For advancing to Level 10, you have reached the next threshold of arcane power!

- Arcane Essence +20

- For each new level advanced, Arcane Essence gained is doubled!

- Passive Skill [Arcane Restoration] gained!

- Passive Skill [Improved Absorption] gained!

- Passive Skill [Morph Shape] gained!

Woah… What was all of this? I reached the next threshold of arcane power? I gained a bunch of Passive Skills? I had no idea any of this even happened!

I wasn’t even fighting to level up. I’d been fighting because these Dark Elves were… kind of jerks.

Well, you know what they say? No good deed goes unpunish— Wait, that was the wrong saying.

Whatever it was, it was all very neat.

Name: Violet [Level 10]

Species: Arcslime

Combat Power: 300

Arcane Essence: 130/300

Skills:

[Appraisal - 10 Arcane Essence]

[Arc Shot - 20 Arcane Essence]

Passive Skills:

[Arcane Restoration - You restore 10 Arcane Essence for every ten minutes of rest.]

[Improved Absorption - You replenish an additional 50% of Arcane Essence from consuming bodies.]

[Morph Shape - Your body can take on complex shapes.]

I looked over my new Skills carefully. These ones were called Passive Skills— they were in an entirely different category. And they also came with descriptions! I actually knew what they did without the need for experimenting.

It was interesting, too; it allowed me to learn more about myself as an Arcslime. Even if these descriptions were short and succinct, there were a lot of things to infer from them. For example, [Arcane Restoration] told me that I wasn’t able to naturally recover Arcane Essence without consuming corp… I mean, eating, before I got the Passive Skill. And as for [Morph Shape], it kind of implied that I was previously only able to create those pseudopods with my body.

Anyways, I was raring to test out my abilities— especially [Improved Absorption]. I was famished. That had been a close fight. At one point, I was barely at 10 Arcane Essence. I immediately put my new Passive Skill to use, sliding to the dead Dark Elves and swallowing them whole.

You have replenished 30 Arcane Essence!

You have also replenished 15 Arcane Essence due to [Improved Absorption]!

You have replenished 40 Arcane Essence!

You have also replenished 20 Arcane Essence due to [Improved Absorption]!

You have replenished 20 Arcane Essence!

You have also replenished 10 Arcane Essence due to [Improved Absorption]!

You have replenished 40 Arcane Essence!

You have also replenished 20 Arcane Essence due to [Improved Absorption]!

Refreshing! With that, I was now back to full strength. The last Dark Elf dissolved under me, leaving behind blood and armor. A commotion drew my attention, and I thought I’d embarrassed myself again by pigging out in front of a crowd. But the Goblins weren’t focused on me. Their attention was turned to a figure lying on the ground.

“Brother Zrugs!” Szen said as he clung onto the collapsed Goblin. “Stay with us. Please…”

Dyrx hobbled over to the pair, still injured, but not nearly as bad as Zrugs. He spoke in a hurried voice, “If we can get the Chieftain to look at him—”

“He’s losing too much blood.” Gort, the Goblin Chieftain, shook his head. “We need to stop the bleeding first, otherwise my treatment won’t work.”

I watched as several Goblins stripped themselves of their ragged clothes to patch Zrugs’s wounds. I wanted to bury my face in my appendages.

“Wait! Wait! No, stop! My eyes—” I did not sign up for seeing nude Goblins.

“Stop?” A few of the Goblins actually listened to me.

Fissyah stepped forward, giving me a pleading look. “Are you saying you can help us, Violet?”

“I-I…” I hesitated, taking a peek at the half-naked Goblins. Then I glanced over the injured Zrugs, thinking about my new Passive Skills. “I can help, maybe.”

I hopped over to him as Szen, Dyrx, and Gort backed up. The injured Goblin had been impaled through the abdomen. Blood poured out from both the entry and exit wounds— a lot of blood.

“If I stop the bleeding, you’ll be able to help him, right?” I asked Gort.

The Goblin Chieftain nodded. “Yes.”

“Alright, let me see whether I can— oh god, this feels weird…”

[Morph Shape]. I stretched my body, wrapping around Zrugs stomach. I covered the wound from both sides like a roll of thick bandages before applying pressure with my whole body. The blood threatened to leak out, but my body rejected it. I was, strangely enough, sort of water proof?

