For the next twenty minutes or so, Hazel and Mia discussed options for her next skill edit. Much of what Mia came up with Hazel had already considered. But the insight of another person—especially someone who understood the world better—was still valuable. In the end, they whittled Hazel’s options down.

First, Mia emphasized that while adjusting ‘low proficiency’ to ‘medium proficiency’ wasn’t a creative use of [Skill Edit], that didn’t mean it was a bad use. Skipping weeks or months of work to immediately upgrade a powerful skill into an even stronger one was a great choice.

An especially obvious option was to move an already-modified skill, like [Attribute Siphon], from low to medium. She’d learned earlier that she couldn’t adjust the siphon percentage from ‘tiny’ to ‘significant’, but a proficiency upgrade might do that automatically, while still being within her reach.

At the same time, maybe since she’d used [Skill Edit] once already to make the skill so strong, she wouldn’t be able to upgrade its proficiency. They weren’t sure whether some proficiencies between skills were more difficult to upgrade than others. Versatile and amazing as [Skill Edit] was, the obscure limitations were frustrating to deal with.

Beyond simply upgrading [Attribute Siphon], Mia also focused on one other great possibility: [All-Consuming]. There was one usage she was intrigued by in particular, which Hazel was sure she would have considered eventually, but hadn’t at the time of Mia bringing it up.

What if she changed ‘consume matter to recuperate health, mana, and stamina’ to ‘consume matter to permanently gain health, mana, and stamina’? It was a straight rip off of her [Attribute Siphon] change, but she’d done that because it had been a great choice, so why not continue down that path?

While a great choice, Mia also had a good argument against going with that change, despite being the one to suggest it. Namely, that focusing too heavily on the long-term might actually be counter intuitive. The regeneration gained from her [All-Consuming] skill meant she could fight pretty much twenty-four-seven, depending on whether there were limits to how much she could consume, so by cannibalizing the skill for another permanent-stat-bonus earner, Hazel would be crippling her current capabilities—which mean slower leveling and progression.

Seeing how she had a powerful class, then what she might really want to do was rush higher levels as fast as possible. The benefits gained from doing that might outweigh the ones earned through siphoning tiny amounts of permanent health, mana, and stamina.

Hazel obviously wasn’t sure what the best path forward was. Even Mia couldn’t say for certain—or even with much authority at all. It really depended on how the skills, and her class, manifested themselves. Hazel had massive amounts of control over her future, but she was far from omnipotent behind the details to the system, much less how her class would develop.

Mia also brought up the topic of simply saving [Skill Edit] for later. Based on how Hazel described the ‘strain’ associated with the cooldown, she seemed fairly certain that the skill was variable-length, and had a suspicion it worked in much the same way as a resource bar—where if Hazel recovered enough, she could ‘store up’ charges. If nothing else, letting it completely reset meant she could ‘reach farther’, so to say, and possibly make a change she couldn’t while only half-recovered.

In the end, though, she conceded now wasn’t the opportune time for saving the ability. Stuck down in the dungeon, and still trying to escape to the surface, Hazel might as well use the skill rather than save it. Maybe if she’d been lounging about in the city, not in any danger, there would be a stronger argument for letting the ability fully recover. So for now, she would make use of the skill.

They decided against turning [All-Consuming] into another permanent stat booster. She had [Attribute Siphon] for that. Instead, the two of them agreed giving herself a meaningful immediate upgrade was the smarter plan. The future was important, but so was the present—especially when immediate strength was its own long-term boost as well, since it meant faster leveling.

And even more importantly, it meant safety. None of this mattered if Hazel accidentally got herself killed. Though, no longer in a Rift, that shouldn’t be as much of a worry. But still definitely a possibility. Dangerous threats were more than present in the regular dungeon as well. Life as an adventurer was often lethal. She’d been slapped in the face by that lesson and didn’t intend to forget it.

They settled on something that didn’t seem immediately broken, but actually was incredibly useful in Hazel’s current situation:

The change, the inclusion of ‘massively’ before ‘reduces defenses’, was difficult to implement, but she managed it; her mana once again dropped nearly to zero, and she felt the skill go onto a heavy cooldown. The more she payed attention to these system-induced internal feelings the more she was certain Mia had it right; [Skill Edit] was more of a resource than a standard cooldown.

“Did it work?” Mia asked.

“It did.”

“Perfect,” Mia said. “That’ll be a huge upgrade. Mostly because it means you can fight above your level. Defenses are typically what makes higher-level monsters nearly impossible to fight; they just outlast you. So a huge stat debuff lets you fight enemies outside your level.”

Hazel had the feeling she would be fighting more and more higher-level opponents as she progressed, so that was why they’d decided on it. “And it lets me help in your fights, too.” A ranged slime-shot that not only stunned, but also massively reduced defenses was a great support skill—and a great offensive and defensive one. [Caustic Slime Shot] had probably been her weakest skill, but with a simple edit, it might be one of her most valuable. Certainly it meant she’d gone up another tier in usefulness—both when helping Mia, and in her own fights.

“You know,” Mia said, “this all feels kind of surreal. It’s hard to take in stride.”

“Imagine how I’m feeling.” And that wasn’t even mentioning that Hazel wasn’t actually just ‘reborn’ as a slime without concrete memories, but rather that she came from a whole world entirely—one she remembered perfectly.

Her heart panged at that. She’d been avoiding thinking too closely about home and the people she’d left behind. There wasn’t a point. All she could do was, at some point down the line, see if there was a way to get back, and even that might be hoping too much.

