4 Experimentation, Cultivation, and Theorizing

"Jump!"

The slimes couldn't jump.

"Dance!"

The slimes couldn't dance.

"Eat!"

The ground beneath each slime began dissolving.

"Stop, stop, stop!" Alaric shouted.

He had been experimenting with his ability for a while now. Slimes were complete idiots. They couldn't do something they had never done before, and they even refused to answer some orders.

'Still, this could become an advantage if the slimes were just a bit smarter...' Alaric thought.

After all, while "control" lord-type talents took away their ability to act autonomously, "authority" lord-type talents didn't. He could send a slime off to the other side of the forest with no issues, whereas a controller would lose control after the slime moved a certain distance.

'I'll begin abusing this right away.' Alaric thought.

"Surround me!"

Originally, Alaric thought that commands that required teamwork to complete would be impossible, but surprisingly, he found that the slimes handled them even better than commands that could be completed as an individual. Soon, he was surrounded by about 30 slimes, in a small circle.

"Protect me!"

Now, every slime's eyes began looking around wildly. Alaric found that they were extremely willing to provide protection, assumedly because he was a respected figure in their eyes.

'Commands that involve moving, fighting, or eating are the easiest for them to understand. Any hostile creature tries to get to me, and 30 slimes are ready to gobble them up.' Alaric thought.

Alaric sat in the middle of the encirclement of slimes and crossed his legs. He was preparing to meditate. Or, put more simply, bring mana from the air into his body in order to increase his reserves.

This process was extremely simple. Via meditation, you would feel the mana in the air around you, and then use your own mana to pull it into your body. Once it was inside your body, you purify it and merge it with your already existing reserves. As your body adapts to higher mana levels, your reserves replenish at a higher rate.

'To become a rank 1 wielder, I must double my current reserves, and adapt to that new amount.' Alaric thought.

Although someone was able to control their mana before awakening, it was extremely limited. While some geniuses in history could cultivate their reserves before they awakened, Alaric was not one of them. He needed the extra control attained from his awakening.

...

2 hours later, he had been exhausted. The process of meditation was something that would mentally exhaust most normal people after 10 minutes. Thankfully, in this world meditation is taught to all children from a young age, so Alaric had been able to last long.

'Although, it is said that a rank-9 wielder can meditate for months without stop.'

In these 2 hours, he made some gains. His reserves becoming 5% greater than before. In just 20 sessions, he could double his reserves, this could be considered the rate of a talent.

Alaric opened his eyes, noticing that the slimes had all remained in their positions, continuing to guard him.

'There is only one week until the hunters come here to clear the slimes out.' Alaric noted.

With one week, Alaric could simply stay here to train. However, Alaric decided upon a different path.

His head down, Alaric began contemplating, 'In order to become powerful with such an odd ability... I need to seek opportunities. At my level, there is only one such opportunity I can seek."

Soul Shards.

'I just need to kill a rank-3 or higher magical beast, and a low-tier soul shard can be found inside of their heart.'

Soul shards are the most useful resources there were to a talent wielder. They contained the very essence of a living being's soul— soul shards contained pure, concentrated mana.

"Slimes! Follow me!"

Although a legion of 30-odd slimes was rather weak, and a rank-3 magical beast would absolutely slaughter them, that's what Alaric was for. With his orders, and the slimes' innate prowess as a magic beast, it was technically possible.

'Still, these slimes are extremely slow. In the future I need to think of a way to speed things up... for now, there is nothing to be done.' Alaric thought.

The human and his army of slimes began marching. If one were to see this scene, they may feel pity for the human, as he would constantly look back to make sure the slimes hadn't fell behind.

"Faster!" Alaric ordered.

The slimes stuck about, trying to utilize their odd bodies to roll forward. Of course, they failed miserably— slimes were too sticky to roll.

'The stronger, rank-3 magical beasts are nearly 200 kilometers from here, in the center of the forest. This is too slow, it's impossible even.' Alaric thought.

In fact, it had been nearly 10 minutes since they left from the grove, and Alaric could still see the grove not too far away. The legion hadn't even encountered rank-1 beasts.

"Stop!"

Alaric was beginning to get annoyed, almost finding himself believing that slimes were truly useless.

'These idiots are slow, weak, and barely acidic. They can't even evolve further than rank-1!'

Alaric was stumped. He needed a solution, but he had nothing. The hunters had never told him how to attract high level beasts. And Alaric wasn't exactly a crafts master, he couldn't create some mechanism to pull the slimes within 7 days.

'Wait— evolve! Books say that slimes are the weakest of monsters, no one even knows if it is possible for them to evolve! So, maybe they can, but the process is unexpected. If I could evolve even one of these losers... they may speed up!'

It was throwing a shot in the dark, but Alaric had been having ideas about this for a while, ever since he awakened in fact. His ideas for the evolution of slimes were obvious, but not to the residents of this fantasy world.

Slimes were rather adhesive, meaning their bodies were attracted to one another. Slimes loved to stick together and attack prey as a group. Of many theories Alaric had wanted to try for slimes evolution, cohesion and fusion were the most likely to work.

In some games he had played before he was born here, slimes would separate into smaller beings when killed. Although this wasn't a game, that was the inspiration for his theory. If slimes could fuse together, like amoebae, they may be able to become a higher tier of existence.

'If it's possible to get these things to merge together... is a rank-2 slime possible?