Chapter 7, Episode 10: Three-Day Weekend, Day 2
The next morning, I awoke fully prepared to do more slime research. I also planned to do some experiments on magic and magical elements. First up, I asked for the help of a mud slime and a sand slime, who inspired my hypothesis for the day.
“Of course, I only have one sand slime so far...” I prepared a pile of sand and a pile of dirt for the slimes to use their Synchronize skill on, then set them to work once everything was ready.
“Hm. No surprise here...”
The slimes began to disappear into the pile of sand and dirt. Even when they were completely invisible, the slimes were still there; they just completely blended into the sand and dirt. I doubted they would withstand a magical blast that obliterated their respective materials, but no physical attack would harm them in this state. Most surprisingly, though, the slimes did not have their cores—their most vulnerable spot—in this state. They truly became sand and dirt themselves. At the same time, they still maintained their sentience, if one could even call it that. On command, they could revert to their slime forms, or continue to move in their coreless state. After seeing not one, but two species of slimes using this skill in action, I was forced to confront the reality of this skill.
After witnessing this, I wondered how this was possible, and set my eye on magical energy for a few reasons. Firstly, normal, non-evolved slimes somehow disappear when they die, leaving their core behind. Secondly, I’d discovered through observing and experimenting with magical slimes and their evolutions that those slimes absorb magical energy, with some specimens preferring one specific element over the others. And finally, there was one time when I asked a poison slime to use a spear-shaped magical item, and while it was able to do so, it showed signs of exhaustion and shrinkage in the process.
These observations contributed to my hypothesis that slimes were composed of magical energy. The basic law of magic dictated that magical energy dispersed when released from the spellcaster’s control. If slimes were magical energy taking form, their bodies disappearing at death would make sense. Furthermore, I hypothesized that if their bodies were composed of magical energy, the Synchronization skill was a magic spell. While I obviously had to watch out for explaining everything away as “magic did it,” it was still a force powerful enough to make the impossible possible.
Also, a hundred slimes made a big slime, and five hundred of them made a huge slime. Perhaps their merging together wasn’t a spell in itself, but the result of a natural force or property in the magical energy of the slimes that enabled merging and synchronization.
Today, I decided to focus on my second observation—slimes absorb magical energy, and some of them prefer particular elements over the rest.
“I’ll just double check this...”
I tested which elements the two Synchronizing slimes preferred. The mud slime favored earth and water while the sand slime preferred earth and wind. I had gotten the same results the day before.
“So the mud slime prefers earth and water...”
There was even a category of spells called mud magic, that combined the earth and water elements. This hardly seemed like a coincidence. I even had a thought about the combination of earth and wind magic that the sand slime preferred.
“Polish Wheel.”
Earth magic converted the dirt to sand, which a wind picked up and began rapidly whirring around. This was one of my original spells that used the rapid movement of the sand grains to buff or polish things. I had designed it out of necessity and named it off the top of my head—a wheel-shaped thing I used to polish materials. In hindsight, maybe Sand Blaster would have been a better name.
This little spell I had pulled out of my pocket could reasonably be categorized as sand magic, just like mud magic. Was there a pattern in which elements which slimes preferred, and their application in spells?
“Well, I don’t have enough data yet.”
I decided to test other slimes, and considered which of them would prefer two specific elements. Then I thought of the ash slime, which preferred wood and fire magic. That was pretty intuitive when I visualized trees burning to ash.
“Now what spell should I make... Ash!” I called, casting a spell simply to create some ash like the Water spell. Lo and behold, fire and wood magical energy combined, changing into ash flakes falling to the ground. “Another success... I’m starting to enjoy myself here.”
The next slime that came to mind was the acid slime. Just as I mentally noted that it preferred poison and water magic, it occurred to me that the opposite of acid, alkaline, found its etymology in ashes.
I mixed the ashes into water, and true enough, it tested as alkaline... It seemed plausible that I could make an alkaline solution by combining ash (i.e., fire and wood) with water, but that would require the same caution in handling as acid. I decided to prepare more thoroughly before experimenting any further.
■ ■ ■
Twenty minutes later, I had a successful experiment on my hands. Combining three elements required some finesse, but I managed to create an alkaline solution by combining fire, wood, and water. However, when I tried to create acid from scratch by combining poison and water to counteract the alkaline, I failed. Where did I go wrong?
“Come to think of it, I’ve hardly ever used poison magic... Seems redundant with all the poison and medicine slimes I have. Maybe I should start studying poison magic from the basics...”
I continued to review the preferred elements of the other slimes, performing trial and error on any combination that seemed like I could cast, and making notes of observations and questions along the way. After casting magic at such a fast pace, I had expended most of my magical energy by the afternoon, although not quite to the point of making me feel ill. I decided to end my research for the day.
“Right, guess I’m out of things to do now...”
After pondering over this conundrum, I decided to make lunch. Afterwards, I decided to play with the slimes and prepare for the next day. When I was preparing their dinner after playing with them, I decided to give ash to the weed slimes that liked wood magic and fifty-three of them responded positively to the ash. It seemed I had much to learn about the relationship between slimes and magic.
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