"I will see into this during the weekend when we’ll meet again. For now breed some green mimic slimes and if you get the chance hunt monsters, breed the goblins and expand as you like, just be careful not to make troubles.” I ordered.
”As you wish mistress, I shall begin to order some of the minions to hunt at once. I believe it’s best to expand the number of goblins for now. The mushrooms are starting to appear and I will send the slimes to catch live bugs.” She said and went silent.
After the dialogue with my dungeon core, the teacher began telling us the importance of a dungeon’s level and rank.
Oh and also I can check out a dungeon’s stats on my ID plate just like the pets.
Well first thing is a dungeon’s level. The level, just like for humans and so on, shows the dungeon’s strength as well as level of corrosion. By corrosion I mean how well it can corrupt living creatures and make them dungeon monsters.
One interesting fact is that the dungeon master doesn’t get affected and those the dungeon has formally marked as “guests/friend” are also freed from the corruption. This only happens in owned dungeons because regular dungeons don’t like living creatures so they will attack.
Now as the level of the dungeon rises the amount of mana in the air increases. The mana inside of a dungeon is a specific type of energy known as miasma which appears in dungeons and it's also expelled from powerful monsters. Miasma is one of the reasons demon race are somewhat prosecuted still, demons are creatures that can expel it when in intense combat or even unconsciously
Though the current population wouldn’t prosecute demons from the demon nation, those found as dungeon monsters are mercilessly slaughtered, though the demons themselves do that as well so there isn’t much room to argue there.
Anyway as the concentration of miasma increases in the dungeon, it was because more miasma, less work for the dungeon itself to actively corrupt the animals and monsters by using mana to corrupt the mind.
Now onto the dungeon ranks. Ranks are just like for the guild rankings. Though it took step up slightly. The ranks are F, E, D, C, B, A, S, SS, SSS. Now the slight step up is that for each rank there is a plus and a minus. Don’t get it? Well let's put it like this, a new born dungeon which is just placed and has only the first room and no monsters is a dungeon with a rank of F-. When a dungeon gets around 10 monsters will make the F rank losing the minus and becomes a neutral F rank. Now when the dungeon has around 3 rooms, around 40 monsters of around 3-5 types, the dungeon will be ranked up into F+ which makes it above the average F rank meaning an F rank adventurer will start having trouble with this dungeon.
It continues like this until SSS but there are none that are known to be SSS and if there were then most would probably be on the Mu continent.
After class the top 5 suffered through sensei’s training before heading to sleep. Just like how Stephanie was doing I poured mana into the ring and head to sleep exhausted.
Chapter 18 Meditation
It was currently breakfast and we were enjoying our morning with the soup and sandwich as well as the nice green tea which I enhanced with a bit of herbal slime extract. Sitting to my right was a certain elf princess who I was petting just like a puppy and was currently fighting the pleasure of my hands.
She had stopped eating to try and fight off the pleasure but I simply enjoyed my royal huggy.
After a bit, I stop so she can eat and she sighs as a bit of sweat was on her head. I was simply smiling wide as she drops her flushed red face on the table.
“Seriously! How is it that you can nonchalantly do something like that to a princess without thinking the consequences?!” Emily asked.
“Well, ranks don’t actually matter in school. Not unless you are from the same nation at least. Besides, she accepted my bet during the Monster Karts Race knowing full well that I would keep up my promise. To make it worse she improved the bet saying it will last for a year so now she is my huggy for a year.” I said as my smile widens.
I took a sip of tea before taking a bite of the sandwich.
“Did you all finish your classwork for yesterday?” Steph asked through heavy pants for air.
"I had some trouble on a few parts but me and Asher figured it out together.” Owen said.
“Yes I was the same with Kuroko, though I had to help her a bit on the theory part of her magic studies. Really, how can you be so good in practical magic class but are only average in the studies.” Kumi said frowning.
“Hey, it's not my fault that using magic is easier than understanding the theory behind it!” I said pouting while I chewed on sandwich and downing it with some tea.
Zach sighed, "I guess we should head to class soon, it's getting late and I really don’t want to get on Professor Albert’s bad side.” Zach said.
We all nod and eat quicker to finish our breakfast before we all leave heading to the class.
If you are wondering about Eleonora, she was sitting on the other side of Steph but since I was petting her the blond princess looked glum because loneliness and a tad bit jealous of the elf princess’ petting session.
Though I had more than enough reason to ignore her, I couldn’t help but to grin. Seems her petting session with Steph made her slightly addicted to the petting.
I wonder if I can make her ask for it someday.
Anyways, we go back to our usual monotone day activity. Today was Tuesday and day 2 classes which were Monster studies, PE and World history. Today we have an empty class so we could do as we please as long as we don't go beyond limit.
During that class, the teacher decided for us to go outside and do magic training.
