Activating my camo I stepped out in the refreshing night breeze. My skin and armor slowly getting darker, until they stopped when they reached a deep blue, almost black, color.

Despite the spell that loomed overhead, the one that covered the whole sky, turning it in a moonless, starless abyss, there were still quite a few open windows that emitted light, as well as some oil lamps hanging out of some, house-height, poles, requiring at least some attention not to walk through one of them like an idiot.

Despite that, the walk to the center of the village, where the well was, was quite easy. I did have to wait out when some random dudes burst out of the inn, and when a hunter decided to overstep his responsibilities and think of himself as a guard patrolling (badly) the streets, but overall, it was easy to simply reach my destination.

What really took some effort and time was actually lowering the well-bucket down the black shaft slowly enough so as not to let the wood creak. When the rope had fully unwound, I gave it a quick tug, to make sure that it was fully secure and sturdy, and I slowly started to climb it down.

A few meters down, and with several more to go, I was equally impressed by myself, and equally scared out of my mind. The impressed part was regarding my actual physical ability. I don't know if it was the agility or the acrobatics skill, but it was seriously easy to climb down, a feat that would be all but impossible in my real body. The scared part was because of the darkness. Since creating the character I had never felt so much 'black'. Partly because of the game settings always allowing some sort of illumination, like the oil lamps in the night, and partly because my keen eyes could see perfectly fine even with just a bit of moonlight on all other occasions, I was spared this feeling. But now, it was exactly like I was blind.

I kept lowering myself on the rope for what it seemed like an eternity, unable to tell how much I had descended or how much more I needed to go. Until, finally, I felt my toes getting wet. I strained myself to hold on to the rope with using only one hand and slowly extended the other hand, trying to feel around me. From what I could tell, it seemed I was still on a straight shaft. I had positioned myself so that my left hand would be pointing right towards the north, just to be certain, but due to the complete lack of vision and the wild swinging of the rope while I was descending, I wasn't so sure that this was the case anymore. Thankfully, despite the total darkness, the (terrible) map function allowed me to see the compass points. Somehow, North was exactly on my right hand by now... 

I took a deep breath, and let myself drop, splashing down slightly on the water, and immediately regretted the decision. That damn water was freezing! Quickly, I dove underground, feeling with my hand, searching for a passage.

The passage found me.

In the blink of the eye, I felt an opening, followed by a really, REALLY, strong undercurrent, that pushed me down a rough (figured that by experience) natural stone passage. I was 'swimming' with the grace of a paper plane caught in strong winds, while tumbling randomly, checking every wall that it was sturdy enough by bumping my head repeatedly on it.

At this point, seeing the -1s that kept popping every time I bumped the walls, and for some reason, they kept happening with mathematical accuracy every single second, I felt as I had an insight on the brilliant sadistic mind of the one who designed this place.  

A few seconds later, the current suddenly broke, replaced by a much smoother one. And, flapping my hands and feet wildly like a four year old that for the first time touches the sea, I somehow managed to swim upwards, towards air. Naturally, I still couldn't see anything.

I kept swimming, choosing with the sure-fire method of a mental coinflip, towards my left. Just as a precaution, I made it my priority to always have one of my arms, alternating as I swam, in front of me. Naturally, after a bit, I still somehow managed to crush, face first, on solid rock.

By this point, I prayed that the water was as sound insulating as I thought it was, because the string of profanities that left my mouth would be enough to scare the hell out of anything alive, plus there was this slight drawback of not being able to go to human lands and such If I was actually heard and found out by the villagers.

As I stopped swearing to catch up my breath, the system showered me with messages.

You have gained the skill Hatred control Lv1 (consume stamina to make your attacks either more or less obvious to the target) 

You have gained the talent provoke. By insulting an intelligent opponent you force him momentarily to shift his attention towards you. Effectiveness depending on Hatred control level. Costs 20 Rage.

