Creatures and Concoctions

It's another day in The Sacred Inventory, and business is booming as per usual. Gear, food and other merchandise are selling like hotcakes as word spreads about the great new shop. However, Luka and his assistants will run into an issue in the near future.

As previously mentioned, word of The Sacred Inventory has spread far and wide, even beyond Origionia City. The Inventory has recently caught the attention of larger organisations, interested in their customs.

"Alright, guys. Lunch break" Luka said to the three employees.

"Finally…. Today was a pretty hectic day, huh?" Zaine stated

"Don't get out of breath yet, kid" Luka responded, while counting the money he got from this morning. "We still got the other half of the shift to go. So rest up now before we get back to it"

"Wow," Viktor said "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you actually care about us"

"Watch your mouth or I'm docking your salary" Luka threatened while continuing to count the money

"My bad" said Viktor.

The door opened, despite the lunch break sign being clearly visible from the front. A man with blue, platted hair and a suit walked into the room. Whoever it was, it was clearly a man of some kind of status.

"Good afternoon" the man said, monotonously.

"Ugh," Luka groaned. "Unless you somehow didn't see the sign, we're clearly-"

Luka stopped saying what he was going to say when he saw the man.

"Oh never mind. I'll make time for you since you look like you have a lot of money" Luka said. While the others thought the last part was unnecessary, none of them were surprised he said such a thing.

"Well, aren't you honest?" The man said.

"Well, how could you trust a shop with a dishonest owner?" Luka's statement directly contradicted itself simply because it came out of his mouth.

"There's no way he of all people just said that sentence" the employees all thought to themselves.

"Let's skip the small talk and get straight to the point," the man said "My name is Reginald Cortia, and I'm here representing the Lixwald Company"

"Lixwald Company?!" Luka thought "They're one of the biggest potion distributors in the whole east of the kingdom! What do they want here?

"And to what do I owe the pleasure of the great Lixwald Company in my humble establishment?" Luka asked.

"He's literally the single farthest thing from 'humble'" the others thought to themselves.

"We wish to make a partnership with your company here" Reginald responded "but to prove that this arrangement will be of benefit to us, we need to give you a test of sorts. Think of it as us 'testing the waters waters' so to speak"

Luka looked at him with an oblivious smile on his face. "And what exactly are you saying?" He enquired.

"We're going to need a batch of 1000 various potions by mid-morning tomorrow. Should you succeed we will of course pay you amply for your work, as well as contract you as our suppliers" Reginald stated

"1000?!" Luka thought to himself "he expects 4 people to make all that in less than 24 hours?! Give me a break!"

"Heh. Who do you think I am?" Luka questioned the representative. "A mere 1000? Utter child's play! You'll get your potions by the beginning of business tomorrow!" Luka said before laughing egotistically.

"Judging from your confidence, I'm sure our interests in The Sacred Inventory are well placed. With that, I will be taking my leave and reporting this matter to my superiors. Best of luck, you four" Reginald said politely before taking his leave.

Luka's smile quickly fades the moment the door closes. "We're fuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked!" he shouted.

"So your confidence was all for show, huh?" Rebecca questioned.

"Alright. Enough questioning me. We don't have a moment to lose." Luka replied, blatantly ignoring the question. "I'll take care of business here, you guys, take this list, and go out to find the raw materials in the wild"

Viktor's face brightened. "Does that mean we can actually fight monsters and stuff?" He asked in anticipation.

"Sure. Whatever. Just do what you have to do and don't take your sweet time with it either" Luka responded, "anyway bye bye!"

"Huh?" They all said in confusion.

"Spatial magic: teleport" Luka chanted, sending the three adventurers to the fields outside the city.

"Ugh. He really could've gone with giving us a warning first" Zaine said, nauseous as a result of the sudden teleportation.

"It's all good. We have a job to do, let's go find these materials!" Viktor commanded. And with that, the three traversed the area hunting monsters and collecting the raw materials.

