Caverns

I will be honest; I probably read way too many novels, am way too paranoid and have an incredibly high level of not wanting to mingle with a bunch of blue humans who might just get the wrong idea once my tanned self, shows up asking questions and judging their women as that sounds like exactly what I would probably do and next thing I know, BAM. I have to deal with an overly eager young adult looking to show off in front of his buddies because of his shitting upbringing causing him to try and fight me which I would probably crush his skull for, leaving me getting hunted by an entire village.

I may be exaggerating just a little but the common street scrap routine is an age old way of anybody new getting into shit their first day. 'Sigh, I really should have realized that travelling to a different world wasn't going to be some training montage filled with women and no problems.' I droop my head down cursing at my stupidity. At least, I wasn't as stupid as Rikurn.

"Rikurn! Let's go. We're going to those caves you mentioned." 7 days with the kid still got me pretty far in learning whatever he knew and how to say things so I could be considered just as good as this kid now and if he's still alive, I am sure I would be fine.

"Yes, World-caster." He replied.

Yeah, world-caster… seems to be the name for mages in this part of the universe. Ever since he saw me threaten him with my black flames, he started calling me that. He didn't know much about them except that the army holds them in high regard and aren't very common. Though that's where the kids level of knowledge ends.

Me and Phoenix had a long talk after I wanted to ditch the kid but Phoenix strongly recommended we keep him to make the trip into the village for information gathering safer as having someone attest that you're not a psycho seemed to be useful. We left that very morning as I was getting tired of the cabin and sleeping on the floor a few days already had me missing my king size deluxe soft foam mattress that this whole adventuring business seemed quite shitty until I can get some better stuff.

I gathered up my dagger and spiked bat and my little rock knife. The kid had a dagger as well but I took the time to make him one of my legendary spiked bats as it was the best way to deal with goblizards or foxhorns.

We didn't have too much trouble walking through the forest as I got familiar with what was dangerous and what wasn't and the odd goblizard or foxhorn generally got taken care of by the kid while I had a fireball ready in case anything happened. I fed the brat for a week, I expected him to do something more than just open his dumb mouth. I might have been the one to cause him to talk that much but still.

"How far away from the village are these cavers again?" I ask just to make sure, I won't be running into his "comrades" before I am ready.

"About half a quarter of a days' worth." He replied indifferently, he stopped being afraid and more so just waited patiently because of my promise to bring him back home without doing anything to him but hopefully the brat doesn't fuck me over with some lies when he gets to the village.

'Again, with these half a quarter day BS. Can't you have hours and minutes you idiot." Another mild headache formed yet again.

I didn't know why but spending a week with someone who you could barely understand really tests your patience and me being someone who already doesn't like talking to people who understand you, already broke what limited patience I had.

We walked the rest of the way quietly, took about three hours before the kid said he recognized the area so I let him lead the way to the cavern for me to take a look before we headed to his "village" whatever the hell it was. Rikurn mentioned that people generally don't visit too far into this forest as the largest portion contained mainly goblizards and foxhorns but towards the south was the desert and towards the east was a large jungle where really strong predator-beasts lived just blocking the way to the next country.

It was nice to know there was more to explore and visiting this desert might be cool. I always dreamt of visiting the desert on Earth until I discovered it was just sand with nothing really else. At least this place had sand monsters so I might be able to get me a nice pet to travel the desert on.

Rikurn mentioned that people do have pets, and that's why world-casters were so well received because they can generally tame really strong monsters and have them serve them which made them twice the trouble a single strong warrior posed especially with the ranged magic. I still wasn't able to get my fireball to go beyond three meters which was disappointing but Phoenix explained it was because I don't have enough gathered energy to keep the fireball in its form while it travels towards a target.

I was getting excited as Rikurn mentioned we weren't very far and I could already see some stony looking hills further ahead in the distance. I mean, the special forest was nice and all but after spending some time here, I wanted to see something new which was one of the reasons I even followed god slime out here and risked my life.

Upon getting closer to the stony hills, I notice they are made of white stone jutting out of the ground about a couple dozen meters high making it look like someone dropped a randomly generated block of white stone that covered the size of a small strip mall on the ground. It wasn't really anything special but it was definitely white as snow which was cool to see. We headed closer and eventually Rikurn led me to a opening that was half in the ground and half above it about two meters in height and about a meter in width.

"Inside is a big cave with a few special stones that light up the cave." Rikurn mentioned.

I nodded as a small grin formed on my face. Special stones that shine? Sounds exactly like what I am looking for. Hopefully, something in there could give me a decent boost to my strength. We entered the cave and it had a soft white glow from the reflection of light on the white stone. It made it seem less eerie and more welcoming at least. It took about 15 minutes to get towards the cavern that Rikurn mentioned which was a somewhat circular room with stalagmites and stalactites sticking out of it. The whole room seemed to be about 6 meters high with a diameter of about a dozen meters. I could see why Rikurn and his buddy came to hang out here as it's a nice place to just get away from things.

