"Uh... How big is this going to be?" Vee asked nervously.

"Big!" I responded gleefully. "Make sure you're at a safe distance."

"That's... Ugh... Great..." Vee mumbled, and I sensed her teleporting and putting greater distance between herself and my worm body.

The kobolds kept attacking my body, with great aid from a full contingency of geomancers. Together, they were pulling out large spires of rock and trying to form makeshift shackles to prevent me from wiggling about.

Makes sense... The mouth is the diggy part of the worm, so it would be a good way to restrain one.

I had to applaud their ingenuity and felt somewhat bad about what I was about to do. But... The levels wouldn't come themselves, and I had somewhat of a grudge against the little lizards for their continued tendency to drop entire tunnels on me.

Plus, they had tried to capture Vee; hell, they're trying to capture me right now, from the looks of things.

One larger kobold was gleefully rubbing his palms together as if he'd made the score of the century.

Yeah... Screw you, buddy; I'm not some pet for you to control. This whole situation is going to blow up in your face.

After making all my preparations, I primed everything, which caused the worm's body to remain still. The kobolds began cheering as they rapidly created more earthen restraints.

I split open a large opening in the worm's body, which caused the kobolds near that body segment to retreat while frantically pointing and panicking. Then, with my biggest [Slime Shot] to date, I fired out my slime capsule, housing all my cores to safety.

The kobolds hissed and pointed. They looked extremely wary, and a few potshots were fired at my rapidly flying slime pod. Instead of taking the blow, I rapidly morphed my pod into a new body and triggered [Wind Step] into a huge chain of [Thunder Steps] to frantically escape.

With a big grin, I triggered the detonation.

Boom!

I had expected a large explosion, as this was the most [Nitro Slime] I had used to date. My expectations were severely underestimated.

Suddenly, with a deafening roar, the slime reached a critical mass and erupted in a dazzling explosion of color and energy. The abrupt flash illuminated every corner of the cavern, scattering kobolds, slime, and explosive force everywhere.

The sound was like hundreds of thunder strikes going off at once; I had never heard anything like it. Rock and debris were tossed aside, kobolds were rag-dolled around, and, more importantly, the spell orbs were explosively distributed further around the cavern.

Some detonated immediately, crashing too violently into an object, but most of them seemed to endure the blast to unleash their payload when I triggered them. I knew [Nitro Slime] gave me an explosive resistance, but it hadn't occurred to me that it offered this much defense against blasts.

As the chaos settled, the remnants of the explosion sparkled like gemstones across the cave floor. A sea of spell orbs littered the ground, and slimy remnants scattered about.

I'd almost suspected I wouldn't need the secondary detonation, but then I noticed there was actually a large number of surviving kobolds. Who knew what lifesaving skills, traits, or magic they must have used.

As for myself, while I had retreated in the distance, I was still caught in the shockwave and sent hurtling deeper into the cavern myself until I splattered against a rocky wall. My blueblin form was tough, but the impact splattered me like an egg; however, my dense, slimy interior prevented my cores from crashing against the rocky wall too violently.

As for my own core, I did indeed strike against the rock, and I was filled with a horrifically abrupt pain that echoed throughout my entire being. If not for my own self-inflicted [Defy Death] training back in the day, I might have said it was the worst pain I had experienced.

When I recovered from my brief daze, I looked at how my [Sub-Cores] had fared. I had expected some damage, but thanks to the enchantments I had engraved on them, they looked in very good condition, rapidly sealing up thanks to the repairing enchantment. However, my core felt terrible, and I had to start wrapping it in slime and trying to recover it.

I somewhat regret not putting physical defense and repair on my own core... But I'm sure my magical and mental resistance enchantments will pay off one day...

"Holy shit, Syl... Are you okay?" Vee questioned mentally. Her voice rattled in my mind like a bad headache.

"One... Moment..." I replied as I triggered the secondary explosions.

While the previous explosion was dazzling and insane in its sheer scope and size, this multitude of explosions was like a kaleidoscope of color as various spell orbs detonated and violently unleashed their stored spells.

Vee squeaked in shock, and I felt her teleporting away again.

Far too many notifications were blaring through my mind, and I ignored them as I pried myself off the cavern wall. I groaned as I tried my best to nurse my slightly cracked core and then took a glance at what was left of the explosions.

"Well... There was a kobold outpost there..." I muttered out loud.

It was utterly insane. Where my wormy form had once lay restrained to the floor, there was now a massive scar deep into the ground. What was once stone fortifications were now rubble and shifting over to other visions; I could see the entire area was now a chaotically scrambled mess of magical essences.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Who knows what this mess is going to spawn... I've completely wrecked the natural earthen essence of the area..." I mumbled a little regretfully.

I knew I was messing with some extremely risky business. Greg had always warned me about the potential dangers of enchanting, and I couldn't help but wonder if the spell orbs were what caused such intensely chaotic essence.

A sort of resonance with the orichalcum? Or perhaps because of my [Mana Slime]?

I had no concrete answers and could only make guesstimates. Too many combining factors were at play due to my tampering with and playing around with many interlocking traits and even throwing magic into the mix.

I looked over my notifications and nearly lost myself in their endless scroll. So many things had gone off, including the now overly familiar error of killing a [Chieftain] and not being qualified to usurp the emblem.

In my recent excitement, I had forgotten to look over the notifications that awaited me after our portal bomb trap testing. Before I went through everything, I ordered my [Sub-Cores] to start collecting what potential slime mass they could find among the debris and ruin.

