Studying the small marble, I became vexed.
A strangely warm aura was radiating from the orb. The sensation was likely the cause of some sort of bizarre energy inside, but unable to access or understand it, I was left blank.
Thinking it could be important, I decided to pocket it for now and continued ahead.
Moving through the cave system, I soon encountered two more slimes. Knowing their weaknesses already, it didn't take long to defeat them.
[You have slain Lvl 2 {SLIME}]
[You have slain Lvl 2 {SLIME}]
Unsatisfied by the easy fight, I was about to head deeper until a magical scene appeared before my eyes.
One of the slimes that had transformed into a puddle began being surrounded by white specks of light, slightly illuminating the surroundings. The light continued to build in intensity until a blue whip magically appeared in place of the slime.
Shocked by what I just witnessed, I cautiously picked up the whip.
The handle, like regular ones, was made of black leathery material. The strange part, however, was the loop which seemed to be made out of the same viscous substance as the slime.
My first thought was that it was made out of gelatine, but further inspection proved it was a tough material, although it felt slippery and cold to the touch.
Trying it out, the whip made a nice crackling sound whenever fully extended, and its reach was about one and a half meters.
Having fun swinging it around, I continued my journey through the cave.
...….
5 hours later.
Having defeated countless more slimes with ease, especially due to the whip, which, although couldn't penetrate the slime's core at the center of its body, was very efficient at severing smaller portions and keeping other slimes at bay, making it quick work for the torch to take out their cores.
And yes, I decided to call the blue marbles "cores," thinking it was a better name for them, and technically it made sense as without them they simply ceased to exist.
I also stopped collecting them. After I had defeated ten and still saw no use for them, I couldn't be bothered to pick them up.
During my exploits, I had also found the theme of this cave, realizing that the deeper I went, the stronger the slimes became, as previously I had defeated a group of Lvl 4 slimes.
Individually, there was not much difference between a level 2 and 4 slime except that they became slightly bigger and moved somewhat faster. Only when they ganged up in groups did a serious increase in risk become apparent, as it became progressively more difficult to avoid them.
Don't get me wrong, with my speed and reflexes, I could still smoothly evade them, but it became troublesome when they started sneak attacking from the ceiling.
That's why I now had a slight burn mark on my forearm. It happened after one of them suddenly fell from the ceiling while I was dealing with another slime. Luckily, I was able to spot it in time before it fell on my face, but I couldn't avoid it and was forced to block by raising an arm.
After that, I was always on the lookout for surprise attacks, not feeling comfortable unless I had checked the cave's ceiling twice, which may be a bit paranoid, but the same attack never worked again!
Through all my battles, I had also come to the realization that I wasn't leveling up. Although it could be due to all the slimes being a lower level than me, I thought it had more to do with the trial than anything else.
But I digress, and going back to the topic of the slimes getting stronger, my suspicion was confirmed by the scene currently playing out in front of me. In the center of a wide cavern, five slimes were bobbing their bodies up and down while circling another slime that was four times as large as them, standing at over a meter tall.
The movement of the slimes either indicated they were performing a weird ritual or were worshiping their king.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
I wasn't spotted yet as I hadn't stepped into the cavern and was instead hiding, observing them from a small passageway.
"I knew it! You ninjas won't get me today."
The reason for my outburst was that I had spotted two more slimes on the cave's ceiling, just waiting to fall on unsuspecting prey.
Having scouted the area ahead and feeling pretty confident, I walked into the open with a whip in my left hand and a torch in my right.
The reason for my confidence: until now, only the first battle had me work up a sweat, and that was because I didn't know where its core was, but after that, it became easy. Even the wound on my forearm was only because I got careless.
So now that I was facing a new threat, I was looking forward to it, hoping it could give me some excitement.
Having alerted the monsters, they started making their way in my direction, with the fastest one of them being their king.
Instead of dragging itself over the floor like the others, it went straight into jumping, achieving over two meters of airtime with every hop.
Finding the sight slightly ridiculous looking, when the slime king jumped again about to pounce on me, I sidestepped.
After 5 hours of battling slimes, I didn't want to brag, but I had become an expert at predicting and avoiding their movements, especially since they only moved in a straight line.
