"A slime stat doesn't make any fucking sense!" Misa groaned, throwing up her hands with exasperation. It was, if Derivan was counting correctly, about the fourth time she had made the declaration. She was pacing about the training field, wearing grooves into the dirt with her boots. "What's it even supposed to do? A slime is a type of creature, not a stat!"

"You seem particularly distressed by this," Derivan noted, watching Misa with mild amusement. He supposed he should feel more concerned — but he couldn't quite bring himself to.

"The system's stupid," Misa grumbled, folding her arms.

"I mean, yeah. Have you looked at your Skill?" Sev raised an eyebrow at her.

"It's fine when it's stupid in my favour, obviously," Misa said, finally smirking slightly. "Okay. Fine. We've got a new stat to figure out. This might be cool. What does it do?"

"Maybe it's got something to do with malleability and flexibility?" Vex suggested, his brows furrowing slightly. He poked at Derivan's outstretched arm. "You don't feel any softer. Or any more wet." Misa snickered a bit, and Vex pointedly ignored her. "Do you feel any different? Any changes in your status besides the new stat?"

"No," Derivan said, shaking his head even as he checked it over one more time. He couldn't say if his body felt any different, either. "I suspect that even if it changed my physical body, it would be difficult to notice with only one point in the stat."

"So you have to train the stat?" Misa frowned. "You don't have any points, and your level seems to be broken, so you'd have to if you want to get it up."

"I am unsure how I would train 'slime'." Derivan poked at his arm, frowning slightly. Vex was right; his armor didn't feel any different.

"Well, what is a slime? Vex?" Sev asked, glancing at their wizard.

Vex huffed a bit. "I don't know everything, you know," he said.

There was a pause.

Vex sighed. "A base slime is just liquid imbued with enough magic to make it semi-solid. Once a certain critical concentration of mana is achieved, it keeps attracting more ambient mana to it, causing the slime to grow in size and power. The type of mana, as well as the liquid medium, influences the type of slime it is."

"Thanks, Vex," Sev said with a grin, and their resident lizardkin just muttered something under his breath, his scales tinted just faintly red.

"So... does that mean we try to imbue Derivan with more magic?" Misa asked, raising an eyebrow.

"We could try that," Sev said. "Or get more slimes to fight him, since that's what triggered it the first time. Or just wait, and see if it actually does accumulate over time from the ambient mana."

"I would prefer not to wait," Derivan commented. He glanced at Sev — for all that the cleric was pretending at normalcy, there was a definite edge to him that wasn't there before. He was nervous. "I would like to be of assistance in the dungeon."

"Other people can explore that dungeon too, you know," Misa said, letting out a tired sigh. "It doesn't actually have to be us."

"Are you... actually suggesting giving up a fight?" Vex blinked up at her.

"No!" Misa shot back. "But... I had time to sleep on it, right? Holy fuck, we were in over our heads yesterday. We don't even know what level that dungeon is going to be. We might not be ready for it now, or anytime soon. I'm just saying we shouldn't put it all on ourselves."

"You're not wrong, but it might not matter," Sev said with a sigh. "Those bonus rooms were created using us as seeds, the system prompt said? We were the templates. You're right in that we're probably not the only ones that can beat them, but we might still have insight that others don't."

"Don't tell me that we're 'chosen ones'," Misa said, scowling. "Absolutely not. I call bullshit."

"We're not. But we might figure out whatever's hidden in the dungeon faster," Sev pointed out. "It doesn't really matter until the scouts get back and we hear what they have to say, anyway."

Misa sighed, looking away. "Yeah. You're right, I guess," she said.

It wasn't like Misa to turn down a fight of any kind, no matter how ridiculous the odds were. Derivan wondered what had changed — she seemed worried. For herself? That wasn't particularly like her. Then... for them?

"Perhaps you should explore the dungeon without me?" he offered. Seeing both Misa and Vex immediately open their mouths to protest, he hurried to clarify. "I am not leaving. I will remain here, if you will have me when you return. But... I am not ready for a dungeon, and I do not know how long it will take for me to be ready."

"We'll... have to see how dangerous the dungeon is," Sev said, hesitating. He was worried about Onyx; Derivan saw that fact in a dozen small details, from the way the cleric's robes were creased near his hands to the small waver in his voice. He wanted to act. "We shouldn't rush in without you if it's dangerous. We're used to fighting together, and a potentially deadly dungeon is not the place to try to change things up."

"Let's start with what we can do," Vex offered. He looked a little nervous — it was rare for the wizard to try to take the lead in anything. "I'll try to imbue Derivan with some of my magic, and we'll see if that does anything. If it doesn't, we'll try to find some slimes and other, weaker monsters for Derivan to fight. By that time the Guild's scouts will probably be back from grading the dungeon, and we can figure out what to do from there."

Everyone nodded. That seemed like a good enough plan for now. Vex moved to stand in front of Derivan, looking a little nervous as he placed a hand on the armored chestplate. "Can you open your stat screen?" he said. "Keep an eye on it. See what changes, if anything."

