Thanks to my freshen up class skill, doing the cleaning up after lunch was a breeze and didn’t take much time at all. Soon enough, I had put everything away, back where it was meant to be and was heading out to join the others.

Just like Damien had said, the bonding ritual that Vel and Saph were going to perform had not yet started as he was still in the process of preparing for it. By which I meant that the big burly man was still in the process of crushing monster cores into a fine powder. However, instead of using something like a mortal pestle to crush the crystalline-like material into a powder, he was using his bare hands, yet another indicator of his immense strength and surprising deftness.

Sat on the grass in front of the open shed, Damien crushed monster core after monster core into a fine powder with the force of his grip alone. Each core was turned into a powder that soon found itself filling a small wooden bowl that sat on the grass in front of the man, a bowl that I recognised as being one that Vel had made the first day I was here, with her nature shaping skill.

Beside Damien stood his daughter, patiently watching her father’s every action as she held her little slime friend in her arms. Saph, however, wasn’t so idle. Instead, they were squirming and struggling to get free of the young elven woman’s grip.

Despite having no eyes and no clear way to tell what the slime was focused on, I had a feeling their behaviour had something to do with the box Damien was pulling monster cores out of. It was filled to the brim with various different coloured and shaped monster cores. Some were big, while others were small. Some were rather dull in colour, while others were vibrantly colourful. And some were perfectly rounded, like Saph’s own core, while others were rocking and jagged in shape.

For a monster like Saph that could feed on monster cores to grow stronger, seeing a box filled to the brim with them like this must have been like putting a buffet in front of a starving man. On one occasion, the little blue slime even managed to get free of Vel’s grip and bounce their way straight for the box of monster’s cores. However, they were immediately stopped in their tracks by a stern word from Damien.

"Absorbing too many cores too fast can be a dangerous thing for one like you, Saph. If you’re a good little monster and wait patiently, I’ll give you a few to absorb after you bond with Velyna."

I wasn’t sure if it was the firmness behind the big burly man’s words or the strength afforded to him by his high level, but Saph instantly obeyed and bounced their way back to Vel’s arms. After a few more seconds and a few more crushed monster cores, it was finally time to perform the ritual. 

To that end, Damien directed his daughter and her slime friend to sit on the grass facing each other. Once they were seated there, he had Vel put her hand on Saph before coating her hand in the powdered monster core. Although the bulk of the powder remained on their hands, he created trails of the stuff leading up his daughter's arm and across Saph’s gelatinous body.

"Okay, that should be enough. We are ready to begin now." Damien mused aloud. "The process of bonding to a monster is actually very simple. The system does most of the work, but an initial input of mana and will is needed. However, since everyone below tier 2 is unable to control mana, no matter their class, crushed monster cores can be of use here as they contain a high concentration of mana."

"All you two need to do to start the ritual is focus your minds as you would normally when commanding the system. But instead of pulling up your status screen, focus on each other and your desire to form a connection with one another."

"Okay, Dad…" Vel closed her eyes, and for a few tense moments, nothing really happened.

The wait was somewhat anti-climactic as I was expecting something to happen soon. Instead, the time silently drew on and nothing was seemingly happening. I began to wonder if the entire ritual was going to be like this or if there was going to be an actual sign that it worked, and that, of course, was the moment when something did actually happen.

The powdered monster cores piled on Vel’s hand and trailing up both her and Saph lit up, turning a bright blue in colour. As the powder got brighter and brighter, it burst into a dazzling light that was soon snuffed out like a flame burning out its wick. When the light was gone, none of the powder remained, and Vel immediately jumped up, taking Saph in her arms as she cheered. "It worked! It worked! We're bonded!"

The little blue slime was making their own happy gurgling noises, but soon enough they pried themselves out of the young elven woman’s hold and found their way back over to the crate of monster cores. Damien let out a slight chuckle as he tossed three of the small cores out for them to catch. Saph happily plucked the things from the air, took them into their gelatinous body and slowly began to dissolve them as the man turned his attention back to his daughter.

"So, how does it feel?" He asked.

"Strange, but good. It’s like I’ve got this whole other sense that’s pointing me in the direction of Saph at all times. At the moment, it's kind of overwhelming. I think it might take a little while to get used to." She responded.

"That matches with what I’ve been told about bonding with a monster. That overwhelming feeling should fade in a few minutes as you adjust to it. Until then, take those few minutes to rest up with Saph, while they finish absorbing those cores I gave them." Damien said as he put the lid back on the box of monster cores and stored it away in the shed again.

When the big burly man returned again, he was holding something else in his hands, a pair of wooden training daggers. "As for you, Eve. Since you’ve got the dagger skill now, I think it is appropriate to show you a little bit more advanced stuff." He said as he tossed me one of the daggers.

Not at all expecting the training dagger to be thrown towards me, I fumbled around trying to catch it, but eventually managed to take hold of it. My actual dagger, the one that Damien had gifted to me earlier, was currently hanging from the waist of my pants, tied there by a thin length of leather. However, since we weren’t using the real weapon for training anymore, I had a feeling this was going to be a whole lot more painful and strenuous than my dagger training had previously been.

