It was a quick trip back to the Servant Dorms that were housing the various individuals that donated mana to the Slime Kingdom. I made a stop at the donation facility to siphon off my mana, since it was nearly capped out.
“Greetings Servant Grant.” One of the black slime attendants undulated at me, acknowledging my presence.
“Hello, Sir Joyuese Henry of the third House of Arcane Slime Magicians.” I bowed towards him.
As a side note, the people mentioned in Chapter 3 who had high Ratings on their Mana Donation skill learned how to body roll to greet the slimes. I was not about to do that.
“Are you looking to donate some of your mana? There is an open canister that you can use. It will be the second door on your right.” Sir Joyuese Henry extended a tendril to gesture towards the room he was referring to.
I bowed towards him again and went over. I couldn’t help but glance into the first room on the right. There was a small gathering of slimes chattering around the window.
“Oh Gods! Please accept my humble offerings and allow me the chance to atone for my sins! The guilt of my actions weigh heavily upon me, and I beseech your divine presences to punish me in a greater magnitude, so that I may find forgiveness from the Slime Kingdom!”
Shudder.
I went into the room and closed the door behind me. For some awful reason, the rooms were soundproofed from the inside, but the slimes added an enchantment to allow spectators to view the servants inside. I guess it was some form of entertainment to them.
The canister lightly glowed in the middle of the room. It seemed that someone had been using the room before me, as the mana was still slowly dispersing into the receptors that collected the mana into a larger reservoir. I decided to take a few moments to let the mana fully disperse, so that I could get an accurate amount on how much mana I donated.
Hm, if leveling up refreshed my mana, it would be extremely efficient to donate my entire mana pool, then level up to donate it again. If leveling was a fairly simple process, it would easily shave a few years off my sentence over the course of my tenure here. I would have to ask Mister Pink about his levels.
Hopefully, levels were a concept in the slime system…
The room darkened as the canister lost its glow. I put my hand on the canister and allowed the familiar draining sensation to flow through.
Realistically, if I went out and chopped trees every day, and managed to level up every day, it would only be an extra 9 minutes of mana regeneration every day. I need to find some way to increase my mana cap instead of my mana regeneration if I want to use level ups to skip time.
The sensation stopped, and I took my hand off the canister. My mana was fully drained. I opened my inventory app and took out half a dozen refillable mana potions.
The taste of mana was fairly pleasant -- reminded me of soda from back home. After drinking a quarter of the first potion, I placed my hand back on the canister.
Mister Pink had given me these refillable mana potions so that I could actively wander around the town without needing to return to the donation facilities multiple times an hour. Unfortunately since my inventory slots were so few, I was only able to hold the amount that I had. Fortunately, the mana potions were able to hold around 2,000 mana, so in total, I could float 12550 mana before wasting it.
I won’t bore you too much with the thinking that I had during the ten minutes that I sat in the mana donation room. I decided that I would need to continue to practice the Meditate and Chop skills every day. It gave me a decent routine, and doubled as physical and mental exercise.
While I was lazy, I wasn’t lazy enough to be okay with staying in this Slime town for my entire lifespan. I already noticed that Mister Pink was nearly out of new human servants to give lessons, since all of the smart ones had left long ago.
Also, it would be nice to meet up with some of my friends from school. I wasn’t exactly able to say goodbye to them.
Anyways, I wandered to the nearby cafeteria to grab some dinner. I was hoping to find Fred there, so that I could tell him about what I had discovered about Meditate earlier in the day.
That being said, I really wish that the cafeterias were more… diverse in their selection.
The Blue Slime cheerfully jiggled in front of me, proudly showcasing the neon blocks of unknown substances in front of me.
“Welcome back, Servant Grant! Would you like to try to Lains Eseehc again today?”
The beige and green striped block of… I’ll call it tofu… floated towards me.
“Yes please, Chef Ramses Kyle.” I took the tofu in my hand. “You always know which ones are the most delicious!”
I called it tofu, but the smooth block was furry and hard. I won’t describe the texture, but trust me when I say that Mister Pink’s emphasis on how different the human and slime systems extended beyond skill comprehension.
“Hey Grant, seems like you had a long day.”
I turned around in surprise at Fred’s voice behind me. I don’t think he ever called out to me at school.
“Yo Fred, something up?”
Fred’s eyes shimmered in excitement.
