Chapter 6- I wanted to rest a bit more, but an Orc Lord does sound tasty!
Carrion and Frey nearly melted in relief when they felt Rimuru's anger disappear. Though it never directed at them, the atmosphere was suffocating. Seeing this, Milim chuckled lightly.
The room stayed silent for quite a while after Clayman had left, though it wasn't necessarily a bad silence. It continued until Rimuru suddenly shouted with glee, "Oh, that's how I'm meant to do it!" His surprisingly angelic voice starkly contrasted the impression he'd given Carrion and Frey, causing them to jump.
"How you're meant to do what?" Milim asked, unfazed by the sudden development.
"Evolve into a True Demon Lord. I already knew the basic requirement of being a Seed and a few other things because of GS' databases, and the required 10,000 souls because of something Veldora randomly mentioned to Ifrit, but there were still some things I was unsure of. Turns out, I'm only missing 3 things.
"I need to become a Demon Lord Seed, which shouldn't be too complex, I need the souls, obviously, and lastly, I need to develop a certain level of control over my energy, which I'll probably achieve eventually since I'm planning on having a large training session on all of my abilities!" His voice was full of childish excitement.
True Demon Lords. Very few individuals know all the requirements to become one- even among the people who have done so. They are the Demon Lords that the Voice of the World recognises as worthy of the title. Most humans, however, are ignorant of the difference between Seeds and those who have sprouted, so they refer to them all as Demon Lords.
Hearing Rimuru so casually exclaim that becoming a True Demon Lord (awakening) wouldn't be too difficult, Carrion and Frey were even more dumbfounded. Milim, on the other hand-
"Ooooh, really?! Good, the faster you get stronger the sooner I'll have a good playmate!" - was equally excited.
"I guess the first thing I should do is practice the techniques GS put together, to make sure they're as good as they seem to be. Since they incorporate my skills and magic, it should help a bit with controlling my energy. I'll wait until after I've practiced and had a proper rest for the spartan training though." Rimuru then looked at the two other demon lords, only just noticing the state they were in. "Hey Milim, how did they end up like that? And since when did Demon Lords hold hands?"
Milim replied, "I think it was because of the atmosphere your anger at Clayman created. And also, Demon Lords can hold hands whenever they like! Well unless your Guy, Ruminas or Clayman- they're too mean. Guy's fun to fight though!"
Carrion and Frey were knocked out of their relief at the mention of Clayman, as if expecting that horridly tense feeling to come back. It took them about a minute to separate their hands, looking slightly embarrassed, but still rather shameless.
"S-so, what are we gonna do about the Orc Lord?" Frey asked, recollecting herself.
Orc Lord. A unique monster of higher rank than a regular orc, appearing every few hundred years. It's the same level as an Orc King, but stronger. The downside is unless it manages to evolve into an Orc Disaster (a Demon Lord Seed), its potential is severely limited, and an Orc King will eventually grow stronger. It also possesses the Unique Skill Starving Ones, which allows its orc subordinates to grow stronger by claiming some of the strength of enemies they eat- at the cost of eternal hunger.
"I mean, it could be useful to help Rimuru get better, so I say we let it be until Rimuru thinks he's ready to take it on. He probably already could, but I'll say we let him decide."
Carrion chimed in with, "I know he's a slime, but do you think he could take on an Orc Lord?"
Rimuru looked at him, slightly amused, before stating, "I've already defeated and predated the human Conqueror of Flames." He thought Shizu's title was rather fitting. "And before you ask, I have a skill called Predator, which gives me the skills, energy, and potentially memories of things I consume."
"Wait, the Conqueror of Flames? In her prime, she'd be difficult for me to defeat! I guess an Orc Lord and its army shouldn't be too hard for you," Carrion sounded shocked, but approved me.
Seeing Carrion's and Milim's thoughts, Frey simply nodded her head.
"Still though, creating the ideal weapon would be difficult..." I muttered absent-mindedly.
Milim shot me a confused look, before asking, "Wait, why would you need to create a weapon yourself?"
"Well," I started, " I plan to very lightly use Transmutation on my sword whenever I'm going into a fight, as a way to get the weird energy from my Stomach onto my weapon, which should make the attacks far stronger. However, according to the minuscule amount of data GS and Veldora could get from it, most materials would either reject the energy or break under its pressure. The only materials that would be compatible would be the evolved form extremely high purity gold and diamond I've stored in my Stomach. But manipulating them to create a sword would require very good control- in other words, it'll have to wait until I can or have awakened.
"For now, I'll have to either form a temporary weapon using only magicules or just use a weapon that wouldn't be too weak to go against the Orc Lord. I'll likely choose the former. Which means I'll have to have another large training session likely after I've awakened, that time focused on Transmutation and the weird energy."
The room stayed silent for a minute as everyone processed the information. Frey was about to speak when Rimuru suddenly burst out:
"VELDORA, SHUT UP!" His tone was a mix of annoyance, anger, and exasperation,- all of which stemmed from the being he was speaking to.
