A Set of Spells

Alaric escorted Gunnar back home, and move the limbless corpses back to the cold storage. Their brain and torso would still be suitable nourishment for the slimes later.

Now, Alaric only needed to adapt his plans to the existence of the change slime, Pamela, and the giant slime, Gunnar. Along with Sonic, they would be his three fiercest fighters.

Alaric had personally tested Pamela's acidity, and the change wasn't much. She could eat at nearly the exact same rate as any rank-1 slime. Gunnar, however, experienced an extreme change in acidity. He could dissolve any object almost 3x as fast a rank-1 slime, but it still didn't compare to Sonic.

'Now that I have Pamela on me at all times, I can send Sonic out on more missions. His mobility is useful to the max!'

Alaric had 6 days until the arrival of the merchant caravan, which would carry slaves. By then, he had to earn 1,000 silver coins!

'The Ryder family has definitely collected such a sum over the years, they haven't been seen splurging ever since they invested in their personal housing.'

As of right now, Alaric was making his way towards the center of the village. He planned to meditate for as long as possible.

"Pamela, transform into a circle, with me in the middle. If an unknown or an enemy comes near, use your stickiness to wrap around and restrain them."

Pamela quickly transformed as Alaric said, and a slimy, blue circle now surrounded Alaric on top of the village chief's megaphone platform.

'I'll definitely teach Pamela some specific change commands... using one word to create a net and all that. Only downside is that, although her core shrinks when she shrinks, some transformations expose it. Right now, her core is flowing around her circle-body, but if she became something smaller, like a fork... it protrudes out of her body. At least having her core out while she is a ring looks good on me...'

In fact, her eyes followed the same logic, just that a slime could regrow their eyes as long as the core was intact, so it didn't matter.

Alaric began meditating, gathering mana from the air and bringing it into his body. With the increased rate of absorption and longer absorption time, thanks to the awakening process strengthening his mind, it would still take a long time to become rank-2.

At rank-2, not only would one's talent become a bit more unrestrained, but one's 5 senses and physical fitness became absolutely superhuman. Jumping 5 meters high, punching a hole through a brick wall, even dodging bullets became possible. Still, this made the breakthrough process much more difficult and much longer. It is a transition from human to superhuman.

3 hours later, Alaric finally realized his mind couldn't keep going.

"I've experienced a large mana gain... similar to using a single soul shard at rank-1. I'll let my body adapt naturally, I have the time after all."

Alaric also realized something important after completing this session of meditation. He needed more soul shards. The mana in the air simply wasn't enough to sustain efficient meditation, it was fine until rank-2, but what about after that?

Soul shards were now on his list of needs, and he needed a lot.

"Pamela, transform back into a ring."

Pamela stretched to hang onto Alaric's finger and transformed into a ring of suitable size, her sky-blue core protruding from the top of her body.

For the more intelligent rank-2 slimes, Alaric didn't even need to waste mana to order them around. His position as an authoritative figure had long since been established. Alaric noticed this when interacting with the slip slime, Sonic. It respected him despite him not using his talent.

'Maybe my talent is both passive and active at the same time?' Alaric speculated.

The exploration of one's talent is normal, especially so when there weren't any other cases of it in history. The "Cast Fireball" combat talent was commonly seen in history, anyone who awakened it would have plenty of reference material. "Authority Among Slimes," however, had no other cases that Alaric knew of.

"We'll be practicing specific transformations soon, okay? I need more options in combat, and your ability perfectly facilitates that."

Alaric refused to feel the weakness he felt when confronted with a storm wolf before, he wanted much more options for any situation he may encounter.

With Pamela involved, Alaric finally felt that his plans going forward would progress smoothly. Bringing people into the village to manage things for him, and evolving the slimes were a means to an end.

Gunnar was a good thing too, Alaric planned to use Gunnar and any other giant slimes that may come into being to dig sewage systems and basements more quickly. This would help bring modern hygiene into this world more quickly.

'I actually haven't used a toilet in 18 years... I hear nobles have them, just that servants have to clean up.'

Alaric had already walked back to his parents' house, grabbed a piece of bread, and began eating. He would occasionally do this while planning out the raid, sitting in a familiar environment helped.

"Pamela... do you think you could transform into a film that covers my body?"

Pamela immediately began stretching out of its ring form, and became a sticky film surrounding Alaric's arm. Soon, the film stretched beyond his shoulders and onto his other arm, covering his chest and both arms.

Pamela stretched out a few words from the film, saying, "Limited."

"So you can cover about this much of my body with yourself? Does the core have to be in my palm like this?"

"Yes."

"Alright, simply assume this form whenever I say the word 'Armor,' okay?"

Pamela didn't say anything, but Alaric knew that it was an affirmative reaction, and had her transform back into a ring.

'That transformation should be useful... kinetic energy from blunt blows will first go through Pamela's thick and sticky skin before hitting me. Good for trapping opponents too.' Alaric thought.

He continued on to ask Pamela to try a few more things, and finally had more options in combat. It was as if he learned a set of spells that could be casted with a single word!

As if challenging his new gains, a voice suddenly rang in his head.

'Kri!'

"Sonic? That shout came from far away... is it a cry for help?"