Syl: Chapter 130 (Patreon)

Chapter 130: Sparks

"Judging by your reaction, I'm guessing that was a success?" Trixie asked, fluttering over.

I shifted to my familiar elven form and rolled my fingers while casting my new spell, causing sparks to surge between my fingers. "You tell me," I said with a cheesy grin.

Trixie took no time taking her usual seat atop my head and breathed deeply. "Wow, you have practically pure lightning affinity just like that."

I nodded and discharged the spell towards the ground. There was no booming thunder, more like a light crackling noise as it erratically surged vaguely in the general direction I had aimed it.

"This might be a good opportunity to tell you that one in three lightning mages end up killing themselves directly or indirectly," Trixie said unexpectedly, her voice carrying a note of concern. "I hope you've got some lightning resistance or a way to prevent shocking yourself."

"That's concerning..." I replied, unsure if she was joking or not.

"Hey, fire mages are one in five. It's not that bad!" Trixie giggled, her laughter echoing in the air.

"Well. Luckily, I don't need to worry about fire at this point. As for lightning... I've got some resistance now, and apparently, I can store it. Although, I'm not entirely sure how that works."

"Only one way to find out!" Trixie said, leaving her spot and flying to a safe watching distance.

I shifted back to a regular slime form, wanting to witness what happened with full transparency. After ensuring that [Voltaic Slime] was active, I cast [Spark] at myself. The spell honed in on me with the utmost precision, and once it hit my slime, it started to arc around within. I now had a vague sense of my capacity and was beyond the limit. Trixie stared in fascination, her eyes twinkling as they followed the sparks inside me.

Due to the trait, the profile, or witnessing the yellow slime at work, I knew I would need to perform a similar undulating action to generate more. Although copying that while disguised would be terrible, I wondered if I could use cycling between slime decompression and compression within myself to generate the same effect. I created small pockets in myself to perform the action, and after a bit of trial and error, I managed to start generating tiny sparks within the pockets. By increasing the cycling frequency, I could induce them faster.

"Okay, that's very pretty," Trixie admitted.

At that stage, I reached my capacity rather quickly, and the arcs were no longer contained within my slimy center and instead started to surge across my outer membrane. It would make a great offense or defense from anyone in melee with me, although admittedly, that was already the case with plenty of my other slime traits. I let it build up some more, and then, instead of just surging across, it violently discharged towards anything nearby.

Happy with the results, I tried to control the surging energy into a bolt and wanted to direct it toward a distant tree. The power surged to a singular point inside me, then bursting with unparalleled speed, erupted from my slimy form toward my intended direction. The bolt struck the tree, followed by a rather unimpressive thunderclap. The bark was blown off at the point of contact, and the energy seemed to travel through it, leaving scarred pathways.

I found myself both equally impressed and unimpressed. The effectiveness of the overloaded lightning bolt was inspiring, but the diminutive size of my bolt and its effective destruction paled in comparison to what I saw that yellow slime pull off. I knew it was an unfair comparison, like comparing a [Fire Arrow] to a [Fireball] spell; it likely had far more levels in the trait than me, but I still couldn't help but feel a small wound in my personal pride.

Trixie, on the other hand, was clapping excitedly. "That was very impressive. I don't know what you did, as that clearly wasn't a spell, but it was very flashy."

"It's my new trait. I can store, generate, and discharge lightning." I explained, a familiar oath chain briefly appearing on Trixie.

"Well, I'm certainly glad I'm not a lightning mage. You'd literally just grow stronger anytime I cast a spell."

"That's the hope at least. However, if I don't increase the trait and, by extension, my capacity, I think I could still be in trouble. I only get lightning immunity at max level."

"You could also shift your alignment to lightning. I'm like ninety-nine percent positive, which would increase your resistance."

"True! I haven't tried that yet." I said excitedly and activated [Elemental Shift].

It went off without any issue, and I immediately cast a new [Spark] spell to notice the improvements. Likewise, I discovered that Water and Ice were now crippled, while Fire seemed neutral. Lastly, I tried out [Elemental Adaptation] and found myself with quicker speed and reaction. I shifted to a humanoid form and started running with some rather impressive speed.

"Let me guess. You're fast as lightning now?" Trixie chuckled.

"Seems like it. Maybe a little stronger as well? It's hard to tell; I wish I had an instruction manual."

Speaking of which, I still needed to look over the yellow slime profile. It had [Pseudopod] and [Slime Density] as common traits, and I found it a little strange to see a slime that didn't naturally gain [Slime Shot] or [Slime Burst]. It also had a rare trait I had never seen before, [EM Field].