It's one of the harder classes so most of us choose to do that, rather than theory. I wanted to practice the light and darkness magic I had obtained recently and thinking of how I should do it, so I simply thought, why not just meditate on the two elements?
It has been a while, more like I've never meditated in this world. I sat under the shade of a tree near the end of the field and crossing my legs, while protecting my dignity.
I take a few deep breaths and then start feeling for my mana. It was rather quick to find because the amount was large.
Going by the usual process, I make the mana flow fast through my slow moving system. As you might have guessed by now, this was a mage’s method of expanding their capacity.
By making the rather small current of mana run faster it will expand passage increasing my MP regeneration, and making me spend a lot of mana to occupy the newly made space which increases the capacity.
This also refines the mana a bit and because there is more mana running through my body, meditation also gives a boost to physical strength which is explained by this passive bonus appearing just after the skill.
You have gained a new skill
Meditation
Level 1
The process of focusing the mana on your body, refining, and circulating it.
By meditating regularly, you can slowly increase the capacity of your mana to allow for more mana to be stored as well as refining the quality of your mana. Reduces the cost for your spells.
Temporary buffs
+5% to physical stats for 1 hour
+10% to capacity of mana for 1 hour
+5% reduction the cost for spells for 1 hour
Yep to say the least, this is an essential skill for mage class.
After I felt comfortable with the flow of mana, I have it leave my body from the left and right hands which face upwards. In my right hand I alter the mana to be light mana and the other dark mana.
I feel both of them leave from my palm and I slowly make it form into two balls.
This training was for my mana manipulation skill as well. There is no way I will leave such a useful skill to go to waste.
Anyways, I let the balls of light and darkness float up before I start to make them revolve around me.
I wanted to keep them perfectly around opposite each other so I started slow as I slowly incre
ase the speed so I can see the limit of my manipulation skill.
It started slow like a bright white sun and dark black moon turning around me and soon it started to get faster and faster. When they started to blur in the vision to those who are looking, control started to slip so I slowed down and again started to raise the speed slowly working the speed faster and faster.
By the end of the class time, I could raise the speed just a tad bit more than before.
I had used a lot of mana and was sweating a lot from the tedious mental exercise. I did raise the skill one level though. The light and dark magic also leveled up to level 2.
The others came over when they were done and sat next to me and we all brought out our lunch. Mine I made myself, it was a two layered box lunch with rice, beans, some sausages, spaghetti and fried fish slabs. To compliment this was a bit of warm tea with some herbal slime extract and other herbs used for refreshing the body.
It was all refreshing and quickly I felt relaxed, especially when we finished I took my huggy and started to pet her.
The others just smiled wryly but then I noticed the jealous look on Eleonora’s face as she sat near the back a bit far from the others.
I looked at Emily and she noticed my look. When I discreetly gestured towards the jealous princess, she looked that way and saw the slightly blushing blond princess without her great pride, making her grin.
She turned back and saw my wink which makes her grin more.
She then discreetly crawled around the group, going behind the princess and hugged her.
“YAA! W-WH-WHAT ARE YOU DO-AHHH!!!” She started but was cut off by the more than pleasant amount of petting she was getting.
Her face showed a small smile as her face turned bright red.
She quickly submitted to the comforting petting of the elf who worked her hands on her chin and head like a master.
I kind of feared if this was something the queen also did, and how she would have had so many years to perfect. Wouldn’t that make her some kind of Master Petter?
“Um...Steph, is petting what your family likes?” I asked while I stop petting her so she could respond.
“Yes, mom *huf* loves it too. *huf* She taught me *huf* and Emily.” she said before stopping showing she was done so I started petting.
We all frown hearing that. The elves with a 400 years life span are a fearsome race that can learn quite a lot in that time.
If she trained even a fraction of that time with petting then I fear what would the queen be like.
Eventually we stopped and head to our afternoon class.
Today is Mage class so we remained here and professor Albert arrived soon and had us start training our control of fire magic followed by water for two hours.
We had to have utmost control of basic spells to the point that we could manipulate the speed and change the direction of the spell.
This...was hard. What I did was manipulation skill training but this was far beyond. I had to be in total control at all times so in other words. I can’t let the spell out of control for even a second.
To say this was more exhausting wasn’t an understatement. It seems he wants everyone to gain manipulation skill instead of just using the spells.
The second half of class was meditating. I think he saw me doing it and found that it would be a useful lesson so he had us go into the shade and taught us the proper breathing pattern but said that, we each had our own rhythm of breathing as each person is different.
I already had my rhythm so after listening to his explanation which strangely gave me a level up in meditation after I understood a few extra steps I didn’t know, we started meditating.
As you might already realize, having children sit down in one spot trying to do something as boring as meditating without them actually wanting to is something that won’t work.
In no time at all, nearly all the kids were giving up.
