(7) Waking the Wife

'Albus, let me see page 1.'

***

Geth: Level 10

Exp: 65/900

HP- 300 (Rec. 0.5/Second)

MP- 95 (Rec. 0.48/Second)

Strength- 5 (P.Damage/Stamina Recovery)

Agility- 5 (Mov.spd./Dexterity)

Defense- 25 (HP/P.Res./HP Rec.)

Wisdom- 24 (MP/M.Res./Mana Recovery)

Intelligence- 5 (MP/M.Dmg.)

TP- 1 (Talent Points)

SP- 3 (Skill Points)

AP- 0 (Attribute Points)

Note: More of each Attribute's hidden effects will be shown as Grimoire reaches a higher understanding.

***

He had a hard decision to make with his Talent Point, and he just couldn't make his mind up. He'd been contemplating over it for the last hour while running back towards his family. 'Albus, switch back to page 2, I've made up my mind.'

***

Option 1: Upgrade an existing Talent

Option 2: Thick Skin

Option 3: Recovery‐ Doubles HP and MP recovery rates. This Talent can not be upgraded.

***

'Option 3.' He thought. Taylor really wanted to get Thick Skin since Albus said it could be upgraded along with Mana Sense. However, after that near-death experience earlier, along with witnessing the amazing recovery speed, he would prefer to have that as a trump card.

Doubling his HP. Rec. meant that he could completely heal up in 6 minutes. Of course, the injuries themselves would be tender and take longer to heal perfectly, but he would be able to fight at full capacity.

He continued running and finally, his family was back in his sights. Something unexpected had occurred, however. His daughter was up and walking around!

As he was running towards them he saw her bending over and poking her mom's forehead. Taylor couldn't help but laugh.

Once he was close he stopped and called out to her. "Melodyyy!"

She excitedly jumped up and turned around. "Daddy!" She ran to him and tackled his leg while smiling. Looking up at him she pointed back and said, "Daddy, Mommy, and Kael sleep."

Then she inspected him again and looked at him all over, "Daddy, a bunch of boo-boos."

"Haha, I know baby, let's go try to wake Mommy up." He picked her up onto his shoulders and carried her back to where they were sleeping.

Looking down at Michelle sleeping there he thought, 'Albus, is there any way for me to wake her up without putting her in danger?'

:Not that I'm aware:

'Is it just pain? Or do I have to drag her 2 hours away and let the Slimes bite her?' He started laughing at the thought. Melody started laughing too, even though she didn't know why.

He put her down and waited for Albus to answer.

:It isn't necessarily the pain, it's the damage. She would have to take enough damage to lose a Health Point:

'Oh is that all? You should have led with that!'

After glancing around to make sure no one else had woken up, he quickly rolled her over. He grabbed the makeshift skirt that looked more like a burlap sack and pulled it up, exposing her toned rear.

'This wouldn't be so awkward in the bedroom.' He mused, whilst rubbing his hands together. Drawing back above his head he slammed his palm down as hard as he could.

There was a crisp smacking sound as he watched the meat jiggle, smiling. A bright red handprint quickly formed on her ass, already forming a small purple bruise in the middle.

"Damn that was clean!" He whistled and started laughing.

Taylor didn't even have time to pull her skirt back down she woke up quickly and started yelling.

"Taylor, what the fuck is wrong with you!?" She slapped at his face, but he quickly dodged, afraid that his hardened skin would break her wrist.

He picked the sleeping Kael up off the ground while quickly backing away. Seeing the sleeping boy in his arms, she quickly cooled off, and suddenly realized they weren't at home.

"Um, what the fuck is going on? Is this one of your pranks?" She asked.

"I'm afraid not babe, I'll explain, but it's gonna be wild. We should walk while we're talking." He quickly picked the direction of the Slime field and started walking leisurely. He wanted to make sure that she had time to Level up before people realized what was going on.

They would also need to get a group to clear out and camp the Slime field or the entire area would get overrun. While he'd been closer to the center of the Slime field, he'd noticed a cave entrance embedded into one of the hills in the distance. His first thought was a dungeon, even though it seemed a bit cliché.

It turned out that his thoughts were correct, Albus was aware of dungeons and said that there were many to be conquered. If they weren't regulated, creatures would overrun the territory the dungeon was in.

Of course, most creatures wouldn't have even made it to the cave entrances at this point, but Slimes reproduced at an extremely fast rate.

They reproduced by fragmentation. The moment one gained its Elemental trait, a small clear core would fall out and quickly produce a new Slime with no traits.

Michelle limped up beside him while gingerly inspecting her left cheek. "Damnit, I think this is one of the worst ones you've left in a while."

He laughed and said, "Nah, you've just gotten soft." Looking back he called for Melody to walk with them and held her hand as they proceeded forward.

Taylor took the time to explain the situation while they were walking. Around a half-hour into their walk, he stopped and looked at her. "So, what do you think?"

She took a moment to respond. "Well, I have no reason to doubt you but are you sure that the situation wasn't too stressful on you. Waking up to something eating your foot? The flying, talking book is a bit hard to believe."

He just chuckled at her, "Albus is much more than a book, babe."

"Albus... Really?" She looked exasperated.

"Hey, a genius book deserves a great name! Anyway, take this and crush it, you'll see in just a moment." He pulled out one of the Level 2 fire cores that he'd gotten earlier and hand it to her.