<[EM Field]
This trait allows the user to sense electrical fields, conductive materials, and bioelectricity within a 5m per trait rank radius.
Higher trait levels also increase visual clarity when observing within the field.
Note_1: This trait name and description desperately need a rework; it is not fantasy-sounding enough.
Note_2: Electrovision? A little uninspired. I'll come back to this later.>

'Note... One and two?' I stared at the description dumbfounded.

I didn't know whether to laugh or be concerned that Gramps had presumably left notes about this trait. Did he not care at the time because he thought nobody would read a monster trait? Maybe if I remind him, he'll reward me? Regardless, the trait sounded good, and I wondered if this was the reason the yellow slime spotted me when I tried to ambush it. My slime was highly conductive, so I must have been seen like a giant signal flare when I entered its radius.

<Trait [EM Field LV 1] obtained. Trait Points remaining 17.>

After obtaining it, I toggled the trait on, and the entire world around me within the small radius took on a strange greyscale coloring. It was very odd, and I wasn't entirely sure how to decipher this new information. The radius seemed to start away from my form, so I formed a tendril to examine it and was met with a bright yellow representation of it. I assumed this meant it was highly conductive, and I toggled off the lightning rod aspect of my [Voltaic Slime] and watched the yellow coloring dim to a much more subdued shade. I turned off the trait, finding the vision a little distracting, and delegated it to Epsilon to use it and train its levels. I would explore it in more detail later because I had more exciting plans.

I was eager to test out my new spell against a monster, so we headed to what we assumed was another spawn point to find a pair of pegasi resting atop one of the smaller floating island segments. I didn't have a lightning debuff yet, so I would likely be fighting with [Spark] alone. I was about to begin casting the spell multiple times, originating around the winged horses, but a thought occurred to me—couldn't I just cast [Spark] inside them and have it ravage them from inside like I had suffered?

I knew I had to have a clear visual perception to cast a spell at a distance, but with all my various senses, I felt I had enough to see inside the horses. I tried casting my spell, but it immediately failed. I tried again with a much clearer image, using a combination of [Thermal Vision] and [Mana Conception]—it also failed immediately.

"What are you doing?" Trixie asked curiously.

"I tried seeing if I could cast a spell inside one of the horses," I answered.

"What. Obviously, you can't do that." Trixie looked at me with utter disbelief.

"I have multiple different forms of vision; I thought it would be enough if I could see clearly inside it. Even a tiny spell inside the stomach or somewhere with a large enough open space." I explained.

"Well. I'm glad you understand that you need a clear image to cast; that would've been the first hurdle. However, casting inside someone else's mana aura greatly pushes against what the world deems permissible." Trixie explained. "The world and the system just do not allow it; imagine how easily you could kill someone by just forming a fireball inside of them. Likely, it was once possible until the Gods put a stop to it."

"Yeah... I guess. I'll ask Gramps next time I speak to him. I just thought it would be a neat idea."

Trixie shrugged. I instead decided to cast three [Spark] spells per pegasi. The spell constructs rapidly formed around them before discharging the basic lightning spell. Unlike earlier, when I cast the spell, it seemed far more precise this time, and I directly targeted the closest pegasi each. They each let out pained wails before dropping.

"You sure you don't have [Assassinate]?" Trixie asked, pointing at the two charred horses.

I shook my head and started heading to claim the spoils. I was met with shrieking rage from [Dissection] when I noticed the damage done. Yeah... There was no way the precious feathers were surviving that experience. Whoops.

Satisfied with the results, we started to head back to our home again. My number one priority now would be to create a debuff, which would hopefully be enough to level up my magic and see what else it had in store for me.

When we arrived, Trixie turned to me, looking a little sad. "So. Is that it? Are you planning on heading to the humans now?"

I shook my head. "No... I'm not exactly in a rush, and I'd like to get another yellow slime or two, if possible."

A brief look of relief flashed over Trixie before she gave a cheeky grin, "Well, aren't you a glutton. Eating one slime isn't good enough for you?"

"I did qualify for a gluttonous evolution at one point," I couldn't help but chuckle. "But getting another yellow slime will let me easily level up the trait. It's horribly low level due to a first-time penalty and the slime not having the trait very high."

"Sure. Sounds fun. In the meantime, could I get some more silk?" Trixie asked, putting her hands forward and making a gimme motion.

I gave in and produced some more spider silk, then immediately started on the lightning debuff.

Trixie thanked me and was about to leave before she gave me a warning, wagging her finger sternly. "No lightning bolts towards our tree home. I don't want lightning-scarred wood."

"Sure. It's not like I make a habit of destroying trees..." I replied with a shrug. I briefly recalled some of my earlier experiments back when I lived in the forest and chuckled nervously.

'Well, I don't go destroying and eating trees now.' I mentally corrected myself.

"I heard that!" Trixie's voice rang in my head.

"Damn, telepathy!"