After going through another short trial with the Slime’s Council, it was finally time for my tenure with Mister Pink. They gave me a fairly stylish golden ring, which I took the time to admire until they told me that it was enchanted with a curse that would implode my blood vessels if I engaged in any taboo actions.
Besides the weight of the ring constantly wrapped around my finger, the days passed more easily than I expected. My morning would begin with joint lessons from Mister Pink and a random human servant who specialized in something. A lot of it flew over my head, but there were some things that even I recognized as important.
First, skills were handed out like candy in the beginning. It was important to review them regularly. Apparently, you could drag them around and create folders so that you wouldn’t have to scroll around forever, so there was no reason to not organize them either.
Second, axes were not the most common weapon that existed in this world. They were almost entirely used to chop trees and other lumber, but swords and spears didn’t feel right in my hands. I ended up with a few sword and spear skills, but I filed them away into the “Garbage” folder for skills that I didn’t really care about.
Third, slime food was awful.
Fourth, Mister Pink was way too good with weapons while in Human form.
Fifth, Magic was a pain in the ass.
I spent most of my time being forced to learn the Mana Donation spell, which forcibly donated my mana to canisters that were given to me. As you might guess, this spell was the main way I was supposed to repent for my sins.
There was only one thing I needed to do in order to complete my punishment with the Slimes. I needed to donate enough mana to generate another low level slime village. The minimum amount for a slime village was around 10,000,000 mana points. My maximum mana was currently around 550 points. I regenerated 1.1 mana per second, which was the default amount.
I had to ask Mister Pink for a pencil (harder than you’d expect in a town where barely anyone had hands), and paper (again, surprisingly difficult) to do the math. Nearly 26 years if I donated literally all of my mana, at my current pace, for the minimum slime village.
Unfortunately, I had not murdered a newly created slime village. I had murdered a decently established low-level one. This meant that I had to donate around 50,000,000 mana points.
Thankfully, using the Mana Donation spell slowly upgraded my maximum mana and mana regeneration. So far, it had given me a 10% increase from my original. I was hoping that the increases went off my current amounts, but I had consistently gained 1 point of mana and .01 mana regeneration for every 10000 mana that I donated.
I wasn’t smart enough to do the math on how long it would take me if I factored in the steady increases to my mana stats, but it seemed like at worst, I would be able to get out of this before I died of old age.
Great…
Of course, I had asked Mister Pink about faster ways to increase these stats, and he had done the slime shrug towards me. It was the usual issue of slime techniques being incompatible with humans, due to differences in physiology and other issues.
He did have a singular book on human mana training techniques, which a particularly talented ex-servant had given him on his annual visit. It was well-worn and the spine of the book was in tatters. I guess every servant that came his way ended up reading this book at one point.
Oh, and, another annoying thing about skills in this game.
Lv.0 meant that I knew the skill existed and was aware of it. It didn’t actually mean that I had any sort of talent or mastery for it. So even if the skill was in my Skills app, it didn’t mean that it was necessarily usable. What was doubly annoying, was that the labels of Mastery, Level, and Rating were based on separate evaluations of how the skill was used.
The tl;dr of the long lecture that Mister Pink gave me was basically:
Mastery was how efficiently I could use the skill.
Level was how powerful I could use the skill.
Rating was how aesthetically pleasing the skill was.
Yeah, that’s right. This world actually cared about how stylish you used your skill.
In case anyone cared, my Mana Donation skill looks like this.
~~~
Mana Donation Lv.0
You are able to channel your pure Mana out of your body. What sort of terrible thing did you do to have this skill forced on you…
Mastery: 10%
Rating: 0
Efficiency Modifier: 10%(While using this skill, you donate 10% at your possible efficiency.)
~~~
I asked the other human servants about their Mana Donation skill progress, and most of them were also still at Lv.0 with varying degrees of Mastery. A few of them had Ratings above 0. Their Efficiency Modifier didn’t seem like it was adjusted at all for their higher rating, so I decided to peek at them when they donated mana.
