Deep within the reaches of the highest floor of Gronoville's mine, every surface of the tunnel was a muted grey stone, its colouration only broken up by the shades cast by the luminous hanging lanterns against the jagged surfaces and the steel supports lining its walls.
[Zalroth's Skill's Level Increased]
[Detect(Material)]
[3-> 4]
-100 meters-
-Can see the quality of detected materials-
[Activated Skill: Detect(Material)(Level: 4)]
[Material Located: Raw Iron(Fair) x137, Raw Iron(High) x152, Coal(Fair) x320]
"After all this time, and only now has my material one caught up," Zalroth remarked cheekily as he tapped his pink steel pickaxe against the side of his mining helmet. The pickaxe was covered in a pale rainbow veil and illuminated the area around itself, giving Zalroth, Metsu, and Yai a better view of their surroundings than the lumin-gem-powered lamps on their mining helmets.
"And not a single thing's been lower than Fair... almost makes me wonder if that cave near our camp was just bad," Yai grumbled, feeling like the time she had her slimes searching the iron and coal mine was a waste of time.
"No one went further in cave than Zalroth," Metsu mentioned, wearing a size-down mining cap alongside Yai as they rode upon Nero's back behind Zalroth.
"Wouldn't picked clean be more appropriate? It was filled with all those hobgoblins after all," Zalroth added as he stumbled upon the large chunk of raw iron buried in the ground. Raising his pickaxe, Zalroth rained down hell upon the spot with ferocious precision, digging out the stone and dirt around the iron while avoiding hitting the metal directly.
"Sparky sparks," the enchanted slimes whined dispointedly together, wanting to see sparks fly like crazy again, like when Zalroth directly struck the first piece of iron the group came across. Peering back, Zalroth exhaustedly sighed with charm at the slimes sitting on Yai's lap, insistent on seeing more sparks. On her lap were three small slimes, each identical in their size of ten centimetres:
One of them was an Enchanted Small Fire Slime: a spherical blob of sentient red gelatin slime with two white ovals for eyes, a layer of flame-looking gelatin on its head, and a pale rainbow veil covering its body.
Another was an Enchanted Small Water Slime: a spherical blob of sentient deep blue gelatin slime with two white ovals for eyes, an extra squishy body, and a pale rainbow veil covering its body.
And the last was an Enchanted Small Ice Slime: a spherical blob of sentient cyan gelatin slime with two white ovals for eyes, a layer of spikey ice-looking gelatin on its head, and a pale rainbow veil covering its body.
The slimes remained in their disappointed state, relentlessly bouncing up and down on the spot, causing Yai's body to ripple and wobble against the small slimes' consistent impacts.
"Where they come from?" Metsu asked in befuddlement, unable to recall when the talking three slimes had made themselves passengers on Nero.
"Oh, them, I got a new skill when I increased my proficiency over the one-five-o mark that lets me store my monsters in a pocket dimension thing, and they decided to come out, I guess," Yai mentioned as she got an idea. Slapping her hands together horizontally, Yai giggled with anticipation as she slowly raised her higher hand, dragging out the motion for extra dramatic effect and revealing her status screen along with the other relevant screens.
[Yai Kiaria][Level: 137]
[HP: 1000][Hexa: 2000]
[Class: Monster Sovereign]
[Vitality: 100][Stamina: 35]
[Attack: 155][Hexa Proficiency: 150](15 Skill Tokens)
[Defence: 40][Intelligence: 200]
[Agility: 12][Speed: 1]
[Available Points: 0]
[Unique Skills]
[Monster Sovereign]
[Monster Control]
-The user can control and modify the mind of monsters weaker or lower level than the user, or is restrained-
[Monster Legion]
-The user can form their monsters into groups and can communicate with their monsters mentally at any range-
[Monster Domain]
-The user can create a dungeon arch, that's dependent on the size of the monster going through it, made of dark purple bricks to house or summon their tamed monsters-
[Abilities]
[Monsterfy][Unique]
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
-When the user eats a monster, they gain traits/aspects of the monster-
[Weakening Howl]
-Applies the weakening effect to all targets who hear the howl created from activating the skill, it has a 6-minute cooldown-
[Atmospheric Hexa Absorption][Passive]
-Increases Hexa regen by 200%-
[Auto Regen(Average)][Passive]
-User naturally regens HP faster, 5% of HP every 30s-
[Physical Damage Reduction][Passive]
-Decreases DMG dealt by physical-type attacks by 50%-
[Slashing Damage Reduction][Passive]
-Decreases DMG dealt by slashing attacks by 30%-
[Particle Warp]
-The user turns completely white and can warp to any location within their vision-
-Cooldown of 5 seconds per meter-
[Material Coating]
-The user coats their outer layer/clothing in any material they know the composition of or have in their possession/Inventory-
-Resistances and DEF increase are based on the used material-
[Swarmer Wings]
-The user can sprout four temporary insect wings from their back, allowing flight-
-The wings use 2 stamina every minute when the user is in flight-
[Slime Body]
-The user's body becomes like that of a slime, making them immune to blunt force physical attacks-
"Oh...," Metsu murmured, lightly poking at at the enchanted slimes' faces and inspecting the three's difference in temperature, and marveling at how simply changing somehting's temperature could alter how it feels. Under her careful touch, Metsu pressed her fingers lightly against the fire slime, feeling its warmth give its body a mild, gooey texture. By contrast, the ice slime was extra firm to the touch and instilled a faint numbness in Metsu's fingertips. And lastly, the water slime had an extra amount of squishiness to it, reminiscent of a water bed, as its form easily gave way and conformed around Metsu's fingers.