“I managed to figure out how to level up Meditate!”
“Nice! I actually managed to figure out how to increase the Mastery for it too.”
“Really? That’s awesome. Wait, did you eat yet? I’ll let you finish your meal before I take your time.”
I steeled my stomach and crunched the Lains Eseehc in three bites. The furry texture tickling my throat on its way down.
“I’m done eating, lets go.”
Fred raised his eyebrow and my quick consumption of my “meal”, but didn’t question me. We walked over an open table that was designated for humans and started talking.
It turns out that Fred was able to level up Meditate by grasping the flow of mana and forcing it to move faster. He described the sensation as,
“Having a migraine, but instead of the ache being in your head, it’s in your entire body.”
Which, sounded like a terrible experience.
“How did you manage that while keeping a clear mind though?”
“I just sat there in Meditate until it eventually happened. I think my body might have just overheated from using the skill for so long.”
“Interesting… I managed to get my mastery up for Meditate by complete accident. I was trying to cut a tree down, and it went up when I got a really good swing in.”
Fred’s eyebrows scrunched up.
“Hmm, you managed to use Meditate while cutting a tree down… you mentioned that you had a skill for that, right? I think that means you managed to dual-cast skills somehow. That’s supposed to be pretty difficult to do.”
“Yeah, I was trying to learn how to level up my Swing skill. It ended up not mattering though, since it ended up getting replaced by Chop.”
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“Your Swing skill got replaced??”
Apparently, Skill evolution was something that Fred had not heard about earlier. I explained to him what had happened earlier, and he slowly nodded to himself.
“I’ll try and combine Meditate with my Aim skill tomorrow. I’ll let you know if it works out.”
“Yeah, for sure. If it works for you too, then we can try and teach other Shoot and Chop to see if we can keep evolving them somehow.”
“Sounds good. I’ll see you tomorrow after lunch.”
We went our separate ways, and the sensation of the Lains Eseehc finally hit my stomach. For how awful the texture was, it was oddly pleasant while it digested.
I headed to Mister Pink’s lair, which was a short walk from the cafeteria. Since slimes possessed the ability to sink into the ground, I had to “ring his doorbell” by donating a single point of mana into a small sphere that hovered above his well.
“Greetings, Mister Grant.”
Mister Pink quickly materialized above ground.
“Hi Mister Pink. I’m hoping I didn’t interrupt anything?”
“You are fine, Mister Grant. I was simply wondering if there were any humans that I could call a favor for in order to keep you and Mister Fred entertained for a while longer.”
It always surprised me on how caring the pink slime in front of me was to the servant humans on a regular basis.
“Thank you for your care. I was wondering if you could possibly provide some enlightenment on some recent discoveries that me and Fred have made today.”
“Oh?”
I explained to Mister Pink about the things that me and Fred had talked about over dinner.
“I see. Skill evolutions are actually a phenomenon that Slimes encounter as well. I didn’t expect one of the newcomers to encounter one so soon. This Chop skill. It does not mention slimes in its description, correct?”
“No sir.”
“That’s good news. It means that your titles have not affected your skill progression. Do not tell me if you are lying, by the way. If any of your skills have anti-Slime properties attached, it will mean immediate execution.”
…
“That aside, Fred is not completely correct when he mentioned that it was rare to use multiple skills at once. It is actually quite the common occurrence for slimes. However, that may be due to the differences between our species.”
I felt a pressure emanate from Mister Pink, then orbs of fire, water, and ice materialized around him.
“For example, exercises like this are the basic fundamentals that many slimes at the Royal Academy are taught during their first year. However, it is something humans seem to struggle with.”
“Do you have any ideas why?”
Mister Pink seemed to sigh.
“Many human servants have asked me that in the past, but I have never been able to provide them a proper explanation. It may be something that you must discover on your own.
At any rate, we may speak more on your new skills at another time. I am happy that you informed me of this development. I eagerly await your future improvements.”
Mister Pink patted my shoulder, and melted back into the well. I turned to walk back to the dorms.
Oh, right. I totally forgot to ask him about levels.
---
The next day, Fred accompanied me to the tree-cutting spot after lunch.
“This is a pretty relaxing place. I guess I can’t be too surprised that you managed to use Meditate here.”
“Yeah. No one comes around here at all.”
