The slime eludes detection once again.

In the remaining time of searching we are able to level up our new snake companion 3 times, and using my lecture skill she is able to learn constrict.

Skill Constrict LV1 Able to bind foes more easily to inhibit their movements and breathing, -5% all stats to bound opponents

Constrict and swallow have a good synergy, especially when combined with my legendary victory title. It does make me wonder what happens if you get 100% stat loss though, couldn't a swarm of low ranked foes easaily cause a 100% debuff to an opponent? This requires some testing.

After waking up the next day I check the menus of all our class descriptions

Monster sensei You impart guidance and wisdom to your monsters, you have proven yourself worthy of the respect of your monsters, only time will tell the true consiquences of your teachings Small snake A small snake with nothing special about it, the weakest class of snake out there that will be lucky if it survives to the next day Mouse archmage A mouse mage who has truly honed their craft, most mice mages master one field of basic magic but you have not only learned all of them but even learned their higher forms. You are on the path to harness the true potential of magic, even if patience is required Hippopotamus protector Instead of protecting only yourself you have learned the value of defending others, you will be a wall that few can break through as long as you are supported by your allies

These descriptions do like their grandiose wording, if only the menu would always be so forthcoming with the information we need.

I have been rushing the evolutions lately, even though only class skills can be levelled ratina only unlocked her class by first learning magic which was not in her class skills.

I tell Ratina to gather some lumber, rocks, berries, acorns, tree bark, and fibers while I use lecture and the magic connection to try and teach Nasby magic. I tell Ratina how to seperate the fibers from plants.

"I don't want to learn magic, its too complicated and hurts my head to think about" (Nasby)

"It hardly took a few minutes for me to figure out magic when I first got here, surely it isn't that hard" (Auxentius)

7 hours later

"Nothing, 7 hours of pointers and shared senses, how can you not even grasp mana perception when you can literally feel what it feels like from me via the link?!" (Auxentius)

"I did manage to learn the analyze skill though" (Nasby)

"And even that you only learned 6 hours in! It might be impossible for certain races to learn magic, but I doubt that that is the case... I suppose you get out of more magic lessons for now" (Auxentius)

Ratina had arrived back 4 hours in and I had her use magic while focusing on the link with our snake.

The snake didn't learn anything, but Ratina managed to level up her archmagic skill and her wind wall skill once each.

I go to sleep again while cuddled up with Ratina and having the snake coiled up on my head. I really shoud come up with a name for her.

The next day I have Ratina hand me and Nasby some of the acorns and berries, I use soil manipulation to drag up some of the feces that were and the bottom of the outhouse a few meters away from the base.

I use lecture on Ratina and Nasby while planting some plants with my baby hands while using soil manipulation to move, open holes, and bury them.

After a short while Ratina learns the farming skill, followed by Nasby, and I learn it last scince I dont have the lecture buff.

Ratina and Nasby learn a skill without levels, but mine is listed under race skills.

Apparently humans do have race skills, but why is farming a race skill? Anyone can learn it and it is normally a regular skill, so why is it all of a sudden a race skill when humans do it.

Skill Farming Plants you raise are more likely to grow Race skill Farming LV1 When you plant something with the intent to grow it, it will have +1 stamina, luck, and willpower

Plants have stats too, I figured they would based on the trap flower that eats things but its nice to confirm, now that I think about it I can probably tame them to.

I tame one of the acorns I planted and check its menu

Name N/A Race Tree Age 0 LV N/A Class acorn Rank 0.05 HP 4/4 MP 0/0 Strength 0 Intelligence 0 Dexterity 0 Willpower 1 Stamina 1 Wisdom 0 Luck 23 Charisma 0 Skills Titles Planted by Auxentius: +1 stamina, luck, and willpower Owned by Auxentius Race skills

The rank is a decimal, I didn't even think decimal ranks were possible. I tried to get more info from ranks before and nothing happened, but when I focus on the acorn rank, more detailed information appears. I quickly try to do the same with myself and my other monsters, but it doesn't work for them.

Rank 0.05 This class represents a staged growth, the rank will rise as the life form develops until it grows into its mature form, a decimal rank is lower than rank 0 and will often become rank 0 after reaching maturity. Decimal ranked life forms will not level up and will instead develope more quickly when recieving experience

That was actually very informative, it doesn't really help much to know, but it explains the level being N/A and the lack of any skills.

