Telling the other that I was being called they waved me off and I reformed my little tractor kart because the snow had greatly piled up even with the salt in the streets. The shovel was made in a v format to shovel to both sides and I quickly made my way to the school towards the headmaster's office.
Once inside the building, I called back the slime kart and summoned Rama. The burning fox caused the air to heat up and the nearby windows were clouded with droplets that formed from the heat inside heating the humid air.
“It’s always good to have a reliable friend like you.” I said as I rub my face into the side of his fur that was very warm because he controlled the fire like fur.
Mounting him I have him climb to the top floor where the headmaster's office was. Rama ran quickly and skillfully through the raised platform for the mounts and jumped over the gaps when needed as he skillfully ran through the building going up several floors before stopping at a flight of stairs that ended at a flat area with only a few doors which were teacher rooms.
Walking to the one with the headmaster plaque I knock.
“Come in.” a voice said from inside.
I push the door but it doesn’t budge so I have Rama help and he gives a nudge opening for me allowing me to enter the office. I instantly recognize the two old men sitting and having hot tea. One was the Headmaster Charles Silos Ryder, the middle aged headmaster of the academy.
The other old man was none other than my foster father Dalton Holt. When he saw me he frowned and drank his cup of tea.
“Greetings Headmaster Ryder.” I said.
“You are…?” He asked.
“I’m Kuroko Melody Ginshiro, sir. I was called here for some reason that no one explained.” I replied.
“Ah yes, the young Ginshiro child that has been the biggest name I have heard since the start of the year for being the queen of slimes, the slime tamer and the Slime dungeoneer. Your focus on slimes is quite admirable and what you were called here for is for, once more, the slimes, specifically the slime kart and even more specifically, the one that shoveled the snow.” He explained.
“Oi brat, you're really causing me some headaches, I was called here to see if I can’t give away the technique to make these slime karts and this shovel thing. What the hell did you do this time!” Dalton suddenly blurted out.
The previously gentle and calm expression on my face turned into a scowl as I glared at the old man, “Hey old man, is that how you ask me for something after I got you so much money. You should be happy that I got you another job because your previous job was too damn shitty since experimenting with common monsters would lead to endless boring birthing and training without any fun.” I said coldly towards him and remembered something, “Hey, how is the deal for the slime fruits and the research into slime cuisine?”
Dalton grinned and pulled out a small jingling pack and tossed it to me. I stored it into my inventory and opened it to see how much money was stored and inside was almost 50 gold coins.
“Those fifty gold is your pocket money, with the 50:50 contract you have for all slime research, just the fruits sell like water. In your bank there is a total of around 2000 gold from the fruits.” He said.
Nodding rathering happily until we heard a cough. “Excuse me but we called you here for some business miss Ginshiro.” The headmaster said to snap the two out of their business talk.
I nodded and sat down with Dalton looking at the headmaster. “So headmaster wishes to see the shovel right?” I asked.
The headmaster nodded calmly but Dalton’s browns cringed.
“What's in it for me?” I asked.
A frown appeared on the headmaster's face, “What do you mean? Also, this manner of speaking and composure is far different from how you usually act or as I have heard.” he said.
“Don’t underestimate her Charles, towards business she is like an adult and is far scarier because of her innocent looking face.” Dalton said.
“Hmph, old man stop blabbering while I am doing business.” I said coldly towards my foster father. He humphed and crossed his arms. Returning to looking at the headmaster with a bright smile, I said, “As I was saying, what would I get in selling the idea? First, the reason I haven’t brought it out is because I understand that all of the adults have seriously strong memories and the simple fact that you see something ‘simple’ in shape you can copy.” I said.
The brow of the headmaster twitched because he had already lost a key point where he wanted to see that item the workers were wanting.
“What kind of benefits exactly do you want?” The headmaster asked.
“First off all models of what I will show will be patented in my name and each one sold will cost between 100 or 200 gold depending how many slimes are used and if you make them as actual machines then it will be between 20 to 50 gold.” I said.
