Bang! Bang! Bang!

Xero was standing some distance away as he watched Ash standing over a Magma Slug’s shell. Instead of using a rock like before Ash was now pounding with his own fists and making cracks. His strength had risen which was expected. He properly evolved into a higher ranked Demon.

Sitting on a boulder while letting Ash hunt on it’s own in an area with around 10 other slugs he had his book on monsters and was looking through the section for demons and soon found the Scaled Imp. Unlike Ash, it looked more lizard. The head looked like a mix of a demon and alligator’s head while the body was hunched and scaly with the wings also covered in grey scales looking like a distorted Dragonewt.

‘Scaled Imps, a level 2 to 4 demon from a branch of imps more commonly categorized as a subcategory of imp instead of an evolution. These types of imps learned to cover their skin in scales upon discovering them to improve their defensive capabilities. The result makes their defense rise drastically, their muscles also become like reptiles and more powerful. The scales also possess a strong resistance to heat and fire allowing them to momentarily touch or maneuver in fire or lava without receiving damage but this is limited to a short time. The tail begins growing out and after some time they will begin to use them like whips. Some say that Scaled Imps are born because its soul is from a long dead lizard or dragon descendant.’

He looked at the distorted picture then at Ash and looked skeptical. “Is it reading my mind and forming a human body?” He couldn’t help asking himself out loud.

Ash was currently dragging out the slug and even when it spit out its flaming mucus it wasn’t affected as was said. It now had a stronger fire resistance and it bit down on the head of the slug and began to eat it alive and was completely unaffected by the magma like blood anymore. It ate the shell and turned attacking an approaching slug and tipping it over and gripping the slug and biting and dragging it out on its own before it could hide and ate it alive like the other.

In a short time it had eaten all ten leaving little to nothing behind. I turned and ran back to Xero who put his book away and got up. “Let's go look for something stronger for you to hunt.” He said and turned and began walking and pulled out a container of water and drank some as they walked. He looked back at the weights on Ash’s arm and sighed. He had used the weights to his advantage so that he wouldn’t need to rocks to smash the shells open for those that hide in their shell.

Walking around he came upon a small outcrop of trees in the burnt land. It had red leaves and the tree trunk looked burnt yet it still stood. He stopped 100 meters away and Ash looked on as his ears kept twitching.

“A Badland Charred Lava Tree, this should have attracted some kind of beast to it.” Xero muttered and kept looking around. On the actual tree there was no birds and from his angle he couldn’t see if there were holes. “Go to the tree and dodge anything that attacks if you sense it. If anything jumps out them jump and glide back here.” He ordered and Ash began to walk.

No more than ten paces later Ash jumped up as several small 40 cm long lizards jumped out.

Ash circled back and dropped near Xero who watched the lizards dig into the earth.

“That was Ashland Lesser Salamanders.” Xero said.

Salamanders are creatures with dragon blood and have strong bodies from birth. These salamanders are more attune to the earth element for being diggers compared to the common salamander.

“These shouldn’t have such strong bodies compared to true Salamanders.” He said. “Walk forward until the tree, when you feel the presence of the salamanders rising up to attack attack it with your claws when they appear.” He ordered.

Ash began moving and once more at the distance the salamander attacked he stopped a moment and jumped slightly while spinning just as the salamanders jumped would. Ash’s claws flow forward and stabbed into the chest of the two that jumped out and landed rolling while the salamanders were dead. He started to eat them leisurely ate then continued following his order and like that the process followed until he reached the tree. Along the way 12 salamanders attacked at irregular intervals but their attack pattern was the same and Ash easily caught them. The return trip was the same and he killed 3 more.

“Well that was boring.” He muttered, “Were those infants? They were so weak.”

The two leave that area and go deeper, going near lava rivers they would more commonly find slugs but after some time when they were almost entering Layer 3 they encountered a slime. Bright red and half a meter in diameter with a squishy core the floated around the inside, the slime was a Fire Slime which was a level 2 monster at the least.

“A Fire Slime is a creature that grows stronger by eating fire, ranging from level 1 to 25 they can eat any type of fire and any burning material.” He muttered and watched the slime that was slowly moving towards the lava flow. He frowned and instantly shouted.

“Jump into that slime and extract its nucleus!”

At once Ash jumped forward and sniffed the air. When it felt no smell it began to look around and as it got within 5 meters the big body of the slime which was made of fire mana came into view and it focused on it and quickly jumped.