"Hey, what about me? I'm a slime now, you know," Yai said in a teasing manner, slowly creeping her face towards Metsu and offering herself to be pinched on the cheek. Metsu grumbled under her breath, a part of her wanting to accept, but was unsure why the offer angered her so much to the point of violence.
"No... that weird, you weird," Metsu murmured as she pushed Yai's face away, pushing her so far away that Yai was dangling over the side of Nero. While the two girls continued their battle of wills, Zalroth threw one last pickaxe strike that freed the large cluster of raw iron(High) from the ground, causing it to rock towards him.
Grabbing at its highest point, Zalroth sent the large cluster of raw iron into his Inventory. Turning away from the duo and resting the handle of his pickaxe on his shoulder, Zalroth listened to Yai make a fake yelp of pain before giggling as Metsu pinched her gelatin cheek.
"Are you two done with your slime squishing?"
The duo jumped at the sudden question, shooting away from each other and unintentionally tumbling off Nero's back. Crashing against the ground with a mildly intense bang that shook the overhead lantern, the pair were left stunned and dazed from the impact as Yai's slime trio jumped down after her, landing directly on her face. Not suprised in the slightest, the duo managed to knock themselves out, Zalroth could only sigh, reserving the comment he had in his mind for himself.
"Honestly, it's a wonder how we survived even a week in that forest when most of our interactions with each other end like this," Zalroth pondered to himself as Nero scooped the two girls and the slimes off the ground and back onto his back.
While the two girls were recovering from their tumble, Zalroth and Nero continued down the tunnel, collecting ores along the way. However, after many minutes of uneventful mining and tracking the overabundant golems' locations, Zalroth's expression soured from a smirk into a neutral line.
"It's odd, the golems seem to be actively avoiding us, unlike how Naz said they ignore people unless you get too close," Yai stated, rubbing the indent on her gelatin head.
"Yeah. It could mean they're able to tell we're from another world," Zalroth proposed in jest as he mined out a small chunk of colbalt out of the wall with a single swing.
"Or Zalroth too scary to them?" Metsu suggested.
"Yeah, that one makes more sense, if something was over five times stronger than me, I'd avoid it too," the enchanted small ice slime quipped, springing onto Nero's head to get closer to Zalroth. Listening to the speculation, Zalina popped into existence out of nowhere and bopped her head against the bottom underside of Zalroth's mining helmet. Ignoring her headbanging entrance, the Fae of Fortune lifted the helmet off herself, acting like nothing happened as she placed the helmet back in its place.
"I can't tell if that was supposed to be a joke or not," Zalina muttered, sitting on Zalroth's shoulders like a set-up figurine while awaiting her half-hourly coin.
"You mean me wearing a helmet?" Zalroth asked calmly.
"Not that, I meant the golem avoiding you thing," Zalina muttered not-so-calmly with mild embarrassment at Zalroth bringing up her entrance from seconds ago.
"Care to illiberate?" Zalroth inquired, instinctively handing over a copper treasure coin to Zalina without even thinking about it.
"I was just thinking, golems totems only ever spawn more than the intended amount of golems if there are intruders," Zalina meantioned as she raised her small hands to pluck the coin from Zalroth and tried to shove the whole thing in her mouth, even if only a sixteenth of it would actually fit.
"Golem Totems?" Metsu murmured. Between every bite she took out of the copper treasure coin, Zalina mumbled, "Yeah, they're technically classed as treasure, meaning I can detect them, and they're on every floor of this mine."
"Hmm... could that mean those humans I detected aren't miners?" Zalroth uttered in his mind, feeling a metaphorical itch claw at his mind all of a sudden.
[Activated Skill: Detect(Creature)(Level: 4)]
[Activated Skill: Appraisal(Level: 3)]
