Getting stronger with slimes

“You sure this gonna work?” Hamon eyed the corpses strewn below the cliff.

They had hunted for many long speared fish, roasted them, and threw around some seasoning, as Theo called the horned rabbit blood. “Not sure, but we can always try again.” From the nearby swamp, a green mass of slimes started crawling out of the water. “Concentrate, they’re coming.”

“Isn’t it stupid to fight slimes with rocks?” Hamon eyed the huge rocks they had been preparing to throw down the cliff.

“It ain’t stupid if it works. You just need a big enough rock or many huge ones in our case.” Theo smiled and waited for the mass of slimes to reach the fishes. “Now, go!”

They started pushing the big one in the back, both empowered by Hamon’s blessing ‘Enhanced strength’, which Theo made a ritual for. As the biggest rock started moving, the small ones followed suit. The mass of slimes was careless, slowly digesting the feast presented to them. It was a common misconception on the abyss that slimes had no preference for food just because they ate everything in sight. He had Erudim to thank for this piece of trivia.

“Now we run.” Theo got back and pulled Hamon with him as the mass of rocks descended. The brittle and dry cliff near the swamps started yielding under the impact of many rocks resulting in a rock avalanche.

After the danger had subsided, Theo went to watch the aftermath. “As I thought.” He shook Hamon. “A success Hamon, success! Come, let’s go while it’s safe.”

They got down, and Theo soon started to frown. “It will be such a hassle collecting those crystals below all that rubble.”

“Shut up, man, don’t be like that.” Hamon patted his shoulder and rubbed his fingers as if greedy for money. “Experience, experience. That’s what matters.” Hamon collected the experience with a happy grin on his face. “Three per slime, man, can you believe it? They are such weaklings and give more than an orc.”

“They are not weaklings, you can’t hurt them unless you hit their core parts,” Theo absorbed another slime’s life force, “and you usually can’t hit their core parts because otherwise, they would consume you.” Theo shook his head. “The only solution would be coagulating them, huge explosions, magic, or what we just did.”

“Bla Bla Bla, stop defending the weaklings.” Hamon kept collecting experience. “Why the monsters before were giving almost nothing, and those slimes give so much?”

“I already told you that.” Theo shook his head as he scurried with his mana in search of slime crystals. “If you win a fight against a monster as strong as you, you get one experience point. A weaker monster would give less, and a stronger one would give more.”

“So these monsters were three times as strong as us?” Hamon raised one eyebrow.

“As me? Don’t joke, Hamon, I’m incredible.” Theo showed off in a joking tone. “But, yes. In a broad sense, it would need three people at level one to face a single slime.”

Hamon harrumphed. “Bullshit.”

“Maybe next time I will let you fight those things one on one.” Theo laughed. “I think you are underestimating here how useful those fishes were and the disadvantage such monster type puts people into.”

“If those slimes are oh so strong and experience works like that, why don’t we go hunt a bunch of weakling monsters?” Hamon said.

“Didn’t you notice that weaker stuff gives out almost nothing?” Theo smiled. “From what I’ve seen, instead of killing one hundred monsters, if it is even a level weaker than us, we would have to hunt a thousand.”

“What the...” Hamon widened his eyes. “Why? Just to screw with us?”

“You are finally getting the spirit.” Theo laughed.

“Bullshit...” Hamon started grumbling once again. “I think I finished this side, just got level two.” He pouted.

“Me too, now just help me move those boulders around to get the crystals. I will point you where” Theo got to work.

“Theo, I’ve been thinking.” Hamon threw a boulder out of the way. “You said there were things like mana before in the forest. Don’t I need it to use my blessings? I don’t even know how to activate my blessings like you do yours.” He threw his hands in the air. “Shit, I don’t even know what some of them mean, like ‘manifold life’, there’s no explanation at all. Such bullshit, maybe I should invest a bit in mind.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” Theo pondered how to answer. “First of all, I think all your blessings are more like passive ones. Don’t worry about activating it.” Theo grinned as he collected another crystal and shoved it on his backpack. “Secondly, different blessings attune to different attributes. Mine gets stronger with mind, yours with physique. You are on the right path. It will be useless for you to worry about your blessings and attributes.” Theo grinned. “Your focus should be on not getting you ass kicked, we will begin our training sessions soon.”

Hamon gulped as he quickly changed topics. He didn’t like getting his ass kicked. “No things like a mana bar?”

“No? Maybe? If you consider passing out and entering into a coma from overuse of divine powers a mana bar…” Theo smiled as he eyed the crystals filling up the backpack. “When you get an active blessing, you will know the feeling. It happens even if it relies on physique. You start losing your senses, a weird thing.” Theo left unsaid that although losing all your senses was quite disturbing, the worse came after you forced your blessings even more in that state and lost connection with the outside world. It was just like being stabbed, from inside, with thousands of tiny knives. In the end, the dreaded cold crept on your soul leading to death in some cases. If you survived all that, your senses would still be crippled for a while, depending on your blessing overuse.

They had already gotten most crystals, and Theo had been judging the situation increasingly dangerous. “Enough Hamon, pack it up. Let’s run away before something more dangerous comes from the swamp to investigate. We can’t fight here fairly just yet.” Theo started climbing the cliff back. He estimated by the monster’s strength in the area how long it would take for them to think it’s safe enough to come over. From there, he cut the time in half just to be sure.

Hamon looked down from above during the climb, seeing the rock massacre they created. “Hitting level 10 will be easy. Will we kill all monsters like that? That’s so unfair for them.”

“I never fight fair if possible. I told you.” Theo laughed. Ever since he told Hamon about the level limit for this depth, Hamon has been pestering him, saying that he needed to reach the cap, because that’s where the real content began.