As I watched the blob fly past me, bringing an air current that rustled my hair, I thrusted out with the torch aiming for the core in its middle, feeling more resistance than usual I had to use a bit of extra power, but other than the initial struggle not much changed.
About to sigh at the disappointment of this skirmish, just as I was about to hit its core, the core moved.
"Huh?"
Before I could process what happened from my peripheral vision, I spotted something falling down. Quickly disengaging, I swatted another slime that was jumping at me from the ground, while I extended my left hand cracking the whip and making it hit the slime that was dropping from above.
Unexpectedly because of the force of my attack and the speed the slime was falling at, the whip managed to penetrate the slime's body and luckily hit its core, making it explode like a piñata in midair.
Marveling at my own work, I quickly remembered that falling towards me wasn't candy but a bunch of acid and rolled to the side.
Dodging most of the sludge, some splatters still fell on me, slightly sizzling my skin.
The pain was negligible and I couldn't worry about it either as the slime king leaped at me again, although it was significantly faster than normal slimes, its jump was quite predictable so avoiding it wasn't difficult as long as you focused.
Just as I attacked the king again thinking that the last time might have been a fluke, the core moved again, and then before I could move the torch out, as if waiting for this moment it shot out a tentacle in my direction.
Surprised by the sudden move, I used the whip and sliced off the tentacle. Piercing a slime's body was too much for the whip to handle, but something as thin as a tentacle was no problem.
After the attack, with the torch still stuck in the king's body, silence descended on the battlefield.
Looking at the slime king with a dumbfounded expression, I asked, "Was that your special move?"
"༼ಢ_ಢ༽"
"Cough, that's sad."
"( ༎ຶ⌑༎ຶ )"
Even though I didn't receive an answer, I could somehow tell how it was feeling and decided to continue the battle (for its sake).
Yanking the torch out of its body, I quickly ducked as a regular slime soared over my head. When it landed, I sprinted towards it before taking out its core.
After that, the battle continued in much the same monotone fashion with me basically ducking and weaving between the slimes, all the while kiting the king away and slicing its tentacles so I could take out its lackeys one by one.
In the end, only the king was alive as the pesky thing refused to get its core hit.
Having just killed the last regular slime, who was coincidentally also camping on the ceiling, I again saw a magical scene appear as in the place of its corpse, another whip appeared.
Casting away the torch whose wood had already been partly dissolved, I looked at the king slime with a deadpan expression as it was hopping towards me.
"This is going to take a while," my plan, too whittle away at the slime until almost nothing was left.
Engaging the king in battle, I began furiously attacking, lashing at such a pace that only a furious torrent of afterimages and the sound of the whip slicing through air could be heard.
….
15 minutes later.
Having chipped away at the slime faster than its body could regenerate, it was now 1/3 the size of a regular slime, making it small enough for the whip to cut straight through, without having enough space to move its core around. But just to be sure, I attacked with both of them, slicing in half the king's core.
As the king imploded into a puddle, I heard the relieving sound of the system, as I fell to the ground in utter exhaustion.
[You have slain Lvl 5 {SLIME}]
[You have slain Lvl 5 {SLIME}]
[You have slain Lvl 5 {SLIME}]
[You have slain Lvl 5 {SLIME}]
[You have slain Lvl 5 {SLIME}]
[You have slain Lvl 5 {SLIME}]
[You have slain Lvl 5 {SLIME}]
[You have slain Lvl 5 {ELDER SLIME}]
Huff, Huff
Breathing tiredly, I thought, 'So that thing wasn't a king but an elder? What even is an elder? Is it just an old slime? No, there must be something else to it; otherwise, it wouldn't be that large.'
'Actually, why do I care, and also the trial is definitely preventing me from leveling up.'
Having killed 8 Lvl 5 creatures and a ton of Lvl 4, I should by all reason have leveled up at least once, but still hadn't, confirming that the trial was somehow interfering with it.
Yawn
Anyways, I was pretty tired now, having no idea how long I had been awake and just having fought an although easy but exhausting battle, I was feeling sleepy.
I was pretty confident that no monster would enter this cavern, seeing some sort of stone door at the other end, I guessed that was the end of the cave with the slime king acting like some sort of boss protecting it.
But to be sure I moved to a secluded area with a lit torch, as I laid my body beneath it, feeling the comfortable warmth of the fire and coolness of the underground, I drifted off to sleep…