Takyon_Light: wanna play some brawl ten? 

Table leg: ? 

Takyon_Light: its like a fighting game but for co-op, it's a new one. 

Table leg: I can't, been grinding PBX for the new online play. 

Takyon_Light: that game is OLD, there's barely any people in there. 

Table leg: wym? It's good. 

Takyon_Light: bro that game is too hard. 

Table leg: fine, I'll do it after I got my shit set up. 

Takyon_Light: ok. 

Table leg: ok. 

Leaving my pc on, I synchronized my pod with my pc allowing me to surf the internet while playing inside of the game. 

[ZR series 556-7 synchronized with MY COMPUTER]

Wow, this hunk a junk actually worked once without me fixing it myself. 

Well, I suppose this pod has long outdated its shelf life, I even had to install my own antivirus in place because the company went under just five years ago. 

Imagine getting a virus inside of a game as it slowly corrupts into a hellscape around you... 

Alright, that's enough negative thinking for today. Now, it's time for the good kind of thinking, the kind that tickled my brain. 

As I waited for my pod to boot up, I prepared myself by going to my not so organized Google docs to think up any strategy, all I know that the game online mode world are a bit different from the regular or hardmode world. 

They even said that there will be a lot of new build available... Screw this, it's not like I'm going to commit a lot of time into this, I'm just gonna hit random and improvise from there... Like old times. 

Getting into the pod, I immediately selected PBX. Even having played the games for ten years, I still can't say for certain what's the full name of the game. 

[New patch update.... ]

[Patch update complete. ]

[Opening online mode. ]

["Random" Selected... ]

[Input player name. ]

["PC name" Selected... ]

[Creating PC name... ]

[Creating background scenario... ]

[Assigning race... ]

[Assigning jobs... ]

[Assigning NPC helper... ]

I woke up and immediately noticed that I, in fact did not have a body. 

I had a bad feeling about this. 

[Name: Aloe Vera. ]

[Race: Beauty slime. ]

[Job: Merchant. ]

I knew it. I was hoping to be a ghost or a wraith but... It is what it is. 

Let's see my NPC list... 

[NPC list. ]

[Unnamed automaton 1]

That's good, slime has a terrible mobility so a helper to move around is really good. 

Now, let's take stocks of what I've got. 

As a merchant, I probably had a solid amount of gold, probably enough for me to hire a group of mercenaries to take on jobs.

Or... I could buy a combat slave, well that depends on what job I take first. 

I called my automatom by using my thought alone, extremely convenient as I can't talk until I got some magic spell books. 

But first of all, I need to take a small trip to the library. 

The automaton came at my will, a speed automaton?! That's a real good one, it has an expensive fuel maintenance but I can definitely transmutate crude oil and change it to regular old oil. 

PBX is not a regular rpg game, it's a weird mix of kingdom building, rougelike, and rpg. This game relied heavily on player knowledge, the more knowledge the player knew the easier the game will be. 

It's why experienced player always had more option regarding gameplay than a newbie, it's part of the reason why the game is so fun, discovering new strategy is incredibly exhilarating. 

And in this case, I just needed a few confirmation as to whether my hoard of knowledge is useful. 

Now, what should I name my speed automaton? Riley? Crease? Grease? Grease. 

'Grease, come here. We're going to the library. ' 

'...' No answer but I can feel that Grease heard me, I guess their build is not good enough for talking, I'm gonna need to build some basic automaton parts for Grease later, buying anything above uncommon is too expensive for now anyway. 

Merchant starting house was always a small two story house with a small backyard for horses and wagon, the wagon looked nice and the horses seem well-fed, I guess it makes up with me being a slime. 

Checking both of the horse, I was a bit confused why they both are not a part of my NPC list, are these horses being rented by me? They're really good horse too... Strong muscle, good enough hygiene, white pale eyes... Wait, is that a deathwalker?! 

The other horse is already good enough, but a deathwalker at early game??? That is some good RNG. 

Well, let's leave it at that, I'm going to need to survey our surrounding areas. 

'Frail building, subpar woodworking, subpar metalworking, okay foundation... This is either a rich people vacation place or an alignment supported village. ' after a bit of observation, I have come to conclude that this village was indeed a Baron or Royal vacation place. 

It was near the beach, lots of exotic souvenir like scented candle and fish shell, there's even some perfume. There is no way this is a regular village without backing. 

The library in front of us is huge, it was in fact a free library that received substantial donation, probably enough for them to employ guards around. 

Walking inside, I could see a guard following us. They're probably wary that a slime was entering the library, slime could literally eat dirt and they would restore mana from that. 

In fact, a slime body is a whole mana converter and storage all in one, that's why there are some insanely powerful build revolving slime, I tried some of those builds and I could literally make a whole kingdom surrender. 

Unfortunately, slime are one of the most popular pet even surpassing those of the likes of cats or dogs, so a sentient one would have to be enslaved in order to fit within those pet category... Which is a pretty fucked up fate in my opinion. 

Finally, both of us arrived at the geography section. Climbing atop of Grease head, I made Grease picked a book randomly. 

[The map world of Pandora. ]

This world is called Pandora? Looking at the map it would be more of a fit to call it Pangea as this whole world is a supercontinent with huge sprawling desert running across it like scars. 

At least it's not all desert and gloom like hardmode. 

_____

"What should we do about the slime? " The guard said, it was obvious that a slime without slave identification would always attracted some greedy eyes. 

