Syl

Chapter 119: Feathers

"What's not good?" Trixie asked, peeking down from my head to stare at my face.

"I have a trait that lets me convert mana into slime," Trixie looked at me horrified, so I quickly clarified. "My own mana."

Trixie visibly relaxed, her tiny form shifting on my head. I could understand her fear-if she was a being of pure mana, as she claimed, the thought of being converted into slime was surely horrific. "It was useful when I couldn't find a food source or just wanted extra slime for a situation," I continued, "but now it's causing issues. I even received an error message."

Trixie pondered for a moment, then spoke up, her voice tinged with concern. "It seems you've unwittingly created a paradox. You've identified your slime body as a mana source, but you also possess a skill that creates slime from your mana. It's like trying to create slime from slime, and that's been deemed prohibited."

"Okay... I can somewhat understand that. My only issue is that I had effectively infinite mana before this, so I certainly felt like I was creating slime from nothing before this." I questioned.

"This is a bit of a history lesson, "Trixie began, her tone serious. "In the past, the Gods have been rather lenient with creatively using exploitative loopholes, which your ability probably fell under. However, they have a strong aversion to duplication glitches."

I sighed, but there really wasn't anything I could do right now, so I just had to accept it. "I'll have to defer to your wisdom..."

Trixie chuckled, and we both went to our respective beds. Despite my comfortable bath, sleeping that night was a bit harder.

As usual, I had the morning to myself, and I was determined to finish my first modification to [Icicle] before Trixie awoke. Considering she had been effectively asleep for years if not decades, I would have almost expected her to have a surplus of energy.

Maybe it was due to [Mana Manipulation] reaching a new level, but I found my task far easier this time, and I finished adding the freezing property to my spell. I immediately cast it, and the ground where the frozen shard penetrated started slowly freezing in a growing radius.

The way [Frozen Grasp] worked was I could keep the ethereal hand apparated, and it would keep repeatedly applying the effect at the cost of additional mana sustaining the spell, so I wondered how it would work now that I had transferred the effect over to a one-time projectile. After a few repeated casts and trying out different levels of spell empowerment, I concluded that there was a time limit per spell based on how much mana I crammed into it.

"This would make a great affliction... And debuff... I should modify [Frigid] and [Frostbite] next before trying to add [Chill]. More tools in the toolbox rather than just one big one."

"Talking to yourself again?" Trixie asked, I hadn't even noticed her arrival.

"It's probably a bad habit, but I find it helps."

"True. By the way, I have no idea what [Frigid] and [Frostbite] are, but I can throw in a recommendation of trying to swap out the fire in your [Fireball] spell."

My eyes widened at that suggestion. When I originally thought of that, I had pictured it just being an explosion of icy shrapnel, but if I could make it an explosion that froze those caught in the blast, that had potential.

"You don't have fire or ice, right?" I asked curiously, having only witnessed water and nature.

"Nope, but I have a friend who does. Hopefully, he hasn't kicked the bucket yet..."

"Oh..." I felt a bit awkward, "Well... I mean... Don't let me stop you."

"Ha! You can't get rid of me that easy, Syl." Trixie said with a wink, "But when you go back to your human city, I might go pop in and visit some people."

"Oh. Surely you could just go invisible or whatever you do, though?" I asked.

"I could, but I'd rather not risk it. I'd offer the same to you, though. Wouldn't you rather come with me after this island business?"

I hesitated; while personally, I'd consider Dewi or Whitney closer friends, the relationship wasn't built on honesty, and Trixie knew the real me. "Maybe if I didn't already have some plans arranged. There's a good chance I'm going to the dwarven empire in a month or two, and I'll get a silver slime core from them."

"Oh! If you're visiting the dwarves, perhaps that's where we can meet up." Trixie responded positively, "Unless I find you before then. But if there are too many humans, don't expect me to show myself."

I agreed wholeheartedly.

"But that's for the future! We got an island to conquer first!" Trixie exclaimed, thrusting a fist into the air with cheer.

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I was going to walk, but Trixie said she'd hide our flight. We debated between going to the forest or the cave first and eventually settled on the cave because it was likely quicker to explore fully. I was again using my winged-hobgoblin hybrid form for the multitude of defensive traits and to minimize my profile. Trixie complained about no longer having a "pretty elf" to admire but eventually stopped whinging when she got me to agree to show her some of my other transformation options when we returned to our tree base.

"You're honestly fascinating. Most mimics have one, maybe two forms, not including their real form, so for you to have such a plethora is unheard of. They are ambush monsters; they definitely don't go around seeking prey like yourself." Trixie had commented during our travel time.

As we approached the cave, I could see winged creatures nearby, and using [Eagle Vision], I spotted two bird-like women guarding the entrance. Rather than arms, they had large wings, their plume of feathers completely different from each other. They had little in the way of clothing; one had what looked like knives strapped to her long bird legs, while the other was perched on one leg while leaning on a spear under her armpit.