You have created the talent Abuse. You have raised profanity to an art. None can withstand your verbal abuse. Depending on your opponent, they will either fly into a mad rage against you or cower in fear. Costs 100 Rage.

...go me?

Slowly, I extended my arm, searching for the end of the ledge, and after it was raised a bit over my elbow, I finally found it. Using my dissipating strength I pulled myself upwards, and let my body slam the floor deflated.

In the darkness, I felt something soft touching my cheek, probing it. It took a few more seconds for my brain to catch up. But apparently, that just meant that it was, at this point, functioning even slower than the non-existent brain of a slime, since its brain had already given the input *food?*. I screamed in pain as I felt something burning my cheek where the slimy substance was touching it.

I jumped up and madly flailed with my hands and legs, still blind in the total darkness. Needless to say, I managed to kick the solid stone wall of the cave, making me yelp in pain. Thankfully, this seemed enough to finally jump start my brain and forcing me to calm down before managing to kill myself somehow.

Fishing the magical log out of my inventory, I channeled a bit of my mana in it as I whispered (yelled) "Ignite". I was pretty sure now, that if anyone was to see my terrifying glare, lit by the flickering flames, inside a dark cave, he would run as fast as he could away.

Never the one to not appreciate good tropes, the moment that my eyes fell upon the dozens of tiny, knee high, piles of goo all around me, I let a slight smile form on my face.

"Hehe...he...he... AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..." My gentle chuckle echoed in the closed chamber as I observed the targets to fuel my unbridled rage. Ok, not gentle chuckle, more like creepily evil and culminating into manic laughter.

Of course, holding the flaming log that illuminated my face, and laughing at the poor slimes, did slightly sidetracked me from what I should be doing. Which was NOT holding a burning log. 

I screamed as the adrenaline rush passed and the pain set in, seeing a -5 flash in front of my eyes as I felt my hand finally getting burned by the piece of wood that they were clutching.

 Thankfully, the second the log hit the floor, the surrounding slimes hurried away. Although hurried, is a relevant term here. In their case, it was more like very, VERY slowly edging away. Once more, even more spend, I let myself on the floor, mumbling silent curses towards existence in general.

Slowly calming down and catching my breath, I had the opportunity of taking in the surrounding scenery. It was quite the spacious cave, about fifteen to twenty meters wide from one end to another. Despite it being obviously natural formed, someone had gone to the trouble of raising a tiny stone wall surrounding the circular underground lake, about sixty or so centimeters high, making it look more like a pool rather than a lake. Surrounding this pool of water there was a small ledge, where I was sitting now. The ledge width fluctuated from only half a meter, to, much wider, three to four meter plateaus, before it hit the rough stone walls.

The small flickering flame wasn't enough to illuminate the whole place, but the light that was reflected from the wet, glistening with moisture, overhead stone dome, and the eerie muffled sound of the fierce underwater current, gave the impression that you were standing next to a river watching in the night sky a million stars twinkling in and out of existence.

Breaking the beautiful view, dozens and dozens of small, bucket sized, slimes, were moving around. Some of them without any purpose, while some others, slightly larger, were clearly trying to go in the lake, but were completely blocked off by the little stone wall. So, it looked more like jelly flattening itself vertically on a wall. 

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Someone that was unable to appreciate the beauty of this calm place, would simply reduce it to something like 'a circular passage of tightly packed xp'. And as my clothes slowly dried, it was time for this someone to clear said pathway and level up!

I focused my gaze towards the fire and moved my mana around my body as I have done hundred of times already. Taking extra care to not fumble the unused, so far, chant in the weird fake language the magic system used, I finished my fire elemental summoning.

A small humanoid-shaped flame appeared from inside the small campfire. And naturally, I had to ask.

"So, are you a kun or a chan?" 

The fire elemental surprised me when, instead of a guts pose or a curtsy, he did a strongman's pose, flexing its non-existent muscles proudly.

"Definitely a kun. So, flame-kun, shall we annihilate all opposition?"