Derivan nodded, pulling up his stat screen. He paused. "Have you started imbuing yet?" he asked.

"No," Vex frowned. "Why? Did something change?"

"Yes," Derivan answered, with a slightly puzzled tilt to his head. There was. "But the change is not with the slime stat. There is a new one. Physical Empathy, with 14 points."

There was a long pause.

"You just... got another new stat? Just like that? There has to be some rules to this." Sev ran a hand through his hair. "Were you trying to read our body language or something?"

"As I always do," Derivan said. "Was I not meant to?"

"No, I mean... I don't know. It just doesn't make sense that these are stats. It should be a Skill, right? [Body Language], or something." Sev sighed. "The system isn't usually this hard to figure out."

"Perhaps we should move on with the testing, for now?" Derivan suggested. "We were about to attempt to imbue my armor with Vex's magic."

"I guess we need to keep testing," Sev agreed, though he continued to wear a small frown. Misa was just watching, her brows slightly furrowed as she thought.

Vex nodded, and took a deep breath.

An odd warmth blossomed on Derivan's armor — a strange sensation for the animated armor, who wasn't particularly used to feeling temperature in any significant way. It grew slowly as that energy slowly filtered through his armor and into his core, and it took an effort of will not to hiss or step back. It was uncomfortable.

That discomfort only grew, though Derivan did his best to withstand it — and then something abruptly changed, like an enchantment had been shut off. The pressure eased, though not completely.

His glanced at his status.

Derivan, Level

Health:

Mana: 127/100

Stats:

Slime: 1

Physical Empathy: 14

Magic: 5

Skill List:

"My mana stat has returned, though with a cap of 100 mana," Derivan reported, shifting a little uncomfortably. Even as he spoke, the amount of mana he had continued to tick upwards over his supposed cap; presumably an effect of the magic Vex was pouring into him. There was that sensation of building discomfort again. "Another stat has appeared as well; magic, at a level of five."

"Magic?" Vex asked. The trickle of his magic slowed, but didn't stop — he seemed excited, at least, bouncing up on his heels and peering closely at Derivan like that would let him see past the armor and into his stats. "We'll have to do some tests on that one. Maybe try some spellcasting?"

"We're going to need to figure out what all of these new stats do," Sev muttered, his brows furrowed. "Okay. I think we haven't been taking this seriously enough. We're operating with a dearth of information; we don't even know if there's a limit to the number of stats Derivan can have. If he caps out at four stats we know nothing about, and those stats have no synergy, he might be fucked." He glanced at Derivan. "No offense."

"None taken," Derivan said. "I do not think that is possible."

Sev snorted, Misa laughed, and Vex turned bright red; Derivan didn't get it. He'd simply meant that he would learn to fight regardless of what stats he obtained. He'd been creative with his abilities before. This would just be a different application of them.

"But what I'm saying is that we need to be careful, and maybe stop picking up new stats for now," Sev said. "I mean. It seems kind of random so far, so maybe it can't be helped. But we'll try not to do anything more than we're already doing until we know a little more about what's going on? Maybe there'll be answers in the dungeon."

"I do not believe it will have answers about this," Derivan said a little doubtfully. But it was a fair point. He glanced at his status as something inside him felt like it ticked over, and blinked, eye-lights flickering.

"My maximum mana has increased as well," Derivan said. Indeed, there was considerably less pressure inside his soul; something in it felt larger, though the pressure was slowly increasing again. He watched the count tick up to 203/200. "And so did the slime stat. It is at two points, now."

Vex paused, surprised. "Slime is your mana capacity?" he asked, then shook his head. "No. That can't be it. But slimes are related to mana capacity..."

Vex fell silent, a strange flicker of emotion passing over him. Derivan watched him, concerned — Physical Empathy didn't seem to help him pinpoint what it was, and it vanished as quickly as it appeared. The lizardkin looked up at him, noticing his worry, and smiled a weak smile. "Oh, uh, sorry. I think it's probably just related to mana capacity? I'm guessing it has more effects, but mana is how you train the stat. But honestly, we're in uncharted territory as far as the system goes, so I don't actually know. I don't think it'd be called slime if it was just mana capacity, though.."

"I suppose we will find out, once it is trained enough," Derivan said. He was tempted to ask what that was — but Vex didn't seem inclined to talk about it, and the armor didn't want to push. It was the first time he'd felt conflicted about such a thing, and in the end, he stayed silent; Vex would surely talk about it when he was ready.

In the meantime, the lizardkin continued to push mana into him, a gentle flow of warmth that he found surprisingly comforting. The odd pressure had a bit more, and Derivan found that even when he was 'full' on mana, he could focus on the warmth as a pleasant distraction.

His mana stopped at 299, refusing to tick over into 300. At the same time, Vex frowned a bit, seeming bewildered.

"I can sense the mana inside you," he said. "But the new mana is... dissipating? No. It's going somewhere else."

Derivan frowned and closed his eyes, trying to feel for what Vex was talking about. If the warmth he felt was mana, then it was a new sense for him. When he'd used skills before, his mana just vanished, and the skill activated.