Or liquid proof. Either way, I worked well as a temporary bandage. And I could actually focus to prevent the blood from seeping out any gaps by making minute changes to my body.

The Goblins stared as I tightly hugged Zrugs.

“Well?” I asked, impatient.

“R-right.” And they rushed him to Gort’s hut.

* * *

“He should be fine now,” the Goblin Chieftain said, patting Szen on the shoulder. “The Healing Ointment has healed his most grievous injuries, but it’ll still take a while for him to fully recover.”

“Thank you.” The other Goblin bowed his head deeply.

“You’ve had a long day.” Gort nodded at Szen and turned to Fissyah. The girl shuffled her feet as the Goblin Chieftain smiled. “And so have you. The both of you should return home and rest.”

Fissyah pursed her lips. “What about—” she tried to protest.

“It’s fine. I’ll handle it.” He gave her a reassuring look.

“O-ok,” she said, and followed her father as he headed out of the hut.

I stared at Gort as he heaved out a sigh. It was now only the two of us now— Zrugs was still unconscious, resting in a bed in the other room.

“What was that about?” I asked, giving the Goblin Chieftain a puzzled look.

“Ah, don’t worry about that, Violet. Fissyah was just worried about Zrugs, that’s all.” He waved a hand off, setting down just before the empty fireplace.

He’d removed the cauldron and placed it right by a table with bowls set up. The flames were gone, snuffed out and leaving behind charred bits of fungi and… wood? But that couldn’t be right. Not unless—

My eyes widened and I excitedly hopped over to Gort. “Wait, Gort, do you know a way out of this cave?”

“A way out of this cave?” he repeated after me, perplexed.

“Like, an exit. To the surface, you know?” I was really getting tired of the dreary darkness of… everything. I wanted to just take in some fresh air, relax in a patch of grass under the shade of a thicket of trees, and stare up at the azure above for the rest of my life.

Unfortunately, my hopes were dashed. “I regret to tell you that I do not know a way to the Overworld, Violet.” Gort shook his head as he poured himself a bowl of stew. “I have lived in Korukh my whole life. The furthest I’ve traveled is to the fringes of the Karhid Caves.”

“Aw, but what about that?” I gestured at the charred remains in the fireplace. “Didn’t you use wood for that or something?”

“It is,” he confirmed.

“Don’t you need trees for wood?” Unless there was some kind of secret way to turn stone to wood, I was pretty sure he needed to go to the surface and chop down a tree for it.

Gort gave me a quizzical glance. “Yes.”

“But… how?”

“Let me show you.”

He brought me out of his hut and to the back of the village. There, I gaped at the sight of the spindly gray-brown things protruding from the earth.

“Underground… trees?” They looked like dead trees, bland with no greenery, but their barks weren’t rotting and they grew tall and sturdy without a problem.

“I hear that the trees of the Overworld are different. That they have leaves growing out of their branches. That they are greener than moss and they are soft to touch, with symmetrical patterns that’s pleasing to the eye.”

Gort placed a hand on the bark of one of these underground trees. Weird, glowing mushrooms grew out of the wood, and he plucked them off with a smile.

I inspected the tree, feeling the texture of its wood. I wondered what particularly made it different— then I realized I could figure out just that with [Appraisal].

[Underground Tree - It is a tree that grows underground.]

“I see, I see.” I nodded sagely. “I would like a refund of Arcane Essence, please.”

“Did you say something, Violet?” The Goblin Chieftain raised a curious brow.

“I was scammed, Gort.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

…

At least I could naturally recover Arcane Essence now thanks to [Arcane Restoration].

“So, are you actually vegan?” I changed the subject. “Is that why you’re collecting mushrooms?”

The Goblin Chieftain just gave me a confused look.

He led me back through Korukh, heading for his hut. We passed by other Goblins milling; they were collecting the Dark Elves’ equipment. I noticed Dyrx leading a couple of giant lizard-like creatures to a pen. He gave me an approving nod.

“You are truly a powerful Slime.”