"That automaton helper looks real powerful, I don't wanna mess with that. " Another guard said, a slime is extremely popular within the Royal children. 

"Shut up you wuss! Listen, I've got a way to take down that one... For a price. " The other three guard raises their eyebrow at the phrasing. 

"What's the price? " One said. 

"Five silver, each four of us. I've got contact with some of those in the slaver guild, they say the Royal Prince wanted some... Smart slime. " Now all of them are interested, five silver was a month of them working but the simple fact that the Royal Prince wanted something immediately made the three mouth water. 

Even if their slime wasn't to be picked, they would still be paid fat money by the slaver guild. A smart slime is very hard to come by in the empire. 

"We catching them right now? "

"Just leave the matter to the slaver guild, they will take care of it easily. "

_____

After reading most of the book from the geography section, I could confidently say... Most of my knowledge is actually useful right now. 

Even though the geography is very different to those of hardmode and regular, there's a lot of familiar faces in the online mode. 

First of all, is the empire of rotten garbage or what they call themselves, the empire of everlasting glory. 

It's a shame that I got so much good RNG regarding the starter supplies, but the empire are not such places, the slaver guild will be hot on my blue ass as they will do everything in their power to get me, most town I got to will be very bad as the guard will immediately report on me being in a wanted poster. 

The slaver guild has that much power in the empire that they even can use the justice system as the tool to get slaves. 

They treated their slaves badly too, unlike the hardmode slaver guild where being slaved is actually a really good way to live and train your character without fearing for a stray deity slapping you to the other side of heaven in your sleep. 

But first they'll probably curse me or something, so that's why we're going to the market! 

'Grease! To the market! '

'...'

_____

'Trash, trash, trash, trash item, too expensive, blood rose? Yanked that, WAIT! ' I see something just outside of my vision, this pawn shop is mostly a waste of time until I saw that. 

'Grease! Get that! ' grabbing that item as well as everything I needed into a bag, I walked to the counter with Grease. 

The man behind the counter checked everything out as I told Grease to bring out the big guns. 

A single gold piece worth ten silver pieces. 

This way, I don't have to negotiate with the shopkeeper as he took it instantly and told us to grab an item for free as a rich customer. 

'Hehe, to think you fall for me being a Royal... Grease, point your hand to the small backpack! ' 

"Ah, that one is a spatial backpack, it can store up to three meters of cubic space a very convenient- " He's gonna keep talking smack if I don't stop him right then and there. 

'Grease! Grab it! ' with extreme force and speed, the backpack was gone from the shopkeeper hand. 

'And off we go! Run as fast as you could Grease!! ' 

"WAIT! I HAVEN'T TALKED ABOUT THE IDENTIFICA-" And we shut the door on the shopkeeper face as we run off to the streets. 

"The identification procedure... I'm gonna get killed for selling a faulty items... Ugh, maybe it's time to head to grandma's... "

'Hehehehe!!! Spatial magic this early??? Whooo!! ' honestly, this is a record I'm happy to break. 

'...'

'Oh, Grease can you please go to an alley. I need to test something immediately. ' ah, having a speed automaton is the life, Grease could literally run as fast as a car and that's with common parts, imagine how fast they could go when I upgraded them with legendary parts. 

Getting out of the hood Grease was wearing, I immediately started reciting from the top of my head the procedure needed to bind spatial backpack. 

Drop a handful of mana to make it recognizes the owner. And after that eat it straight up. 

Surrounding the small backpack with my body, I vaporized the leather as I made my own skin a place for the rune to take over, eventually the tune solidified inside of my body as I pushed it deep within the very core of my slime. 

I did not have a core just yet but when I do... I'll be indestructible. 

Looking at the enhancement, it was actually really good as it functioned to grab the ambient mana just enough to support the spatial enchantment. 

Changing the enhancement a little, I actually created a more efficient form of mana ambient grabbing and bigger storage space, just enough that I can store the whole bag with our purchases inside of it. 

'Let's go home Grease... . ' I need to examine and use a few things before I could log out. 

'...' With that Grease began moving systematically to our house, I think Grease AI are actually pretty good than what I expected, he already remembered the way home from short glimpses of our walk around town, I'm surprised to be honest. 

Getting to the house that was a bit away from the town, I began counting down what I had gained from the past five hours. 

Time moves half as slow in game than the real life, so that would mean I've got about half an hour of real life time. That's definitely enough for my curse protection magic circle. 

Blood rose check, white lily check, sparkling magic ink check (the sparkling is just cosmetic), and lastly virgin blood check. 

What? Don't ask me why a curse protection needed to have virgin blood as the main catalyst. It's probably because of religious reason or something. 

[Magic circle 7 star — THE EYE OF- ]

What?! Why the hell does it take my mana instead of the blood?? This is supposed to be a four star spell why the hell does the magic circle change??? 

[YOU HAVE FULFILLED THE REQUEST OF A HIGHER BEING. ]

[RACE, SLIME. JOB, MEANINGLESS. KNOWLEDGE, INSURMOUNTABLE. POTENTIAL, UNLIMITED. ]

[THE MAP IN YOUR POCKET DIMENSION IS REACTING TO THE PRESENCE OF HIGHER BEING. ]

'Uh, Grease... I think we'll go somewhere else tomorrow morning. I've got a reward waiting to be claimed. '