Author’s Corner: And here we are, folks! Time to get down into the actual combat(I hope! Please fingers, type me up a good chapter!) Sorry for the chapter being so late. To be honest, at first I didn’t feel up to writing at all today, but managed to push one out.

As I exited the shuttle, I was able to look around and see the city. From the air, it looked rather wide, but the fact that all of the buildings were short gave it the appearance of a small town. Since Celeste had already downloaded the relevant information about this planet, I had a fully formed minimap displaying in the top corner of my vision.

With my grove, I didn’t have to worry about food, and thanks to my magic I didn’t need potions. Instead, I began walking directly towards the exit to the hunting grounds while summoning Yin and Yang. It would be far easier to deal with either bird if I brought them both out together, since that way they wouldn’t get jealous of each other. If Yo was still his former size, I would have summoned him as well, but he would take up the entirety of the street as it was.

I looked over to the two birds and spoke slowly, expecting them to at least partially understand what I was saying, even if only through my thoughts. “I’m going to take you both out hunting today, and you can practice the magic that you’ve been training. If you get stronger, you can evolve into more powerful forms.”

I wasn’t really sure if it was because I was actually talking to them or because they might have understood me a bit, but they were both excited and immediately began rubbing up against me. I could only let out a helpless sigh and accept it until we walked out of the small city. The entire time, Celeste had been focusing on transferring some information to me regarding this planet. Unlike Hascion, this world was already habitable when the wood elves arrived, so there wasn’t a need for druids to spread out and make a bunch of forests.

At the same time, that meant that the planet had evolved its own set of wild beasts and medicinal herbs. She was slowly ‘teaching’ me about the various herbs that might be found in the hunting ground nearby, and how they might interact with the herbs I already had. Thanks to her lessons, I already understood that I had nearly all of the ingredients to make more powerful potions, and even different types of results than potions themselves. For instance, she taught me a way she learned from a druid guide to use my affinities and create magic pills that had similar effects to potions.

While an alchemic pill might not necessarily have a stronger effect than a potion, it would be longer lasting and required more fine control in order to make. It was like this that she suggested I practice my mana control, but I had yet to try it out. The basic requirements to perform alchemic pill refinement were being able to control fire, water, and plant energies. Since I had been staying in a hotel lately, I couldn’t exactly experiment with fire.

About fifteen minutes later, I had finally gotten out of the city, and also learned the necessary information about the nearby plants. One in particular caught my attention, but I would come back to that if I saw it. Now that we were outside of the city, I raised my hand and summoned Yo. Thankfully, pulling him out of my grove costed nearly no mana, unlike taking him in. Each time I called him back, I had to have him shave off some size so that I could wrap my mana around him. With the giant blue blob appearing beside me, we walked off towards the north, towards the direction Celeste had recommended we hunt.

The hunting ground was about a mile away from the city, but that distance wasn’t very much. It was just a small buffer zone that the guards used to repel monsters. Thankfully, according to Celeste there were no existences like the land wyrm here, or anything that would directly kill me from underground, so I could walk in peace.

After roughly ten minutes of walking , we began to see the first signs of enemies. “These are called diamondback wolves. They don’t typically possess any magical abilities, but their strong skeleton makes them a difficult opponent.” Celeste informed me of the enemy, and even created small viewing windows with different details. Along the back of the wolf was a diamond-like protrusion, which seemed to be what its bones were made out of. This was further confirmed by the same material appearing as their claws and fangs. “This enemy would be a good one for you to study once you take it down. Its only powerful quality is its diamond skeleton, but even that is quite powerful.”

I nodded with a sigh, waving a hand. “Yin, Yang, Yo, let’s see how you guys can do.” These five diamondback wolves didn’t possess any magic, so it shouldn’t be an issue for a slime to fight them. In this sense, Yin and Yang would be acting as support in this fight. “Celeste, what are their estimated levels?”

“Given their size, they should be just below level twenty. You can measure the age of a diamondback wolf based on the size of the protrusions from their back.” Celeste spoke as the two birds took flight, and Yo did something rather unexpected. Rather than rolling along like I had seen slimes doing before, it lowered its body until it was nearly flat, and then lunged up into the air like an arcing stream of blue goo. In one quick jump, it had travelled twenty meters and landed directly between the five beasts. “Be careful. Although their intelligence is no greater than a typical wolf, they claws can still be compared to diamonds. If they get a lucky hit, they might shatter Yo’s core.”

Although she said that, and the five wolves immediately turned to lunge at Yo, I didn’t feel it would be too much of an issue. If Yo kept his core in the very center of his body, they would still have to dive entirely inside of him to reach it. At that point, they’d basically just be offering themselves up as food. However, they simply bit and clawed at his outer layer, causing a bit of scooped up slime to go flying.

At that time, the two birds also arrived, and began acting on their own. First was Yin, who would open her mouth and let out a powerful gust of wind to knock one of the wolves over. After which, Yang flew over the fallen wolf, and it stopped moving. I could tell with me Aura Sight that it wasn’t dead, but simply paralyzed. Yang must have discovered the properties of that black mushroom and copied it. Though, it was a bit concerning that neither of them were going for lethal attacks. However, Yo did not have that issue, and simply rolled its body over the fallen wolf, quickly causing it to dry up into a withered husk.