“And you are truly a buff vegan.”

“...what?” He paused, confused, but Gort and I continued on.

“Hey, Gort,” I said as I bounced alongside him. “I was just wondering, why does everyone keep underestimating me, anyways?”

“Slimes are typically harmless monsters,” he explained, stopping right outside of his hut. He waved his staff at Dyrx and the giant lizards. “They are like the Draken— docile and domesticated. Although, Draken are used as beasts of burden, while Slimes are kept by children as pets.”

I inferred that much. But—

“But once you guys use [Appraisal] on me, you’d know I’m stronger than you, right?”

The Goblin Chieftain ran a hand through his beard. “[Appraisal]?”

“Uhm, it’s a Skill that lets me… see your level and Combat Power?”

He blinked. Then his eyes grew wide. He pointed a trembling finger at me. “Y-you…”

Oh, no. Was [Appraisal] really that super amazing of a Skill to get that kind of a reaction? It helped me with choosing my battles wisely, but I didn’t think it was that special.

Gort hugged himself, blushing. “You’ve been staring at my Status this whole time?!”

Wait… what?

He covered his chest and face as he squeaked, “W-well, if you want to look at it, I guess you can, but n-next time you should ask me for my permission first!”

I stared at Gort. What the heck is going on?

“B-but it’s not something you can tell others, alright?” He hid his face from me like an embarrassed schoolgirl. “Oh, dear me, I can’t believe you’d just brazenly say that.”

“What’s wrong with, um, seeing your ‘Status’?” I finally asked.

“It’s private. It’s like peeping on someone as they’re taking a bath. It’s very inappropriate.” Gort shifted in embarrassment.

“Oh.” I thought about it for a moment. “But aren’t you guys nudists?”

“What? No— we aren’t!” That snapped the Goblin Chieftain out of his weird stupor.

“Thank god, I thought this was a nudist colony or something.”

“By the God King, no! We’re not!” he protested. Then he crossed his arms defensively. “But, even if we were, is there anything wrong with that?”

“...pardon?”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to display your naked body for others to see. Clothes are restricting! They hide the real you. So, even if Korukh were a nudist colony, it is only natural that we’d want to—”

“And I’m going to cut you off right there.” I waved an appendage, bouncing forward into the hut. “Let’s just drop this topic.”

The Nudist Chieftain cleared his throat. “Right.”

I gave him a side eye, unsure if he’d just been teasing me or if he was being serious. “Anyways, do you guys really not have [Appraisal] as a Skill?”

“I have heard of artifacts… items that allow one to see another’s Status, however I don’t believe I've met anyone capable of doing it on their own.”

Interesting. So, that was why nobody took me seriously until I started fighting. If they could see my Combat Power like I could see theirs, the Dark Elf soldiers might’ve even fled without attacking me.

“Although, Violet,” Gort said and tossed the mushroom he collected into a basket, “I must say, you have a lot of questions, don’t you? ”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Even a child knows more than you about how the world works. It could be explained away that it’s because you are a Slime. Yet, you seem keenly aware of other things even an adult wouldn’t. And that doesn’t even explain why you are as strong as you are as a Slime… you are quite enigmatic.”

“But I’m not!” I huffed, forming two appendages to fold across my body. “I’m as transparent as glass.”

“Hmm, yet another concept you shouldn’t be aware of.” Gort leant against his staff, about to take a seat on the ground. “Tell me then, Violet, why do you know such odd things while being completely ignorant of other basic ideas?”

“That’s simple,” I said and waved an appendage in the air. “It’s because I come from another world.”

“Ah, I see. That would explain—” And the Goblin Chieftain fell over. He lay before me, eyes bulging out of their sockets. “W-w-w-w…”

“What?!” another voice gasped.

I looked over at the doorway— at the source of the voice. Fissyah stood there, hands covering her mouth as she stared at me.

“You’re from another world?”

“I mean, yeah? I literally just said that.”

“H-how— why? What?” She gripped her head, utterly befuddled. “No… how did you get here?”

I thought about it. I tilted my head-body back, trying to come up with a response. Finally, I created two appendages and shrugged.

“I have absolutely no idea.”