He eventually led me to through to where a few small alcoves were present in the white stone, upon closer inspection I found some weird gem looking rocks in a few of them the size of a ping pong ball. I didn't know what they were but they seemed like a great source of study material for Phoenix so I started picking them out of the walls with my dagger. I managed to get a few of every color and told Rikurn to leave me alone for a while, while I study them.

He seemed confused but nodded nonetheless, he already told me they were just useless minerals that grew in small quantities and that they're good for using as a small lamp at night if you gather enough. Little shit is probably thinking I'm an idiot again for wanting to study these things.

When Rikurn found out I didn't know the universal language of his continent, he was very suspicious of me but I told him I came from some far away island that didn't have contact with the rest of the continent which he seemed to accept. I didn't have to try really hard to get this dumb little shit to accept anything really.

I sat on the ground facing the wall so that Rikurn wouldn't be able to see Phoenix wrapping its tentacles around the stones in my lap. I loved this part, it was always felt like I was finding treasure whenever Phoenix would scan an item which I really wanted the ability to do but had to wait until I got more "experienced" at manipulating energy before I can do anything similar. At least it gave me something to work towards.

While waiting for Phoenix I started practicing my magic. I managed to learn how to make stone spikes about a foot long as well during my downtime while learning the language with Phoenixs' help which was super cool but unfortunately it took me about 10-20 seconds to get the thing to form then shoot out of the ground. Unlike a fireball that came out of my palm, I really wanted to learn Earth spikes because they were a lot cooler and trickier to deal with so I made sure to keep practicing it whenever I had the time as it originally took me a minute or so of concentrating before but after a few days it only took about 15 seconds on average. If I could make it happen in a second or two, I was sure I could make the skill turn into a deadly attack.

Rikurn was just lazing about in his corner which didn't surprise me. The kid really didn't seem like he had much to do in his life.

I eventually managed to get two Earth spikes formed within 15 seconds each and felt pretty happy at my energy control improving. "Jupiter, I think we got something." Phoenix broke my thoughts.

"Ouh, what goodies we got this time?" I replied energetically at the thought of more goodies, I always felt like a kid whenever Phoenix mentioned we got something good.

"This little green stone has some minerals which if we fused with the cells in your skin, we could upgrade your defense. It would take a lot of this stuff to get you as strong as stone but it should help you out when fighting at least." Phoenix giggled as it explained.

'Oho? Did Phoenix just say skin as strong as stone?' I had to ask again to make sure.

We got a few stones out of the alcoves but it seems the green ones blended well with my skin so I was ecstatic at the thought of having some OP defense ready for my future adventures especially considering I was still very worried about the level of some of these monsters roaming around.

"Rikurn! Hey, brat! Help me gather some of these green stones you find around the cave!" I yelled at the little shit to get him to help me out which he seemed horribly unwilling to but a water ball to his face seemed to have made the kid compliant.

I also started searching around for the stuff which was not that easy to find. There were mostly orange, white and red colored ones in the little alcoves but after about two hours of searching I managed to get me a small bowls worth of the stuff.

"Alright kid, go rest. I'll have to practice my casting arts for a while before we can go." I told the kid to rest and threw him a pouch of the foxhorn meat which he just caught and shrugged off to his little corner. He seemed a little sad, probably losing his friend but I got used to his little moments. I wasn't the best to comfort no-one, trust me.

With all the stones gathered I went off to somewhere the kid couldn't see me and let Phoenix absorb all the green rocks. It took a few minutes but I already started meditating. My meditations were a little different to before as I also actively sought to gather the energy in the air towards my crystal core as that was the only way I was going to get the damn thing to grow. Phoenix was right, it only grew maybe a millimeter or less this past week but whatever, every little bit counts. It took about half an hour to get the rocks fully digested as they were already in small bits so Phoenix didn't have to work too hard, once we were done I asked it to show me my stats.

"Sure thing. I added some details to the info and also how much more of this green rock you can absorb before you won't improve anymore. "

'What a great little godslime, oh yes you are!' I noddle thankfully to Phoenix while taking a look at the new stats.

Status

-Jupiter

-Human

Abilities:

- Keen senses ( Slime symbiosis effect )

- Adept Energy Manipulation ( improved)

- Enhanced Mental Cognition

- Increased energy regeneration (Crystal core)

- Supreme energy conductors (Crystal core)

Physical:

Strength – 4

Defense –1.2 (12%)

Stamina – 2

Agility – 4

Vitality – 4.5

Energy – 10.15