Reincarnated as a mana core

When Arthur came downstairs Argul had already finished her lunch. Luna still gave him his portion so Mia and Alyra had to wait for him now before they could go on their little adventure.

Argul carried Aina into the kitchen and fed her some of the organic waste Luna had produced during cooking. She would need to feed the slime more and more the next few days to prevent her from eating any more paper.

Luna came into the kitchen after Argul and watched Aina eating. “Hasn’t that already been enough for Aina? She is going to get fat, though that might make her even cuter.”

Argul shook her head, petted Aina and looked up at Luna with a smile. “Nah, she is going to split in the next few days and needs more food to grow before that.”

Luna regarded the slime intrigued. “Slimes split themselves to reproduce?”

Argul nodded. “Yes, as if they were a large body cell.”

Luna knelt down next to them with the intent of petting Aina too. “You say that as if it is the most normal thing to know.” Ahh she had messed up.

Argul scratched her head awkwardly. “Well, Aina has been around for a while so it’s not the first time this is happening.” 

That was a lie. For some reason Aina hadn’t split herself until now and it was likely that the long times outside of mana were at fault here.

Luna hummed in acceptance, grabbed a handful of potato peel and handed it to Aina who happily gobbled everything up. 

She looked at Argul like a child that wanted a hamster as a pet. “Can I have the new slime?”

Argul stood up and went over to the dirty dishes to clean them. “Sure, though I can’t promise it will stay with you. The other slimes have always left us.” 

She casted a cleanse at the tableware and looked lovingly at Aina. “I have no idea why Aina is accompanying us, but she is quite lovely.”

Aina jiggled happily in response. “And smart too.”

The slime jumped at Argul and she caught and hugged it. “Yeah yeah, I know Aina. Thank you.” Argul had no idea what she was saying, but it felt right.

She sneakily kissed Aina and then looked at Luna. “Could I borrow one of your knives to test something out?”

Luna got up herself and patted off some dust from her pants. She looked around judgingly before she focused on Argul. “Do I get the knife back?”

Argul inclined her head. “In the best case, yes.”

Argul wanted to test out how mana moved through different materials and how good they could hold mana, if they even could do so in the first place. She needed to know that to have a foundation of knowledge that would help in the creation of enchanting. Argul just had no idea what might happen during her experiments.

Luna sighed. “Allright, if you have to.”

She took another look around and then looked at Argul with hope in her eyes. “But if the knife gets damaged you will clean the whole inn.”

Argul smirked. Someone didn’t like cleaning and she could totally understand. Luckily for her she now could do it with ease. 

She held out her hand. “Deal.”

Luna exclaimed in happiness and took Argul’s hand. “Deal!”

She cleared her throat and shook Argul’s hand. “I mean deal.”

Argul smiled and opened a drawer to the side that contained a lot of knives. The inn had a drawer for each of the different cutleries and they would be more in use if this were still earth.

She took a random knife and closed the drawer again. “Thanks Luna.”

Then Argul went into the large room on the first floor. She came there just in time to see off Alyra, Mia and Arthur. Once she had done that she cleaned Arthur’s bowl and spoon and headed towards her room, still carrying Aina.

In the room Argul collected a few seemingly random things. Among them a piece of paper, a green shirt and a leather purse she had never used. The only thing she had to get outside was a rock and some wood that hadn’t been worked on yet. Maybe things would be different with unchanged organic material.

Aina followed her around the whole time and when Argul was done she turned towards her. “Do you want to come out with me?”

Aina wobbled in response and made a weird suction noise. Argul had no idea how she had done it and what it meant, but took it as a yes anyway.

She smiled and picked her up. “Sure you do.”

It was always funny how Aina bent around your arms when you held her, but with her getting larger it got even more so.

Argul wrapped her arm around Aina to hold her up and picked up the bag she had put all her stuff into with her free arm.

She pressed her forehead against Aina’s skin to show some kinship and headed to the backyard.

Once there Argul sat Aina down and let the slime have her freedom. Much to her surprise Aina stayed next to her and seemed to wait for what she was doing.

Not thinking about that too much, Argul looked around and picked up the nearest pebble. She also broke off a branch from a random bush and returned to her other stuff.

Now came the most interesting part and the part that might change the near future, depending on the results.

Argul sat down on the ground and made herself as comfortable as possible. It meant she sat like a boy with her legs a bit spread and Aina immediately moved to occupy the spot between them. She didn’t mind Aina doing that as it didn’t interfere with her activities.

Argul petted the slime and chose the pebble for the first experiment. Everything starts with a stone, right?

She took the stone into her right hand and narrowed her focus on it. Then she slowly began to push mana into the stone and came across her first problem. Most of her mana never really entered the stone and the mana that did enter became a lot more difficult to control.

She took control of the mana that didn’t enter and held it in the area around herself. There was no reason to waste it right now.

Argul wouldn’t be able to move the mana inside the stone if she was still level 1, but with her current int stat it was manageable. She forcibly pushed her mana further into the pebble and it immediately cracked. That obviously didn’t work.

Argul didn’t mind the failure and figured that she had to do it with a lot more care and patience. 

She tried again and looked for spots in the structure of the still intact pebble half that were less resistant. Argul managed to find one such spot, but much to her disappointment it didn’t go further into the pebble so she stopped. Still, it gave her hope that there had to be materials that moved mana more easily and if so there had to be some kind of rule to that.

Argul threw the broken pebble behind herself and took the branch next. She did the same as with the stone and had a similar problem. Overall it was easier to move her mana inside of the material, but there was still a lot of resistance. For some reason a tiny bit of her mana also got used up by something, so Argul continued to find out for what exactly.

As she pushed more mana into the branch it actually began to heal the break she had caused and regrow as a result. A tiny root began to form, but when it reached about 5 mm the resistance of the wood increased sharply.

Argul stopped pushing mana into the branch and broke it in two halves just to be sure. She put the half of the branch with the root in the back with the other stuff  and focused on the other half. The moment she pressed more mana into the wood it splintered and Argul was sure some of the small pieces would have penetrated her skin if it weren’t for her str stat.

She sighed and looked down to Aina. “You wanna eat that?”

Aina wobbled up and down so Argul put the pieces of wood on top of her. Then Aina opened her outer skin and sucked the wood into her digestion track.

Argul smiled and petted her, only to be taken completely off guard by two identify tethers forming. One was targeted at Aina and the other one at her.

Argul immediately severed them and tried to follow the foreign mana to its owner, but whoever had tried to spy on her was already gone. She warily watched her surroundings and picked up Aina. “I think it’s time for us to go back in.”

She ignored Aina’s jiggling and grabbed her bag. Argul did not like being watched and that someone did so secretly only suggested to her that it was not a friend. The only question was if the target was herself or Aina. One thing was sure though, she wouldn’t let Aina out of her sight just to make sure nothing happened to her.

Argul took one last glance around and then headed into the wooly sheep, completely annoyed by the situation.