Vaughn would consider himself to have a rather ironclad stomach, able to handle decent amounts of spice and plenty of exotic foods.

His family lineage traced back to Eastern Europe and the Far East, more specifically Saint Petersburg and Beijing. Based on that information alone, it went without saying that a significant portion of his family tree met in the old Soviet Union communist bloc. He frequented both cities to visit relatives since childhood, as his dad dealt with shady matters that may or may not have involved armament smuggling, nuclear secrets, and under the table deals for large amounts of taxpayer money.

But that was besides the point. The point was that, at the tender age of three years old, he was already exposed to equal amounts of vodka and spicy foods that would burn the tongues off of lesser babies.

Baby Vaughn developed quite the tolerance for all kinds of food, from everything under the sun to shark fin soup–which, by the way, was absolutely divine, and only tasted better with the xian hints of illegality. And, of course, he developed quite the alcohol tolerance. That was natural when someone started drinking hard liquor at three years old.

But even the most extraordinary of Earth food could not compare with the exotic fare of this strange world. He’d never eaten anything in a fantasy world before, and especially not cheerful green slime monsters. Maybe it would be advisable to start out with something a bit more ordinary, like a bowl of porridge or a vegetable, but who had time for that?

[The system recognizes that you are about to try something recklessly stupid.]

[The system advises Vaughn Hallows not to die, as he is a unique profession holder and that would be a total waste.]

“...”

This was the same system that pulled up a dungeons and dragons character sheet for his status window as a joke, so he decided not to take it all too seriously. Point taken though. But still, it didn’t seem normal for the baby monsters in a beginner dungeon to be severely poisonous or something. Didn’t the original prompt say that the difficulty of this dungeon was negligible?

He decided that this culinary exploration was worth a shot, system warning or not. Enticed by that wonderful peachy aroma that the green slimes gave off, in combination with their jelly-like consistency, he could hardly resist. But what if they were actually poisonous? Reviewing the little that he knew about poisons, he remembered that there was a lip test to determine it.

The lip rule went like this–If you placed a mushroom on your lips and your lips started to go numb, then the mushroom was probably not safe to eat.

He’d try that out the next chance that he got. With a big swing, Vaughn smacked the living daylights out of a slime’s cheek with his makeshift wooden sword that was quite a bit more makeshift than sword. As the slime’s health dropped to under half, Vaughn jumped onto it, wrestling the slime to the ground, and then briefly brushed his lip against the otherworldly creature.

There was no reaction beside a cool, refreshing feeling. Probably not deathly poisonous.

Then, he promptly beat the poor slime up until it was almost out of health, and sliced at it until a glob of slime was sticking out his makeshift sword.

Like a roasted marshmallow on a stick, Vaughn chomped down on the green glob. Suddenly, he felt his entire body glow faintly as a refreshing sensation swept through his entire body from head to toe.

[You have recovered a small amount of health.]

[This has no effect because your health is already at its maximum.]

You have completed a healer class quest.

[Healer class quest: Use a healing potion on yourself or someone else [1/1]]

You have leveled up.

You are now a level 2 [Healer].

Huh? Eating a skewered blob from a green slime counted as using a healing potion? Now that was seriously weird. Vaughn felt like Dhunnim ‘il Dharral for a moment, taken aback by how strange this system was, and how there were some completely out of left field solutions to these quests.

[Your understanding of healing has increased.]

[Healer class quest updated: Use a healing potion on yourself or someone else [0/30]]

[Reward: Lesser Healing Spell.]

Hohoho… now we were talking. Vaughn’s inner voice was sounding like the mustached Santa Claus shopkeeper now, and he didn’t even realize it. Right now his head was filled to the brim with determination to grind– to complete all of these quests, unlock the next questline, and to knock those out of the park as well.

Excellent. He just needed thirty slime blobs to be able to pick up his first magic spell in this world, a healing spell!

Baby’s first vodka bottle was now being replaced with baby’s first slime blob grinding session. Vaughn rolled up his sleeves, ready to grind the ever living hell out of these poor green slimes.

Ah, speaking of which, what was the criteria for clearing this dungeon again? He flicked open his status screen and searched for the notification, which he didn’t read the first time around.

[Quest: Clear the beginner slime dungeon.]

[Completion criteria: Defeat twenty slimes [2/20.]

[Reward: Newbie starter adventurer pack.]

Ah, there you go. He just needed to defeat twenty of these bastards and he’d be done with the dungeon.

“...”

Maybe not. There was still a lot to explore and learn here, and he still had to investigate that treasure trail. Even if the other outlanders moved on, Vaughn wanted to stay and exhaust his exploration before he moved forward. Grind, grind, grind, baby!

Rolling his shoulders to stretch out like he was taught to in yoga class, Vaughn went after his third slime of the day, fighting with a ferociousness that would even put Becky Oak’s to shame.

[You have defeated a Lesser Green Slime.]

[You have defeated a Lesser Green Slime.]

…

[You have defeated a Lesser Green Slime.]

[Lesser Green Slime has dropped 1 silver.]

[Lesser Green Slime has dropped a slime gel.]

A drop would appear occasionally after each battle. Vaughn collected nine silver and five slime gels in total, enough to buy a basic weapon from the alcove shop. Each slime yielded a few blobs before sinking into the ground and disappearing, so Vaughn naturally closed in on his threshold for the healer class quest before even finishing his warrior class quest, which required him to defeat 10 slimes with a melee weapon.

You have completed a healer class quest.

[Healer class quest updated: Use a healing potion on yourself or someone else [30/30]]

You have been granted runic access to the healing spell [Lesser Healing Spell].

Those with affinity to the mythical white bird of healing [Caladrius] will be able to muster higher potency for their healing spells.

Runic access? Affinity to a mythical white bird of healing? Vaughn felt like a fish out of water trying to figure out what the hell was going on here. But after his initial confusion, he started to put things together.

Affinity probably had something to do with zodiac affinity. So since his was [Dragon], he’d benefit from dragon-like stuff, like… breathing fire or something. If that kind of ability actually existed. Right now his zodiac was pretty useless.

As for runic access… Vaughn didn’t get it. He was given the Lesser Healing Spell, but he couldn’t figure out how exactly to use it.

“System, teach me how to do magic please.”

[To use a spell, you must first unlock your mana channel.]

“How do I unlock my mana channel?”

[You must seek guidance from a teacher. This is a path that you must discover for yourself.]

“...”

On the other end of the cave, Dhunnim ‘il Dharral, resident assassin of the Shadow Council, casted a ninjutsu spell against a slime.

Vaughn sighed. It was time to ask the man to be his sensei.