Epic of Caterpillar

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Frank was really happy, as the little Onyx raised two tiny tentacles and began waving them around while moving around cutely, as if dancing.

"Hahaha! You like dancing or something? That's so cute."

As Frank moved his hips while dancing with his little slime, completely fascinated by the creature, Ruby was glaring at the scene with very serious eyes.

"Gruuuhhhh…"

She even started groaning while flames came out of her nose.

"R-Ruby? Are you mad or something? Why don't you greet Onyx properly?"

"Graaaah!"

However, Ruby swung her claws, hitting Onyx and splattering him into the floor.

SPLAAAT!

"EH?! Don't be rude with the little guy! Onyx! Are you alright?!"

Frank panicked, quickly going to pick up the slime, finding out it quickly reassembled itself back together like nothing.

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[Name]: [Onyx]

[Race]: [Little Black Sludge Slime]

[Titles]: [Tamed Monster]

[Types]: [Slime] [Sludge] [Miasma]

[Monster Rank]: [Tier 1]

[Level]: [0/10]

[Health Points]: [500/500]

[Mana Points]: [1.000/1.000]

[Strength]: [200]

[Defense]: [500]

[Magic]: [200]

[Resistance]: [500]

[Agility]: [200]

[Passive Skills]: [Sludge Body: Lv1] [Super Regeneration: Lv1]

[Active Skills]: [Self-Division: Lv1] [Shapeshifting: Lv1]

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"Oh, aren't your stats higher than usual?" Frank wondered, glancing at Onyx's status in detail. "Also only four Skills… But they're pretty damn good, they could help a lot more."

As Frank nodded, feeling like Onyx was a new worthy friend, but worried about Ruby's jealous tendencies, he quickly moved to checking the two other items.

He grabbed the book first, it was an usual skill book of a monster. These were rare most of the time, but when he fought a lot of creatures, they would sometimes appear.

After having tried to help his friends use them, Frank was the only one capable of converting them into abilities or well, skills within his system.

Everyone else would usually become unable to do it for some reason… Perhaps he had to first figure out a way to share his System with others like he does with his contracted monsters.

But without the whole contract thing…

"Okay let's see what I can do with this."

Frank touched the skill book, feeling some sort of dark power entering his body, while the book quickly opened its pages and then began to disappear into particles of light.

FLUOSH!

"Ugh?!"

Frank felt a slight amount of pain inside of his body as he felt this dark power emerging and coursing through him.

"W-What the hell was that?!"

Ding!

[You have used the [Black Miasma Sludge Skill Book (??? Grade)] and received one Random Skill from the Black Miasma Sludge Monster Family.]

[You learned the Skill: [Self-Division: Lv1]: Grants the Ability to divide your body into two. When you divide your body, your Stats are also halved between both forms. With each Skill Level, this debuff decreases a little bit. Once the Skill is high level enough, the amount of clones you can create could increase.]

"S-Self… Division?!" Frank was left slightly speechless when he saw that and the Skill's brief description. It wasn't anything too crazy, but it was still really interesting and could have a lot of utility.

"Wait, so is it a clone or me? It does say a clone at the end…" Frank wondered.

He quickly decided to use the Skill, suddenly feeling his entire body glowing and tearing apart.

"Aaaggh!"

Once the process was finished, which only took around five seconds of pain, Frank saw a perfect copy of himself standing there, in silence.

It seemed to react to him, but it didn't exactly mirror his movements or something.

"Can you do a pushup?"

"…"

The clone quickly started doing push-ups without any problems, constantly, without end.

"Huh? Don't you get tired?!"

"…"

"Oh…"

Frank began to understand that this "clone" was indeed not him, but a construct made of Mana that imitated him, but that at the same time, was part of him.

"Okay, can't you practice Mana Manipulation for me? Try projecting small weapons and then returning them back to mana constantly."

"…"

The clone nodded without saying a word, staying as serious as always, and sat down, beginning to do as he asked without problems.

"The hell… It is…?"

Frank felt his Skills improving over time!

"Holy shit, this could be a really good ability!"

It essentially allowed him to train idly, while he didn't have to do anything.

Or even better, to train double as effective!

"The last thing is this…"

Frank quickly glanced at the ring, while he noticed Ruby groaning at little Onyx while the slime was just sitting over his head.

That was her favorite spot, and he had taken it! She was a very jealous baby girl, apparently.

"Come on Ruby. Don't fight. Onyx is so small and inoffensive…" Frank sighed, calming her down as he looked at the black ring in his hand.

It was a simple-looking ring made of black steel, with a black jewel on top, which was very small.

It emanated a faint aura of darkness and miasma from within…

"Raarrr…"

Ruby looked at Frank while seemingly making a face filled with disbelief, and then she got sad out of nowhere.

"Aw, you don't have to be sad, I won't stop giving you attention just because Onyx is here…" Frank said. "In the future I plan to have more pets, they're useful companions that will help me survive. Just like you've done."

Frank grabbed her big scaly paw while waving it, and Ruby looked at him while squinting her big eyes, she had become a lot more expressive with each evolution.

She was waving her tail around like when cats got angry…

"Raarr…"

"Hahaha… You sure are hard to convince, huh?"

Frank patted her big head, caressing her scales as he wore the ring.

FLASH!

"Huh?"

He felt a black aura course through his hand and then spread through his body, before disappearing.

It didn't hurt or anything, unlike with the Skill.

Ruby's eyes widened for a moment as she saw the darkness, panicking.

She opened her big jaws, about to release a bright beam to dissipate the evil darkness!

"W-Wait, Ruby, hold on!"

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