Syl

Chapter 58: Grinding the Dead

When everyone retired to their rooms, I decided to take my stroll back to the dungeon. I had so many new tools I wanted to try unimpeded by my disguise. The streets were mostly empty except for the few pub crawlers or the late returning adventurers heading to the guild.

I was fully prepared to sneak in if I was denied entry, but the guards let me enter the dungeon again and only cautioned me not to push myself too hard and try to avoid going beyond the first level if I was going solo. I'd planned on sticking to my disguise until I reached the second floor.

It was a pity that the undead were immune to poison, as I wanted to try mixing water magic with my poison slime. The first room was only two skeletons, and I wondered how long it took the dungeon to spawn new enemies as I quickly took them down with some water magic. The next room had some zombies, so I grabbed them with two disguised pseudopods and turned up the heat with [Blaze Slime]. There was an extremely unpleasant smell as the corpses began to boil, and I was forced to turn off my sense of smell.

In the last room of the first floor, I restrained a zombie and a skeleton and tried using [Kindle] to defeat them. The flame was more effective on the zombie than the skeleton, and it eventually ceased its monstrous movement. Compared to [Water Orb], it was not as easy to use, as I couldn't just rapidly fire it without a fuel source. As I climbed down the stairs to the second floor, I recalled the flaming drinks and had a brilliant theory to test.

The first room of the second floor had skeleton archers that I quickly dispatched with two precision slime shots empowered with sticky, heated acid. The acidic part of my slime didn't seem to be improved with the combination, but the monsters appeared to die quicker by taking damage from two sources.

The next room had what I was looking for - a horde of zombie rats. I fired a burst of sticky slime containing only ethanol. The small zombie rats struggled from the adhesive coating, and that was when I cast [Kindle]. Flames erupted and spread across the entire floor rapidly, and I worried about my equipment being damaged, so I cast [Bubble] and watched as the rats squealed in rage while burning to smoldering cinders. With two quick actions, I had cleared the entire room with startling efficiency.

'Holy shit... I didn't expect it to be that good. I can see why Dewi likes burning things.'

I held out a tendril and contained the ethanol to only the tip, then cast [Kindle] on it. The tip continued to burn as long as I kept providing it with ethanol-infused slime, and my regular slime was unaffected and undamaged. I was glad to see the natural fire resistance and heat immunity already working. For a brief moment, I transformed the tendril into a flaming sword before cutting off the supply. It looked impressive, but I doubted it would be as efficient as sending out a burst of sticky flammable slime.

These low levels in a basic class were shockingly quick, especially since I was no longer splitting experience with Kurt. I had gained two levels by clearing the first floor and two rooms in the second floor, but no further revelations from my class. I swapped to an empty equipment profile and then transformed into all the new forms I had acquired - zombie, skeleton, both undead wolves, a red slime, and the zombie rat. The rat was a horrible disguise, as my core was sticking out.

One of my favorite traits gained a much-deserved level up, all the perfected first-time transformations earning it a bundle of experience. I settled on transforming into a red slime and mimicked [Thermal Vision], hoping to earn the trait for free.

'I bet there's an amazing vision trait if I combine [Dark Vision], [Mana Sight] and [Thermal Vision]. Thinking about that, maybe I should try mimicking [Lowlight Vision] just to improve the Fusion.'

The thermal vision was interesting, and I could effortlessly locate the burning residue and where my fire had spread. The undead had no heat at all, but I'd resolve that with a healthy application of fire. Now that I was a slime again, I didn't need to worry about keeping my clothing safe, so I just swelled in size a bit before entering the next room. The undead tried their hardest to damage me, but their rusty and brittle weapons were no match for my [Slime Density] and [Mana Reinforcement].

Stolen story; please report.

I released a burst of sticky flammable slime and ignited it, watching the undead continue to try to damage me while they burned to death. Their mindless tenacity was impressive. The obvious downside of this strategy was that it ruined corpses and would reduce the slime mass harvest, but since all these undead had neither, I couldn't care less.

In the next room, I sat in the middle and had my [Sub-Cores] go wild, spamming individual casts of [Kindle] at the undead swarm. It was a slow process, and the inefficiency bugged me, but I wasn't sure if my fiery combo was earning experience towards [Poison Slime], [Fire Magic], or possibly neither.

'So it takes two levels in fire magic to do what water magic could do from the very start.'

I had my [Sub-Cores] swap over to the new spell and watched each of them manifest a burning arrow, which soared toward the undead. Unlike [Kindle], [Fire Arrow] had duration before fizzling out once it struck the target, even without a flammable source. Now, this felt like an attack spell, and while my [Sub-Cores] hastily dealt with the remaining undead for me, I was playing with my own arrow by flooding it with more mana thanks to [Mana Manipulation]. I kept flooding it with more mana, increasing its size until it was more like a ballista bolt than an arrow. I eagerly looked for a target, only to find nothing but smoldering remains.

It felt anticlimactic, but I refused to let this go to waste as I moved towards the next room while my flaming ballista bolt floated behind me. When I entered the next room I immediately spotted the perfect target, a hulking zombie armed with a massive war hammer.

I was a little disappointed that its profile did not live up to its visual presence. I mentally flung the burning bolt at it, causing a fiery burst as it pierced into the chest. The result was impressive, but the creature still stood. I immediately started forming another one, instructing Gamma to join me in molding the upgraded spell, and tasked Alpha and Beta to copy our efforts. Our bolt finished first as we launched it into the zombie, joining the original in piercing and burning into the chest cavity, followed shortly by the second one, which exploded its head. Notifications flooded my mind, but I ignored them for now while we repeated our experiment on the few remaining undead.

'It still bugs me that the first level in a skill or trait is harder to get than the second. Anyway, let's look at my revelation.'

Coordinate with other spellcasters to form Grand Spells.

Each participant with this skill adds to the ease of the spell's formation in a reduction in time or complexity.

This trait has no levels.>

'Interesting... Are you revealing this to me because I was coordinating with my [Sub-Core] to form a single spell? I'll keep trying that and see if I unlock the skill. If I don't, I'll just ask Dewi about it.'

As much as I wanted to continue playing around with my spells, I needed to work on getting my proficiency skills to level three before fusing them. I could likely get Ranged and Magic while working together in a party, but I was concerned about Melee. Also Kurt mentioned the next floor requiring a mage, so I'd likely get my chance then.

That reminded me I had a big hammer in my storage to eat and all the undead sitting in my storage. I threw them out and started to devour them, along with any rusted weapons I had, hoping to complete any outstanding profiles. The zombie barbarian's war hammer reminded me of the fancy hammer I took from that adventurer, which also needed to be eaten.

'Okay, I have three [Sub-Cores] and five [Pseudopod]. Each of you take one tendril and form a hammer or maul since it seems effective against the undead, and I'll take two and channel my inner Kurt.'

I entered the next room that contained a mixed batch of zombie wolves and skeleton warriors. Rather than precision dual-wielding, it was more like a murder ball of tentacles and hammers flailing around and pulverizing any of the mindless undead that approached. It felt pretty great to be on the top of the food chain so far in this dungeon, and unlike the adventurers who had to worry about injuries or expending resources, for me, this was free experience.