Liliana cut her naginata through the air, ridding the blade of the majority of the goo that had coated it. Around her were the remains of a group of Slimes she’d stumbled upon. Despite their greater numbers Liliana had managed to dispatch them, thanks to her higher Speed, Strength, and reach with her naginata.

The last of the essence entered her and the now familiar feeling of the power rushing through her hit. Liliana smiled once more at the feeling, still reveling in this new experience. Even if she’d spent the past several hours performing what could only be described as a one-woman genocide against Slime-kind, she still found the sensation of being slowly filled with essence invigorating.

A quick look at her Endurance showed Liliana that it would be best if she took a break to regenerate her Stamina and Mana. She’d been chasing Slimes almost non-stop with only small breaks to regenerate her stamina enough to chase after the next Slime and she was getting close to running out of Stamina. Finding a downed tree Liliana checked to be sure a hidden Mud or Sap Slime wasn’t lurking waiting to coat her in goop. Satisfied there were no Slimes nearby she perched on the wood in the circle of sunlight the tree's downfall had opened in the forest canopy.

Her fear of being too weak to handle Slimes had been shown to be unfounded the longer she spent massacring them. She was certain even if she hadn’t trained her stats she still wouldn’t have struggled too greatly. However, she didn’t regret the time she’d spent learning her naginata. She still flushed at the memories of her first few weeks learning the weapon. She had done more damage to herself with the polearm than Silas had done with his own weapons those first few days.

I can’t believe I waited so long to do this! This is amazing! I should come out to level more often. Liliana thought as she cleaned her naginata of its accumulated grime before leaning it against the tree at her side and pulling out the apple in her bag and a canteen of water. After a quick meal, she finally let her notifications pop up. She’d had them set aside during her rampage, wanting to wait until she had a real moment to rest to go over everything.

You’ve killed 8 Level 2 Mud Slimes, 4 Level 2 Sap Slimes, 10 Level 1 Slimes

+17,000 Experience

+8,500 Experience from boon

[Polearms Mastery] reached Level 17!

[Light Burst] reached Level 6!

[Identify] reached Level 18!

You’ve gained 1 point in Endurance, 1 point in Speed, 1 point in Strength.

You’ve reached Level 9.

+25 Stat points

+10 Stat Points from boon.

Liliana stared at the notifications for a few minutes, not fully believing the information she’d been given. She knew she’d killed a lot of Slimes, she’d been running around after them for hours after all. And they were rather prolific in the area, apparently, the Mana was rich enough for them to appear en masse in the area. Still, 8 levels in a day felt a bit ridiculous to someone who had been level 1 that morning.

Remembering how the guard trainees she’d used [Identify] on were all around level 40 sobered her a bit. Level 9 felt like a lot to her, who had been level 1 for months. But she was still pathetically behind most others.

Even her Skill levels weren’t too impressive. [Light Burst] had gained 4 levels, but that was after she regularly blasted Slimes with it until she ran out of Mana. [Polearms Mastery] had only gained 2 levels despite her using her naginata for most of her fights. It was also a higher level than [Light Burst] originally, however, and she had noticed the higher the level the slower the progression. [Identify] had only been raised by a single level!

Pouting a bit at her sad gains for hours of effort Liliana consoled herself with 3 stat points given for her efforts and 35 new free stat points to distribute. Liliana examined her stats, she wanted to be careful with how she distributed her stats. She had an idea of what she wanted to be. She was certain she would be a solo fighter, nothing so far had disproven what she’d expected of this life. She had been treated exactly as expected, and she held little hope that the events she’d played in the game would change too much. It meant she’d be alone through The Academy as well, and afterward too. So she’d need to build herself up to be someone who could take care of herself just fine.

Well, with the help of her Bonds that she hoped to make. Which would play an important role in her survival in the future. She wanted to be strong on her own though, and the longer she used her naginata the more she loved the weapon. She truly did think becoming a type of spellblade, or spellspear in her case would work well for her. She wouldn’t have the raw firepower of a mage or the brute strength of a dedicated warrior, but she’d be physically stronger than the mage and faster too. She’d have more firepower and long-range options than any warrior. It would be a good type for a solo adventurer, and it meant she could easily adapt to any type of creature she bonded.