Ash lunged right into the slime that was trying to jump into the lava to absorb the molten material. Slimes are said to be the basis for elementals which are powerful beings. Earth slimes can become simple sand or rock slimes or more complex like metal or pure iron slimes. In the rare chance it evolves into an elemental it would become a stone golem and if its a metal slime it can even become a metal golem. Fire slimes on the other hand can become magma slime or even fire elemental like Fire Spirits and Will-o-Wisps and many other low grade fire spirits and head deeper into the training area. It’s said the teachers train at the very center against things like dragons and powerful mythical beasts that are born here.

Although Ash’s jump is powerful it’s hand reached half way into the slime and began to burn and soon the slime core began to move. Ash began to claw at the body and the slime began to move to cover the imp to keep it from escaping. This drew Ash further into the slime as its body was burning and melting. All the while it moved towards the lava. When it was 1 meter from the lava Ash grabbed onto the core and shoved it into his mouth and chomped causing the slime to writhe in pain and he kept chewing and finally swallow the core.

The slime, losing its brain, instantly liquefied releasing Ash who began to bite at the squishy and burning hot material.

Xero ran forward with a smile and had Ash stop eating and reaching the corpse he scooped up two bottles of slime and let Ash eat the rest.

“This is good, fire slime is great for making fire mana potions to train my fire magic.” he thought. He could only sigh as he looked at Ash since he couldn’t get the fire slime nucleus which was an ingredient for Fire mana stones. It would be a great tool to quickly boost a familiars magic capabilities.

Mana stones are an alchemic produce. The reason being that it’s made from joined cores of slimes. There are really rare instances when a Mana stone mine is found which usually falls into the hands of powerful organizations due to it being pure mana instead of elemental type.

Mana stones have grades from Common, Uncommon, Rare, Saint, Holy, Godly. To produce a common one you need 10 slime nucleus but to produce uncommon you need 100 common stones which means 10000 nucleus. Following this Rare needs 100 uncommon stones, Saint needs 1,000 rare, Holy needs 1,000 saint and Godly needs 10,000 holy. To do this people who obtain Slime familiars normally raise them into a rare breed of king, queen or emperor slime which allows them to control wild slimes. Like this these people are named Slime farmers and every one of them possess high titles due to being wealthy.

The Godly stone is only a dream to create, it indeed exists but the amount of mana stones it cost to produce isn’t something that helps produce them, still such a thing is produced on rare occasions for rituals such as when the holy aura was produced in Hell to keep back the demonic aura from a very small part of hell.

As for using them on familiars, it’s a powerful source of energy to cultivate their magical capabilities and create unique monsters species.

That said looking at Ash, his stomach was glowing red and it was spreading through his body before fading.

“Even if it’s normal slime nucleus he can still absorb the mana from inside but without destroying himself.” Xero said in his mind.

Storing the two bottles he stretched and looked upwards at the sun. The training zone show the real position of the sun so he could tell, more or less, how much time has passed.

“Two more hours before dusk. Let’s see if Ash’s strength is at level 3.” He muttered and walked into Layer three with the Scaled Imp.

***

Without noticing almost two weeks rapidly passed by students. All types of classes like alchemy, herbology, hand to hand combat, basic human spell training, familiar magic training and many others passed. Within these two weeks Xero kept to his routine of eating early and feeding Ash, getting to class early if possible, doing class and training all the time after class. After a few days he would enter the Training area with his own weights and began to train and he started doing what he had planned.

Asking Grunt he obtained a short sword that Ash could hold and trained the Imp in basic movements allowing it to learn by itself through showing mental images. Although the Imp improved greatly there was no massive boost like the second day and instead there was only slow small improvements that were slowly slowing down.

The wings kept growing and the fifth toe and thumbs finally began to show signs of forming. The greatest change was the white eyes that formed a pale circle like that of an eye but it was just the edge and there was no iris and only white but it was visible. What wasn’t noticed was the extremely thin very light blue veins on the eye.

Obviously Xero wasn’t the only one advancing, the entire class had showed progress. Those with infant creatures quickly grew up and as adolescent every one of them had level 2 familiars at the very least. Ash had abilities matching Level 3 when it fought itself and could keep up with level 4 if Xero controlled it a bit. Ash was also able to use it’s magic now. The Imp fire was a scarlet red fire that formed a fireball and shot it. It had a really strong explosive capability but his body still had a limit but since the mana channels developed Xero has been slowly and unknowingly absorbing more mana with more ease.