“100! What are you talking about!” the headmaster said a bit angry.
“Its one of Kuroko’s biggest secrets. She appeared in the middle of the forest and in her mind were fragmented memories that were not her own. It's because of these that she can imagine so many ‘strange’ things that are so innovative.” Dalton said.
“Memories that were not your own, so these things, the Go kart that the players knew about…” The face of the headmaster turned incredibly furious as he stood up, “Does that mean you are a player!” He shouted.
“Calm down Charles, she isn’t a player, when we first found her, after adopting her, I took her to the church and had them perform a baptism, and paid a few extra coin to have her tested as a player, the holy water glowed a bright rainbow color as she was baptized against diseases. When it was done, above her head was a glowing yellow halo which was the test for players so she is a native.” Dalton said.
Charles calmed down visibly but was still on guard, “Even so, how do you explain the memory fragment!” He shouted.
“How do you explain more than half the stuff in the world? This is probably something of the gods and not something we should meddle in.” Dalton warned him.
Finally the headmaster sat down and sighed before taking his tea and gulping it down, “Alright, the patent can be yours since you are thinking of it anyway. Just show me what those garden workers were wanting so much.” He asked, rubbing his head.
Dalton sat down smiling as he watched Charles rack his brain trying to figure out how to accept this.
I nod and summon the slimes into the room and make the remedial Snowplow kart with the salt dispenser.
“This is just a remedial model, the mechanic teacher came back recently and so we haven’t had time to learn to make real karts but what is important is this.” I point at the plow and structure. “This form will shovel the snow to the left but if it was done in the same manner…” The kart shifted and the plow chanted to face the right, “It would throw to the right and there is also a V shaped one that plows to both sides.” I said and the plow turned into the V shaped. “In the back is where you place rock salt to keep the falling snow from freezing over and from sticking to the ground. If this was attached to a large truck it would work at its best to plow the streets and asphalt.” I explained.
The headmaster got up and examined the remedial model. “I can understand why the workers want something like this, machines to plow snow would really help so much because they are safe from the cold.” He said.
“Actually you need to have a few heat slimes or else the slimes will start to freeze and die but that is easy to get from Dalton. Now for the next model.” I said.
“Next?” The headmaster said confused but suddenly more slimes popped out and the bulk of the kart grew and more metal gel slimes attached reinforcing the structure of the kart and the plow turned into a large construction truck plow. “This one is really good for construction. By pushing a vehicle to push the plow into the ground, you can shovel up a huge amount of dirt in one go and move it around to flatten the ground very quickly.” I said with pride as I stole the ideas from my previous life to make a killing.
I then spawned another kart but this one was wider and a large arm grew out and formed an excavator plow.
“This is another plot that is just as useful as the other one. It's really good for excavating.” I said.
“Okay okay! That's enough, I get it, you have many ideas. Dalton, please keep these quiet and Kuroko, stop using the plow kart. First thing you do is perfect the kart. I don’t care about the patent or whatever, this whole business has only gotten me a headache.” The headmaster said only to receive a large slap from Dalton on the back.
“Ahahaha! You should wonder how I feel when I do business with this girl then.” Dalton laughed, “You're a novice at handling the girl. It's no wonder you will fail to live up to her level of thinking.” Dalton said.
“How do you control her?” the headmaster asked.
A sneer appeared on my and Dalton’s face, “Control her? Forget it, just leave her to her own devices and she remains docile as a child playing with toys. It's the best way to benefit the most out of it. As for business wise, I obviously negotiate with her like any adult business man would. I had my face crushed far too many times when I first met her to not have learned the limit.” Dalton said in a serious tone.
“Humph, it's easy to domesticate this old idiot, just have sister say she hates him for treating me badly is enough to have him in tears.” I said coldly.
“Humph, brat, if not for Megumi, you wouldn’t even be my daughter.” He said
“And you wouldn’t be as rich as you are now.” I replied.
He frowned but did not contest it since it was true.