Fred took a seat at a nearby tree, and I began to repeat my steps from yesterday.
While I wasn’t able to specifically explain to Fred what the process was, I could feel my body attempting to naturally guide itself into recreating the sensation from the previous day.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
The impact of the axe hitting the tree sounded good. Better than all of my previous attempts in the previous days.
Thunk.
My hands and arms nicely absorbed the reverberating impact from the blade hitting the tree.
Thunk.
I could feel the wood of the axe rubbing against my skin with every hit. How many hits would it take until the blisters reformed?
Thunchiiik.
Skill discovered! Multi-casting (Passive) has been unlocked!
Skill discovered! Focus Lv.0 has been unlocked!
A small piece of the tree tore off from the trunk and I felt my concentration break.
I turned to Fred, who was looking at me with his eyebrows raised. Did those things have a life of their own?
“I didn’t know you knew how to chop trees. Did you ask your dad to teach you or something?”
“Oh, not at all. I sort of figured it out yesterday and my body feels like it just knows how to do it now.”
I mimicked the axe swing a few times.
“Also, I notice that you haven’t been saying the skills out loud. Are you thinking their names in your head?”
“Huh?”
Cue the quick explanation that, apparently, skills were supposed to be said out loud ala anime-style in order to properly trigger them.
“I guess that would be why you managed to dual-cast skills so early. I was trying to figure out how you fit together a three syllable word with a one syllable word this whole time, but it looks like you were just doing it.”
I pulled my IntelligentPhone and showed Fred the screen with the two new notifications.
“Seems like it’s a feature in this world? Looks like I didn’t have it unlocked yesterday.”
I unlocked my phone and tapped around my apps as Fred mused.
“The way that things unlock here seem way too inconsistent… You were technically dual-casting multiple times, but your IntelligentPhone only just now gave you the notification. I know that my phone immediately unlocked Aim when I shot a bow and arrow successfully for the first time.”
~~~
Focus Lv.0
Your attention is refined to the point where you only see the task at hand. Don’t accidentally trip over your own feet!
Mastery: 1%
Rating: 0
Penalty Modifier: 1% (While using this skill, you will notice 1% of external stimuli)
~~~
“I wonder if slimes are able to multi-cast so effectively specifically because they don’t speak… It would make sense, since that means that humans have been fixated on an unnecessary aspect of using skills this entire time. Unless speaking the skill name out loud causes a certain effect? I guess I don’t actually need to say Aim when I’m aiming, since I’ll be aiming anyways.”
~~~
Multi-casting (Passive)
You are able to cast multiple skills at once. You might be better off just using a more efficient skill though.
Mastery: 0%
Rating: 0
Limit Modifier: 100% (Only skills with 100% Mastery or higher are eligible for Multi-casting)
~~~
“In that case, would I be able to dual-cast if I say Meditate while aiming? Or would it drastically decrease my aim to begin with -”
“Hey, Fred!”
I decided to break Fred’s self monologue.
“Oh, yeah Grant?”
“Look at this real quick.”
I showed Fred the two skills I had just unlocked. It turns out that he had the Focus skill already, but the Multi-casting Passive was one that he had not seen before.
“Wait, do you have skills with 100% mastery already?” Eyebrows up again.
“Not at all. Do you think this has something to do with the speaking part?”
Not wanting Fred to jump into another monologue, I turned back towards the tree and hefted the axe in my hands.
“Chop!”
I felt something flow from my chest into my arms, as my body initiated the usual chopping motion, but with way more force.
THUNK!
The blade of the axe sunk around twice as deep into the tree as my previous attempts had.
Skills App Upgraded! You may now view your Skill Level Progress in the Skills App!
“Wait, so you’re telling me I just had to say the skill, and it would do it automatically?” I felt myself muttering to myself. Fred was already rubbing off on me.
“I’m more surprised that you didn’t try that earlier. It’s a common trope in games, isn’t it?”
“That’s true. I guess this also shows how this world distinguishes between Skill levels and Mastery, though.”
“Yeah. It explains why our skills have progressed differently. I’ve been relying on activating the skills themselves, which gives level progression, while you’ve been deepening your understanding of how they work, which seems to give Mastery progression.”
I felt a mild headache starting to creep up. There were definitely way too many things to keep track of in this place, and Fred was clearly more engaged with understanding how everything worked.
But, it was nice not being alone.