It was important to think about this, especially now with level 20 and her first class options coming up. She’d been warned both by Silas and her research that usually the first class offers weren’t too good, as one didn’t have enough experience to get better ones. But classes were easy to change or evolve as more became available, and the initial choice helped dictate what options were presented later.

Keeping in mind her goals Liliana examined her stats. She knew she wanted to Bond to creatures, so Charisma was a given stat. She wanted the best chance possible to get a good Bond. But she had no idea when she’d be able to get one. The creatures in the area were weak so she’d need to go several days out to even get a chance to find something worth forming a Bond with. And she wouldn’t be able to bond to anything until she was at least Rank 9, maybe later. So at the very least, she had another 11 levels to go before Charisma became useful.

Right now she was mostly using her naginata to fight, with interspersed [Light Burst]. She had no other spells but she was becoming more comfortable with [Mana Manipulation] and she was sure she’d discover a new spell soon.

Maybe, 6 to Charisma, 3 to Wisdom, 3 to Intelligence, 5 to Endurance, 6 to Strength, 2 to Vitality, 7 to Speed, 3 to Dexterity? Liliana considered it would be skewed to her current fighting style with weapons, with Endurance, Speed, and Charisma being the highest stats. Even with raising Charisma so high, she’d be set fairly well with stats. She hadn’t been noticing too many difficulties fighting Slimes so far and she didn’t expect that to change too much. One last look over her sheet and Liliana confirmed the changes.

This time the larger stat change had a more noticeable effect, she could feel the essence in her surging and integrating with her body. Her body heated to an almost uncomfortable warmth focused on her physical body the most. She felt sweat break out as her muscles seemed to heat as if they’d just been through a rigorous workout, her skin warming more than the sun would warrant. She felt as if she’d just been dumped into a sauna. Even her brain seemed to heat as the changes worked over her. When the process was done Liliana panted a bit, wiping off the sweat that had coated her with a grimace.

Maybe I won’t wait long next time. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to do a big stat dump. How would 15, or 20 points in Strength have felt like? Liliana wondered nervously as she looked over her body.

There weren’t too many physical indicators of change it took a large amount of Strength for it to start building rippling muscles like Silas boasted. The stats apparently used your natural Mana to slightly reinforce your body if you increased it the hard way along with natural muscle growth. It did mean you didn’t build muscles quite as fast as your stat would suggest because of the assistance from Mana. However, the essence used when you increased a stat from leveling all went directly to where you chose, reinforcing at a faster rate than the slow Mana enhancement from training. Essence magically super-enhanced the body. Which enabled faster growth and also why most chose to level versus the slower gain from only training. And until they got to a higher amount the essence didn’t need more muscle to increase your Strength, Liliana compared it to a blacksmith folding metal on a sword to increase its strength without making an overly bulky creation.

That comparison felt far more true now after the essence had pretty much magically forged her body to match her wishes. It felt odd, to have such a noticeable change done comparably to such gains in her old life or even the stat growth she’d experienced through simple training.

Liliana shook off the odd feeling of being magically forged and pulled up her Status Sheet, eager to see all her changes printed out in gratifying numbers.

Status Sheet

Name

Liliana Rosengarde

Age

14

Level

9

Class

Locked

Race

Human

Rank

Locked

Health

250

H-Regen

+2.5/1.1sec

Mana

250

M-Regen

+2.5/1.1sec

Stamina

300

S-Regen

+3/1.1sec

Magic Power

250

Magic Control

300

Experience: 2,350/10,000

Vitality

25

Endurance

30

Strength

30

Dexterity

24

Wisdom

25

Intelligence

25

Speed

30

Charisma

30

Unallocated Stat Points: 14

Liliana smiled happily, she had come far from where she’d started today. And she wasn’t even done yet. Looking up, Liliana estimated it was nearing maybe two in the afternoon or second bell as they called it in this world. Meaning she had maybe another five hours before she needed to start heading back to the manor. The thought of the levels she could gain in those hours filled her with energy and Liliana closed her sheet. She pulled out her map and compass to see what else in the area she could test her new stats on. She had seen that the Level 2 Slimes gave her 1,500 Experience a piece, and with her necessary experience to level going up quite a bit as she leveled it would take more and more of the Slimes to get her returns. She’d need to kill over 5 just to get to level 10!