After two hours, almost all the materials were collected. Eyes of a werespider, roots from a Weedwyvern, Ostriq claws, Orstriq feathers, Sliferg venom, and Chikaku scales. All was there except for one thing. The slime from an Amalga Gela.

An Amalga Gela is a strong poss monster, formed from the mass union of countless regular slime monsters. While the slimes are weak and practically harmless alone, their power increases drastically as their magic power comes together and multiplies upon itself.

"An Amalga Gela, huh?" Rebecca said. "Shouldn't be too hard depending on the size of it. They should spawn around here, right?"

"Yes…" muttered Zaine "I doubt my mapping is incorrect"

A loud thud echoes across the area. The three are confused as to what it could be until it stands right in front of them: An enlarged Amalga Gela!

"B-b-but that's impossible!" Zaine cried. "This is even bigger than the largest Amalga in recorded history! How is it this big?"

"So we just take it down and become legends!" Viktor proclaimed. "Everyone, aim your attacks at the cluster core!"

While Amalga Gela can regenerate indefinitely and is impermeable to physical attacks, it, like all things, has a weakness. Slimes have things called cores, the source of its magic and vital force. If it is destroyed or highly damaged, the slime dies. As an Amalga Gela, the slime cores coalesce into a single core, known as a cluster core. Much like a regular slime, should this be damaged enough, the Amalga Gela will fall. This was the trio's strategy.

Zaine began to chant, readying a powerful ice magic spell.

"Wolf's fang. Argent glow. Blossom. Azure Light. Dove's white feather."

"Ice Magic: White Moonrise!"

The ice magic was able to freeze the bottom half of the Amalga while the other two readied their attacks.

Rebecca readies an attack to provide an opening for Viktor to attack the core.

"Explosion magic: Chain Bomb!" Emilia chanted, causing a wave of repeating explosions. This was enough firepower to expose the core of the Amalga Gela.

"Now!" Zaine and Rebecca cried as Viktor leapt towards the core.

"Cliff and mountain. Sword pierce. Eruption. Twin meteors." Viktor chanted. Preparing to attack.

"Greater Physical Enhancement Magic: Hammer of Judgement!" Viktor bellowed as he swung his greatsword at the core. But that's when everything took a turn for the worse. While Viktor landed a strong blow, it didn't damage the cluster core enough to defeat the Amalga, and the window of opportunity they scrambled to get, was now closed as the Amalga Gela began to regenerate its body, about to trap Viktor within it!

"Wind Magic: Songbird's Melody!" Zaine shouted! This spell provided a wind to help Viktor evade, before being engulfed by slime.

"Thanks for the save, Zaine!" Viktor said, gratefully.

"No problem…" Zaine replied. "But our plan went bust now… what do we do?"

"We've already damaged it a bit, so if we try again a couple more times, we could win!" Rebecca explained.

"It's worth a shot" Viktor said.

Zaine used fire magic to fight the slime while the other two decided to flank it. But the Amalga saw it coming. It tricked them with a false blind spot before attacking them with water magic. Then smacking Zaine into a tree. However, this was exactly what they wanted. While it was focused on finishing Zaine, Rebecca used explosion magic to get to the core and pierce it with her sword and after Viktor did the same, the core was broken. But the problem wasn't finished. They all watched in horror as the core reformed itself preparing to bring the Amalga Gela back. Viktor jumped in to destroy it again before the slime reformed but to no avail.

"What?!" He gasped. "It reinforced its core?! What's going on here?!"

The cote turned from green to dark purple as a red and larger version of the previously blue Amalga Gela formed.

"What's happening?!" Rebecca shouted in confusion.

"Oh no. This is bad!" Zaine cried. "It's corrupted!"