“With your next edit,” Mia said, “I think you should go for upgrading [All-Consuming] to medium proficiency. Faster regeneration would make you an excellent front line. Every fight, you’d be able to go back to full—probably for only a portion of the loot you get from the enemy.”

“Sounds like a plan. Unless you want me to use it on you, of course.”

Mia wrinkled her nose. “I appreciate the offer. And … I’ll probably take you up on it. Just, I still need to think about it.”

“Sure.” Hazel was curious about the details behind all of that, but she wouldn’t press Mia.

“Okay. I think I’ve sat here long enough. I’m mostly better.”

“Are you?”

Mia shrugged. “Not topped off, but I’ve been worse.” She paused. “Well, not much worse. That was a pretty close call.”

Hazel grimaced at the reminder. The sight of an unconscious, battered Mia was something that turned her stomach every time the image popped into her head. And for her. Mia had explicitly taken that last deadly hit to save her.

“Before we set off, though,” Mia said, “first, you should refresh your mana, of course, but also, you should experiment with [Shapeshift].”

“Oh?”

“It’s a fundamental skill of a slime. I can tell you’re not exactly a regular slime, whatever’s going on with you, but you’re in one’s body, and should definitely learn how to use [Shapeshift] to its fullest.”

“How so?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Mia said. “There’s not really humanoids with such fine control over their body. Druids can turn into certain animals, but as far as I know, you can change yourself completely, which is mostly unprecedented. I believe slimes can even change color, texture, and so on—mimic whatever they want with perfect accuracy.”

“Wait, really?”

“If I had to guess, that’d be possible with high proficiency in the skill, not medium. But you should test it out. See what you can do. Can you take a more realistic form? Become human-like?”

Hazel had always been lacking mana, but now that she could eat essence coins to regenerate it, experimenting further with [Shapeshift] was a good idea. She burned a few of the coins, watching her mana tick upward. She still didn’t feel any sort of strain, so if there was a limit to how much [All-Consuming] worked, then she hadn’t brushed up against it yet.

“Well, let’s see,” Hazel said.

She focused on Mia, deciding to try to copy the succubus. She fumbled around with a set of deeply ingrained instincts that she had only messed with in a peripheral manner once before. Slowly, her body rippled and started to change. She shrunk several inches in height. Her body morphed. Hazel’s natural build from Earth—which had been what her slime body had defaulted to—was tall and lanky, with shoulder-length hair. Mia’s body was different. More classically feminine. A lot more.

Mia had implied she could appropriate a truly close approximate of whatever she wanted, with colors other than her natural green, but no such thing happened. In the end, her efforts left her as a clone of Mia, clothes and hair included, but she was the same translucent green throughout. Perhaps in the future she could mimic whatever she wanted with perfect accuracy, but it would take another proficiency upgrade—or possibly several.

“You copied me?” Mia asked, amused. “This is … kind of weird.” She took a step forward and sized Hazel up, red eyes scrutinizing her. They were of course level with each other now, and Hazel had to resist a blush at Mia so suddenly invading her space. The succubus seemed to think nothing about it. Hazel didn’t think Mia noticed her reaction; it was awfully convenient not being able to blush.

“My boobs are really that big?” Mia asked. “And … it’s that revealing?” She frowned down at Hazel’s—her own?—cleavage. “No wonder you’ve been looking so much.”

“Not that much,” Hazel protested.

Mia smirked at her, which was a more confident reaction than usual, then said, “You couldn’t get the colors, though. Or skin texture. Not surprising. You should keep practicing when you can. Even with [Skill Edit], you’ll have to work on some skills manually. And I can’t imagine improving your fine detail control with shape shifting will be a priority. You’ll have other skills to focus with [Skill Edit]. Regardless, what about more practical shifting? Can you harden your body? Sharpen it?”

These were good questions. Could she make claws? Or even a sword out of her arm? Did she need her scythe at all?

“I doubt it’d be better than a regular weapon,” Hazel said dubiously. “But I’ll try.”

A quick experiment later left Hazel—still wearing Mia’s body—with an arm turned into a sword. Mia ran a finger across the edge, which was a disorienting feeling—having nerves in a sword-arm—then nodded approvingly. “It’s sharp. But yes, you’re right. Proper magical weapons would be stronger. Maybe there isn’t too much point to mastering shapeshifting. But consider this: becoming smaller to fit into tight spaces. Or maybe shifting into a quadrupedal to move faster. A horse, for example, would make the trip to town much easier.”

Hazel paused.

“Are you asking to ride me?” she asked dryly. “We’ve just met, you know? That’s a third-date question.”

Mia started sputtering. “Don’t— are you— what a perverted twisting of my words. What’s wrong with you?” She huffed, her heart-shaped pointed tail going wild behind her. It was an even more exaggerated response than she’d expected, and Hazel grinned at it.

“Well, anyway,” Mia said. “Experiment more on your own time. Let’s go grab that loot you mentioned, then continue forward. We still haven’t made any real progress towards escape, though having moved through the Rift, I’m hoping we’ve rejoined the main section of the Gray Stone Hollows. Surely we’ll start finding our way up, soon.”

Huffing one more time, Mia swirled and stormed off. Like always, the quick spin had her skirt puffing upward. At this point, with Mia having some kind of ability that told her when Hazel looked, she had to be aware of how easily her clothes revealed herself, the effect that the quick turn-arounds had on her modesty. But she kept repeating the action nonetheless. Despite the presented outrage—the glare that Mia shot over her shoulder at supernaturally catching Hazel looking at her ass—Hazel was starting to suspect she liked showing off.

Still smiling, Hazel followed after Mia, morphing her body back to its original state.

velvetpetalrain

The lewds aren't too far away, I promise!