If it weren’t for the fact that what I wanted from these wolves was their bone composition, I might be a little annoyed that they were so thoroughly damaging the bodies. “Celeste, is the skeleton of a diamondback wolf a good component for armor?”

She thought about it for a moment. “Hmm… they’re a common enemy on this planet, so you won’t be able to get much for it here. But at the same time, that means you can have one converted into armor for a cheaper price. If you plan to sell it, I would suggest waiting until we go to another planet. There are others nearby where armored creatures aren’t so common, so armor materials are in high demand.”

I nodded to her suggestion. If possible, I would like to mold it into armor myself. And, I knew it was possible, because one of the guides that Celeste had told me about was a druid forging guide. However, even if I knew the theory behind it, I had no practical experience creating armor. Even in other VR games, I would be more likely to take a weapon crafting job than armor crafting.

While I was talking to Celeste, Yin and Yang had knocked over and paralyzed another wolf for Yo to devour. The slime itself had also taken the initiative to wrap its body around one of the beasts that had been incessantly attacking it. The two wolves were turned into dry husks just like their companion, and the last two wolves seemed to understand they were outmatched at this point. Turning around, they attempted to run away, only for one to be stopped by the Yin and Yang combo. Unfortunately, that meant that the last wolf had escaped.

Looking to the two birds, I sighed slightly. “Didn’t really expect them to stop being pacifists so soon, but still.”

Celeste smiled next to me, nodding. “They have good coordination, though. As long as they’re fighting with Yo, dealing the finishing blow can be taken care of. Speaking of, there seems to be a slight change in his aura. He probably gained quite a bit of experience from this.”

I chuckled, nodding my head. Although Celeste could perceive a change in aura and attribute it to his level thanks to the Identify software, she couldn’t read exactly how high his level was, only a close approximation. Looking over to the birds, I noted that Yang did not show signs of evolution yet. Knowing my expectation, Celeste smirked. “It’ll be pretty obvious when it happens. Evolutions gained through training occur within moments, rather than a prolonged change. Since she was level eighteen when you saw the trainer, my guess is she should be in the upper levels of nineteen now. One more fight like this should do it.”

“Alright then, let’s go find something else to fight.. but first.” I walked over to one of the dead wolves, while Yo was slowly absorbing the ‘nutrients’ from the one that failed to run. I even called Yang over to see if she could do this as well while I studied the bones. However, I did not feel the presence of her mana scanning it with mine, so she likely did not understand. After she evolved, I would need to get her to analyze the creatures with me to train her. Maybe she could even become a druid too.

While I studied the bones and considered this, Celeste spoke up in my ear, careful so as not to distract me. “Races that naturally start out sentient at a higher level, such as elementals, or creatures that evolved into sentience, will gain an advanced class after honing their skills a little while. I can’t say for sure what Yang would turn into, but it will heavily depend on what kind of training she does immediately after evolving.”

I nodded my head, listening to her as I focused. Now that she was able to feel things through my magic and directly imprint the information into my head, I only had to really make one detailed sweep of its bones to learn what I needed. Perhaps with a more complicated aura, such as with a sentient creature, the process would be more difficult.

Closing my eyes, I focused on trying out this new aspect. Going through my body, I carefully applied the new aura pattern to my own bone structure, and suddenly felt a bit heavier. Thankfully it was a smooth transition, and I didn’t receive mind numbing pain from my bones deciding to splinter off and shatter my skin or anything… Which totally could have happened! When I didn’t receive a new spell notification, I looked through and found that this was listed under the Aspect of the Armored Beast.

With this, I now had both external and internal armor. If I could find something with particularly strong muscles, I could essentially craft the ultimate combat body. Skin as strong as steel, bones as hard as diamonds. As an experiment, I turned my hand into a wolf paw, and found that the claws looked identical to the diamond ones that the dead wolf had. “Well, this is useful.”

Celeste giggled happily. “Thanks. And sorry, but there’s not anything with super powerful muscles here. From what I’ve learned, monsters like that only appear in high level areas. However, there are some other creatures here that I think would be good for you to study and train with.”

That got my attention, and I slowly turned towards her. “Speak.”

“Hmmm, oh, just a lesser wyvern race. They keep to the mountains in the south, and are too high level for you to fight right now, but they would make a good addition to your dragon collection. There are also the rock beast golems in the east, with bodies of living stone, and the scythe mantis in the forests ahead, which have natural blade weapons. Pretty much every creature that evolves from this planet has rocks, diamonds, or ores as part of their body. The diamondback wolves are simply the most common this close to the city.”

I felt a grin forming on my face as she listed the different types of creatures on this planet. Many of the features she mentioned were almost perfect for me. Especially if I found a way to manufacture them, such as grafting the scythe mantis blade onto a plant aura. But that involved merging auras from plants and beasts, and I wasn’t too confident in my ability to do so. That did not mean I wouldn’t try!

“Alright, then! Let’s keep going till we get Yang to evolve.” I stuffed the four bodies of the wolves into my inventory before getting up, hearing another giggle from behind me.

“And then head back to town to get her clothes.” Okay, I’ll admit, I tripped and faceplanted the ground when I heard Celeste say that. Why would I expect her to evolve with a full set of clothes? When has the game ever been so kind?