Now, though, he tried to follow the feeling of warmth in his chest. Part of it trickled into him, coalescing into a node of warmth he identified as — or suspected to be — his mana pool. The rest... It wasn't disappearing. What was happening to it? It was hard to follow —

— No, there it was. It was turning into threads, the warmth he felt so thin he almost didn't notice them at all. Now that he was actively concentrating, he could almost feel how those thin threads of warmth seemed to be touching on the very edges of his soul, doing something to it. Reinforcing it, perhaps? Strengthening it?

The changes didn't seem bad, at least.

There was a sudden pulse. It was subtle, but he saw the way something inside him felt like it solidified; the armor opened his eyes, glancing at his status.

Slime had gone up to 3. His maximum mana was 300.

"A hundred to my mana pool per point of slime, I think," Derivan said. He saw Vex's eyes widen, though the lizard didn't say anything. "For now, it appears that going over my mana limit increases that stat."

"The multipliers on that are way better than the ones on Intelligence," Vex said.

"Well, we've established something, at least," Sev said with a sigh. "Vex, could you help Derivan train up that stat? We need to figure out what it does, preferably sooner rather than later."

"Of course," Vex said. He seemed surprised, but willing. "I've got lots of mana to spare."

"I'm also thinking you'll get your health back if I try to heal you." Sev frowned a little bit, considering the idea. "I don't think we should do that yet, though."

"Why not?" Misa asked. She'd moved to lean against a wall as she watched, but now she frowned. "More health means safety. For him and us."

"I mean, does it?" Sev asked. "I'm not so sure. If we're fighting something that can take us out in one hit, health isn't all that relevant."

"We're not going to be fighting something that absurd every day. That thing didn't even follow the level rules."

"All I'm saying is, we know what happens when someone has health and takes a hit. Do we know what happens if they don't have health?"

There was a long silence.

"System sickness," Vex suddenly said. "There's not a lot of literature on it, but people in the early stages of system sickness have been known to fight weaker monsters without taking any apparent damage. Slimes, usually."

"If that's the case..." Sev muttered, thinking out loud. "Okay. I was talking about this earlier. Health is part of the system layer. It enforces health-damage interactions, right?"

"The system's layer of health means you can damage powerful monsters, as long as they don't have defensive skills. Damage is damage, no matter the source. But it works the other way around, too." Vex's brows furrowed as he followed the train of thought. "Weak, low-level monsters can damage you, even if they're just slimes splashing against you. But if either participant lacks health, there's no enforced interaction, which means—"

"It means the slime attacked you and did what slime is supposed to do when hitting something solid," Misa said drily, having caught on. "It didn't have the protection of its health, even though it was at full health, because it was attacking you."

"Oh," Derivan said.

It was a double-edged sword. He would be able to defeat others based entirely on their physical or magical natures, rather than going through the system of health and damage. But he, too, was uniquely vulnerable.

Sort of.

Most individuals would be uniquely vulnerable. Derivan was a magically animated suit of armor that had been created in what was functionally a Platinum ranked dungeon.

"This is kind of broken," Misa said, sounding delighted.

"We need to confirm this," Vex said. "This is all just theory, and we shouldn't risk so much on theory. But it makes sense."

"At some point you might end up needing the buffer of health," Sev added. "This is a unique advantage, so we should try to keep it. But if we're fighting something that can just disenchant your armor or something, you're going to need health to protect you. And if you get banged up and need healing... You might get damaged over time, you know?"

Derivan thought carefully. He could prolong the necessity of restoring his health if he was careful — he could use skills that provided damage buffers, like force fields. Or he could use evasive skills.

Assuming he could acquire skills at all. Sev was right, though — this was a unique advantage. It came with some costs, but nothing that couldn't be worked around, and it was a way for him to be immediately useful regardless of his level and stats. If the enemies were physically weak enough, then his armor could handle the damage.

"We still have some time before the scouts return with their evaluation of the dungeon," Derivan said. "I will use that time to train what I have access to, and hope both that I can assist with the dungeon and that the answers for my status lie within the dungeon. But my hopes are not high; this happened after the dungeon formed, not before. We may have to experiment, and work with whatever becomes of my status. Vex, you are willing to keep assisting me, yes?"

"Of course," Vex said brightly. "We can do some magic!"

"I need to get my gear repaired," Misa said. "And we need to stock up on supplies before we head out again. Maybe grab some potions this time."

"I'll grab the potions," Sev said. "I need to head to the temple and see if I can find out anything about the gods. I'll stock up while I'm there. The scouts should be back by the end of the day, so we'll meet in the Guild lobby around that time?"

"Yes," Derivan agreed.

"Okay," Vex said, clapping his hands together. "Let's get to work!"

Everyone stared at him. He blinked.

"What? I wanted to try doing the thing Sev does."

Misa smirked, even as Sev tried and failed to stop himself from grinning. "I'm really glad we have you on board, you know," she said.

"...Derivan, let's go before Misa makes fun of me."

Derivan nodded seriously.

"You're adorable!" Misa called after him, even as Derivan and Vex fled. "You can't escape the truth!"