Everyone was stunned by his sudden outburst, but Milim quickly recovered, and asked, "What was he saying?"
Rimuru collected him for a moment, before looking at her and replying, " He's trying to say he'll do his second 'good deed' in the form of giving me his memories of learning to control his energy. What he failed to realise was that the difficult thing to control here isn't magicules, but rather the weird energy in my Stomach. When I pointed that out, he got GS to use Thought Acceleration, so I've been listening to him ranting on about how great he is at controlling energy for nearly 17 hours since I never found a good moment to interrupt him, and then shut him down for good.
"He's, like, being really annoying, and I kinda wanna just kill him." That last sentence was said with a hint of childish anger.
Carrion and Frey simultaneously muttered, "Why'd he become so childish at the end...?"
Milim answered, saying, "Ah, he's going through age regression, but really fast and it won't stop, so he already went from the mental age of an adult to just a bit under mine."
Rimuru added on, "It seems now, that if I, like, talk how I used to for a while without break, I dead tired of it and just become really childish." He then proceeded to collapse onto a chair next to Milim and pout, complaining:
"It's, like, super undignified. I hate it."
Milim burst out laughing, while Carrion and Frey just adopted a wry smile at the sight of the pouting slime. His face looked even cuter than normal. Middray and Hermes at the side were still just dumbfounded, barely having noticed the recent events.
After everything had calmed down (and Rimuru sat in a corner against the wall to 'learn about his new and old skills, and NOT to hide away'), Carrion and Frey said their goodbyes before being escorted away by Hermes.
After they were gone, Rimuru started rolling about on the floor, shouting things like "So embarrassing!" or "Ahhh now if I'm ever a Demon Lord I'll get laughed at!". This greatly amused Milim, who picked the human-shaped slime with strength impossible for her size and hugged him tightly, laughing even more when Rimuru started to squirm about, trying to escape. In the end, Rimuru managed to calm down after about 10 minutes, and Milim reluctantly set him down.
Having collected himself, Rimuru said, "So, I guess the first thing I should do is start practicing my technique and the skills I've recently gained or created, since it shouldn't be too hard to create a temporary sword out of magicules..." He began to slowly mutter to himself about his skills and muse over Arts GS had also analysed, leaving Milim pouting at the lack of attention.
Arts- the result of pure effort and training focused on a single technique. Fortunately for Rimuru, however, with GS' comprehensive analysis to help him, it would take little time to at least get a good grip over them, thought to master him he'd need to understand them through experience using them.
Rimuru's current abilities were:
Unique- Great Sage, Predator, The Son, and Deviant(Shizu's Unique Skill)
Extra Skills: Molecular Manipulation (Flame and Water Manipulation + data from Transmutation), Black Flame (Combustion + data from Flame Manipulation), Black Thunder (Link between Black Lightning (from Tempest Star Wolf mimicry) and Molecular Manipulation), Ultraspeed Regeneration (Intrinsic slime skills + data from Predator), Spatial Motion (data from book), Magic Aura (data from book), Replication (data from book, Predator and Food Replication), Sense Soundwaves, Keen Smell, Magic Sense, and Strengthen body.
Skills: Multilayer Barrier (Link between Resistances and Area Barrier), Poison Gas, Paralysing Gas, Body Armour, Sticky Steel Thread, Thought Communication (data from book).
Resistances: Thermal Fluctuation Nullification (TFR + Flame Attack Nullification), Abnormal Status Resistance, Physical Attack Resistance, Magic Resistance (data from book + data from resistances), Pain Nullification.
Magic: Spatial (book), Wind (book + Veldora's blessing), Lightning (book + Veldora's blessing), Barrier (book), Memory, Mind (book), Illusion (book), Spirit (book + Shizu's memories), Fire (Shizu + book+ data from Molecular Manipulation), Water (book + data from Molecular Manipulation), Explosion (book + Shizu's memories), Ice (book), Earth (book + data from Transmutation experiments)
Arts: Modelwill (data from ogres), Formhide (data from ogres)
Looking over it, Rimuru was impressed by his current set of abilities. It'd take a while to master all of it, but with GS' help, Veldora's blessing, help from some skills, and Shizu's memories, he'd be able to get quite far with Lightning, Wind, Water, Fire, Earth, and Explosion Magic/skills as long as he put in the effort. According to GS, he also has beyond excellent affinity with Spatial Magic, which he looked forward to. However, his affinity with Ice Magic was rather terrible, so he didn't expect anything good there. His control over his Uniques would only improve over time, and things barriers and mental-related things wouldn't be too difficult due to their more simplistic nature for those with strong souls. The Arts GS analysed would need a lot of practice, but he planned to do that during his training on techniques, then during his larger training sessions.
"Milim?" Rimuru turned his attention towards the pouting Dragonoid, "do you know anyone that'd be willing to help me test the techniques GS put together?"
Her face brightened. "Of course!" She patted her chest. "I will!"
Hearing her words and enthusiasm, he quietly muttered "Don't kill me please..."
