“Having legs’s nice,” Apexus announced as he stretched the four thin stalks. Although he was a bit bigger, those things carried him reliably. They were surprisingly strong. If he hadn’t needed to yell at his two companions, then he would probably would have considered growing those instead.

“You wouldn’t use a contraction there,” Aclysia informed.

The slime thought for a second. “Having legs is nice?” he repeated what he thought to be the corrected version. As he was given a nod for that, he tried to remember this rule. “Language is weird. Will get better.”

“We’ll…” Reysha stopped to slurp down some thin piece of meat, the insides of the same legs Apexus now had. It was sucked into her mouth, aided by its own fatty exterior, in a continuous stream until it vanished completely. “We’ll see about that. How do I look?” The answer was obviously bloody, a unavoidably side-appearance of ripping out monster guts all the time. What she meant, though, were her eyes.

“Darker, but not black,” Apexus answered. “Somewhere in the middle. Not really getting any black anymore. Might be similar to me and growing? Can’t grow if I only eat the same stuff.”

Aclysia hummed, “Alternatively, it might be that your level is simply too high now. Noir is, as I understood it, magic poisoning that the body somehow reacts to by mutating rapidly. Well, this is just a theory, I can’t claim to know more than the fellow who wrote the book you initially got the information from.”

“Okay, lemme just mash these two theories together: the poison is too weak and I have partly immunized against it so my condition isn’t getting ‘worse’,” Reysha summarized in a bored tone, licking the remaining blood of her claws while Apexus got over and devoured the rest of the carcass she had been working on. “And since its not getting worse, my body doesn’t need to adapt further.”

“Something to that extent, yes,” Aclysia agreed.

Apexus turned his ears. “Clacking steps,” he warned, regulating his voice in volume to be as quiet as a whisper. “There is a steel man coming.” The group quickly fled into a dark niche. In this case, a side room that had not a single piece of illuminating sap inside it. Having been through this area before, the trio was aware of several such areas. This wasn’t the first group they had to avoid after all.

Reysha held her stiletto at the ready. Deadly blow or not, if they were discovered it could prove fatal whether they got the first attack or not. “Guys, I really don’t think we should be in here!” they heard a whining, barely male voice. It was high-pitched and definitely annoying.

The tip of the stiletto quivered as Reysha giggled. “That’s what you sounded like,” her words were barely more than a breathe, a Rogue spell called Aimed Whisper preventing it from bouncing back from the walls. Instead, it travelled only directly into Apexus’ ears. Despite its limited range, it was rather useful for secretive communication.

“Did you hear that?” Well, that was the theory. Since Reysha now had to discover all spells of her weight class on her lonesome, having only learned descriptions of their function to work with, flawed attempts were to be expected. “I definitely heard something.”

“Yeah, you heard something the last fifteen times as well,” a second voice grumbled, judging by the rough tone, probably the Warrior of the group. “Now, let’s move along… hm?”

“Now that’s unusual,” a third, melodic and clearly female tone spoke. “There is blood here.”

“By the darkest roots, what of that is unusual? We are – in – a – dungeon!”

“There is no corpse, you woodbrain,” the female chuckled, followed by a sound of wood, presumably a staff, dinging on metal, a helmet. It sounded pretty hollow. “Also there is blood EVERYWHERE. Just seems unusual.”

“M-m-m-maybe it’s that r-r-r-r-rare monster the Guild warned us about?!” the whiny first voice stuttered, Apexus could practically hear his kneecaps repeatedly clacking against one another.

‘That’s all the info they have?’ Apexus wondered. ‘Expected more, honestly.’

Suddenly the Warrior shouted, as if in massive pain, and the whiny one let out a high-pitched scream. There was the sound of a person falling down and hearty laughter from the two others. “Relax, will you,” the (alleged) Warrior said in a good mood. “See, no rare monster around. Even if there was, we could probably kill it. We are a pretty good group, us three.”

“Y-yeah,” despite being ridiculed the whiny one seemed relieved. Two hands met, somebody got back on their feet. “Okay… okay, I will try to be calm.”

“Some paranoia is healthy,” the woman mused. “I do wonder what happened here, but it probably won’t affect us…. Speaking of paranoia, do we want to explore that room?” There was only one room around and it was dark.

The hiding trio tensed up. “Nah,” they relaxed again. “I am not going into rooms without light in this place. One extra item isn’t worth the injuries.”

“Agreed,” the melodic female answered and soon the steps went from moving to distant. Once they almost couldn’t hear them anymore, Reysha and Apexus nodded and left their hiding place.

