Reincarnated as a mana core

In a land of silver colored plants a slime had won a fight of determination. Now it enjoyed being pressed against the creature it had one against while the creature created vibrations again and petted the slime occasionally.

The slime was so absorbed in the moment that it got surprised when they entered the blindingly bright area and appeared in a land full of too tall to be food, though they were different from the ones it knew. There seemed to be more to the bright area than the slime could have imagined.

Curious it began to examine its surroundings, but a strong vibration went through the air and the being holding the slime tightened its grip before it accelerated. 

Everything was happening too fast for the slime and it really wanted things to slow down again, especially because it had never traveled at a speed as fast as this. The first seconds of the rush were the worst and after that the slime got used to the speed. It still wasn’t a fan of the sudden acceleration.

The slime was carried through the new environment for a few short minutes before the group of three got close to a fourth creature that was lying on the ground and had a similar appearance as the being holding the slime. It wasn’t even half as bright or beautiful as the carrier so the slime wasn’t too interested in the thing. It had already set its eyes on the remains of what had once been a living being anyways.

The other creatures created vibrations in the air again and the slime was gently put on the ground. It moved over to the pieces of corpse and gingerly swallowed one of the tinier pieces. The meat tasted like the food of the slimes homeland to its relief and it began to gobble up the other pieces.

When it was done it tried one of the foods that were growing on the ground, but they were a bit bland compared to what it was used to. The slime wasn’t sure why it was like that, but it stopped eating. It was already full anyway.

The slime went back to the other creatures and watched their activities for a while. They were still creating vibrations in an inconsistent manner and the slime wondered why. The other creatures it had met during its life had also created vibrations in the air, but they had done so consistently and to move.

A little later the slime was picked up again. There was something between itself and the being this time however and while it was still nice to be hugged it preferred the way it had been before.

They traveled for some time and the being holding the slime did something interesting. Some of its light flowed out of its body, formed a small sphere and then shot away. The slime found that to be curious and tried it out itself. Sadly, while it managed to form a sphere with its own light after a multitude of tries it didn’t manage to recreate the same effect.

The group traveled like this for more time and the being did a few more interesting things with its light. The slime didn’t manage to watch it the whole time though, because it fell asleep at some point.

It was woken up rudely by a really strong vibration. It took the slime a moment to realize they were under attack, but when it witnessed the light of its carrier punching through the light of one of the attackers it stopped feeling fear.

The slime watched as the group slowly infiltrated an area with weird caves that were above ground. When they were discovered by one of the attackers they ran past a few of the caves before they entered one. The slime wasn’t exactly sure why they entered this cave and not one of the earlier ones, but as long as it was safe here it didn’t care too much.

The other beings created vibrations again, but nothing more happened for a while so the slime fell asleep again.

When it woke up again a new little one had joined the group and they were making vibrations again. The slime found it rather curious that they were all obviously different creatures, but interacted this much and this fluently with each other.

A precarious idea entered the slime's mind. What if the creatures used the vibrations to communicate with each other?

Intrigued by the idea the slime attentively followed the vibrations and noticed that while they were never of the same strength they followed recurring patterns. The slime tried to copy one of the patterns with its body, but it didn’t get more than a combination of patterns and a pat.

The failure demotivated it a little bit and it decided to feel a bit more before she tried it again.

A few minutes later the slimes carrier started to create a vibration the creature had never done before and the slime instantly relaxed. It could feel the vibration with its whole body and it felt really nice.

The slime noticed that the little creature was doing something to its carrier and that this was the reason for the vibration. Determined to be the one who was responsible for such a nice effect the slime jumped to them and wanted to try herself. That day it learned how to get Argul to purr.

The next day the group escaped the area of above ground caves and continued their travels. Over the next few days the slime learned its two first words and discovered the principle of names.

It now knew that it or rather she was Aina and the one carrying her was named Argul. Aina also noticed that there was something trying to tell her something, but the only thing she could understand was her and Argul’s name.

On the third day of the trip the world got darker and stopped at one point. Argul put Aina on the ground and gave her the opportunity to stay behind. The slime was really scared by the endless darkness in front of her, but she didn’t want to leave Argul’s side. She wanted to learn more and be together with the curious being.

Aina didn’t know what these feelings were, but she followed them and stayed with Argul.

They entered the darkness and she suddenly felt really weak. If Aina knew that quivering was an action done in fear she would do that right now, but as it was she just didn’t move.

The only respite she had was that she could still see Argul and the others. They were like stars of hope for her, especially Argul. There was something different about the woman, but Aina couldn’t tell what.

The next week went over in a blur for Aina with only one short respide a illuminated world. The group had grown by quite a lot of people and they were the only things Aina could see.

During that time Argul spent a lot more time with the little one and Aina and made sure that she always felt as well as possible. Aina was really thankful for that.

It was after that week that they re-entered the area where Aina could see and she realized that said area was slowly growing. They spent a few days in the area and Aina enjoyed that time as much as possible.

Things weren’t meant to stay like this however and months of constantly traveling between the darkness and the light followed. During that time Aina slowly learned more and more words, but there were some things that gave her the feeling something wasn’t right or she experienced the world differently.

She also discovered that when she massaged Argul, the woman didn’t only start to purr if she felt good, but also expelled some of her light. Aina could eat that light and made it her mission to do that as much as possible.

Most of the time in the illuminated area the slime spent playing with the little one called Mia and tried to vibrate back to her, but she couldn’t understand her for some reason.

Aina didn’t know how long it took, but after a time that felt like half her life they kept staying in one location. She liked that a lot better and used the opportunity to discover the world with her new understanding of language. There were still a lot of things she had no idea about, like why people left some of the food and always let her eat it instead for example, but she at least knew that they were inside of a city and what a city was.

Aina had also discovered the magic system, but just figuring out that she was level 5 had taken a long time, because she didn’t know the words and the system had to speak in pictures to her. She often didn’t understand the messages, forcing the system to find different ways to explain things.

Argul started to do crazy stuff with her light or rather mana, as Aina had learned, in the city and she always watched her, trying to learn something in the process. As a result Aina spent a lot of the afternoons with Argul and Argul even started to describe what she was doing to Aina after some time.

The slime learned more and more about mana because of this and even discovered the laws of intent together with Argul. Aina’s world became a lot more colorful and some of the holes in her vocabulary regarding colors were slowly filled in.

She still didn’t manage to talk back to Argul and slowly got frustrated. Why was it that she couldn’t communicate with the one person she liked more than anything else in the world?

If only she could speak, see and experience the world the same way Argul did!

This frustration slowly accumulated, but there was no one she could speak to. She would write to Argul if she could, but she had no idea what letters looked like.

When Argul taught Mia how to cast magic one morning a new door opened up for Aina and she was determined to somehow find a way to communicate with the others.

The frustration hadn’t disappeared however and because of this Aina did something she had never done before when Argul started to experiment after Mia’s lesson again. She didn’t know why, but she wanted to be the one to try something out this time and decided to take control of the experiment.