Standing in the well-spaced cave with beads of sweat rolling off my forehead and my hands stretched out in front of me while I continue to pant heavily.

“Jupiter you need to move it faster!” Phoenix yelled.

“I get it, I’m trying geez! When did you turn so military!?” I cried while the pain kept reaching me in waves.

“Pah! What military? If I were really military, you would have learned to control this skill a month ago!” She retorted at my whining.

Yes, “She”. Many things had changed after the village had burned down and this was not the only surprising change but probably one that was pretty expected at this point.

I had been staying in this part of the country completely avoiding the rest of the world to be honest.

Call it my adjustment period because this shit was really happening and aside from Phoenix, I really had no cheat code in this world to help me out nor was I born in some noble family to help me acclimate to the rest of the world. I have no clue how anything works and all I have is a jumble of knowledge from my old world and newly “hormonal” god slime.

A few weeks into my seclusion from the world, me and Phoenix found a bizarre plant growing on the outskirts of the cavern system near a cliff like area and Phoenix as usual, attracted by its blue petals, red pistils, azure leaves and its uniquely distributed petal shapes forming the image of a bird couldn’t help but scan it. After which, it turned out the plant was probably really rare as Phoenix went into hibernation for close to two days straight which scared the daylights out of me as I felt really lonely and worried for Phoenix but after Phoenix woke up, things were perfectly fine aside from the fact that “it” turned into “she”.

The explanation I had received was that she was tempted both ways originally but felt that since I was a male and this is how I was, she kind of leaned towards being a female and seeing how well off those villager girls were doing and how pretty they were compared to ugly things like myself, hurtful words by the way, Phoenix started going the female route which seemed to suit her tastes while being quite honest about how I totally influenced that decision.

I was also relieved to find out, I wasn’t going to get ditched by the ice queen, because she still wanted a body and I wasn’t “SO” bad of a companion. Our relationship was going alright and I felt a lot less scared by all the changes especially since Phoenix got a huge boost to her innate capabilities after her hibernation. She was smarter, quicker to react and a lot better at planning and helping me out when it came to growing stronger, making plans and all that good stuff.

Back to what I am doing right now? I’m currently suffering from being tortured by the slime queen who seems to really believe that I haven’t been trying my best to learn this new skill I’ve been trying to develop so she has made it her passion to instill in me the dread of not showing her my sincerity.

“ Phoenix, two minutes! Give me two minutes to breathe, I need air!” I couldn’t help but feel like this new Phoenix was really different from the mild mannered one I used to love and know.

“Tsk, so weak. You really expect to do anything with how bad you are at this? Sigh, I feel so bad for myself. Going to have to wait maybe a century or two before finding a proper body because you’re too weak to provide.”

I swear, those words stung like a b*tch. It sounded almost exactly like my ex-girlfriend complaining about how I was never going to be able to provide for the family and now Phoenix was going to tell me that shit? Fuck that!

I raise my arms again, I focus all my attention at my core which had expanded slightly to the size of two fingernails and was transmitting the energy from it to my palms as two dull obsidian black colored needles materialized about a foot each in length and as thick as chopsticks.

I focus intently as I force them to start rotating which was made easier by their conical pattern running along their sides, after which I started to get them to basically play a game of tag between each other while zooming in and out between all the stalactites and stalagmites in the cave. This was probably my 50th attempt at this while Phoenix counted down with her biological timer.

“2 minutes and 38 seconds, Okay, you still suck but it’s better than yesterday’s 3 minutes.”

“Gee, thanks Phoenix. I don’t know how I could do anything without you.” I sarcastically replied but the wiggling in my brain notified me that I was taken 100% seriously at that comment.

I had eventually decided to go with the learning more specialized magic than I initially intended because both me and Phoenix realized that while flashy magic like fire magic and water magic are great. Reality proved that being able to do things efficiently and getting away with it was key and magic honestly made that amazingly easy.

My offensive magic revolved around different types of needles made from earth, compressed by wind while being heated with fire making extremely sharp needles that I had learned to cast within a few seconds and best of all it grows in useable range as my magic core grows in size.

Defense was a little tricky as I wanted something that wasn’t just a mana shield or water shield but unique and with better chances at keeping me alive even if the attack gets through which led to Phoenix and me creating a sort of air bubble with a repulsion field set with me as its center. Like when two magnets with the same charge repulse each other but with me just pushing everything away, this took a lot of thinking but with Phoenix being close to the intelligence level of an AI and her recent upgrade. Things worked out more or less though we haven’t tested everything against it, most basic magic and solid objects get repulsed.

Last but not least, the best gains from this seclusion were from learning the basic alchemy of the world. Me and Phoenix became quite interested in this last part as we discovered through using various ingredients that we could create some unique potions that could enhance ourselves not only permanently but with amazing efficiency since I don’t know what professional alchemist use in this world but Phoenix being able to scan to the genetic level was a boon that made alchemy incredibly potent.

Our discoveries in that field didn’t end there since we managed to be able to hunt two alpha foxhorns over the course of my seclusion; we managed to get two small beast cores. This set everything off, messing around with the beast cores while scanning them for potential uses in alchemy lead to probably the biggest and most amazing discovery for my personal enhancement.

These beast cores through a special mix of Phoenixs’ abilities and my personal unique core, we discovered that I could directly absorb beast cores! I had no clue if others could do it this way but Phoenix mentioned that by her knowledge you needed special technology to take the energy out of beast core and transfer it into your personal core but I could skip the process by directly smashing the cores into energy and absorbing it through my mana like the opposite of how creating a crystal core happens.

I wasn’t 100% sure about the whole process and one day I would figure it out but for now, all I needed was the fact that I could increase my power rapidly by hunting and that was all that I needed.