Could be a poltergeist, but those aren't usually known for their intelligence, or a lack of extreme violence.”

“Same here” his sister agreed.

“Very well” Springroot sighed. It was a longshot, hoping a couple of mid-ranked adventurers would recognize a monster even he had never heard of. “I will look through my reference books to see if I can find anything of the sort. Kevin, have Miss Lucy update the request for information on this new monster.”

“Update?” Kevin asked, surprised. “Not take down? Shouldn't we be careful with the rookies until we find out more about this thing?”

“Adventurers must balance risk and reward” Springroot calmly recited. “This monster has shown no particularly great feats, apart from its ability to run away.”

“Yeah because a low level monster running away from a steel ranked adventurer isn't anything to write home about” Kevin grumbled under his breath, but moved to do as Springroot asked, his sister following.

“The rest of you are dismissed” Springroot intoned, already deep in thought over which of his books he should consult.

“Wait, what about our reward?” William asked, oblivious to the glare Springroot threw his way. “We found information just like you wanted!”

“Once the information you've provided has been confirmed, it will be added to your guild account. You. Are. Dismissed.”

The two girls dragged William out before he could argue anymore. “But I need that money! I wanted to eat steak tonight!” echoed after him as they left.

----------------------------------------

Relaxing in his home beneath the lake himself together, JJ couldn't help but beat himself up over his impromptu escape. 'Why'd I run away? Wasn't the whole point of choosing this form to take advantage of, I mean, ahem, engender sympathy with other people?'

He looked back at the shore and saw that the trio was already gone. 'I guess this isn't too bad, though. I should really create a new shell before I meet with any more people.'

JJ decided not to take control of the metal slime yet, allowing it to absorb mana on its own until it gathered enough to form a complete shell. He didn't know the exact amount he would need but decided to give it about three times what Dwayne would use to form a new shell.

Carrying the metal slime with him back into the forest, he went in search of more prey. The little slime proved to be much more cumbersome to carry around than his boar tusks. While the tusks could be absorbed and held within Clarity's body when not in use, the slime would increase its admittedly feeble attempts to crawl away when cut off from any outside mana.

He spent the next few days piling up corpse after corpse for the metal slime to absorb, resulting in a slight stagnation of Clarity's own power. 'Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be anything too dangerous around here, besides the humans. This will all be worth it when I have my new armor!'

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During this forced feeding session, JJ managed to confirm that wild slimes do condense their own bodies naturally as they gain more mana. After the metal slime reached the size of a small beachball, it stopped growing physically larger, packing on density instead.

Sneaking back to his lake once more, he was careful to watch out for any humans loitering around. He managed to avoid any potential visitors by arriving during the night.

Once he returned, he immediately possessed the now much larger metal slime. In an extreme bout of unoriginality, even for JJ, he decided to name it Shiny.

Observing the available mana pool, JJ realized that he may have gathered a bit more mana than he really needed.

'Oh well, too much is better than not enough' he reasoned to himself.

As expected, there was no metal in the surroundings for him manipulate, so he had to create the metal himself.

The energy expenditure was worse than he feared, easily three to four times greater than Dwayne's mana costs to create a rock shell. Fortunately, Shiny's mana reserves looked to be sufficient, and JJ didn't mind draining most of its mana pool here, as he had no intention of using the metal slime often after this.

He crafted a double layered shell, each layer an inch thick, with several millimeters of free space in between that could be filled with Clarity's slime. The entire core spanned about half a foot in diameter, easily more than twice as large as a normal slime's core.

When he finished crafting the sphere, he noticed that Shiny still had plenty of mana left in the tank. On a whim, he decided to spend the spare mana on some aesthetics. He formed more metal on the outside of the sphere, altering the shape until it became a perfectly stylized, heart-shaped chunk of metal.

'Is this too much of a giveaway that the giant floating heart is a weak point?' JJ wondered, before consoling himself 'Anyone with half a brain would realize the floating core inside my body is a good target, but maybe this way they'll mistake the shell itself for the weak point.'

Possessing Clarity once more, he spent the next hour wearing down and absorbing the enchantments he'd left inside his previous core. With the enchantments gone, it was a simple matter to absorb the entire rocky shell so that it could be replaced.

JJ fit the brand new, heart shaped, metal shell carefully over Clarity's core. He felt Clarity's gooey body become significantly less responsive as the shell closed. Then, using Clarity's own mana, inefficiency be damned, he welded the shell back together.

For the finishing touches, he used Clarity's absorption to create several small tubes into the outer layer of metal on the edges of the heart, all slanted to the right. On the inner metal layer he created more tubes, on the front and back of the heart and slanted to the left, so as to keep them unaligned with the first metal layer.

With that, Clarity's slime body reconnected with the core, returning to its former fluidity.