Liliana examined the map and looked for the areas that held Level 3 and 4 Slimes. She hadn’t headed for them first since they would be too hard for her at level 1 to deal with, but now she was confident she could mow them down without too much issue. She located the area she wanted, it was at least a thirty-minute walk from where she was at and seemed to be in a large clearing by some cave systems.

Checking the direction she needed to head with her compass she placed the two materials away and double-checked her Stamina. It had recovered while she’d been sitting around examining her notifications and allocating her stat points. With an eager grin, Liliana grabbed her naginata and struck out towards the next set of unfortunate Slimes.

Mud Slime

Level 4

A Slime that has a small Earth Affinity. Can regenerate health from absorbing mud and dirt. Can also send out mud shots to blind or bog down prey and predators.

Rank: Unranked

Liliana blinked away the information from [Identify] as she stared at the largest Mud Slime she’d seen yet. It was over twice the size of the others she’d fought, bringing it up to almost her knee in height. Its core was half again the size of the Level 2s she’d fought and would be worth a small bit more than them. Liliana was currently trying to decide if it would be worth saving the Core for the extra copper or destroying it. She also was a bit warier of getting coated in muck.

Liliana stared at her naginata considering if it would be better to cut it up or to just blast it with [Light Burst] when an idea came to her. With a grin she focused her [Light Burst] into her palm, holding the spell still as it floated above her hand. Pulling the blade of her naginata close she tried to transfer the spell to the tip of her blade and to coat her blade without exploding. The spell moved but as it tried to spread out the spell fluctuated wildly before dissipating with a pitiful hiss.

Liliana frowned at her naginata and stubbornness filled her. She had a clear idea of how this could work and it would be done dammit. This time Liliana tried to focus on her weapon like a wand, urging the [Light Burst] to appear on the blade. Bright light burst at the tip of the blade but after a moment it too dissipated. Liliana huffed in irritation and backed away from the clearing full of Slimes so she could sit and focus.

Sitting down she placed her naginata in her lap with both hands over it and closed her eyes. Focusing on her Mana she pulled some into her hands until it felt like enough to coat her blade. That part was easy, as she focused on pushing the Mana outside of her body and onto the blade she struggled. The Mana felt resistant to the idea and struggled against her. Liliana focused harder on it, forcing the Mana to conform to her will. She had a clear picture in her head of what she wanted, bright white light covering the tip of her blade to about halfway down. Light that would expand and explode once the blade impaled a creature. She forced the Mana in her to conform to her mental image, catching and molding it every time it tried to slip out of her hands. She could feel sweat dripping down her forehead and stinging her closed eyes as it felt like a war was waging inside of her between what she wanted to do and what her Mana wanted to do.

Finally, something in the Mana broke and it flowed like putty in her hands, following her instructions as if it had never fought her. When Liliana drew her awareness from her Mana and opened her eyes she found she needed to drag in deep breaths of air, her body sweat-slicked. Her head ached as well, though the pain was nothing compared to the migraines she had grown accustomed to after waking.

[Mana Manipulation] Reached Level 16!

You’ve met the requirements for the Spell [Light Burst Coat], would you like to accept the Spell?

Light Burst Coat: For 55 Mana coat your blade in light, when the blade impales an enemy the light will explode inside the enemy after a small delay, dealing 12% of your Magic Power as light damage.

30% More effective against Dark Affinity enemies.

Liliana accepted the spell immediately with a wide grin. She dug out a Mana tincture, noticing that her experiment had drained a good deal more of her Mana than usual, she barely had 50 Mana left from a full 250. Changing the very structure of a spell used more Mana. It was the first time she’d tried empowering something besides herself. She wasn’t very familiar with the skill. She hadn’t played Light classes often in her past life as she had never had an interest in Tank classes, which Light normally became. She did remember there being Elemental empowerment spells for weapons though and this one didn’t seem very different from others. Momentarily she bemoaned her lack of Fire affinity, their empowerments usually left Burning debuffs along with dealing a good amount of extra damage. Even if they were mana-hungry spells.

After a moment's rest, Liliana checked her Mana, and seeing it above half with the help of her tincture she stood with her glowing blade and locked onto the Mud Slime she’d seen before. With a burst of speed she crossed the distance and stabbed her weapon into its bulk, she avoided the core, wanting to see if she could kill the Slime easily and keep the core.

