Syl

I kept pushing and pushing Vee to complete that final hurdle; now that we were so close, I could almost taste the victory!

We were still left on our own, with only an elf providing more food, so we wanted to hammer out this last step before the next day, and we would ultimately make our decision.

We'd agreed that accepting the offer was in our best interest. Still, if I also had [Dimension Magic], then we could have a trump card in case the situation turned on us or, more likely, another assassination attempt was attempted on me.

Although I'll still have the fact I'm a slime to fall back on. But you can never be too careful!

Unfortunately, I had lost my clock in the teleportation accident, so I couldn't tell the exact time. It was undoubtedly late into the evening and past our usual bedtime.

"I did it!" Vee cried out, forming an [Acid Dart] from the opposite end of the room.

Before I could congratulate her, I received a notification.

<Quest complete.>

<Unlock Dimension Affinity for 4 Trait Points? Trait Points remaining: 12.>

Mother reduced the cost by half? Four points is still quite a lot, but I don't think I'm going to earn any more discounts, and even if I could, I don't think I could personally wait any longer!

<Affinity unlocked! Trait Points remaining: 8.>

I quickly looked over my profile but couldn't find any mention of the newly acquired affinity. Then again, I knew it was a sort of hidden condition, and I'd likely need some kind of advancement or device to actually see them.

Only one way to know for sure!

<Skill [Dimension Magic LV 1] obtained. Skill Points remaining: 17.>

<[Dimension Magic LV 1] spell [Position] learned.>

"Wait, it's seriously called [Position]!?" I blurted out.

"Oh! You finally got it?" Vee responded cheerfully.

"I did, and congrats on finally breaking through your Mana aura! Hopefully, you can see the benefits already!" I replied.

Vee tilted her head and cast [Pocket Space] on the table, stealing an entire plate of food into her storage. I was honestly a bit surprised she could even activate the spell, considering she said that she couldn't get coordinates in this room, but perhaps that was only stopping teleportation?

"Definitely!" Vee replied cheerfully. "I'm honestly a bit surprised by why there was so much security to unlock this… Like, I can sort of understand why you wouldn't want anyone able to do it, but what was with the feeling of dread?"

I chuckled, "Well… Anything cast outside of your Mana Aura can be manipulated by other spellcasters!" I explained.

"Holy shit, you're only telling me this now!?" Vee cried out.

"Trixie did the same to me," I answered. "Apparently, knowing about it beforehand can create even more mental blocks, stopping you from finally breaking through!"

"Ugh… I guess that makes sense," Vee grumbled.

"Don't worry, there's a whole new skill around defending or concealing your spells," I replied. "I plan on helping you out with that as well."

"And here I thought the magic training would be over," Vee sighed.

"Well, in my opinion, this is a lot more fun. It's sort of like magical wrestling if that makes sense," I replied.

I spent a while giving Vee a rundown on [Counter Magic] and [Magical Subterfuge], explaining the purpose and the benefits of both. Likewise, I gave her a similar demonstration to what Trixie had done for me by seizing Vee's [Acid Dart] spell and taking ownership of it.

That instantly changed her mind, and she swore to diligently practice both. The idea of potentially dying over a magical backlash was terrifying, and unlike myself, Vee did not have vast Mana reserves to take the hit.

Although it was late and we should be heading to bed, I still wanted to do one more thing. Cast my new spell! I wasted no time casting it, but all I got was a set of numbers, and every single number was zero!

"Huh… Did the spell fail?" I asked curiously.

"Hmm?" Vee mumbled tiredly. "No… It's this room, and you haven't bought [Spatial Sense] yet?"

"Right!" I replied and hurriedly brought up the trait from memory.

<[Spatial Sense]

This trait allows the user to sense spatial rifts and areas of expanded space. It also allows one to determine the dimensional coordinates of objects and individuals.

Higher trait levels determine the accuracy of coordinates and the detail of spatial anomalies detected.

This trait can be used with existing vision or at 5m per trait rank to see within a radial perimeter.>

<Trait [Spatial Sense] obtained. Trait Points remaining: 7.>

I'm down to seven points already! To think I had almost twenty not too long ago! Ugh… This sucks! I can't even uncap a trait anymore! I desperately need more race levels. I guess it might be a good thing that my experience distribution has changed.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I activated the new sense and nearly fell over myself at the odd feeling. Everything around me was assigned a bunch of weird numbers, which was made worse by the fact that this room said everything within my radius was on top of me!

Vee didn't hold back her laughter, clearly expecting this outcome.

"Ugh… I don't see how this is supposed to be helpful," I groaned.

"It's definitely not in this room. Once we get out, I can show you the ropes?" Vee offered.

"You'll be teaching for once? Shocking!" I teased.

"Just be thankful I won't be as harsh as that pixie," Vee replied. "And there's not too much I can actually really teach you. I haven't exactly figured it out myself beyond adjusting some of the numbers and what they mean. But hopefully, once you're up to speed, we can put our heads together and make some real progress!"

"I just don't understand the point of the spell if [Spatial Sense] gives you the numbers anyway," I commented.

"[Spatial Sense] is in relation to you," Vee answered. "[Position] is their own coordinates. It's handy for [Blink] and to prevent someone catching you by surprise since you get a full rundown of everything within your radius. Oh, and obviously, it's great for detecting traps like [Rift Thread]!"

To demonstrate, Vee pulled out some thread and waved it around. Even with this room distorting the coordinates, my [Spatial Sense] highlighted the thread with a terrifying blackish purple coloring.

"I can finally see it!" I exclaimed excitedly. "No more having to try to detect the lack of something to spot it!"