“Forget it, let's just enjoy the evening. I wish to relax instead of having this head pounding problem. Let's talk about Kuroko’s school life as I am curious about the now #1 student of the year in terms of magical power surpassing even the four royal families.” He said regaining some of the vigor as he sat down once more and the slimes were recalled.
***
The following days came and went without many problems, with the mechanic’s teacher back and the blueprints for the basic structure of the go karts out and having many copies spread out to both the mechanic class as well as the tamer class who have long since been trying to form similar things, a great deal of advancement has come.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
VROOM! VROOM! VROOM!
Three kart’s of various models rushed through the snow covered packed dirt field. It's been a long time since the student body president has had the race track made. It was a curvy 2 kilometer long very packed dirt road completely smoothed out by earth magic and packed into solid stone.
In the lead was a small go kart formed out of bones and had ghostly flames burning through the many bones that formed the kart. Seated in the kart was a skeleton but unlike common skeletons, as one should know, after a certain point a skeleton will rank up and regain, or gain, sentience and this was one such skeleton. It was created from the bones of a mage player that died in Asher's dungeon and is a Skeleton mage. He had a large mana pool and could survive out of the dungeon because of the monster core in its chest keeping it alive. Asher used this point and brought it as a driver because it was smarter than most undead and had enough mana to last the race and racing the bone kart even helped train the mana control and capacity of the skeleton.
Behind them was a kart formed out of wood and driven by an Alraune that Stephanie painstakingly bred until she finally appeared. She looked almost completely like a human woman who was mostly naked but after some arranging she used vines and roots to form some skin tight clothing making herself more modest. Her frame can change the size and she is the size of a 10 year old to fit into the kart. She controls it by merging her roots into the kart and controlling it like that.
Finally, in third was a slime kart, formed from many different types of slimes, mostly metal slimes, which had Peach driving. The frame of the kart matched the one from the model that the teacher brought back but each kart had a difference and this one was no different as the kart had a bubble from on top for protection.
The overall speed of the three karts were between 160 to 180 km/h. Soon the three of them drew near the pit area that had been made for holding all the karts the students had made and as they stopped the three owners came out only for the sound of several other karts that passed by to be heard.
Those were made of full metal made by the mechanic’s team, unlike the ones the monsters had, those were slower and weren’t with such a strong potential.
“The speed and strength of the karts are better after the recent adjustments.” Asher said as he walked to the kart that the skeleton had climbed out of to allow him into. He fiddled with something before a box with many wires popped up.
“It's so hard to figure out how to set up a data reader like you guys. If I don’t figure it out soon I won’t be able to join in the races.” I complained as the two smiled, pulling out the device that recorded all the information from the run.
In each station there was a group of older children who were all mechanics or technicians who knew what to look for.
“About that Kuroko…” Stephanie called, “I was wondering but haven’t your slimes ranked up into a kart slime? Maybe it will work if that happens.” she said.
I shook my head, “They haven’t, this is a group effort and I still can’t seem to get more than half of the smiles to work as a group. Sometimes there are those from some areas that react like the wheels wanting to rotate. It’s a hassle.” I complained.
“I’ve been thinking but maybe it's the way they group the slime nucleus when they merge to become the wheel.” Someone said from behind.
When they looked they saw the tamer class teacher who was holding her chin and looking at the slime kart.
“What do you mean by the way I group the nucleus?” Kuroko asked, hoping for some insight.
“Let me show you something.” She said and waved her hand before pulling out a picture. In this picture was an image of a human brain. “Through your father's research and your own findings, we know that slimes were probably not like how they are today. Slimes probably degraded because they split their nucleus in half through division but this caused their intelligence to decrease as well without them noticing. Now the nucleus is also a kind of brain as anyone can see, they bend and form groves and all that.” She pointed to Peach and Glop who were standing at the side.
The nucleus in them was incredibly complex bending and twisting like a brain would but not as complex yet.
“Now look at this.” She said and showed them the graph, the human brain is separated in different sections from the area your eyes work to motor control and organ function. A common slime will not have these functions but your slimes are developing them as they mimic humans but the gel slimes you use to make the kart are not. They simply amass their nucleus together.” The teacher said.
