Chapter 221: Day 2 of a Three Day Rest
The next day.
Today, I will once again be researching slimes from morning till dusk! Well, okay. Actually, today’s theme isn’t all slimes. I want to run some experiments about spells and mana attributes.
The sand slimes and the mud slimes were the ones who got me to build my hypothesis for my experiment today, so I got one of each to help me.
“Well, I only have one sand slime right now, though…”
I needed to prepare sand and mud in order to get these slimes to use their a.s.similate skill. Both could change the ground with their magic, though, so preparing the sand and mud wasn’t hard. After everything was ready, I had them use their a.s.similate skill.
After they did…
“…So that really was the case.”
The mud slime and the sand slime seemed to melt when they approached the mud and the sand. After a while, they couldn’t be seen anymore, but they were still there. They had completely a.s.similated with the mud and the sand, becoming completely one with them.
If I were to completely eliminate the target they’ve a.s.similated themselves with, they wouldn’t be able endure it of course, but physical attacks like poking, cutting, and hitting are completely ineffective. Even more surprising is that the weakness of the slimes, the nucleus, is gone. They’ve become just like the mud and sand they’ve a.s.similated themselves with.
But despite that they appear to retain their consciousness, and if I were to order them to go back to being a slime, they can. They can also crawl and move around while in that nucleus-less state.
It’s a bit unbelieveable, but they’re doing it right in front of me, so I have no choice but to acknowledge it.
Besides, I’ve already concluded that this was possible yesterday.
What I really want to know is how and why they can do this. To that end, what got my attention was ‘mana’.
As for why, well, for one… Normal-looking slimes (normal variants) leave behind only their nucleus when they die, while the rest of their body vanishes.
The second reason is because based on my previous observations and experiments with the magic slimes, the slimes absorb mana and have individual preferences regarding the type of mana they absorb.
The third reason is because in a previous experiment a poison slime was able to successfully use a magic tool spear, but at the cost of debility due to the loss of mana and a reduction in volume.
Given the three reasons above, I am led to believe that the body of the slimes is made out of mana.
Mana, uncontrolled, will disperse – that is the fundamental concept of magic. It is commonsense. And it also gives a perfectly understandable reason as to why the body of the slimes vanish upon death.
If their body is in fact made out of mana, then perhaps the reason why they are able to a.s.similate themselves with an object is because of magic. I don’t know how to feel about magic solving everything, but this world does have that ‘magic’ that can make the impossible possible.
Besides, 100 slimes can combine to form a Big Slime, and 500 slimes can combine to form a Huge Slime. Perhaps it’s not that the slimes themselves are magic, but that the mana they possess has a characteristic and power that makes it possible for them to fuse with each other and a.s.similate with other things.
At least, that’s what I think.
I want to try out an experiment to confirm something about the second reason I gave, ‘slimes absorb mana and have individual preferences for the attribute’.
“But first I need to double check some things.”
Let’s find out what type of mana the slimes with a.s.similate like to absorb.
Upon checking, I found out that the mud slime likes earth and water, while the sand slime likes earth and wind.
I checked this yesterday too, actually, as part of my observation process, and the results were the same.
“The mud slime that a.s.similates with mud likes earth and water.”
And mud magic is a fusion of the earth and water attribute. I don’t think that’s just a coincidence.
I also have an inkling as to why the sand slime likes earth and wind.
“‘Polish Wheel’” [Ryouma]
Earth magically transformed into sand is swept by a whirlwind and then together they spin quickly like a tire.
Polish Wheel is an original spell I came up with that grinds objects through the momentum of the sand grains.
I made it when I needed it, so I just took the word polish from the English word for 磨く (migaku). Moreover, I visualize it using the image of a tire, so wheel. When put together you get ‘Polish Wheel’. A simple name, nothing too deep, but now that I think about it, maybe Grinder or Sand Blaster would have been easier to understand.
But perhaps this sloppily named and sloppily made spell is a sand-type magic just like mud magic. And perhaps there’s a relationship and a rule behind why slimes like the mana attributes they like.
“It’s too early to make any conclusions, though, what with only two samples. Alright.”
Let’s test it with the other slimes too. The other slimes with two elements I have are… Ah, there’s the ash slime. The attributes the ash slime likes are water and wood. If you think about how charcoal can be made by burning trees, it’s easy to visualize too.
“What kind of magic should I test, hmm… ‘Ash’ ”
Keeping things simple, I invoked a spell while imagining ash appearing just like i would with the water-type spell, ‘Water’.
When I tried it out, fire and water attribute mana combined and turned into ash by my feet.
“This is a success too… It’s starting to get fun.”
Next is… If I recall correctly, the acid slime likes poison and water—
And then it hit me.
Acid slime is acid. Acid is symmetrical to alkali, and the word, alkali, comes from ash.
If you mix water with ash, the aqueous solution will show alkalinity… If so, then wouldn’t ash (fire + wood) and water be able to create alkali?
…I’ll have to be careful when handling an alkali solution. Of course, acids require caution too. I made some preparations and tested my hypothesis with another experiment.
20 minutes later.
The experiment was a success.
It was difficult to mix three different elements, but fire + wood + water successfully produced an aqueous solution.
But in order to neutralize the alkali, I had to produce acid by combining acid and water… Unfortunately, producing the acid ended in failure.
Just what went wrong?
“I have the poison slimes and medicine slimes for when I need poison, so I’ve never really used poison magic much… And now that I think about, I never used it for any of my ch.o.r.es either.”
It might be a good idea to study poison magic right from the basics.
I’ll think about the reason for the failure afterwards.
After that I reviewed the attributes of the other slimes too, and anything that could be turned into magic, I tested, resulting into a series of failures and success, and every time I tried something out, I would make a record of it.
And because I kept using magic I wasn’t used to, by the time it was past noon, I’d expended most of my mana. With that I had to put an end to today’s research.
“…Because of that I don’t have anything to do anymore…”
After thinking about it for awhile, I decided to make lunch and eat.
Afterwards I spent the rest of the day in leisure, playing with the slimes and preparing for tomorrow.
When I went to prepare supper for the slimes, I applied what I learned about the ash slimes liking fire and wood by trying to feed the weed slimes ash. When I did, 53 weed slimes showed a strong reaction.
As I thought, the relationship between mana and slimes is intriguing.