A Wild Idea

"Really, The Great Hero Rimuru who fights against The Demon Lord Leon Cromwell, How are you always caught up in trouble like this?"

"Huh, She was passing and I wanted her to find some peace, she was an otherworldler who suffered a lot in this world"

"Alright Mr. Hero you need to get stronger, Someone who can summon beings from other worlds and has the title Demon Lord sound pretty tough to me" I warned him not to jump into things too fast

"Yeah, I will gather information about him first, I came here to try some new skills I got from shizu and Ifrit"

"You really are a cheat aren't you, Do you know how much effort I have to put to get new skills, what are they?"

Rimuru explained the skills he got like the unique skill Deviant and the extra skill Control Flame, both attacks that were already heavy associated with her. Beyond that, He had Ifrit's trio of moves: Replication, Flame Transform, and Ranged Barrier.

When I heard about Replication I remembered Ifrit's clones and had a wild idea that could solve my current problem.

"Hey Rimuru, why don't you use replication. I want to see if I can possess the clone and use it as a physical body"

He agreed to my suggestion and conjured a copy, I didn't care about the form for now and tried to possess it.

When I entered the body there was a conflict between my magic energy and rimuru's and before I could react, the clone dispersed into a plume of black smoke.

"That didn't go that well, it was not durable enough to sustain the clash between our magic energies. Can you make it sturdier" I asked rimuru hoping that he can do it.

"I don't know if I can make it more durable but I can conjured one with more magic energy, increasing the capacity."

That would make the situation worse actually but I will try to suppress the conflict faster this time.

After he conjured another one with more magic capacity this time I suppressed my magic energy and entered the body. it didn't disperse immediately but when I tried to take control, it did.

Rimuru reacted fast enough and reabsorbed the extra magic energy he put in the clone but some of it reacted with mine and I was slightly injured.

"This won't work, although the clone is physical, it is mostly made of magicules, when I try to spread my magic energy, it will breakdown"

I explained to rimuru, after the last attempt I figured this method isn't feasible and even if it somehow worked, it won't solve the problem as the body will still need my focus to maintain just like my current state.

"I can try to make a clone with my cells as a base, it would make more stable, but it will take some time to synthesize, shizu's unique helps in the process"

Some hope returned when I heard about Rimuru's idea which he truthfully explained that it was The Great Sage suggestion. I couldn't help but wonder, What other new abilities he got?

"What about the other skills you got from shizu?"

Rimuru tried to use Flame Transformation but it didn't work in slime form. That wasn't the first time a skill was unusable due to some sort of incompatibility. Turned out that because Ifrit is a spirit, like my current state. Its Flame Transform uses its own body as a source of magical energy to unleash its full force. It thus cannot be used while in physical form. 

"Mmm? So I can't cast it if I'm still made of flesh or whatever? Would it work if I went into black-mist mode and gave myself a magical body, then? Let's try it out."

Rimuru turned himself into Ifrit and attempted to use it. This time, it worked without problem, although his core—the thing that houses him —didn't seem to transform at all.

He tried to use it with a magical body that is not neccesarily Ifrit and it worked, He turned himself into a grown figure and tried Flame Transform once more. This time, flame extended out from the tips of his fingers and toes. 

That seemed to prove it. He couldn't work it very much in regular form, but if he temporarily made himself magical in style, at least, he could manage the Flame Transform well enough. And at temperatures upward of 1,200 degrees Celsius, too, just like Ifrit. What's more, he could focus the magic on particular areas for extra heat. 

As an attack, it seemed pretty powerful. The only issue was that he'd have to use it inside a barrier; otherwise the energy outflow would be so huge he'd immediately drain myself of magic. It was hard to regulate. he'd need some more practice. 

Good thing he had Control Flame, too; that ought to help keep him out of trouble. Spiritual creatures like me and Ifrit couldn't last long in the physical world thanks to all the magic we ate up, but with Rimuru's physical form and Control Flame, a little practice should allow him to cap and unleash the flames as needed, I on the other hand don't have to suffer the same consequences because I have a large amount of spiritual power which is finely controlled. this usually requires a certain amount of skill and training.

That brought us to Ranged Barrier. This skill locked the heat of flames within a barrier, which I presumed prevented heat energy from leaking out—and, as our theory went, allowed flame-based spirits to manifest themselves for longer without wasting magic. Another unique property was that it contained certain physical durability, in case you wanted to keep anyone inside the barrier. 

We thought of ways rimuru could use this. The largest barrier he could make with it extended out in a semicircle three hundred feet or so in diameter, although it didn't affect anything beneath the ground's surface. he could shrink it down until it was covering nothing but his own body, which didn't reduce its effect at all and kept magic consumption at a minimum. This free control meant he could wear it like a sort of light protective layer. It could also prevent magic leakage during a Flame Transform—not that it would be much help, given that the flames never went beyond the barrier itself. 

We made some tests on the defensive capabilities of the barrier using Copies. Replication provided an efficient answer for that. His copies, after all, had the exact same abilities he did, except for the unique skills. Those were exclusive to him, and while he could have his copies use those while they were close by, once they went out of sight, that was it for uniques. All except for his consuming skills, which were closely entwined enough with his slime identity that even the copies could use them a little. 

As long as he was half a mile or so away from the copies, he had full control over them. Anything beyond that, and they wouldn't be able to parse anything except for very simple commands. he still had an insight into their line of view, however, and The Thought Communication skill let him give new commands anytime he wanted.

So he created a clone of himself and cast a Barrier on it. Then he shot a Water Blades at it. It was sharp as a knife—I could see that much as it ripped through the air—but it shattered into nothing in front of his copy. A perfect block by the Barrier. Pretty strong. 

He then tried practicing to see if he could fire off Water Blades while keeping the Barrier on himself. That turned out to be simpler than we thought. he just had to create a little jet shooter out of his finger and fire away. These shots, in turn, would be enclosed in their own miniature Barrier, a bit like a large soap bubble splitting into two smaller ones. That these tiny force fields expanded the Blades' strength and range was another unexpected benefit.

The testing continued and we realized that taking damage while under a barrier consumed magic, the consumption differs according to the intensity of the blocked attack. skills that deals continuous damage like poisonous mist drain the energy of the barrier pretty fast.

The final experiment of the day involved using Flame Transform alongside Ranged Barrier. The results were…fascinating. it's A rank. At least. 

A Flame Transform inside a Flare Circle barrier would expose anything organic inside the barrier to several thousand degrees of heat, scorching them instantly. Being confined to a restricted space did wonders for the attack's strength. It cooked the very air itself, robbing it of all oxygen and searing the lungs of its victims before they knew what had happened. Any creature who breathed air would face little chance of survival. 

Rimuru's Resist Temperature tolerance would take care of side effects of the skill. For anyone else, though, it was a death sentence. In a way, it was luck. Without a body that just happened to be so adaptable to Ifrit's attacks, his chances of victory would have been pretty slim. 

Still, this was another overpowered skill, Shizu had a Cancel Flame Attack tolerance, perhaps a side effect of merging with Ifrit. This kept her safe from fire strikes or extremely hot environments—a bit like rimuru's Resist Temperature, except without the cold protection, although it offered even more insulation against heat. Cancel must have been a higher level than Resist in this hierarchy, and considering Resist Temperature was already an upgraded tolerance, Cancel Flame Attack must've provided a good amount of protection. 

So all and all, the experiments were more useful than I expected, and since it will take sometime to produce working clone we returned to the village for the day, We didn't need sleep but replenishing our magicule stores was vital, and rest was the best way to do that.