“Oh wow! I never noticed that!” I said taking the graph looking at it over and over. The other royals beside me had a better education as children but even they didn’t have biology.
“It’s a good thing to study, oh right. I was also told to give you this.” She said and brought out a similar box and a large item that looked like a car’s panel that goes in front of the wheel to measure speed. “This is an experimental enchanted item. The enchantment department has really gone wild trying to create some form of device that works with your slime and they think that if this was plugged into the nucleus of the wheel slimes it could measure speed. It uses magic connectors so as long as it is inside the slime it will connect by itself.” She said.
“Let’s test it.” I said and walked over before putting the measuring device first. It trembled and slime fibers of mana spread out going from one slime to another as if it were wires. This included the nucleus causing it to jump around as wormed around.
I frowned and watched as the nucleus came undone and each wire connected to each nucleus before they all merged once more.
“This thing really affected the slimes, it seems to have attached the slime and the nucleus again through mana threads to measure what each slime does.” I said, trying to analyze what had happened.
“It seems to be like that but it really jumbled up the nucleus.” Asher said.
I put my hand on the kart and the massive nucleus split apart revealing more than 100 different slimes and with a thought I could know which slime represented each part.
“How should I split each group?” I asked.
“Well, if it was me I would split the kart frame and put them together as the center most section of the slime. Then each wheels turning mechanism in one group, the brakes in another, wheel rims in another, the gear shift in another, each group of parts should make one group.” The tamer teacher said.
By now the technicians from the other groups that were working on the info from Asher and Steph’s kart came over to watch.
Unlike before, my slime kart even had a motor and an entire system to propel that energy to the back wheels. The fuel, though, is more expensive being mana crystals. One is placed inside each piston and each up motion of the pistol pulls a small bit of mana out and the motor absorbs it to fuel the rapid consumption of energy to repair itself.
I set up the countless slimes into groups and after that I arrange each section. First the frame and body of the kart that doesn’t move and is only to support the body was put at the bottom since it is the base of the kart. Then on top of that I set up the motor next then the gear shift and all the other groups in different areas but not merging the nucleus into one. The chaotic mana lines coming from the little device were much more organized than before.
Only after a lot of debating with the crew, the teacher and I did we finish and I finally merged the entire Nucleus which only had the tire slimes that lacked but it didn’t matter since those are switched out and encase the tire rims that remain.
Through ingenious design of a group of slime nucleus, you have designed a functioning slime brain.
147 slimes have formed a colony slime and formed a Slime Brain and have merged into a single slime. It is now Slime Vehicle Mimic.
When the merging was done, an amazing message appeared causing everyone to be surprised as the slime kart shook and changed its shape ever so slightly as the slimes were properly arranging themselves in the most efficient but functional way reducing damage to its limit. What was most amazing was that a set of slime eyes formed on the bubble body.
“Gre..ngs… mas…” A mental message was sent.
“It's sentient! No, it's intelligent enough to talk but not as much as Glop and Peach.” I suddenly said.
“As expected, we set up a proper brain system causing it to all merge forming a hive mind causing its intelligence to surpass the base of what probably was before.” the teacher analyzed and grinned. “This is good, with metal slimes as the base, 147 can make a small model vehicle where only the tires need to be changed and healed while the body can grow stronger altogether. I should report this. Oh right.” the teacher said and took the car panel and stuck it into the slime and similar to the other, it began to attach itself to different sections of the nucleus before it reached the area behind the nucleus. Then the kart did something amazing and the entire small body hollowed out forming a cockpit that didn’t exist before where the rider was driving inside the slime.
“This is quite a smart fellow.” The teacher praised and saw the large nucleus move behind the panel while slime slowly stretched out forming, amazingly, pedals and a slime wheel fully connected and in full control of the kart.
“His mimicking skills rose to level 5 instantly.” I said.
