But for a Slime

<chapter 73 continued> Thɪs chapter is updatᴇd by noᴠelfire.net

Some were stronger, more… present or pertinent, others were ghost like, as if ephemeral and not useful. Something about the feeling let him intrinsically know that pursuing them were useless, including the one straight up. But, they still were important, somehow. He giggled; a full on actual giggle when he realized how broken this skill was, but also that he had a chance to make it back home! Tension he'd felt that he didn't even know was there seemed to flood from him and he bonelessly settled back into the bath, stress fleeing his system and peace replacing it.

He laughed within himself for some time before sitting back up and grinning with avaricious greed. Need a goal… pretty sure that last one might be… just a bit too big. And… not sure on the time… so… back to essentials right now. Hm… My goal is to gain as many levels as possible within the rest of my year before naturalization while remaining low key from any others who do not know me and my abilities… besides Kukurnal and Gwenvair… the Matriarch… Kilinara and Garnedell and Zilnek… uh… besides them. Joe paused and thought deeply, cautiously considering his set goal. Oh…wait… and… arg… probably have to start all over again. Joe restated his goal quicker this time but added on that he wanted to make sure to keep Kilniara, Zilnek, and Garnedell with him. He paused for a bit then included Gwenvair in deference to Kilniara. He then considered some more very carefully before continuing. I seek my goal.

Once again, the mana pressure in the air coalesced, but this time much smaller and seemed to go much slower. It remained tight around him before it erupted outward in a slow but very minor wave this time. He watched it head out and it quickly changed from a wave to a roiling beam of mana that pierced directly out from him in four directions, the telltale pull returning and connecting him to whatever was out there. The beams of roiling mana felt something like what Joe could best describe as a chain of mana, although it had no chain links and bore almost no similarities in appearance to chains or chain links. It looked more like a rope, or a string. But Joe swore it felt like a chain in a way that left Joe a bit flummoxed.

He was lucky to have his map still open to him and grinned when he saw two locations light up: the beginner and advanced dungeon. The beginner was brightest while the advanced was less so. Joe frowned at that and looked at the other two beams radiating from him and he closed his eyes. It was then that Joe noticed the pulls were different, and with some careful thought, he was able to link the two strongest pulls to the beginner dungeon and another place that went towards the inner city. The strongest, by far, was the beginner dungeon, the second being the one to the inner city, the third the advanced dungeon, and the last somewhere in the same direction as the advanced dungeon.

Huh… pull strength or brightness… depending if I've been there before or not. This… Joe grinned and dropped the skill, satisfied with what he'd learned as well as happy to realize he'd lucked on a fast way to gain his stats as well. He rested back in the water and just enjoyed himself.

He lay like this for some time before he pulled himself from his relaxation and returned to his exploration of skills and abilities. He looked at party communicate, party locate, and share map, figuring he could use share map and communicate when he was back at the inn with the others to test it, not wanting to shock anyone with a random message. Especially they were out enjoying themselves and even if he sent a message, he wasn't certain if it was instant two way communication or even just one way. If it was text, he'd need to be there to get verbal confirmation from them as well. Help, as always, proved useless and told him nothing more than what the names already were.

Party locate, however, proved very useful, and amalgamated with the map system even better than the dungeon finder and other feeling systems. The party members that were in places where he had a map showed up on the map, and those that weren't in a place where he'd explored showed up as an arrow on his map pointing into the fog of war where the party member was, the feeling also tugging him in that direction. Kilniara happened to still be in Gwenvair's place, somehow, while Garnedell and, he assumed, Zilnek were off of the shopping district in a direction he hadn't explored yet. An arrow pointed off from the shopping district towards Garnedell, showing him how to get there. Well… that's nicer than the dungeon finder… wonder why it doesn't do the same thing? It certainly would be nicer!

Joe sighed, letting it go and turned to the looter skills now, the three being pretty obvious with even treasure guide seeming obvious now that he knew how dungeon finder and party locate worked. He did, however, learn that treasure nose and treasure guide were a bit related with treasure guide seeming to be minor upgrade. Treasure nose gave him a way to sense treasures using smell with treasure guide adding a small pull like feel like dungeon finder, but it was even more ephemeral and tenuous than any of the other feelings he had. On top of that, the guide allowed for targeted search of a specific treasure while also allowing him to get some information regarding some of the treasures he had if he looked at them and invoked the skill.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

He was excited when he read that, and quickly pulled out a core from his bag, pulling out a damaged one and one of the perfect ones he hadn't damaged yet.

Treasure guide, show me this core!