Wow, I completely skipped over level 2; I didn't even know that was possible.

And the award for the most ridiculously fast leveling skill goes to... Seriously!? I can't believe you're level 6 already! Was it because of our coordination? Because of the absurdity of the outcome? I think Vee being fully intelligent is breaking this skill...

I started going through them and trying to consolidate and summarize all my gains from these multiple encounters. It certainly didn't help that I had such core-splitting pain. But before I summarized, I looked for the notable gains, especially in the magic department!

<[Fire Magic LV 6] spell [Fireflies] learned.>

I finally got the spell Dewi talked about! I think he'd be upset to hear that I've been slacking on [Fire Magic]... But on the other hand, Lightning!

Despite its slightly underwhelming name and lack of oomph compared to the tried and true [Fireball], [Fireflies] was a marvel of magical concepts. It created multiple tiny flaming projectiles that would then fly and seek out a designated target.

I couldn't wait to start dissecting the spell, taking its homing component apart, and seeing if I could apply it to other spells. Not to mention the ability to split a single spell into multiple projectiles! For far too long, I'd had to manually cast multiple spells if I wanted to blanket an area, and now, by splitting a single spell up, I could cover a much larger area at the cost of reduced power.

<[Air Magic LV 4] spell [Cyclone] learned.>

[Cyclone] was also interesting. It was almost like a debuff adjacent. Rather than directly target an enemy, you targeted an area, and it would create a spiral of sucking wind toward that point. Effectively, you could trap someone in it or at least direct things towards them.

Like other spells? Combining this with [Caustic Cloud]... The results could be absurdly deadly! Or perhaps even [Vaporize Slime]? I've neglected the trait since it didn't have levels, but combining it with [Cyclone] and [Poison Slime] could be glorious.

Unfortunately, that was it for my magical improvements. I was hoping for [Earth Magic LV 5] and [Water Magic LV 6], but I had not used them enough.

Ice and Lightning are probably even further away from their next level... I only recently got [Corrosion Magic LV 6], and it's undoubtedly my most used affinity since I use it with every other affinity, thanks to the debuffs and afflictions.

Explosions! More explosions! Seriously, thank you, Gramps, for this amazing trait! You really outdid yourself with this one!

<13 Trait Points are now available.>

<16 Skill Points are now available.>

<14 Trait Points are now available.>

<17 Skill Points are now available.>

Two levels in both my class and race... That's pretty crazy, considering the experience is being split with Vee, but on the other hand, there were just that many kobolds.

Would you like to swap classes?>

Nope, but good to know! I guess all my exploding spell orbs were enough to qualify me. I'll consider it at some point, although if the only effect is placing temporary hazardous enchantments using [Rune Tracing], I might give it a skip... My spell orbs using [Rune Engraving] are already superior to what I saw Thern pull off.

Would you like to swap classes?>

Tempting... Very tempting... But I need to stick with Elementalist for now. Who knows what I'll get at level 20 or 30?

Finally! It only took creating hundreds of exploding spell orbs to finally get it! I'm sorry for slacking Master Greg!

Vee had returned at some point. "Are you done exploding things?"

"Yes... for now," I answered. "Sorry, I was going through a lot of notifications."

"Tell me about it... You skyrocketed my class levels with that stunt," Vee replied. "Should we go home? I'm honestly feeling exhausted after... That."

"Might as well. No rush, right?" I said with a chuckle.

"No rush..." Vee sighed. "Says the slime, who turned into a giant worm, broke into a kobold stronghold, and then exploded everything!"

"On the plus side, I got my next level in [Nitro Slime]?" I said with a smile.

Vee sighed again. "I'm hungry... And tired... I need a nap..."

Having returned to my elven form, we escaped from the smoldering remains of the kobold tunnels. While I had expended far more slime mass than I had ever previously, I had no doubt gained a large amount of experience I wouldn't have under more routine and regular circumstances.

"Well... That was... Fun?" Vee said.

"The explosive finish was certainly a spectacle," I replied with a grin.

"I could have done without that... I thought it was the end of the world. You effectively made a magical worm nuke! That was utterly terrifying."

"Nuke?" I questioned.

"No!" Vee shouted. "Forget I said anything... I think it would be better for everyone."

I shrugged and gave a short chuckle. "Sure. Either way, I think we made some good progress. Good levels, good training, some decent experience."

"I have to admit you're right," Vee responded, albeit with some reluctance in her tone. "Our cooperation with the portals was certainly worthwhile. If we mess around with them again, I think I'll reach the next level of [Dimension Magic] soon enough."

"That's something to look forward to," I replied positively. "Hopefully, it gives you a usable spell on its own at the third level, or we have a breakthrough in trying to make a dimensional projectile or something more practical."

"Now that would be great," Vee giggled.

"And we still need you to break through your Mana aura... Then you can cast spells without their anchor point!" I said excitedly.

"Oh no... Not more 'be the rock' training..." Vee groaned.

"Hey, it really worked, trust-"

"Syl, look out!" Vee interrupted with a screech, and I sensed her rapidly teleporting away.

Before I could respond or sense anything, notifications rang in my mind.

<[Sanguine Dream] has been sampled. [Poison Slime] updated.>

And a massive black blade burst outward from my chest. Someone or something had stabbed me from behind! I glanced at the source and saw a lithe shadowy creature grasping the blade it had thrust through me.