6 Chapter 6: A Dark Mist
Katsumi groaned as a barrage of needles struck the "shield" on his arm. It had been a week since he captured Purple, and he was currently fighting a Needle Hare deeper in the forest.
At first, Katsumi had tried to capture other monsters, but they all quickly died since they sustained wounds, which would eventually impair them from fighting. However, they had made great meals, and feeding some to Purple increased its mass. As Katsumi progressed deeper into the forest, he began making more magic circles along the way . It had become much quicker after he realized he could use Purple to help him carve grooves into the surface by hardening at the right places.
After continuously feeding Purple until its mass passed 20kg, a second slime core had gradually been formed. This allowed Purple to split up to form two smaller slimes and also rejoin at will. Katsumi came to the conclusion that this was actually an attempt at slime reproduction that was impeded by [Monster Control]. Nevertheless, it gave him two subunits to work with which was incredibly useful. For example, one subunit was attacking the Needle Hare, while the other unit had its core nestled away on Katsumi's back, while the slime mass coiled around Katsumi's arms, allowing him to harden his forearms into "shields" to block the needle-shooting attacks of the hare. By the way, through continuous improvement, Purple's stats had increased to these levels:
Viscosity: 8
Speed: 10
Digestion Speed: 6
Glow: 1
Stickiness: 12
Hardening: 31
Range: 7
Because of the improved Range, the slime material could now stretch for a meter and a half away from the slime cores.
Katsumi gritted his teeth and charged the Needle Hare. The Needle Hare jumped back to try and keep its distance while continuously shooting needles from its ankles, but Katsumi kept charging.
The Needle Hare could no longer retreat as the other slime subunit was behind it. With a yell, Katsumi thrust his arms forward and engulfed the hare with slime.
The hare tried to struggle, but it was futile. After a minute of violent thrashing, it finally stopped moving. Katsumi was about to remove the hare from the slime when he noticed something in the edge of the clearing.
It was a black mist.
Katsumi already had some suspicions as to what monster it was, but he couldn't believe that he would find one here. They were supposed to be extremely rare and only found in areas deep away from human civilization!
A Wraith. A mist-like monster that would slowly erode all solid matter it came into contact with. It targeted all sorts of biological matter, especially humans and animals. The only way to counter it was by using magic or concentrated light. At present, it was the type of monster Katsumi was the least well equipped to deal with.
It had noticed Katsumi. A tendril of vapor shot out towards him. Katsumi dodged.
The tendril shaved the slime wrapped on Katsumi's left arm. The mist had eroded a significant amount of slime material.
That was close… If that had hit me…
Katsumi ran. He had no way of defeating it. However, the Wraith wasn't done yet. After all, it was faster since it was basically a cloud of gas. Katsumi kept dodging, but it was getting closer and closer to hitting him in the flesh, and the amount of slime material he had on him was decreasing slowly yet steadily.
His only hope was the magic circle, just a hundred meters away.
After much running, Katsumi arrived. The wraith entered the magic circle, and Katsumi poured his stamina into the circle.
Nothing happened.
What? It should have been captured by that! How?!
With his last resort gone, Katsumi was faced with a stark reality. He was severely outclassed. He was once more faced with the reality that he was weak. He watched as another chunk of slime was shaved off. He didn't have enough power to bring down the wraith.
Dammit, not again...
Then it struck him. The Wraith had to have a weakness. What was it? It wasn't all-powerful. Magic and concentrated light was out of the question, and his slimes were getting shaved down to the core...
That's it! A wraith isn't just a cloud! It probably has a core!
A tendril of slime material coiled up to Katsumi's face and covered his right eye. Purple's heat vision overlapped his.
There it was. The Wraith's core, a white blur. Katsumi needed to drag it down to the magic circle. Maybe it was a matter of distance.
The wraith erodes matter, so as long as i shoot a massive amount of mass into it, it can't erode it all in time!
The other slime unit had finally caught up. It leapt onto Katsumi back and joined with the rest, before coiling up around his right arm. One of the cores moved up to the back of his palm to increase his range.
It's all or nothing!
Katsumi thrust his right arm forward. A giant clump of slime material entered the Wraith's mist and engulfed its core. Immediately, the surface of the slime material began to be eroded by the Wraith. Through Purple, Katsumi could feel the wraith core jerking to and fro, trying to escape.
But it was already too late for the Wraith.
"You're mine!"
Katsumi moved his arm down as hard as he could. The large slime chunk had rapidly decreased in size, but it had done its job. The Wraith's core touched the ground. On cue, Katsumi poured his stamina into the circle with his left arm.
His only ability [Monster Control], showed its power.
As the violet light slowly faded from the circle, the Wraith's mist stopped eating into Purple's mass, and the core stopped struggling.
Katsumi released the core, and willed it to float in front of him. It did exactly as it was commanded. He couldn't believe his luck. He had caught an extremely powerful monster, one that was regarded as a threat to even trained warriors. There had never been any record of a Wraith being caught before as far as he could tell. This would be a massive boost to his power.
Hesitantly, he stretched his left hand out and grabbed the Wraith core.
---
Type: Wraith
Current Volume (Mist): 2.35m3
Aspects:
Volume-per-Mass: 80
Absorption: 3
Core Movement Speed: 12
Range: 5
---
Volume-per-Mass? That aspect sounded weird to Katsumi. Why wasn't it just Volume? This implied that the volume of the Wraith was dependent on some kind of mass, but it didn't appear to be the core's mass…
Then it dawned on him. Experimentally, Katsumi willed the Wraith to release the slime matter it had absorbed.
As expected, a massive glob of slime mass dropped from the Wraith and landed with a splat before Katsumi's feet.
Current Volume (Mist): 2.35m3 → 2.27m3
As Katsumi willed Purple to reabsorb the lost mass, Katsumi smiled. The Wraith was far more powerful than he imagined it to be.
The Wraith didn't erode matter. It absorbed matter, then used it to generate a larger volume of mist.
"I suppose I'll name you Pocket, since you're basically a pocket dimension."
Experimentally, Katsumi picked up a stick and tossed it at Pocket, before willing Pocket to release the stick. A shower of wood dust fell onto the ground. Katsumi repeated the process, but this time he had a mental image of the stick when he released the stick. This time, it came out complete.
This was the power Katsumi needed. With this, he was no longer weak.
Katsumi licked his lips and turned to look deeper in the forest. Further away from the capital. He knew the ideal way to celebrate.