"Harpies..." I informed Trixie, who I assumed didn't have the same enhanced vision as me.

"Oh great..." Trixie grumbled and started tearing away at her dress, which briefly fluttered back to the brown rag she was previously wearing. I wondered what she was doing and saw her begin stuffing her ears with balled-up bits of cloth.

"You might want to get rid of your big goblin ears," she suggested, now talking telepathically. "Seriously, you do not want to hear a harpy scream unprotected."

I removed them, but I could still hear my surroundings. "I don't think I actually need ears to hear things. I am a slime, after all."

I almost laughed at the dumbfounded expression on her face as she struggled to comprehend what I just said. "What? How? Do you hear things through the vibrations in your slime or something?"

"I have no idea; how does a rock elemental hear things?" I retorted.

"Uh..." Trixie paused, utterly speechless momentarily, "Good question, actually..."

"So either I'll be completely immune or completely helpless. Wonderful."

We approached closer to get a better vantage point, then watched and waited to see if more would leave or approach. Trixie was, in theory, hiding us, but I was making sure to keep up [Vanish] myself in case another prank was brewing.

"You could probably kill them both with a good [Sneak Attack]." Trixie pointed out.

"I've never encountered harpies before, so I don't know what to expect. A friend described them as female orcs."

"That's a decent comparison for their behavior, but in terms of their physique, they are fast and frail and prefer to evade or ambush."

"A cave doesn't normally allow for much evasion, though."

"Yes, but it would certainly give a boost to their scream."

"Oh... I wonder if they'd be willing to talk."

"They're monsters, Syl. If you aren't one of them, then you are just a bag of walking experience points."

I didn't respond. I knew she was mostly right, but it still bugged me. We continued observing, and two more harpies arrived in tandem, carrying a dead pegasus between their claws. They arrived looking mostly unharmed but very fatigued. Then, they dragged the corpse inside the cave.

"I wonder why they didn't cut it up into more manageable chunks; it looked mostly whole."

"Beats me. It's a little strange." Trixie replied; I could almost feel her shrugging through the mental bond.

A short while later, another harpy left the cave with what looked like limbs clutched in her claws. She left, flying higher up the small mountain to what I could only assume was another cave.

"The plot thickens... Those looked like humanish legs and arms," Trixie mumbled.

"So it wasn't my eyes playing tricks on me."

"Like I said. Monsters. Beyond all your slime nonsense, because honestly, that's another entire can of worms, I don't think you truly understand how unique you actually are."

"Right. Well, I think we've observed enough. I guess I'll take out the guards, and we can sneak in."

I effortlessly stacked [Erode] and [Frigid] on the two guards, then started to cast four [Icicle] spells distantly above and behind them, aiming for their heads.

"Showoff." Trixie teased.

With the spells completed, I coordinated their firing so the pair would be hit simultaneously. The frozen shards pierced directly into the harpy pair and dropped them both nearly instantly. Their bodies then began to freeze over rapidly.

"Okay... I didn't expect that." I said, a little shocked.

"I told you they are frail... You debuffed them twice, hit them with [Sneak Attack] and a status ailment. Not to mention two empowered spells each. Talk about overkill." Trixie shook her head. "What next, [Meteor] on a goblin? Maybe throw in [Assassinate]?"

"Stop. Stop. I get it..." I grumbled.

We sneaked over to the two frozen corpses, and I quickly ate both. [Dissection] was telling me they were worthless, so I only saved an ear each for proof. I was surprised that their feathers weren't worth anything, but then I realized that despite the different colorings, they matched up with the ones I found in the ruins before I discovered the underground lab.

Disappointingly, the harpy profile was full of traits that I already had or better, the only exception being [Screech]. It was described as a sonic-based attack whose primary focus was stunning and disorientating but was apparently lethal to lesser foes at high levels and close range. I briefly shifted into one to try it out, causing Trixie to stare at me.

"So now you can instantly turn into one of them? That hardly seems fair," Trixie said with a frown.

"Yeah... Something like that, it's a mix of two evolutions and a rare trait." I halfheartedly explained.

"You!" Abruptly, she went wide-eyed and pointed an accusatory finger at me, gasping, "You were trying to eat me!"

I shifted into a rather flawed mimicry of demon Trixie; after all, I had only seen her using it once and had no benefit from [Consuming Osmosis]. The form was also obviously goblin-sized rather than pixie-sized since my cores wouldn't allow me to go too small. Obviously, I had no traits or anything, only pure visual mimicry.

"You fool!" I replied, cackling in her mind.

Trixie went from outrage to astonishment to joining in on the cackling laughter in record time. Only my orc transformation against the prince got more of a reaction out of her.

"Okay. Okay. I forgive you for trying to eat me, Syl. I guess I did kinda deserve it at the time." Trixie said, recovering from her wheezing laughter. I wondered how she was so emotive during these telepathic conversations, as faking being out of breath was a bit extreme.

"I forgive you too. Now, let's see what's in the cave of horrors." I replied.

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