It’s now my turn in the arena, I wait for my beast to reveal itself. Adler called this high stress introductory training, so there’s no chance this is going to be easy for me. From the beasts I’ve seen so far, I can only think that mine will be of equal horror.

The gates grind open, but my own beast reveals itself more slowly than the worm or the flower, almost as if it’s trying to be dramatic.

Just like some monster in a horror movie, I hear it before I see it. A rhythmic splatting describing its steps, disturbing me with thoughts of some deep sea monstrous nightmare.

Then, it finally shows itself.

A blue-green blob of viscous fluid about twice the size of my head. Its body is thick enough that I can’t quite see through it, but it seems clean. It’s not picking up any of the sand that it hops on, and it’s not sinking into it either.

It moves leisurely, somehow bouncing along in my general direction. Its moves somewhat like you’d expect of a sentient liquid. It swirls itself up tight before somehow kicking off of the ground and hopping high into the air, trailing a small tail. Upon landing, it splats flat on the ground, but it’s quick to swirl itself back up into something near to a sphere.

When only 5 meters separate us, the slime pauses in its incessant sploshing. It flattens itself a bit as ripples run across its shining surface and it emits a low growling noise.

The growl is like that of a little puppy and continues for a few moments as I try to figure out what I’m meant to do.

Should I just stomp it to death?

It feels like that should work, it’s just a moving bag of jelly, so it should die the moment it bursts.

Thinking of the many of its brethren that I’ve slain in the digital realms, I raise my spear and shield with a confidence that is only half pretend.

What can a pitiful slime do to me? It doesn’t even have any arms.

When it’s in reach I thrust at it with my spear, penetrating it’s blue-green liquid flesh… a little bit.

The tiniest bit.

My spear loses all force the second that the spear tip touches the slime, it almost jars my arm for the sudden pause.

As I’m still recovering from the shock, the slime makes its move. Acting as the liquid it is, it wraps itself around my outstretched spear and tugs at it. The force behind the pull is more than should be possible, but then again, Newton wasn’t a mage.

I stumble a step closer to the jelly ball, but swing outwards to either throw the slime or free my spear. The slime thankfully decides to let go, and I get my spear back.

Free from its handless grip, I retreat before it can leap on me. It’s an easy escape, considering my enemies lack of speed.

“Keep it up!” Eshya cheers from the sideline, “Splatter that slime!”

The slime seems to be rather unhappy, though I suppose I would be too if I was thrown into a cage and released into an arena to be slaughtered for someone else’s training.

It ripples viciously as fluids inside its body swirl about violently. Clearly, it’s up to something, and delicate flower that I am, I huddle behind my shield.

A good thing too, as a moment later I feel something slam against it. Not enough to bruise, but nearly there. I look out from behind my shield to see that the creature has spat… well… itself, at me, and now it stains the outside of my wooden shield.

It spits with that much force?

I should be glad the little chucklefuck doesn’t have arms, or it’d rip mine clean off.

The liquid slides from the front of my shield and crawls along the sands back to the main body of the slime.

I rotate my bruised shield arm. It’s not broken at least.

Clearly this water balloon is packing some serious mana density, it’s the only way that this makes sense. It would explain the force of its attack, and also why my spear can’t hurt it.

So, what can I do?

I could hit it with one of my fireburst punches, it hasn’t formed into a proper Skill yet, but I can probably still manage it. That said, if its mana density is as high as I think it is, then I’d have to burn through a good chunk of mana to make an impact. I’m still getting my mana back after having spent so much fighting in the ruins, so I’m already painfully low on mana.

That’s not an option, especially not for training. Everyone seems confident that I’m not going to die here, so it’d be smart to save my mana for the fights that actually matter.

Shielding from another spit attack, I see a brief moment of weakness and lash out at it before I can think myself out of it.

Rather than stabbing it, which has proven fruitless so far, I swing wide, aiming to hit it with the haft of my spear and send it flying.