Corruption is a phenomenon caused by exposure to forbidden magic. Monsters with allegiance to the demon nation and the demon king usually become corrupt, but lower-class monsters that come into contact with a corrupt thing or person can become corrupt as well. Corruption increases one's physical attributes as well as their magical abilities, making them a cut above the average members of their kind.

Viktor scoffed. "No wonder it was so big and powerful. Change of plans, we fall back and Strat-"

His words were interrupted by the monster attacking him and sending him flying, thankfully he had the strength necessary to endure it, but the other two didn't and lost a chunk of their HP after being pounded into the ground.

"Guys!" Viktor cried out.

Viktor shouted in rage as he fell towards Amalga ready to finish it with his physical enhancement magic.

"This physical enhancement is so strong, my body suffers backlash from it. But if I let this thing go, who knows who else could get hurt? And besides that, we need that slime. So I'll hit it with all I've got!" Viktor shouted, preparing his secret weapon. "Ultimate physical enhancement magic: -"

He then sees the Amalga charging fire magic at him.

"Fire magic? I thought it could only use water! No matter, I have to fight!" He said. But as he said that, he was caught in mid-air by none other than Luka.

"Huh, a more powerful form of an Amalga Gela? I see…. So it's an Agumon and Greymon situation? Actually, since it's corrupted, I guess it would be more like a SkullGreymon type of deal…." Luka inferred.

"Luka?" Viktor said in confusion. "What're you doing here? I thought you were looking after the shop."

"You guys were taking your time getting back, so I thought something was amiss…"

Viktor was surprised and even touched. "So… you were concerned for ou-"

He was interrupted by Luka, saying "Like you guys slacking off or something"

Viktor's face dropped, despite not being surprised.

"But~" Luka added. You weren't, and you guys were even holding your own against a corrupted Amalga Gela, which is pretty powerful, especially for C+ rank adventurers like you guys".

"Was that a compliment?" Viktor queried.

"For free? Hah! Not on your life" Luka chuckled.

The slime launched its fire magic attack right at the pair.

"Riffraff" scoffed Luka. "Simple magic: barrier"

The simple barrier was enough to block the attack, much to Viktor's surprise.

As Luka and Viktor landed, he healed the other two.

Luka scoffed. "Your lucky employees get healed for free…. Anywho, let's get down to business"

"Weapon creation magic: basic sword." As Luka said that, a plain, unremarkable sword formed itself in his hand, which he pointed in the air, ready to slice the slime down.

"I'll give you a taster, even though I don't usually give those out for free" Luka joked to the slime, who clearly couldn't care less, much to Luka's offence. "Oh, so you're ignoring me now? Wow~ how mature~. Just for that…. Simple Magic: Slash!"

He sent a slash flying to the slime which cut its massive arm off, greatly damaging the sword in the process due to the high amount of magic used.

"He broke the sword just by using it?" Rebecca said, dumbfounded.

"Aww~" Luka groaned "I was hoping for it to be like a Getsuga Tensho, but I guess that attack was more of a 36-pound Phoenix cannon" Luka said, as if it held any real relevance to the matter at hand.

Luka then threw the broken sword directly at the core, being careful not to completely destroy it. This force was enough to beat the slime.

"Lovely!" He said, running to the goods. "This slime is so pure, definitely good for potions, and since it came from a corrupted, it seems to have a high affinity to magic. We struck liquid gold with this! Is slime even a liquid? So I guess gelatinous gold? Whatever. The core can fetch a high price too, but it's also good for enchanting! I can take our gear game to the next level and-" Luka did his typical yapping about money while the others were left confused. After he was done talking to himself, they all went back to the inventory and got to work on the potions, managing to get the job done before the start of affairs the next day.

"Wow," Reginald said in his typically monotone voice. "These potions are perfect. They're better than we expected, and our expectations are high. Luka, it would be our pleasure to contract your establishment".

And after that, everyone was happy, especially Luka and his wallet. But with this new partnership with a major company, who else will be seeking the customs of The Sacred inventory?