I swear to God the flames seemed like the raged hotter for a split second!

Of course, even though my steel dagger was sealed from this battle, my whole life had led to this point. My trusty old stone dagger should be safe from the stupid slime corrosion!

Seeing as slimes resisted physical damage regardless, it made my decision even easier. No need for Windy-chan, no need for Rock-kun, and no need for an infused dagger either. So, all my combat mana could safely be invested into Flame-kun, Fire-kun and... You-kun. What can I say, I run out of good names, and yelling "You! Over there!" Made me chuckle repeatedly for some reason. Probably not a GOOD reason, I would have to start talking with some real people soon I think...

With battle preparations done, I charged at the first slime, three elementals following suit. The battle plan was simple really, I was useless in this fight, and fire elementals... weren't. So I would try my best to tank for them, training my dodging and defensive skills in the way, using my stone dagger just because not wielding anything WAS weird, and let them do all the job.

The hardest part was actually keeping the aggro on me, but the slimes were usually stupid enough to go towards the one who initiated the attack.... or the only one they could actually eat. I couldn't tell. Obviously, I tried using my newly acquired provoke talent as well, but it kept failing due to slimes actually being mindless. Which was weird really, the gods of Providence, giving me a skill before an encounter? That sounded like a true main character! But then the skill actually being 100% useless for said encounter? That sounded like... me. 

I don't need to go into a lot of detail regarding how the battle actually went. The tiny searing punches of the elementals were super effective, the slimes were usually trying a super slow tackle that was easy to dodge, really, disregarding their annoying tendency to spit some sort of sticky toxic slime every now and then, which obviously caused me to have burn marks all over my body where it either hit skin or it passed through the gaps of my armor, everything was going extremely smoothly. Unbelievably easy one could say. Of course, a certain someone was keep getting splashed by the goop he himself was scooping out with every second strike of his stone dagger, but that's irrelevant. 

With a sense of foreboding, I kept watching all around me, waiting for something to go really wrong, like a hidden boss appearing, or the cave collapsing on my head, or the usual stuff that happens all the time, but the only thing that I noticed was that some of the slimes seemed to have tiny pieces of actual loot, besides the crystals, sometimes stuck inside their bodies. Those usually were either copper or silver coins, with one or two of them actually having silver rings.

As time passed, I noticed that slowly all three of my elementals were starting to use a bit more complicated attacks. Doing stuff like tiny flamethrowers, or spitting flame on their targets, which then actually caught on fire. Since they only used them now and then, sporadically at best, and usually only when freshly summoned, I guessed they were probably mana based, as opposed to wind elementals which were stamina based, and earth elementals which were rage based. Their regular attacks also seemed to be getting stronger the second the skill level rose.

One could say that it was mind-numbing boring to stay still in the same cavern, killing the same slimes over and over again for hours. But obviously, the one that would say that wouldn't have been an office worker, doing the same thing for twelve hours per day, five days a week, for fifteen years...

If anything, for me, the combat which was actually quite fluid, the dodges, the side steps, the random, non-skill based, attacks which were almost never the same and varied from mob to mob, was something actually quite refreshing.

Not to mention the promise of loot.

It was about the fifteenth slime, where I was casually singing a merry tune, something about slaughter and mayhem, when I bowed to pick up the loot it had dropped, a ring this time. Immediately, my eyes became a dollar sign when I saw that instead of the two simple silver rings that I had already acquired, and safely stashed in my inventory, this one was actually embedded with gemstones.

But the second I actually picked it up, and read:

Ring of the initiate. All base stats +1. Soulbonds when equipped

Was the moment I felt that the God of fortune finally smiled on poor me. Or that the Gods were simply asleep and hence I was no longer plagued by their curses. I immediately equipped it, feeling a surge of power rushing in my body. 6 stats! That was like 6 levels! BEST. QUEST. EVER. Needless to say, my zeal was increased tenfold, as my eyes kept scanning for slimes that seemed to have rings inside them.