As my spear bounces into the side of the slime I can see as the force of the blow dissipates, though the same isn’t true for forces in my arm which is brought to a jarring halt.

At least the slime has enough sense to ripple in displeasure from my attack.

Oh, how it is to be rendered a pacifist, while making my best attempts at war.

I know that I shouldn’t be comparing myself, but I know that Eshya or Vii would have been able to deal with this slime already. I’m not some silly teenager who needs to show off… but damn it, being bullied by a sack of water isn’t going to stand.

So, when that little bugger stops and sets itself up to spit at me again, I change tactics.

I sprint at it with my shield raised, taking the blow and charging onwards through it. I jump high and ride my shield down onto the creature, landing with all of my weight and momentum.

The squish of the slime beneath me softens my landing, but I don’t feel the resounding burst that I was hoping for. I roll away quickly, holding tight to my shield and looking at where the slime should be.

It’s not there.

Instead, my shield is a little heavier and it doesn’t take a genius to understand why. Even so, the realization comes a moment too late.

The slime, moving with a determination that I wouldn’t expect from such a simple creature, slides around my shield and starts crawling up my arm. It’s cold, moist body slithers along frighteningly quickly, burning my skin with mana friction.

I try to fling it off, but it’s grip on me is firm and I can’t get my other hand through it or around it. I’m only slightly ashamed of myself that at this point all my tactics and fight is reduced down to a panicked slapping.

Swatting at it in a furious panic, I succeed mainly in making splashing sounds such as to inspire fits of laughter from Vii up in the stands.

“What? It sounds funny.” She says to someone beside her.

The slime crawls up my neck, covering my face even through my struggling attempts to throw it off. Soon, I can’t hear anything and have to close my eyes and mouth to block the unwanted advances of this living jelly.

That’s not enough to stop it.

I blow the air out of my nose as I feel it start slipping into my airways, but it continues down unphased. I panic and claw at the liquid beast covering my face, trying to get it clear of my nose and mouth.

But I can’t.

I can feel something grabbing at my hands, and pulling at the slime from outside, but their efforts are as worthless as my own.

Its liquid body slips down into my lungs, and all I can feel is the burning inside, and the terrible wrongness. My lips are forced open and the last air is pushed from my lungs. My throat and lungs burn from the mana friction and the pains of drowning.

By instinct, I pull at that mana. Its inside of me, thus it’s mine. I don’t think about it, I hardly even quite realize what I’m doing in my panic, but I’ve been crunching the mana inside me so constantly for the last week that this has become habit.

The liquids moving inside me weaken and then still, the mana swiftly draining from it and becoming mine. In that moment of weakness, I force my jaws closed and finally swipe the slime off of my face.

Choking and spluttering, I spit up the mana-less blue-green liquid and get another breath of fresh air. My lungs haven’t stopped burning, but I no longer feel like I’m about to pass out.

In my chest, another burning, cutting sensation fills me up, but this one more familiar, and even a little pleasant. The mana I stole is now converting inside me, and there is plenty of it.

“Kyra, spit it all up.” Vii says, patting my back as I cough up my lungs. Now that it’s not burning with mana friction, the slime tastes strangely sweet.

“I’m good.” I say, spitting blue-green gunk into the sands. Eshya is deflecting the slime over to the side, making sure to keep it away, but clearly not taking the offensive as she usually would.

“Do you want to finish it?” Eshya asks, turning back to me, “Or do you need me to?”

“It’s mine.” I say, standing and trying to force down the desire to cough. I don’t succeed, but the coughing won’t stop me now.

The little slime is rippling unhappily as it’s knocked aside by Eshya’s wooden sword.

“I have your back,” she says.

“Me too.” Vii says, patting my back and taking to the sky to watch over me.

“This is meant to be a solo exercise…” Adler says in frustration, looking up at the teacher who’s observing us without interfering.