It was… definitely a spectacle. I’m not sure if most people know what Chuuni means, but the servants were saying lines that caused chills to crawl up my spine. I found myself desperately hoping that not all Ratings for skills were increased in similar fashions.
Tangent aside, the book that Mister Pink unlocked a decent amount of skills that seemed to be helpful when it came to increasing Mana. By far the most important one was Meditation, which increased your mana regeneration by a multiplier while you maintained a meditative state.
Which would be great, if the skill actually told you how to meditate. I mean look at this thing.
~~~
Meditate Lv.0
You take a break and sit down. You’re relaxing, but you actually aren’t. Actually, you don’t even need to sit, just clear your mind and breathe for a bit, you deserve it.
Mastery: 0%
Rating: 0
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Efficiency Modifier: .01%(While using this skill, you increase your mana at .01% of your possible efficiency.)
~~~
A hundredth of a percentage was the amount I was going to get out of this skill? I mean, to be fair to the author of the book, they tried their best to describe how to get into a meditative state. They described the state as trying to daydream, minus the dreaming part. I was always daydreaming at school, but there was always something I was imagining. I kind of understood the metaphor, but how could you expect someone to understand your point, when you tell them to think of a word, and then tell them to take out an integral part of that word and --
Okay, deep breaths Grant.
Thankfully for all of the human servants that wandered around the Slime Kingdom, as long as we didn’t cause trouble, we were free to do anything we wanted. Out of the four classmates that had also troubled the slimes, only one other had fallen under the gelatin of Mister Pink.
“Yo, Fred.”
“Hey Grant.”
…
“Did you get lunch yet?”
“Yeah, I had Jello with mixed vegetables. You?”
“I’m going to get some now.”
“Cool.”
…
“Well, see you around.”
“Yeah.”
We weren’t friends in our previous world, and Fred wasn’t known for being extremely social. He was a nice guy, so I didn’t mind that he kept our conversation short. To be fair to him, I caught him at a bad time. He seemed to be focused on getting the Meditate skill down. If he figured it out, I’d ask him.
His punishment was much lighter than mine, only needing to donate around 2,000,000 mana for only killing the chief of the village. It made sense that he would be interested in getting out ASAP.
For lunch, I was going to go out to a human cafe by the outskirts of town. The donuts and coffee they had were acceptable, but I was more interested in the trees there.
Although Mister Pink initially emitted as much disapproval as an amorphous blob could, he accepted my request to continue using the axe as a weapon. He added an additional condition to the cursed ring to make sure I didn’t go axe-happy on the surrounding wildlife and slimes, unless my life was genuinely in danger.
With my stomach partially satisfied with the slightly stiff donut and watery coffee, I went up to the tree that I was trying to chop down for the past few days. I had never chopped a tree before, so I wasn’t sure if the trees in this world were just hardier than the ones I was used to, or if I was just doing it incorrectly.
Ah, who am I kidding. Of course I was doing it incorrectly.
The Mastery of my Swing skill was still at a 0%. It had not increased when I killed all of the slimes, and it wasn’t increasing when I was doing my pitiful whacks towards the tree.
“Fear my wrath, lumber of this world!” I made a dramatic pose, placing my left hand on my face and strutting my hips out. I did a little twirl, and then swung at the tree.
Thenk.
Congratulations! Your Swing Rating has increased to 1!
Ah. No more of that.
I searched my memory of anything that would be remotely helpful in learning about how to swing an axe. I couldn’t think of anything to reference for an actual proper axe swing.
I had already tried to swing it like a sword a few times, but the axe seemed to actually take offense to being used in that way. Whenever it hit the tree being used this way, my hands would go briefly numb from the recoil. I wasn’t sure if that was the system punishing me, or that axe.
Today, I decided to try a gentler approach. I was swinging with a lot of force before, but clearly brute force was not the way. It definitely was not because my hands had blisters from the abuse I had put them through.