It seems actually feeling for the mana in your body is harder than it seems. The steps to meditation is, calming your mind, empty it, then try to feel for the mana in your body, the easiest to find is the mana pool but since everyone has small capacities compared to us who have the god's blessing, it's difficult to find. Those with more than 1000 mp have it easier but those with less don’t.
The next part is to follow the mana through your channel and map out every last part of it. Unless you already know it, which is me, it would take about a month after you find your mana pool and start this step.
Once the channel is mapped out, it became easy to find it again. The next step is forcibly pushing mana through in small amounts which would slowly expand the channel.
It is only at this step that the person will gain the meditation skill.
After this class Emily, Stephanie, Margaret and I headed to cooking class. The same as always happened but this time me and Stephanie added some of the slime products to the cooking.
Food can give stat boosts but none of us have gotten to that point but after adding spice herb extract to a small chocolate cake batter what I got was rather nice.
Scented Chocolate Cake
Chocolate cake made from aspiring cute apprentice cook.
Tastes better than normal chocolate cake because of a secret ingredient added. This cake is not only tastier but healthier than a normal chocolate cake, also from the added secret ingredient.
+2% increase to mental stats
It was small but none the less it was the first one I've made that had stat boost. Later on, we might be able to get similar boosts from normal ingredients.
Lastly was the dungeoneering class. Like before the tamer teacher was with us and taught us more kinds of animal traps that could be used to catch animals in the area.
The new traps Shai really liked, by using the mana she had, she told me she had a few slime goblins leave the dungeon and set up a few rabbit traps inside her domain.
The trap is a pitfall but because rabbits would just dig through there if it was just your usual pitfall, she added a net that was secured over the hold and would tangle up the rabbit once it's in the hole not allowing it to dig.
She also began to breed some mimic slimes. It takes a bit of time since it takes a large number to make one of them.
The mushrooms are almost in full bloom and once they let the spores loose then the room will fill up. When she uses some MP to cause a strong wind in the room, it would lift the spores and make them stick to the walls. Possibly making some leave the mushroom room and enter the corridors.
The weak lighting from the glow stones in the ceiling is just enough for the monsters.
After class was another torturous day with Master Belladonna. Before we go to sleep,we do our homework then we filled the ring with mana. After that we go to sleep.
It goes on like this for the whole week, the same monotone classes even though a few are fun it didn’t change much.
Finally the weekend and we are all planning on going to visit the dungeons and start expanding it, but first we'll go to the dungeon shop to prepare.
Chapter 19 A Visit to Dan’s
On Saturday, I was woken up early by my trusty friend-maid, the halfling maid.
She had with her a small box that was 15x15 cm, with a small note on top that showed it was from Dalton.
“So Miss Kuroko, what is this?” the halfling maid asked.
"It's the future boss for my dungeon.” I said with a grin and called her closer. I took the box and opened it and just as I open it, I hover my hand above the open box as a pink slime jumped out to my hand.
I began petting the slime calming it down until the notice appeared stating that I tamed it.
“Good, now that this is done, I need to prepare for the trip to the dungeoneer shop. You, unsummon.” I said making the pink slime vanish.
“What breed is that mimic copying?” The maid asked. She wasn’t nervous anymore because she got used to the slimes, and even to Rama.
“Hehe, secret. If you want to find out you c
an come with us to the dungeon field as our chaperone.” I said and she puts her right index to her chin in a thinking position.
“Well, I would’ve need permission from the head maid.” She said.
“Well, we are going to eat breakfast first and then we will be going out. If you want to come then go ask.” I said and the little maid ran out like the wind. Literally. She is fast, so fast actually that I can now understand how she could pop up out of nowhere.
I wonder how she failed or what she did to make her become a maid.
If she is a wind mage can’t she just jump down off the island faster than the dragons can catch her or something?
Kumi was less excited to get up early but since we needed to get to the shop and buy the stuffs early, since it would most likely be full we had to hurry. She and the remaining top 20 would still take half a month before their dungeon is ready.
After dragging her out of bed and picking up the second part of Dalton’s package which was 15 gold coins for me to use I go get my breakfast.
I was the third to arrive with Steph there, petting Eleonora who had a face full of bliss.
I grinned and told Kumi to grab her food quick, making sure to walk quietly.
We grabbed our trays and food and quietly snuck up behind the blissful princess and when we were right behind her, I turn to look at Stephanie with a grin. She returned it with a grin while still petting.
“Wow~! That must feel nice~!” I said right next to Eleonora’s right ear, making her nearly jump out of her skin and stumble over two other seats before falling down.
When she got up and saw it was me she turned bright red. As for me, I was laughing with Stephanie while Kumi just sighed and shook her head.
Kumi put her tray down and went over and helped Eleonora up.
“ARGAH~~~! I REALLY HATE YOU~! STOP TEASING ME!!” She shouted, head as red as tomato.
Slime Tamer's Chronicles Page 21