I lick the last of the slime from my lips and drink it as soon as the sweet flavour hits my tongue. A little gross, but now’s not the time to think about it.

“This thing is practically just a sugary, mana-filled, juice that’s come to life.” I say, feeling the mana churning within me. I think I’ve sucked at least hundred units of mana out of it, though I can’t be sure until it’s been converted.

I lean towards the slime, abandoning my spear and shield making ‘pspsps’ noises like I would to a cat. The slime seems confused but comes a little closer with a hint of curiosity in its swaying movements.

When it gets near enough, it swirls itself up and spits at me.

This time I use mana shields to take the hit, and while bruising, it doesn’t feel that bad. Honestly, unless I can run my mana through a wooden shield, it’s actually worse than using my own body to take hits.

I gather the liquid spit on me and pull at the mana in it, just like I’ve just done. It’s not nearly as effective as when I’ve eaten it, but I do still succeed in pulling in little bits of its mana, weakening the liquid and denying it the strength to escape and return to the slimes body.

~Skill developed.

~Mana Drain Touch, (Unclassed)

Nice.

I grab at the slippery jelly, draining more mana from it with every touch. By the time it slips from my hands, it’s almost worthless for the little bit of mana left in it.

It seems easier to consume the mana from this slime than that crystal I’ve been sucking on. It’s about as easy as it is with food. Perhaps it’s something to do with the organic nature of it? It seems I’ll have to experiment a little later on.

The slime watches me, its surface rippling with increasing complexity and I suppose frustration. Its insides swirl as if to spit again, but instead it bounces away.

Once, twice, three times. It doesn’t stop.

It’s trying to escape from me.

“Step two; subdue.” I say chasing after the slime, as the first little tidbits of mana within me finish converting.

As I chase the slime, it increases its pace. Its sploshing hops taking it further faster as I get closer to catching up. Not willing to let it go, I push myself harder.

I recall what Eshya said about using her mana burst lessons to give a burst to her speed, and I try to imitate. Like when using a mana burst punch, I let the mana race along my legs and gather into a vortex in my feet each step.

The shifting forces are difficult to time right, but with my practice punching, it’s not actually that difficult to make work.

~Skill developed.

~Mana Burst Kick, (Unclassed)

It’s a horribly confusing sensation, almost like I’m running on air when it lands right. Normally, there’s a certain weight and pressure under your feet when you run, but with this, it’s like the ground has become light as air beneath my feet.

I bound towards the slime that can’t quite manage a quick enough pace to escape me. With open arms I leap to tackle it, but the critter bounces to the right and I have to put up my mana skin to avoid hurting myself as I face plant into the sand.

I rush to my feet and resume the chase.

I won’t let my mana ball get away!

The slime, in increasing panic tries to escape me, but this time I wrap my arms around the slimy little bag of mana. Using mana drain the moment my arms are around it; I hold it still. I feel the liquid shiver and shudder in my grasp, unable to pull together the strength to escape from me.

I sit here, in the arena sands wet with the blood of beasts, sweating from the efforts of the fight, coughing up sweet tasting slime, bruises forming on my arm and chest, petting my little sack of mana as it ripples with displeasure. Every time it tries to slip through my arms, I flip it around to halt its escape. Like dealing with a squirming cat trying to break from me, but this time it’s not as cute, and I’m slowly draining it of life.

As it stills in my arms, resigned to its fate, I pet at its head roughly. The feel of pulling the mana from it is much like mana friction, but somehow much more satisfying.

~Skill developed.

~Harsh petting, (Unclassed)

Well, cats never much liked my affections either…

“Kyra, what are you doing?” Eshya asks, with an odd expression of concern.

“Subjugation.” I reply, filling up with its mana. The slime is rippling pathetically in my arms and I’m not sure how much more I can take from it before it dies. I tone down my draining attacks a little.

“That was a curious… fight. That thing was drowning you to death a few minutes ago, now it’s not even a threat. It’s just trying it’s best to escape…” Vii says, eyes shining with curiosity.