“Need to train that some more,” the tiger girl said, rubbing her throat. “They say base skills are easy, but you still gotta practice them a teeny weeny itty bitty bit.” Base skills were basically what made the starting classes the starting classes. What separated one class from another in practical terms was the way their spells worked. Rogue’s were all about manipulating the effectiveness of their movements, whether that more quietly sneaking or stabbing particularly effectively.

All of that utilized the same mindset and typically utilized the same techniques for mana manipulation. Rogue’s affected their joints to be more flexible and find mean tricks, Warriors strengthened their bones to be sturdier and Brawlers their muscles to pack more of a punch with their melee attacks. That was a rough generalization, but it painted a generally true picture. The spells and skills hadn’t come about because the classes existed, the classes existed because spells and skills fit into certain applications.

The base skills somebody specialized in or showed talents for pretty quickly brought them on their path. Although Reysha was a gifted individual, that didn’t mean she was just able to learn all of them immediately. If base skills were so easy that just anyone could learn them quickly, every living humanoid would at least be a starting level adventurer. Even within a class, it was highly unusual to have an individual who mastered all base skills. Most of them took the creed of ‘build tall, not wide’ to heart and dabbled only in what worked.

“Anyway, I guess we’re leaving then?” Reysha asked. “Because, as fun as this all-I-can-eat is, this tree is getting on my nerves.” She showed a very dangerous smile and began stabbing the thorn-like weapon in her hand at the wooden walls. “I would loooove to burn this whole fucking thing down.”

“Can’t burn it,” Apexus raised his voice. “I’ll eat it… though? Is that a word I can use there?”

“Yes… and why would you eat it?” Aclysia wanted to know.

“Let’s find a branch,” the slime began walking on all fours, always careful to stay away from the spiked walls. “Easier to explain there.” It didn’t take them too long, maybe two hours. It would have gone faster were it not for the adventuring groups roaming around. At least they learned what was going on currently, apparently the Guild had issued a warning about a rare monster that could roam freely and was currently hiding in this dungeon.

It wasn’t an unheard off thing, sometimes a monster was born from the dungeon without possessing the dungeon instinct. Since they were, for all intents and purposes, fully functioning animals, the monsters then vanished into the wild. As they were still rare enough to never find a mate out in the wild, such strays died out in one generation. If they weren’t culled by somebody out for the bounty. Farmers didn’t take kindly to giant lizards running around, biting their livestock. Neither did empires to drakes, burning down their citizenry. All a question of scale.

‘At least that’s what Gizmo said,’ Apexus thought as a breeze rushed over his feathers. ‘No idea what empire… an empire even is… many people, but how many?’ There was a fine summer rain that fell down around the tree. They were mostly shielded by the branches above them, only an occasional gathering of water making it down in one large drop. In the distance, Apexus saw Haralry. “Is that an empire?” for everyone else, the question must have come out of the blue.

“No, that’s just a city,” Aclysia told him.

“Isn’t a city a type of habitat and empire a type of government?” the slime wanted to know.

“Yes, but the two are intertwined,” Aclysia answered. “More people mean more elaborate systems of governance are needed. An empire is made out of many kingdoms, kingdoms are made out of many duchies, duchies are mostly one large city with many lands. Although not always.”

Apexus remembered that lecture, but the refresher helped. “Bigger animals need more complicated organs. Humanoids grow organs in their minds that keep order. Like that?”

“Largely accurate,” Aclysia nodded.

“I see. Will ponder more about that later. Seems interesting and overcrowded…” Also entirely useless for him, since he didn’t plan to engage with humanoids if he could avoid it. Their track record didn’t speak out for him being safe around them. Nevertheless, something to riddle about when he was bored. “Plan… my plan,” Apexus went for the actual topic. “Reysha can’t get out through the main entrance, right?”

“Thanksh for pointing out the obvioush, again,” Reysha rolled her eyes, peeling some remaining meat out between her teeth. Her light red claws looked like there was still blood stuck under them. “How is you eating the tree going to help.”

“Highly magical tree,” Apexus explained, “should make me much bigger. Hopefully, big enough so I can fly you down.”

“Aaaaaaah,” the tiger snapped her finger, “Gotcha. Works for me.” The alternative was trying to sneak out the front gate, probably highly guarded right now, given the circumstances. It was either taking a potentially lethal dive with a chimeric slime or getting imprisoned and having to listen to Mehily and the rest of her sanctimonious lot. The former sounded way better. “Alright then, you sexy voiced batch of something, you start eating that and I will try to munch on something else before we leave!”