[You have received a new mission:
Survive for one month in the dark forest.
Rewards: Exp.
Do you accept the mission?]
It took Alexander a few moments to process what had just happened. His teacher had just abandoned him in the woods, possibly hundreds of miles from the dwarf's house. Also, Leif had said, before he teleported away, that this was the dark forest! Wasn't that the lawless zone at the edge of the Isedor continent? How did Leif expect a slime with 1 in all of his physical stats to survive in a forest overrun by monsters?!
"I accept the mission," He said dejectedly. It would seem that he did not have much choice in the matter. At least he would get a reward from Bucephalus.
As it was still early in the night, Alexander decided that he needed to find a good hiding place. Luckily, he could not sense monsters in the vicinity at the moment. It seemed like as good a place as any for a home base.
Alexander 'looked' around and sensed a large tree about ten feet away from him, whose roots were large and protruding from the ground. That looked perfect. He rolled over to the tree and started to dig between the roots. Soon, Alexander had fashioned a makeshift cave beneath the tree, and the entrance was hidden in the shadows of two large roots. The cave was cozy, about five feet in diameter, which was pretty spacious for a beach ball sized slime.
[Dig has leveled up: 2 -> 3]
Oh ho! A skill level up! It has been a while since he had gotten any skill levels. He tried digging by expanding his cozy cave slightly, and he was able to consume the dirt much faster! Not very interesting, but still very useful.
He then pushed some dirt up against the entrance to the cave, just to be safe. Who knows what the dark forest contains in the night, so it was better to hide out if he wanted to survive.
This would be his first night in Isedor! Do slimes even sleep? He did feel pretty tired, and it was a very stressful day. Alexander relaxed his slimy body and sunk onto the floor, looking like a very tired and slimy pancake. The world faded around him. Finally, some shut eye for the hard-working slime.
---
Alexander awoke completely rested and ready to take on the new day. The pancake-like slime hopped up and bounced back into his usual round, taut sphere. The first order of business in the forest was to scout his new home. He cleared the dirt from the entrance to his lair and cautiously rolled outside. The plants beneath him gave way to his slimy body as he rolled sneakily around the tree, keeping to the shadows. It was hard to see at this time because the sun wasn't up yet. His surroundings were shrouded in darkness, with only slight fragments of mana left for him to discern his surroundings. He guessed that he would have to level up his mana sense to be able to see anything in the middle of the night. He felt the cool morning dew beneath him as he rolled through the grass, coating Alexander's outside in a thin layer of cold water. He noticed the sun start to rise halfway through his scouting, the mana flowing into the trees and grass around him, lighting up the space with mellow blue light.
After roaming around for about forty-five minutes, he finally found what he was looking for. About thirty feet away from his cave beneath the tree, there was a rabbit, slightly larger than the rabbits on earth, with large, muscular hind legs munching on a small patch of green plants. When it opened its mouth, there was a row of menacingly sharp teeth with greatly oversized canines which protruded outside of its mouth even when closed. It just about rivaled Alexander in size, measuring around 18 inches from head to tail. This was the perfect specimen to test the new skill he got from the rhinoboar: elemental affinity.
As Alexander had been scouting around, he was practicing his elemental affinity skill. At this moment, he could only do one spell. The fireball spell was the easiest spell from the easiest element, but it still had pretty decent destructive power against most enemies. He had tried the other elements, but his skill in manipulating mana was just not high enough to convert his mana into those elements. He had tested the fireball spell and determined that each shot consumed about 2 mana. Since he had 5 mana, he would be able to fire two shots max. Hopefully it would not come to that.
Alexander watched the fanged rabbit closely, he could not afford to make any mistakes with this. One bite from the fanged rabbit would be an insta-kill with his measly one HP. He observed the rabbit for about a half hour. During that time, the rabbit continued to peacefully munch away on the grass. Alexander even gathered a little bit of mana just to be sure that the rabbit wouldn't sense his spell coming. It continued to munch away.
It was finally time to put his plan into action. He crept out from the tree that he had been concealing himself behind, and started to gather mana. He drew the mana from his core and condensed it into a small ball in front of himself. He would have to ask Leif later how he was able to gather mana from the surroundings. Alexander then began to convert the mana in front of himself into a ball of fire. He reached out his consciousness into the mana and willed it to take on the properties of fire, using itself as fuel. The ball of mana slowly formed into a ball of raging fire, about as big as a soft ball. Then, he launched the burning ball straight at the rabbit.
The rabbit turned at the last second, feeling the heat of the ball singe its hair, but it was too late. The ball of fire collided with the rabbit, a direct hit! The smoke slowly cleared. Oh no. The rabbit was still alive, though one of its legs had been blown off by the ball of fire. It looked at Alexander with pure rage in its eyes and started to hobble in his direction. Even injured, the rabbit could still easily kill him. He needed to form a second fireball as quickly as possible.
The necessary mana flowed from his core into the air in front of him, but it was too slow. The rabbit was gaining on him and would reach Alexander any second now. The mana ball caught fire and started to expand. But it was too late. The rabbit used all of its strength left in its hind leg and propelled itself in a massive leap towards Alexander, leading with its head to knock Alexander off balance. It rammed into Alexander, and, surprisingly, it was thrown backwards as it bounced off his springy body.
Alexander did not have time to think, he released the now fully formed fireball at the confused rabbit. The rabbit had no time to dodge. The fireball hit him square between the eyes and its head was blown apart. The rabbit's lifeless body fell to the ground in a heap of mangled limbs and burnt flesh. Not the prettiest way to win a battle, but it worked.
[You have slain the infant vampire rabbit. You have gained 10 Exp.]
Vampire rabbit? Sounds about right. But that is an infant! How large is the adult?! He was not keen to find out anytime soon.
[Elemental Affinity has leveled up: 1 -> 2
Squish has leveled up: 1 -> 2]
He had forgotten that he had the squish skill! He had thought it was useless at first so he did not pay attention to it, but it had saved him! Nice, he also got a level in elemental affinity!
Now, it was time to eat.
Like last time, at the thought of eating, small slimy tentacles emerged from his body and enveloped the dead rabbit. It tasted terrible, of course, and had a burnt aftertaste, which was not enjoyable. After a minute or two, the rabbit had been fully disintegrated and consumed by Alexander.
[Gluttony has leveled up: 1 -> 2
You have gained 1 stat point from the vampire rabbit.
You have consumed a new specimen: +1 stat points.]
Stat points from killing monsters?! Awesome! That must be what gluttony does at level two! If that's the case, it's time to go on a killing spree.