Novus and Percival frowned but continued to survey the end of the ravine.

Like a classic fantasy game, a torrential downpour of water from high above roared into a basin that soon flowed down into the ravine. It was a waterfall and a sizeable one at that. Behind the waterfall was a steep slope of dirt and rocks that rose high into the sky.

“What a tall mountain.”

Adrianne confirmed Percival’s words.

“Yeah, I can’t even see the top with my skill. Thankfully, the cave is hidden behind the waterfall. Could you imagine climbing something like this?”

Novus chuckled to himself.

Why would anyone climb a small hill like this?

...

Led by Adrianne’s glowing irises, the trio shimmied along the basin rim as they arrived by an opening hidden behind the waterfall. With a few steps, the trio were in their first dungeon.

 

 

After confirming the buff with the rest of the trio, Novus inspected the dungeon with hidden glee. Glee, being coins. They were practically the same thing to Novus.

It wasn’t long before the group saw a monster that was the epitome of fantasy.

Wriggle. Wriggle.

 

 

Huddled around a Moonglow Mushroom and absorbing moisture from the area, three slimes wriggled around like snails. One particular slime looked like a sword had already tried to chop through the center of it as a large indent was visible. Slowly, the two halves of the slimes pulled apart, and the trio watched as two smaller slimes with odd circular masses inside them formed.

“Mitosis?”

With their sharp hearing, Novus and Adrianne looked at Percival in confusion.

“What about your toes?”

Percival chuckled as he unsheathed his sword and shrugged the question off.

“Nevermind.”

Slash!

Percival’s sword struggled to slice through the oddly thick slime, but, with another huff of effort, he finally did so. Before Percival could laugh triumphantly, the sliced slime gurgled and fused back together again. Eager to escape the unknown threat, the beaten green slime retreated instinctually. However, even that was a snail-like attempt.

From behind, Novus’ aura-sharpened sword pierced into the slime and struck through the odd spherical mass floating inside the dense outer slime layer.

“Strike the cores, or else they just heal. Or defeat them with magic. Fire magic works particularly well against moisture-feeders like these.”

Confirming Novus’ words, the retreating slime spasmed as the outer membrane of slime sunk to the ground and the sliced core slid from Novus’ piercing sword with a clunk.

Novus hurriedly cleaned his sword as he saw the slime turn a darker green colour. Unfortunately, no carving window appeared, which was understandable considering there was little for Novus to wedge his carving knife into.

“The darker the colour, the more solid the slime. Just wait it out until it reverts to liquid and pierce again if you can’t kill it in one go.”

“How does he…?”

Percival’s question never escaped his lips. But Novus heard it and thought back into his memories.

Novus was exceedingly familiar with slimes. After all, they were the main housekeepers of his previous life’s household.

Dust? Water slimes can collect, purify, and shine the interior from it. Vegetation? Fire slimes can burn it away. Landscaping? Earth slimes can redevelop the landscape. Intruders? Send all the slimes to send them fleeing.

Novus truly appreciated slimes. They were self-repairing, loyal and could produce resources such as minerals, plants and even copies of themselves! Even now, the Slime Butler Gularde was likely loyally serving his father as always.

Shink!

Mimicking Novus’ approach to battling the slimes, Adrianne and Percival focused on damaging the gelatinous slime cores. Soon after the anticlimactic battle, plants grew from the rapidly hardening slime remnants, and the cave was filled with an aromatic scent that dazzled the nose.

‘This is messy. They aren’t turning into twinkling lights after.”

With a sleeve flick, Adrianne removed some sticky slime goo. Meanwhile, Percival was already making mental notes of selling information on the perfect levelling hotspot.

“As expected, this method won’t work.”

While Adrianne complained and Percival thought to himself, Novus was examining the remains of the cores that held the slimes together. The cores resembled the drops inside Novus, but were more circular and of a less pure variety.

The pierced slime core in Novus' hand gave off the warm sensation of vitality-filled mana. Like a liquid chocolate desert, the mana inside the core was oozing out once an opening was made. Before long, the core would be drained of mana. Novus shivered at the thought of presenting Circe with mana-depleted cores and thought for a moment before pulling up his status window.

 

 

Novus hadn’t checked his status window since his earlier training session, so there were quite a few changes.

Novus had levelled up a few times over tens of battles, including against Stash. His various battle proficiencies, skills, and bodily attributes all increased, which made sense considering the amount of effort his body’s energy went to strengthening itself with the enhanced Player’s Body ability. Not to mention fighting off Lou’s venom. It had unintentionally helped temper himself through a venomous tonic combined with the Midnight Herb.

Condensing another few mana drops had propelled his mind aspect. After all, the mana system was initially a tough system to try and gain any proficiency in. The experienced Novus and the incredibly gifted Adrianne were more like exceptions than the general rule.

Novus chuckled after a glance at this sub-stats. Ironically, his most useless stat, Charisma, had risen higher than the others after training Adrianne and Percival about fighting. Plus, if the fighting instructor was an example, Novus had cowered countless numbers of snakes with his aura. And, somewhere along the line, a Haggling ability had appeared that may have influenced the attribute too.

If the numbers represent a whole of one hundred, then I’m about halfway through the black iron rank for attributes.

Hmmm.

I should be able to do it.

Suddenly, Novus looked over at Adrianne and Percival, who were gathering sliced cores.

This isn’t going to be easy to explain. They’re already getting curious about how I know so much. But, I don’t have a lot of options if I want Circe’s slime cores in the best state possible.

Finally, Novus blinked his eyes with resolve, and the concealed crimson aura flared up in response. Novus pulled out the Cursed Villager’s Sword, and his crimson aura gathered around like a flaming tornado before condensing into an extremely simple claw along Novus’ extended finger.

Shink!

Like an egg cracking against the sword, the slime core cracked and leaked pure vitality-filled mana all over the sword’s edge under Novus' careful guidance. And, when met with Novus’ condensed aura claw, the mucus-like mana let out a brief flame from the knife’s burning heat. Then, a wild phenomenon occurred when Novus’ claw met with the sword edge.

With a careful binding of Divine Sense and under Novus’ delicate knife work, the mucus-like mana glowed and adhered to the sword’s blade in curling designs that Novus carefully etched.

Hiss!

Black smoke emanated as Novus’ brows furrowed in both concentration and dissatisfaction. But, through the smoke, one could see beautiful lines of mana being soaked into the blade and then super heated onto the etchings.

Finally, with a cry from the residing spirit remnants, the black smoke from the blade vanished among twinkling lights as numerous message boxes fluttered into Novus’ view.

Ding!

Novus’ eyes flashed with momentary excitement as he browsed the sword’s new information while wiping the sweat from his brow.

 

 

Most of the sword’s unique effects came from the spirit remnants held inside. So, it wasn’t a surprise when they vanished alongside the spirit remnants. Thankfully, the etched talisman was just what Novus needed, and the base sword was still durable and sharp.

I expected the spirit remnants to handle a bit of talisman etching. I wish you wisdom in the next life, poor villager.

Novus looked up from the Etched Villager’s Sword and found two pairs of eyes looking from the sword to him in anticipation. Upon eye contact, Novus’ favourite form of question was launched at him: an unanswerable one.

“Was that magic?”

“Can you make more?”

“Can you teach me how to do that?”

“STOP!”

Before Adrianne and Percival could ask any more, Novus stopped them and gestured towards their swords.

“Give me your swords. No magic. No more questions.”

Basic magics aren’t easy to learn, let alone adding magic formations and talisman etching to the mix.

Swords quickly weighed down Novus' outstretched hand as his brief talisman etching service opened for business.