Now that the physical aspects of his new shell were complete, he moved on to the magical aspects. Using all of the tricks he'd learned in creating enchantments, he poured several day's worth of mana into the armored core and focused on reinforcing the durability of the shell. He couldn't help but feel it was a waste of perfectly good mana, but JJ didn't want to take any chances with his favorite character's life.

Checking the surroundings for any signs of people, he found nothing out of the usual. 'Now that I'm ready to meet them, they aren't here. Maybe I should go to them instead?'

Emerging from the lake under the early morning sun, he appreciated Clarity's new look in the reflection of the clear lake water. 'If only I had some way to color the heart red, it would look perfect... But I guess function is more important than aesthetics.'

The only detraction from his current appearance was the pair of boar tusks currently floating around inside Clarity's body. The whole just-dissolved-a-body appearance clashed heavily with the cute, innocent slime girl look he was trying to portray. 'That looks a bit... morbid. Probably not the best idea to bring those along if I don't want to get into a fight with somebody.'

'But where can I leave them that other slimes won't get to them?' JJ wondered. They were quite mana dense, and would easily attract any slimes that got within range, making the lake a complete non-option. In the end, he scaled a nearby tree and had Clarity wedge them into a branch about 10 feet up, hopefully out of reach of anything that might take interest in them.

Preparations complete, Clarity returned to the ground and followed his previous trail back towards the road he'd found earlier. This time he turned right instead of left, heading towards the outskirts of the forest.

Clarity remained off to the side of the worn path, hiding within the forest where it would be easy to avoid human passersby if necessary. 'If I see that guy with the needles again, I'm just going to dip back into the forest until later.'

Despite making good time, Clarity didn't reach the edge of the forest until around midday. Looking at his destination, JJ beheld what appeared to be a large renaissance town, built mostly out of wood. A large, ten foot tall wall leaned right up against the forest, encircling the town. The path itself lead to a wide open, wooden gate, with a pair of guards flanking both sides.

JJ felt thoroughly baffled by the appearance. 'I don't remember any town like this existing before. Just how long have I been out here?'

For a brief moment JJ considered trying to approach the guards, before deciding that no, guards were probably the last people a monster should walk up to and expect a friendly conversation with.

Instead, he followed the wall for a few minutes, carefully watching for any gaps or holes that he could use to slip through. However, despite appearing primitive from afar, the large logs that made up the wall were carefully arranged to be perfectly flush with each other, leaving no potential entrances.

He would need to choose over, or under.

Deciding that the additional stealth of burrowing under wasn't worth risking the goodwill of the people inside by compromising their wall, Clarity extended one arm to the top of the wall and easily pulled itself up.

Peeking over, JJ expected to find more guards, but instead found not a soul in sight. Rather than being set up to defend the town from a siege, it simply seemed to be set up to prevent monsters from wandering inside.

'A rather smart decision, actually... for all the good it did them' JJ chuckled, as Clarity tumbled silently over the top.

Clarity began traipsing by the closely situated houses as JJ admired the medieval feel of the city. He kept looking from side to side to take in the sights with his normal vision, while using mana perception to check around corners so as to not walk into any people, even though nobody seemed to be around.

As he left the outskirts and approached the center of town, the buildings began to get bigger and their craftsmanship clearly improved. Where before most of the buildings he passed appeared to be residences, now shops began to take their places, with signs hanging over their doors explaining their purpose in large, often colorful English words.

At least, he thought it was English, until he took a closer look at a nearby “Leatherworks” and found that while his mind told him “Leatherworks”, his eyes saw weird squarish squiggles.

Looking back at the “Butcher” across the street, however, he found that one was in perfect English, even after double-checking.

As he got closer to the doors and they entered the range of his mana perception, he realized that the letters on each sign were covered in a layer of mana that seemed to have some kind of effect on those who saw it.

Walking up to the buildings, he could sense people lazing around inside, presumably the shopkeepers, but nobody was out in the streets.

As he continued further into town, he was more and more impressed as the buildings became ever more fantastical. A pub here, a bowyer there, a shop of alchemical wonders even further along. By the time he reached a fancy little building titled “Esmeralda's Amazing Enchantments” he was thoroughly engrossed in his sightseeing.

Unlike the other establishments that were clearly written in either English or the other squarish language that seemed popular here, “Esmeralda's Amazing Enchantments” popped into his mind merely from looking at the completely blank sign that rested over the doorway.

As he approached closely enough for his mana perception to encompass the sign, he saw that it had a similar, though much more complex, mana pattern as the previous signs did.

By this point JJ had completely forgotten that he was trying to act stealthily, the normality of the town luring him into a sense of safety, and the fantastical elements taking over his curiosity. It helped that the roads were still completely empty so there was nobody around to point out the monster strolling through the streets.

So after spending a few moments to examine the sign, Clarity pushed open the carefully polished wooden door and walked inside. A small shopkeeper, wearing a witch's hat and large oval glasses, dropped the book she was reading and stared, wide-eyed at the creature that had just invaded her shop and... started perusing her wares.