Moving to a more secluded place in Milim's land, Rimuru was about to try to form a sword from magicules, when Milim- who was about 20m away- pointed to a huge golden rock, and shouted "Rimuru, this is the weird metal I mentioned when we first met! Try having a look at it!"
Teleporting over with his newly acquired Spatial Magic (which he was getting the hang of rather fast), he placed his hand on the rock and allowed GS to analyse it.
Report. This is suspected to be low-purity Orichalcum, formed from low-purity gold being exposed to a large number of magicules. Suggested actions: use this to form a sword until you can form your own with the evolved materials you are storing.
Rimuru repeated GS' report to Milim, who praised GS' accuracy (she'd already tested it with Milim Eye) and permitted him to do as he wished. So he used Transmutation and turned a chunk of Orichalcum about 1m in diameter into a golden sword about half of his human form's height.
'I wonder...' Rimuru thought about something, before using Magic Aura to coat the sword in a layer of his magic. It turns out, by focusing on this, he unconsciously used Modelwill too- it worked rather well, to his surprise. 'Maybe the key to using Arts is being able to use them unconsciously like I just did by accident?' He pondered. It likely worked this time because the skill and Art were so similar. The sword was glowing with a faint rainbow hue, signaling his success. He'd focus on making it as durable as possible, since he was just used it as a medium to practice techniques alongside skills and magic. It seemed his enhancements had taken after that desire, as he could tell it was more of a protective glow, rather than sharp. After he predated the rest of the Orichalcum to transport back to the city, Milim shouted:
"Well, let's get going!"
A short silence followed Milim's shout, before she leaped, forward, faster than the human eye could see. Fortunately, Rimuru's Magic Sense could- though, if Milim hadn't reduced her speed for the sake of it being about technique, he'd have gone splat already. Leaping diagonally backward and to the right, while deflecting the punch she threw by tilting his sword, Rimuru was surprised by his reaction speed.
The moment his foot tapped the ground, a large chunk of it went missing. Then, seemingly from nowhere, a metal spike about 1m long suddenly appeared from behind Milim- Rimuru had combined Transmutation and Earth Magic to improve the efficiency of turning the rock and minerals in the ground into iron, and used Spatial Magic at the same time to teleport his creation behind Milim; the simultaneous use of magic was only possible due to GS' Chant Nullification.
Unsurprisingly, however, Milim dodged it. Surprisingly, however, she completely turned it on Rimuru, using it as footing to launch herself at the ground from the spike. Smashing her fist into the ground, Rimuru was launched high into the sky- along with the smirk on his face.
A very thin, but tough thread followed him into the air, and it allowed him to do something he'd wished to do since he was a human child: run in the air. To prevent Milim from breaking it, he retracted the string from the ground. at the same time, he used Wind Magic to support the thread in the air, which he turned into the shape of a foothold. Then as he fell back down, a foot landed on it- allowing him to launch himself higher into the air. He followed up with Spatial Magic to teleport the foothold higher up, just below where his other foot was. He launched himself higher.
Milim was unsure of his plan, so she decided to follow him up to the sky with her flight. Perfect. Rimuru's smirk only deepened at this sight. He dodged or deflected every one of Milim's attacks, each swing of his sword perfectly placing him next to his newest foothold. The actual movements he makes in the first place, while certainly good, showed the inexperience of someone who'd only just begun using them- time and space were wasted. However this was inconsequential in the end, as before he'd made a mistake Milim could properly exploit, his pattern changed.
At about 600m into the air, his next foothold was sent not below his feet, but rather it disappeared. His left hand's pinky twitched. Thread flowed out of it, but not for long. Rather than being precise with how it formed, he made it denser and denser, turning it into an incredibly compact sphere of Sticky Steel Thread. His pinky twitched once more.
In an instant, what remained there was not his thread- no, it was nitroglycerin. A very large amount of it, in fact. Twisting until he was upside down while supporting the nitroglycerin with Wind Magic, he faced Milim, giving her an innocent, adorable smile. Then, a spark. With it, he was gone. So was the nitroglycerin. A certain explosion, however, was not gone. In fact, it was a bit hard to miss. That explosion, strong enough to destroy a 4-story building, launched the relatively unharmed Rimuru towards the ground.
At Mach speeds.
Of course, it wasn't just the explosion doing this. The lack of air resistance (courtesy of Wind Magic-san) certainly helped.
Within less than two short seconds, a fist hit the ground. A glowing, fist. One riddled with Explosion Magic.
In a fashion similar to that of a small meteor smashing into the earth, the ground itself found out that its current home was not the crust, but rather the air, which had yet to clear from the handiwork of a destructive slime.
Now- why had Rimuru done this? Well, imagine staring into a location with an incomprehensible amount of dust floating in the area, the air ridden millions of grains of sand, and more than a few rocks of varying sizes. Milim Eye or not, it might be a tad bit hard to find a small, 120cm tall child. Especially when that child can hide their heat signature with Flame Magic.
...
The smoke cleared, the dust and sand settled, and rocks fell to the ground. What was left was... surreal, to say the least.