"I still don't know how you managed to do that. Searching for the absence of something sounds even crazier than a needle in a haystack!"

"It certainly wasn't easy, I'll admit. This also means we can coordinate traps a bit better, and I don't have to worry about getting sliced into pieces like that assassin."

"Sounds like a plan, and you should grab [Blink] while you're at it," Vee reminded me.

<[Blink]

Teleport a distance into any unoccupied space.

You can move through almost anything, but you will be shunted and take appropriate damage if you attempt to enter an occupied space.

Skill level determines Mana efficiency, traveled distance, and reduces damage from shunting.>

<Skill [Blink] obtained. Skill Points remaining: 16.>

"My precious points…" I moaned.

"You'll earn more eventually," Vee shrugged. "It's your fault for learning like a million skills and traits. You're utterly obsessed with collecting things."

"Okay, magic aside, I get a good power boost from collecting slime cores! Imagine if I can get them all!"

"You'll collect all seven slime cores and become Super Syl?" Vee joked.

"There's way more than seven types of slimes," I answered.

"It was a j—" Vee tried to reply back.

"In fact, I've already eaten eight, and if I include my starting one, I'm nine types of slime!" I interrupted.

"Damn, you've eaten a lot of different slimes. Including poor Wiggles!"

"Tell you what, if I ever take that Slime Queen evolution, I'll name the first kid Wiggles," I teased back.

"I don't think the world could handle more Syl slimes running around," Vee answered honestly. "They'd eat everything in sight!"

"Trixie was worried about the same thing, said I'd potentially be a risk to the world or something."

"Yikes. I wonder if I'd also count if I ever took Broodmother?"

"Don't spiders have like… hundreds of children? Imagine a swarm of teleporting shrinking spiders?"

Vee trembled, "No, thank you! That's way too creepy!"

"You are a spider!"

"That doesn't mean I automatically like them! I wasn't a spider before! Spiders are somewhat creepy, and the fact that there are monstrous spiders here certainly doesn't make it any better!"

I nodded; it was understandable. While I didn't hate my slimy brethren, I didn't really feel any sympathy for killing them or desire to get closer to them. It certainly didn't help that they were literally braindead, and most of my apprehension about their treatment was me imagining going through that myself.

After that, we had nothing else to discuss and finally went to bed. We both were tired and potentially had a long day ahead of us.

***

I woke up before Vee and started trying to grind some levels in [Dimension Magic] by casting [Position] repeatedly. Each time I cast it, I got the same set of numbers regardless of what object I targeted, making me doubt that I was actually earning any experience through this.

My efforts to train [Spatial Sense] and [Blink] were also highly ineffective. The latter only made me shift in place like Vee had done beforehand, while the former still provided nonsensical information.

If Vee had left out some [Rift Thread], I might have been able to level up [Spatial Sense] by examining it through its other function, but currently, that wasn't possible.

I considered trying out my other forms of magic, but I was far too excited about [Dimension Magic] after waiting so long to get it. It was like a carrot on a stick, always taunting me and dangling just out of reach.

I began pulling out various spellforms and trying to see if I could change them now that I had access to Dimensional Mana. I obviously started with the easiest—a projectile, but even that instantly broke apart. I tried it a few times, but it broke apart similarly despite my precision and caution.

It's almost like whatever is inside [Position] isn't enough to form a spell.

Not to be deterred, I began trying to see if any of my other spellforms would accept this type of Dimensional Mana. Eventually, I found that it wasn't falling apart instantly when I started applying it to an affliction debuff.

That makes sense, I suppose. I'd weaken my enemy and make their… coordinates more… readable?

After I thought that out loud, I realized how stupid that sounded.

Can you even resist [Position]? I'd understand resisting being teleported, but just having your coordinates read seems weird? Unless there's something else, I'm missing. I'll have to ask Vee when she wakes up.

I continued poking away through my collection of spell constructs and found that this spell also seemed to have quite an affinity with aura-type spells. That made sense to me, and I figured it would likely allow me to instantly get the coordinates of everything within the radius of my aura. Obviously, whether that was useful or not, I couldn't tell at this stage until I learned more about this strange form of magic.

I hadn't gained a level, and Vee was still asleep, so I tried approaching this from a different perspective, taking the spell construct for [Position] and using it with other spells. One by one, I watched the spell explode before me, not wanting to take even basic elements and certainly not happy to take in poison or acid.

But I persisted, and then, to my surprise, I finally found a minor bit of success when I tried to add concepts to it—[Heat] and [Chill]. I was honestly going for the kitchen sink approach by throwing everything I had at it, so I was most perplexed when these had not caused the instant failure and backlash.

While I poked away at trying to merge [Heat] and [Position] with the help of some [Sub-Cores], I began to ponder why this was working even in the first place. So I started thinking about what [Position] did as a spell and realized its foremost function was providing information, much like [Identify].

Does that mean if I successfully combine this, I'd get a spell that tells me if something is hot or cold? Or maybe their exact temperature? I wonder if I should try combining all three, then?

That line of thought seemed to bear fruit, as when I began working on adding both [Chill] and [Heat], the framework for [Position] became far more malleable.

"What the hell is that?" Vee asked, sounding groggy.

Evidently, I'd missed her waking up due to my fixation on whatever spell I was currently creating.

"I think I'm making a spell that gives a temperature," I answered.

"You get advanced magic dimensional powers… and the first thing you try to make is a thermostat?" Vee groaned wearily.

I shrugged. I only had [Position] to work with; did she expect me to work a miracle?