Chapter 166: Ants

Before I exchanged glances with the old advisor, he told me he was ready.

So, I leveled up. This was the first reward. Pure clouds of white mana gathered around me—my body felt momentarily lighter—and I absorbed it, naturally. All my stats went up.

"Have you seen it? Sensed it?" To my question, the old man let out a long Hmmm, then passively nodded before making silent observations which I didn't listen to. "That's not all: It can also do this." I checked out the second reward, and some piece of equipment was produced out of thin air.

The System read "Equipment: Slime Cap — Melee Defense: +10; Ranged Defense: +5; Magic Defense: +15 — A wacky hat obtained after defeating the Slime King. Protects the user's head in case of an enemy attack in a funky way. When equipped, allows the user to bounce on their head with no damage."

The old man observed the magical phenomenon as it happened. Silent, he nodded, hmmed a lot, and made other observations. The hat had been produced from thin air after more of the pure, white clouds of mana emerged from nothing, but the old man was unfazed. Old man didn't call me a freak. Good old man. Old man deserved a treat.

"Wanna try it?" I proposed.

The Slime Cap equipment was some kind of funky hat that looked like a blob. One round blob. I shook the cap around with my hands, and the round blob jiggled around.

After I tossed it to the old man, he swiftly put it on top of his head. Painted with his white gorgeous tunic of a rich merchant, the old man always looked quite dignified. With the funky Slime Cap equipped, I admired his appearance more.

The next thing that happened was particularly funny, but I didn't laugh at it. The old man kicked off the ground, jumping in the air. Mid-air, he nonchalantly flipped his body over, like a true gentleman, and landed on the earth head-on with the Slime Cap. Surreally, he bounced off the rocky floor and jumped back up. Without his hands, really. Going like this, he managed a combo of ten head-jumps before stumbling down in a less-than-dignified manner.

We both managed to remain quite serious after this little show happened. The old man got back up and gestured to give me back my property. When I shook my head to refuse it, he tossed it away in the fire. With a Puff, the Slime Cap burned away like plastic.

In the same setting, I then ate a few other mana crystals I found in the hunters' bags. I already made my observations about that to the old man earlier, but he wished to observe the phenomenon. We took care of that in less than a minute. Then, I performed a few tricks with [Protean], the ability that allowed me to shape my body—even the Character, my human form—however I pleased. From a regular person's perspective, it was quite freaky: I grew up, made myself bigger, and took on different shapes and forms.

With Protean, I didn't simply shape myself into silhouettes like I could with [Jelly-like Shapelessness] while being water, or life. With Protean, it became hideously disgusting since it was so real-looking. Ever seen a human shaped into a rat, for instance? Today, my old man did. Or a human shaped into a dog? A giant spider? An oak tree? Some hellish different nonexistent creature altogether? The old man did. Unfazed.

"...But not the face, I take it."

"No. Not the face."

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"This ability is ridiculous, then. If one could alter the picture of one's face thanks to such an ability… Hmm… Ah, well. What else can you do, son?"

"Sure, alone, 'Protean' isn't so useful, I imagine. But with other skills…" In my hand, I formed a mouth. Lips, teeth, and a tongue. I tried to do multiple things with it. After a minute, I formed a hole in the palm of my hand. The old man wondered what I was trying to do. After another minute, I concluded it would be better to go about it that way.

Using <Knit Cobweb>, an active skill I learned some time ago, I'd show the old man something. Both "Knit Cobweb" and "Protean," actually. So, I twirled my right arm around. Going from my elbow, my arm looked like a screw, then. Many folds were going up from the tip of my arm to my elbow. Like a spring, once I untwirled my arm all at once, it was propelled forward with mighty speed. The trick worked: I cast a spider net forward. Flying fairly speedily, it caught a bunch of branches and stayed stuck to a tree.

And my arm looked perfectly healthy and unscrewed again.

"Well…" That didn't look like much of an attempt at casting a net at anyone or anything.

"Yes, no, well, it indeed does not look like much of a breakthrough, but your point has been conveyed to me. That is true. It can allow a certain aspect of more versatile uses for your skill."

"Versatile, hm? Nah, I don't think it's the word, old man."

"Ah? Speak."

The old man had to know that, before [Protean], I could barely even use <Knit Cobweb> in any way at all. Going with the same logic, there were plenty of other abilities I could be able to use. My understanding of [Protean] was that if, tomorrow, I was to learn a monster-type skill that involved turning my whole arm into a pike, then I could pull it. Well, I'd probably need to add some other Passive Skills to the pile, but that wasn't the point. I explained as much to the old man and he nodded.

"Another example can be that one skill I learned…" <Forge>. On my way back home, after I killed the Slime King, I had tried melting a few pieces of copper into a tiny sword just for kicks, and with my bare hands, I couldn't really.

To demonstrate, I snatched a sword we had around and applied <Forge> to my hands. My fingers glowed rosy-red. The color resembled that of melted metals. A hell of a heat wave was produced from my palms and fingers. A minute passed. Try as I might, with my bare hands, I couldn't melt the sword down. The best I could do was bend it. With time, I could bend it over and over again and turn the sword into a twisted mess of metals, but what was the use of that? With [Protean], I formed my hand into a giant bubble filled with water, sort of, absorbed the breastplate and other pieces of armor I gathered earlier, and melted them into many metallic rods— "I don't do well with the details; I don't evidently have a blacksmith's passive skills and experience; but I can pull that." In the end, I produced a very rough metallic bastard sword. It looked like total crap, but that was that.

"Of course," the old man said, "I see."

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