I don't know why a decimal is less than zero instead of just being negative, but maybe negative ranks already represent something else.

Or maybe there isn't a reason at all and this system is either poorly designed or designed to infuriate anyone who takes it seriously.

I untame the acorn and tame some berries and fully grown trees in the surroundings before untaming them as well, but nothing noteworthy is discovered.

Next I begin some crafting lessons using the wood, rocks, and fibers.

I need to use throw rock to control an improvised rock nife to cut the lumber into poles, I have Ratina and Nasby take turns using the rare quality beast blade in case using an actual knife is needed to get a skill.

None of us get any skills for processing the wood, I take the blade and usie soil manipulation to hold up a log as I very slowly whittle it into a pole, but still don't get a skill.

I head off to sleep again as between farming and whittling we have spent 8 hours up, and I still can't stay up longer than that. Ratina and Nasby hunt for a bit, but still stay close to base as they are relatively low level after their evolutions.

By the next day Ratina and Nasby levelled up twice while our snake levelled up 4 times. I have us make rope out of the plant fibers, and then tie a rock to attach to the poles to make some basic spears.

We each get the tool crafting and weapon crafting skills, and more spears than I know what to do with.

Skill Tool crafting Tools made by you are slightly more durable Skill Weapon crafting Weapons you make are slightly more durable and deal slightly more damage Low quality spear A spear made from poor materials with poor worksmanship, +3 attack when wielded

Nasby still can't hold a spear well, using the knife to simply whittle was quite difficult for her, and Ratina doesn't really need a melee weapon, but it won't hurt for her to have one.

I also try to figure out how to make a snare out of rope, I happened to know how to make rope from natural materials due to a certain organization of my previous life, but I only know basic knots for them, not full blown traps like snares.

I figure it out after another sleep cycle, but don't get any skills like trapmaking that I was hoping for.

I had Ratina trying to make a magic staff while I was working on the snare, but nothing worked on her end. Nasby just sat back and took a break because all of this had been mentally exhausting our muscle brained companion for quite a while.

I would try to learn a blacksmithing skill if we had iron, or bow-making if we had string, but I don't know how to recognize iron even if I was sitting on it in our cave and I haven't found any giant spiders for string.

"Ratina I just had a new idea for staff making!" (Auxentius)

"What is it?" (Ratina)

"Use your blood" (Auxentius)

"....." (Ratina)

"Don't look at me like that, I don't want you to use all of it, just a small amount" (Auxentius)

"And why on earth would it help in the first place" (Ratina)

"Your a mouse archmage, you might have magic blood or something that will channel magic better, it will only hurt a little to try" (Auxentius)

And try we do, we make 10 staffs with differing amounts of Ratina's blood, one of them I hollowed out to have the blood stored and dried inside, but none of them turn into a special weapon or a magic staff.

I then use soil mainipulation to make a huge hole in our base for trying to get a construction based skill.

Using the rope and lumber, I have Nasby and Ratina do most of the work while I use soil manipulation to assist building a simple log cabin, which we then dissassemble and reassemble 3 times before Ratina and Nasby get the skill. It takes 2 sleep cycles and 5 more attempts for me to get it.

Skill Building Buildings you make are less likely to collapse from lack of maintenance

That should enough skill learning for a while, most of this is fairly useless but hopefully it adds interesting evolutionary options.

I decide to name our snake Pythana and will focus lecture on her the next time we hunt as she is close to evolving, but she has very few skills and the ones she have are low levelled, I probably won't evolve her even after she reaches level 10 because her lack of skills will likely prevent any good options from showing up.

When I am about to take the group slime hunting again I realize something.

"I am an idiot" (Auxentius)

"HA you only found that out now stupid master, of course you are an idiot, I already know why.... but why don't you explain it so that Pythana can understand" (Nasby)

"The slimes we are looking for are scavenger slimes, scavengers get food from corpses, we have a storage FULL of corpses and the only predator we have to worry about attracting is Steven, who we can avoid having him find us by leaving the corpse a small distance from our base while monitering with magic sense, we pick off scavengers other than slimes with magic while being ready to ambush anything strong we attract other than Steven" (Auxentius)

"How are you an idiot for being able to plan all that out?" (Ratina)

"I'm an idiot for not considering it sooner, isn't it super obvious?" (Auxentius)

"I lost track of the plan when you mentioned magic" (Nasby)

".... Just get some corpses out of storage to use as bait and wait in the cave until I give further orders" (Auxentius)

We set up the bait and wait.