Soon after her blade sunk into the test Slime the light around it expanded like an exploding star. Globs of slimy mud shot off the creature, several landing on Liliana’s legs much to her displeasure. However the size of the creature had decreased by about a fourth and Liliana quickly pulled her naginata out, slicing through the creature and wounding it further.

Slowly the creature started to pull the dirt into itself, regenerating as it retaliated, shooting out balls of mud towards her face. Liliana yelped and dodged, not used to Slime’s attacking back. As she moved she cast [Light Burst Coat] again, when her blade was once more shining she stabbed into the Slime. Again the Slime exploded internally and was down to the size of a Level 2 Slime. Liliana didn’t relent, stabbing and slashing the creature while avoiding the shots to her face. She was thankful that her higher Speed meant that while the shots were annoying they weren’t impossible to avoid.

Several slashes and the Slime finally destabilized, leaving its core sitting on a pile of mud. Liliana grumbled as she wiped muddy goop off her chest and legs, grabbing the core and dropping it into her empty gathering bag.

“Level 4 cores are worth what 3 copper for 10? Don’t know if it’s worth being soaked in mud,” Liliana muttered as she glared at the dead Slime. She’d try using strictly [Light Burst] next and see if she ended up cleaner. [Light Burst] was iffy if it would destroy the core before it managed to destabilize the Slimes though. With a sigh of defeat, knowing she wouldn’t be getting out of this without more mud Liliana turned towards the next Slime. She was lucky they had no vision or hearing and only a weak Mana sense at this low of a level. It meant they could only tell if something was there if it was within a few feet of it. Otherwise, she’d have been mobbed by the tens of Slime she could see through the huge clearing in front of the caves.

Liliana focused on a new Slime, one she hoped wouldn’t coat her in muck.

Water Slime

Level 3

A Slime that has a slight water Affinity. Can regenerate health from absorbing water. Can attack with water shots fired at middling speed.

Rank: Unranked

Liliana smiled, finally a Slime that wouldn’t get her dirty! She held out a hand and directed a [Light Burst] at it. The attack hit and water splashed off the creature. Liliana didn’t let up shooting another [Light Burst] as she closed in, using up the last of her mana. The Slime was already close to being destabilized and Liliana only had to sidestep a few water shots before two slashes with her naginata finished the job. Grabbing the core she looked for the next Water Slime, her new favorite creature.

“Here little water Slimes,” She whispered as she scanned the gathered Slimes. Spotting her next victim, a Level 4 Water Slime, Liliana checked her Mana and frowned when it hadn’t regenerated enough for another [Light Burst]. She was at 25 Mana and slowly climbing. Liliana huffed and closed in on the Slime, slashing through it with her naginata. She danced around the Slime, avoiding its attacks as her blade shone in the light, unforgivingly slashing through the weak body of the Slime. Unlike the Mud or Sap Slimes, the Water Slimes offered little to no resistance.

Liliana figured out why the water Slimes were so much weaker when a water shot finally impacted her in the chest and knocked the air from her. It hit hard enough to leave a bruise and Liliana was shocked enough she almost failed to dodge the next shot. It was only through virtue of the [Dodge] skill that she had that she ducked it. Shaking off the pain, something she was used to after Silas’s hell training, she attacked the Slime with extreme prejudice. Incensed by the gall the Slime had to dare to hurt her!

“Die!” Liliana growled as she poured her Speed and Strength into her moves. Light on her feet as she flitted around the creature, slicing its body to pieces. In seconds the Slime was no more and Liliana was left panting and glaring at a puddle of water.

Snatching the core Liliana plopped down to regain her Mana, Stamina, and a bit of Health she’d lost fighting the Slime. That hit had chunked her for 25 health, which didn’t sound like a lot but it was 10% of her total Health! The jump from Level 2 to Level 4 for the Slimes was big, or so she felt. Though she had made it more difficult on herself by trying to preserve the cores.

“It took me what, twenty minutes to get 3 cores? Not worth it,” Liliana muttered, she set aside the idea to use the better cores to get coin. It simply wasn’t enough money to justify the extra effort she had to devote to killing the Slimes without hurting their cores.

Mentally bidding goodbye to her dreams of getting rich on Slime Cores, as fantastical as it may be, Liliana refocused on her real goal. Leveling as much as she could in a day. Power was more important than money for her in the present. She could get money when she had more power to fight beasts that actually gave valuable materials.

Decided in her course of action Liliana waited out her regeneration before standing again to resume her massacre.