“He has a functioning brain, it isn’t surprising that he is taking what was done with it before by using the nucleus as a wheel and forming a slime wheel and pedals that it could have seen in other karts.” Steph said.
“It’s as Princess Stephanie said, it will probably fix its nooks and mistakes first but for now, you should build a quick crew and start checking out its parameters.” The teacher said, “I’ll be excusing myself. Good luck to you all.” She said.
We all wave goodbye and all the students of the other crews come to admire the slime kart who seemed like a super advanced slime.
One thing that I learned is that it can be considered a Big slime which is when more than 100 but less than 500 slimes bunch up into one body.
The kart was allowed to live in the garage while I went to the school to see if there were still any seniors wanting to form a crew. The race was in a week and the end of the year was also coming soon so it was good to go out with a bang especially since official TV crews will come to watch this event and the entire island will be watching through the journalist clubs program.
***
Over the fairy pond a small distortion appears where Momo and Mimi flew out of and looked around. After blinking and looking around the two flew to the water.
Mimi looked around and put her hand over her mouth, “Hey Shy Dungeon, we want to make the pond filled with fairy plants, please help us spread the flowers after we plant them!” She shouted.
Not waiting Mimi shook her hand and two small bags of seeds appeared.
“Momo, take the green bag and plant the shoreline plants, I will plant the water plants.” Mimi said.
The bags had some seeds that were all different. To the small size of the fairies, one seed fits in each arm. Taking two, Mimi flew to the water and tossed one seed to the left and the other to the right and began to move mana into it.
One seed sank and the other floated up. The one on top of the pond sprouted a small bud and spread the roots into the water and slowly it began to absorb the fairy mana and dungeon mana and grow quickly. Soon the green flower bloomed and released a burst of fairy mana into its surroundings before wilting and a lilypad began to grow.
The one in the water landed at the bottom and began to bloom forming a large flower that was perfectly smooth like a bubble and amazingly it had air that was slowly filling with pollen and glittering underwater causing the dark water bed to light up. These were Fairy Lily Pads and Sparkling Water Bubble Flowers.
The next seeds came and landed in the water. They remained floating but the reaction was different as they began to suck up mana and became transparent showing a small black larvae inside. One was twice as big while the other smaller. Mimi tossed four more similar of each and they hatched into Black spirit frogs that live and control the bug population around fairy ponds which could be dangerous.
The other is Spirit salamanders who control the frog population and are a good food source for the Fairy Dragon who looked at them covertly.
In the forest, Momo put some seeds against true trees and they latched onto their roots forming into flowers that slowly released spirit world pollen before forming Spirit Cherries and others planted in the ground forming Bushes of spirit world berries.
Once all the seeds were planted the two fairies looked around, “Shy dungeon, please make more of these.” Mimi said. She looked around looking for any sign but could not see anything that showed that there would be any help. “Come on!” She stomped the air under her.
“Maybe she is busy.” Momo said timidly.
Mimi crossed her arms and snorted, “Let’s go see for ourselves then!” She exclaimed and pulled Momo to the dungeon and flew through the dungeon without making one wrong turn. Fairies have an intimate connection to mana and they can see the movement of mana so they simply follow the flow heading towards Shai’s core and arrive quickly where they see the Silver Bear Mimic slime sleeping.
“Shy Dungeon, did you not hear me asking for help?!” Mimi stomped in anger.
“I must check with Master and I am also out of mana due to the decline of monsters and me using so much.” She said “I did register those plants and the spirit animals though so I can spawn them when I have permission and mana.” She replied.
Snorting Mimi looked unsatisfied, “I’ll go see Kuroko then!” She said and flew off towards the school to find the silver haired High human who could help her set up a stronger bridge but even now the plants were already releasing fairy mana causing the bridge to strengthen but unfortunately the little fairy dragon flew up and opened its jaws sucking in a large amount of ambient mana forming a ball of mana and closing her jaws around it before allowing her body to sink into the pond where she curled up and began to sink as her body glowed and slowly started to grow a bit bigger by eating and digesting fairy mana to build her body.