“Well, I suppose I should move on to the execution…” The sad little blob in my arms hardly seems the same as the creature that was killing me only a few minutes ago. It trembles and lets out a low and desperate whine.

“Hey, you’re the one who attacked me.” I say, tapping at its head and sending ripples down its jelly-like body.

It builds itself up like it does when it’s about to spit, the liquids swirling with the last remnants of its energy. I wack it on the head, only lightly, but it’s enough to stop the creature. It’s gotten a fair bit smaller since our fight began.

It works itself up to spit at me again.

I wack it.

The creature writhes and growls in displeasure, but the efforts are really quite sad. It feels a little bad putting it down, but the mana I’ll get form it is a temptation that’s difficult to ignore.

“You guys said something about collaring or whatever. How’s that work?” I ask, gently running my fingers along the top of the squirming life form.

“Shin, go get a collar for her,” Freid calls over his shoulder as he steps down to us, “That was more interesting than I thought it would be.”

“I know, I’m pretty great. You don’t need to hold back your complements.” I reply, the slime has given up on escape and sits in my arms rippling with slow gentle waves.

“Whatever technique you’re using to subdue it is certainly impressive, but we’ll discuss that later. The way you have it under control you may have an aptitude for beast taming. In fact, I’m surprised you don’t have a formal talent for it… regardless, I want you to take beast taming classes seriously.”

As he talks, the tall minotaur who was fighting when we got here arrives with a small blob of what looks like soft metal. It’s only around the size of my hand, and it is frightfully familiar. It’s the same material that I saw running into my arm, before it crawled up into by brain.

A support device.

A brain-chip.

“This is a collar,” Freid says, as it’s passed to me. “It’s much like your support device, but this one has some controlling factors added to it. With a support device tuned to allow for proper authority, you can command collared beasts.”

“With proper training and care.” Adler adds, “Beasts should not be seen as tools. Anyone trusted with command over a beast must try to assist in their development into civilised beings.”

“Cool.” I reply half-heartedly, “How does this work? Do I just slap it in there?”

“Essentially…” Freid mutters.

I do just that to the tired little slime. The metal liquifies as it sinks into the jelly of its body, splitting and branching out in every which direction until eventually it’s nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the jelly-like body. On the right angle I catch the small shine of a hair thin branch of the metal wires.

“Is this healthy?” I ask, thinking of the wires that must be running through me the same. I wonder whether it is limited to my brain, it might just branch through my whole body like it does for Slimey here.

“It is no threat to your health.” Alder says, before turning to Freid with a questioning look, “If I may ask, why are you having this beast collared? If it’s been brought here, then surely it’s a waste to have it tamed.”

“It was a good opportunity to show how this process works, and it seems like it would be a good partner for her in the beast taming classes.” He explains, “I’ve found that beast tamers are better able to work with beasts that they’ve collared themselves.”

“I suppose that makes sense.” Adler admits begrudgingly, “It’s highly unusual though, it’s not how this worked in my academy.”

“Of course not. Yours was an inner realm academy, wasn’t it?” He grunts before seizing the little living mana ball from my arms, “Stop struggling.” He whispers with a gruff voice, stilling the squirming Slimey.

“There are no other combat classes with an introduction, but there’s another class I’ll expect you all to be taking next week.

“Beast dissection. It will help to keep you from destroying the delicate alchemical parts as you’ve done here in training.”

With a sigh he takes the collared slime back into the caged section of the arena, “That’s all. Go home or something.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stats & Skills

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 333 units

~Mana distribution:

Skin: 21%

Muscle: 8%

Mind: 8%

Cardiovascular: 8%

Misc.: 3%

Efficiency: 48%

~Skills:

-Mana drain touch

-Mana skin

-Mana shield.

-Mana surge strike

-Mana surge kick

-Flame burst

-Fireball

-Infused delayed casting

-Harsh petting