I took my time in bringing the axe to the tree.
The impact didn’t even make a noise. Guess that’s expected.
Actually…
I slowly brought the axe head to the tree again. The totality of my stupidity finally dawned on me.
Axes were not seen as weapons, but I was still trying to treat it as one. The way I swung the axe wasn’t necessarily the most important part, but it was all I was noticing until now.
Bear with me as I try to paint an image of an axe in your head. There’s a shaft, and then the actual axe blade is attached at the end. The weight is almost entirely at the end, so it should be obvious that you’re just trying to hit where the blade is.
But what about the blade itself?
With swords, most of the emphasis is on the swing. The results can heavily depend on the user’s posture and their follow-through. However, even a beginner can do major damage to their targets by hitting along any point of the sharp edge.
Axes don’t have that luxury, which is why they aren’t treated as weapons.
You not only have to worry about the swing and the posture, you also have to guarantee that the center of the axe blade will be the point of initial impact. Otherwise, the full force of the swing will be incorrectly distributed, and the recoil could even damage the connection between the axeblade and shaft.
I could feel my brain trying to use all three of its brain cells to work out how to best utilize this new realization, until it short-circuited and gave out.
Whatever, no point in thinking about it too hard. I’ll just give it a go.
I let my body hold the axe, and swung it.
Thunk.
Congratulations! Your Swing Lv.0 has been upgraded to Chop Lv.0!
Congratulations! You have gained 1% Mastery for Meditation!
Congratulations! You have achieved Personal Growth! Levels unlocked!
I can’t really describe the feeling that flooded through my body as my axe sank into the tree. It was as though something was pushing good vibes through my veins, ejecting all of the negativity out. I checked my hands, and the blisters were suddenly gone.
Is this what they call a level up?
I checked my character profile to see if there were any notable changes.
~~~~~
Name: No Name Dungeoneer #15
Level: 0
Title: Loser #543
Str: 2
Dex: 2
Int: 3
Wis: 2
Luk: 1(0+1)(*)
Available Stat Points: 2
~~~~~
Just how many important features were locked behind some sort of sadistic achievement requirement…
Looking more closely, I noticed that my Luck stat seemed a bit different than the other ones.
~~~
Luck determines your fortune.
You have attracted the attention of the Axe God. He gives you his minor blessing.
You cannot add Stat Points to this Stat.
~~~
I flipped to my Skills app.
~~~
Chop Lv.0
You swing your axe, correctly.
Mastery: 0%
Rating: 0 (1)*
*You have three days to redemonstrate your aesthetic appreciation of this skill.
Effectiveness Modifier: 5%(While using this skill, your chops will demonstrate 5% of its possible effectiveness.)
~~~
~~~
Meditate Lv.0
You take a break and sit down. You’re relaxing, but you actually aren’t. Actually, you don’t even need to sit, just clear your mind and breathe for a bit, you deserve it.
Mastery: 1%
Rating: 0
Efficiency Modifier: .11%(While using this skill, you increase your mana regeneration at .11% of your possible efficiency.)
~~~
The fatigue that had clouded my mind after making my earlier realization had faded, and the full importance of what I had just learned was once again threatening to short-circuit my poor brain.
One, the skill descriptions were not 100% accurate. I managed to activate the Meditate skill while using the Swing skill. This meant that it was possible to use multiple skills at once.
Two, I did not have to consciously think of the skills in order to use them.
Three, the Efficiency Modifier for Meditate was somehow an insane increase, and barely perceptible. It was technically a 11x upgrade to what it originally was, but it still hadn't broken a percentage point...
Fourth, trees were hard to chop.
Fifth, stop making lists in my head.
Speaking of my Swing skill, where did it go? It seems like Chop potentially replaced it. I'll need to ask Mister Pink about skill evolution later.
Actually would he even be happy that I made progress with using an Axe?