Aside from loot, the other amazing thing about those slimes was the xp gain. They gave a 100xp each! Almost double the xp of a goblin! But the main difference was that they were ridiculously easier to kill compared to a goblin. Really, the one thing they had going for them it was the time it actually took to down one of them. Guessing from the difference of the damage between my, not that great, dagger skills and Windy-chan, which seems like a piercing physical type damage source as well, the difference of the damage of a player and an elemental was tremendous. Even with three fire elementals out it somehow felt WAY less damage compared to what a single fire using mage would be dealing. But since they were my only source of damage, it actually took me about three to four minutes to kill a single slime.

Around the twentieth of them, I finally managed to level. And amidst the new stream of system messages, one of them actually caught my eye.

New achievement: Growing power I

Immediately I tried to think Achievements and I was rewarded with a never seen before screen.

Achievements Name Requirements Rewards Growing Power I Reach Level 5 4 Ability Points

Four ability points for reaching level 5? That was cheating!!! Briefly stopping myself from dumping them all to intelligence, I actually managed to constrain myself and put just two to intelligence and two to wisdom. The whole point of this quest was to somehow fix my horrendous mana regeneration after all.

Alongside with the slight gain in wisdom from my ring, I could now barely sustain four elementals instead of three. So, Blast-kun was given life as well, increasing my overall clear speed a bit.

After a while, not even my zeal for loot and xp could keep my eyes open and my mind focused. A quick glance at the in-game clock told me that I was here, butchering slimes for over three hours, a stash of forty-four tiny monster cores on my inventory was keeping the count of my rampage. But most importantly, it was over four in the morning, and even my maximum stamina had decreased, probably due to tiredness kicking in.

I glanced over the last stretch of the xp passage, looking at the remaining slimes, when internal alarms started ringing like mad. I was to keep twenty of them alive, wasn't I? FUCK!

Very slowly, and very carefully, I started to count the remaining xp bags one by one, praying to not have majorly messed up in my bloodlust.

The second I counted the last, as the twentieth fourth, a big, relieved, sigh escaped my mouth. And as my tension fully dissipated, and I could barely hold my eyes open, I decided that it was ok to finally leave.

I loomed over the everburning log for a second, cursing myself for not asking how to make the damn thing quench itself, until I realized I could feel something familiar from inside it, the tiny mana I had given it when I ignited it. I tried to pull that away, and lo and behold, it actually went out, sinking the cave back into total darkness.

With the final piece safely stashed away, I once more dove into the freezing waters following the mental picture I had before the lights went out, trying my best to swim towards the entrance of the cave. It took me some tries, moving along the wall, until I felt the undercurrent beneath me. One deep breath and in... I don't go. Resurfacing, I immediately found the flaw of my plans this time. There was no way I could possibly swim against such a current, not even with my enhanced stats due to the ring...

I want to say that it was my mind being clear after I woke up from the cold water, but it was more of my mind wandering on my previous discoveries about my skills (while being resigned to die and respawn in the temple), which naturally led to the inner dialogue of cataloging my skills and wondering that if earth was rage, air was stamina, and fire was mana, then what resource would poor water elementals use? that it finally dawned to me to try one last desperate thing. Spending 80 out of my 85 maximum mana to summon eight water elementals, I mentally ordered them to pull me against the current if they could.

Somehow, those two minutes it took to reach the rope, which thankfully the water elementals could pinpoint in the water, seemed like an eternity. With lungs burning from oxygen deprivation, muscles aching from desperate tries to actually swim against the current, and a status window that showed that even a rabbit could probably kill me now, I finally reached fresh air.

I honestly don't know how I manage to climb the rope and find my way towards the Elder's house, but I'm truly grateful that not a single soul walked the streets at five o'clock in the morning, because I'm sure as hell that there were zero efforts in stealthing or camouflaging, or generally giving any consideration at all as I returned.