"Now, what I taught you before was fine for self-defence in a pinch, but what I’m going to teach you now is more advanced techniques for actual fighting. Hence why we are using wooden weapons so that you don’t accidentally cut yourself up.” 

“Just like you said before, even though you don’t want to fight others, there may be times when you have no choice, so pay attention and copy what I am doing to the best of your ability." Damien said as he began my dagger training anew.

Initially, the training started much like the earlier session did, with the big burly man showing me the ropes of how to hold the dagger and how to stand in the right stance, only this time the grip and stance he was showing me were much more aggressive. Once I had those two things understood at a passable level, he moved on to show me how to actually attack someone with them or block, which involved me trying to stab him in slow motion as he blocked just as slowly.

After I had gotten the feel of those motions, Damien slowly sped up the speed with which we were training until I was pretty much just trying to stab him with my wooden training dagger as best I could. Even if he wasn’t easily able to block or redirect every one of my attacks, the fact that the dagger was made of wood and he was so damned tough meant that my attacks would have barely fazed him. Hell, I doubted that I could do much damage to someone as strong as him even if I was using my real, sharp dagger. His skin would have been just too tough thanks to his ridiculous might and vitality scores.

However, the reason we were using training weapons became apparent when it was my turn to block his attacks and I suffered from slight jabs here and there from his own wooden weapon. All told, his blows were held back considerably and didn’t hurt all that much; they were just really annoying. Eventually, though, my hard work paid off, and I found out that my dagger skill had ranked up the next time we took a few seconds to catch our breaths.

Dagger has reached rank 2

"Yes, Rank 2 dagger skill!" I cheered excitedly as a curious thought came to me. "That felt kind of quick. I know it's just the first rank, but compared to my sexual skills, it felt just as quick as their first rank and my combat skills have a malice towards their growth."

"You earned the rank in dagger so fast because I not only have the dagger skill myself but the teaching skill, which among other things helps increase the skill growth of those I am tutoring in a skill I also have," Damien explained, putting my curiosity to ease. 

"Oh, cool!" I grinned, excited to see just how far I could push my new general skill with his help, despite my class not helping it with its growth rate.

As annoying as getting repeatedly jabbed with wooden daggers was, the rush of excitement that accompanied having the numbers on my status screen was too good, and a motivational force unlike any I had back on Earth.

"Um… Dad…" Vel spoke up from where she was resting beside the little blue slime with an uncertain tone in her voice. "Something weird is happening to Saph…"

Both Damien and I immediately turned to look at the pair. Vel was sitting on the ground with her back resting against her shed as the slime that was sitting on her lap was slowly starting to glow. With every second that passed, that glow was getting brighter and brighter, right alongside the young elven woman's worry growing greater and greater.

"It’s nothing to worry about. They are just evolving to tier 1. It will be done in a few seconds." Damien answered as casual as ever,

"Evolving!" Vel excitedly gasped as she stared down wide-eyed at the motionless, glowing blob on her lap.

Despite the casualness with which he had explained the situation, Damien didn’t move to continue my training and just stood there watching the slime evolve, something that I was rather grateful for as I really wanted to see this happen.

That said, watching Saph evolve got harder and harder as the brightness of their glowing increased to further heights. Eventually, it reached the point where it was blinding, and then there was a flash. In that split second, it was so bright that everyone present had to close or cover their eyes, but when they opened them again, it was all over. Saph’s evolution was complete.

The little blue slime, which was once about two feet in diameter and mostly a spherical blob with a slightly flat bottom where its weight rested on the ground, was now much larger. Their gelatinous body was now spilling over the sides of Vel’s lap where they were sitting. With a quick guess, I would have said that they were now around three feet across and four feet tall, but what was most different was that they had two long tentacles coming out of the side of their body, each extending about three feet.

Saph immediately hopped off of the young elven woman’s lap and began to slide and bounce in a circle around all of us. As they did so, they let out an excitedly gurgling sound and waved their tentacles in the air like one of those inflatable tube men advertising things from Earth.

"Interesting…" Damien mused aloud as their eyes flashed red, indicating that he had just used his identify skill on the not-so-little-anymore slime. "Most slimes evolve into big slimes at tier 1. However, the system says that Saph is now a… tentacle slime. I’ve never heard of such a slime before. I wonder what could have caused this deviation."

The big burly man gave me a sly look as he finished his train of thought, reminding me of what I had said to Saph yesterday, about how it would be cool if they gained the ability to create tentacles to fuck me with when they evolved. Although Damien didn’t specifically know about that conversation or that Vel and I had sex with the slime, given my perverted and slutty nature, it was a fair assumption to make that I had done something lewd with Saph in the past, which could have influenced their evolution. 

Speaking of lewd things, those tentacles look even bigger and thicker than I imagined. I can’t wait to have Saph fill both my pussy and ass up with them and go to town, vibrating all over me.

As I stood there, fantasising about such things and growing wetter and wetter with every second that passed, Damien remained focused on the task at hand. After clearing his throat and drawing my attention back to him, away from my fantasies, he said. "Keep practising your stances and moves, Eve. I’m going to go set Velyna and Saph back on task and will come back to check on you soon."