And wait.

And snipe a few big bugs with magic.

And wait.

And then TIDAL WAVE of ants begin coming out from one side of our senses, most are barely noticable in strength but there are a few stronger ones in the swarm that are a bit stronger than the giant bugs we killed earlier.

I had some reservations about leaving a pile of 10 corpses in the open spreading their scent everywhere, good thing they were unfounded and resulted in so much free xp.

We slaughter the swarm easily between Ratina's magic, and well mostly with just Ratinas magic they burned really well.

This did however cause a big enough smoke cloud that I temporarily abort mission, and a good thing I did cause Steven shows up again a few moments later with bloodshot eyes.

He didn't look nearly this mad last time I saw him, I guess having your territory contested twice in a short time span injured his pride or something stupid like that.

This does mean that I will need to move my base of operations though, so I bury most of the supplies we don't need like the spears and begin tunneling away from the surface where Steven is searching about.

The previous extermination gave me a single level, Ratina 4 levels, Nasby 2 levels, and Pythana 7 levels, Fire ball levelled up twice, fire manipulation once, arch magic once, taunt once, telepathy once, awaken hidden potential once, and trample once.

We manage to get away, but I notice that Steven has been smelling the ground near where we collapsed our base.

And then he lifts out a crater using what I presume is a higher level soil manipulation based off the sheer scale of earth he lifts, and begins to sort through the things I buried.

We were luckily out of range, but that was way too close for comfort, he also found all the tools and corpses we had buried, and if he can put 2 and 2 together he probably now realises there is a human in his territory.

I know nothing about the geopolitics of this world, but I assume humans and monsters don't get along well, especially if one seems to be invading the other's territory.

We are burying the tunnel behind us as we go, so hopefully he doesn't know where we are headed, but I think it is about time I escaped the territory of the flying flaming deer of death known as Steven.

So I take a nap while ratina sets off far away from our old base, while remaining under ground in case of Steven.

By the time I wake up Ratina had apparently already discovered the ocean, we continued to circle around like she did while I was unconcious, and using analyze to track our path we reach a bad conclusion after a week.

We are on an island.

There is no way to know how far away the nearest landmass is, and we already (probavly) have the animosity of the local ruler.

Why can't anything go according to plans without complications arising?

"Didn't your plan to subjugate me go flawlessly? (Ratina and Nasby at the same time)

"Fair point but just let me sulk a little, we have barely done anything the past week except feed pythana the occasional kill for food and skill levelling, and the tunneling has gotten sooooo monotonous these past days" (Auxentius)

Ratina levelled up soil manipulation to the maximum level, mana perception to level 6, increased mana recovery rate to 5, and magic sense to level 8, and hide to LV6 while tunneling. Pythana learned slither coil position, and an unlevelable hide skill, and levelled up slither to 5, coil position to 2, bite to 3, constrict to 2 and swallow to 3.

Pythana levelled up once, but no one else levelled up in the past week.

Name Pythana Race Garden snake, female Age 1 LV 14 Class Small snake Rank 0 HP 48/48 MP 27/27 (+0.22/sec) Strength 33 Intelligence 26 Dexterity 51 Willpower 20 Stamina 23 Wisdom 22 Luck 30 Charisma 18 Skills Bite LV3: bites deal 6% more damage Constrict LV2: Able to bind foes more easily to inhibit their movements and breathing, -7% all stats to bound opponents Hide Slither LV5: spend MP to move more quickly proportional to MP spent Coil position LV2: while coiled, reaction speed and movement speed increase Titles Owned by Auxentius Race skills Swallow LV3: Can swallow creatures and objects 75% larger than the user, when an opponent is being swallowed the user can spend 15MP/sec to make them lose 20% of all their stats for the duration of the skill Evolutions available Corn snake Gekko Greater worm Moray eel Brown sneaky snake

I am holding off on evolving Pythana until I find some weak enough poison for Pythana to safely injest to hopefully get some poisonous evolutions, the only somewhat interesting current option is the sneaky snake which I assume was gotten due to the hide skill.

We set up our new base of operations and take a day off to just rest after so much tunneling, Pythana seems to still be energetic but the rest of us are more then happy to lie down and rest while she circles around the room.