He also didn’t notice that his body and Ash’s were already matching in physical fitness and now as his familiar was growing it had begun to affect his body.

Another person that had a lot of change was Meldie. Her Panda evolved when it grew to Adolescent size. When it formed claws and teeth she had taken it to hunt but she was attacked by a pack of wolves and the panda was killed and her charm threw her out due to the danger but once she summoned it afterwards it had grown to the size of a full grown bear and turned into a Lesser Yin Yang Panda Adolescent. It had gone from level 2 adolescent Panda to Level 4 because all the mana it gathered during its infant stage from the milk allowed it to adapt to magic extremely well when it evolved. This obviously began to affect her physically and in physical training she began to rapidly improve and Grunt liked it since the panda is a bear and she was rapidly developing bear like strength.

Not everyone liked this though, the nobles were all showing disregard for the poor students but because they were improving the lofty nobles started to get more aggressive.

Xero had been a prime target for the nobles because he never fought back. Even after being ridiculed by Grunt he didn’t believe he was strong and kept training and pushing himself so that he won’t be ‘left behind’ the others like Chad who had trained from young. So he wouldn’t raise his fist and let them hit him. Although it hurt him but he had unconsciously started dodging to protect the more painful areas and taking a step back to lessen the blows.

This made him receive less painful hits without fighting back.

Like now Chad was watching sneering clicked his tongue, “This kid is boring, he used to shout and whine but now he just takes it. Maybe his brain degraded like his familiar.” he said.

“Haha! Good one boss! Want to go do something else?” The follower said.

“Sure why not. Nothing better to do after class anyway.” He shrugged.

They left and Xero just stood and watched them leave before fixing his clothes. After they left he finally started to walk and picked up his bag and walked on towards his room since he was coming back from training.

“I wonder why they left so soon? Normally they hit me for more than ten minutes?” He muttered.

“Kya!” He suddenly heard a shout coming from behind a corner he was about to pass. The other group had come this way and as he reached the corner he stopped and saw Chad surrounding Meldie.

“...at you walked in my path!” Chad shouted.

“Do you want to get beat so much! You should be bowing and asking the boss for forgiveness for crossing his great path!” one of the cheap thug followers said.

Meldie was trembling, she was far too shy and timid to fight even when she as rapidly developing monster like strength even though her body was so tiny. She had become a prime target for Chad because he was feeling inferior to her.

“I said bow!” The thug shouted and lifted his arm to through but as he threw it a hand gripped it with a vice grip.

“What are you doing?!” A cold voice said.

They all looked and saw Xero who had a really dark expression.

“X-xero! Don’t! R-Run!” Meldie said shyly.

Chad sneered as he glared at Xero. “Trash, I let you off lightly earlier but you came looking for a beating huh?”

“I don’t care if you hit me but anyone that hits girls is trash!” He said bluntly. This was one of his father’s teachings, men should never harm girls unless she is a proud warrior you are facing in a life and death fight or they have committed a crime. No matter who you are they should be protected.

“Me… trash?! That’s it, you're asking to die!” Chad shouted, “Get him!”.

At his order the guy I was holding turned and punched at my face but I turn and meet his punch and to my surprise I hear a loud ‘Crack!’ and he fell crying in pain. His fist was mangled.

I was in complete shock “I felt his punch so many times but never did I expect that he was weak.” Xero thought.

The others froze while Xero snapped out from a tug as the boy tried to pull his arm. With his free hand he punched the boys gut and made him faint so that he wouldn’t move and damage his fist more than it is and released his hand before quickly hopping and clearing the distance to the next one and like the first he connected a punch the to the gut and he fell instantly.

Xero looked at his own fist, “To think Grunt was right.” He muttered and looked at Chad who was wide eyed. Seeing Xero turn to him he tensed up, “Don’t you dare do anything to me! I’m a noble! My father is a 5th rank noble of the Kedoth empire! You think you can get away with doing something to me?!” He shouted but after seeing him shivering there was something that let all the fear Xero had formed too slowly melt away. He slowly walked towards Chad who turned pale. “Stop him!” He shouted.

The others woke up and jumped at Xero but he just hopped and quickly reached Chad and grabbed his collar. “You know, rank is disregarded in the academy unless you're a prince or princess with an unlimited future.” Xero said and connected a firm punch in his gut.

His eyes glaze over and he fell over but Xero frowned as he felt his hand and opened and closed it. Looking at the boy he turned him belly up and removed his shirt and find a metal vest and shook his head.

“What Grunt said is true, you’re all weaklings that bunch together. Your familiars truly are all perfect for all of you, all mob monsters without a hope of being strong individually. I should have listened to him sooner.” Xero said.

His words spark a rage in the rest of the group and they start shouted at him and they all run at him but he just frowns and meets them head on and beats them up like all the others and in no time they were on the ground holding their gut or fainted. When he was done he walked over to the stunned halfling and began to pat her head. She jolted and her eyes slowly close until it was half open.

“Thanks for your compliment after the test, I should have believed both you and professor Grunt.” He said and took his hand off her head and she looked up with a complex expression before blushing.

“It’s nothing but you might be in trouble you know.” She said.

Xero shrugged and breathed deeply. “At least I know I’m not weaker than him.” Xero said with a smile.

“Good good!” A bellowing laugh came and the two looked over to see the huge bear. “So you finally worked up the courage to beat this trash into their place. I was having a hard time watching you get beat up for so long and was about to pound sense into you again but I guess the little missy helped put sense into you.” Grunt said and laughed.

“Um…” Xero was nervous as he looked at the downed nobles.

“Don’t worry about these idiots, they are already listed as students to be expelled due both to lack of dedication in training, meaning they don’t make the grade, and because of their constant bullying and physical beating of their fellow students. We are just waiting to do it on a grander scale where their parents can snuff it out.” He said.

“Grander scale?” The two children asked together.

“The semester grading ceremony, it's kind of like an award ceremony where the students are graded on their efforts in class and in their training. These idiots don’t train and try only to demoralize the other students with status so they will be expelled. They will have to go to the national academies if they want to continue studies or be homeschooled but in either case it will make mediocre people so they will end up being put to work in home businesses or something.” He said.

“Isn’t there a chance that he will get revenge?” Xero asked.

“Nope, when cases like this happen we normally send a few skilled people to guard the family and relatives of the students involved as well as to watch the family of the bullies to make sure they don’t do anything to yours.” He said and a sigh of relief came from Xero.

“Um sir…” The small voice from Meldie called from behind. “What are the rewards for the ceremony?” She asked shyly.

“Sorry but no can do.” He said grinning. “You better train well or you won’t be able to get even the lower ranked ones but I will say this, above rank 50 it involves mana stones and a few extra perks.” he said and winked making the two gulp at the high rank of the rewards. “Now then to clean up this trash, you two can go back and rest, shoo shoo!” he said and waved the two off and with a nod from them both they thanked him and left.

They talked on their way back about their familiars, “So Ash is almost level 4 already?” She asked in shock.

“Yeah but he only makes small changes even after we hunt lots of level 3 and a few level 4’s. I probably need a really large amount of energy to make a proper evolution. Well for now he still has room to grow and he is already capable of longer distance gliding thanks to his wings growing larger.” Xero said.

“That’s nice, Pou is getting stronger, teacher is really hard on him though, he makes him drag a large log almost 30 kilos on the track while running but he is really nice since he helps me get Magical Bamboo to feed it but I can only give him 1 every week because it’s expensive.” she said and sighed.

“Aren’t there any in the forests?” Xero asked.

“Teacher said that I can find it only after Layer four so if I want it I will need to ask the seniors for an escort through to chop them.” She said gloomy.

“Ah that’s too bad but aren’t there any halfling seniors strong enough for an escort?” Xero asked.

“I don’t know many people.” She said and looked down blushing and he understood.

“Well then ask Professor Grunt to introduce you, I’m not his only student and he only takes people he likes and those he likes are all dedicated and good people.” Xero replied and she looked at him and smiled before nodding.

Soon they had to split up since male and female bedrooms are separated and with a wave they went separate ways. Entering his room without any disturbances he summons Ash. Within the room of each person it is permitted as a way to get closer to the familiar.

On his waist was the sword in its sheath that gets sealed with Ash.

Pulling out the sword he looks at Ash, “Lets spar.” He said and Ash drew his sword and looked directly at Xero before taking a really crude stance he was taught and in the room the two spent time battling until it was late and Xero went to sleep while Ash looked at his master before walking to the window and sitting under the moon and closing his eye. Within his body mana in the surroundings was absorbed directly into the core where it kept storing up within the now 13 cm red pearl.