...Why do I slaughter so many? Well, I guess that's easy, because a lot of people are annoying and seem like they'll get in the way.

  Did you ask? Nah. Did someone I'm fighting right now yell it out, being the fool they were? Yes.

  But that can easily be twisted to a far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far more important and intelligent question; 'Why do you need so much exp?'

  Well, I'm a [Legendary] zenith, a literal and figurative living legend. I don't need any exp, right now. But, I have my plans, or are they random thoughts? Anyways, I need exp, a lot of it. For what I plan, I'll probably need a few hundred thousand [Legendary] zeniths worth of exp. At least, I think. I don't really know, its all in theory and I haven't had much of a chance to understand how the strength of a class, its requirements, the amount of exp requires, how many stat points it gives, its skill bonuses and its special conditions all interact.

  But just know, I have created a class far above anything you know, probably. As long as you don't know anything mythical I should be right, let me tell you, its so powerful someone with it could probably crush a [Legendary] zenith as a level 40+. As long as they have a few zenith skills in hand, which they should considering the amount exp it should take to reach that level.

  How do you get it? Well, you, the one who is reading it? You can't.

  Its all in base stats, and I don't think someone with a 9 as a base in all stats is going to show up any time soon.

  -Excerpt from 'Zenith economy', written by 'Lucaric Ba'alhos' on the 1st day of the new age and 72nd day of autumn.

  Dahey had happened upon a somewhat recently created dungeon town whose dungeon had become [Uncommon] a day or two ago, a surprise honestly.

  Real lucky too, she needed the money. Especially after the supplies she had bought back in Valis had run out even with her rationing them and even eating monsters and unleveled animals in order to save it, she also had to repair her connate dagger after a recent encounter with a [Rare] monster after seeing the place from the mountain base.

  It wasn't extremely strong, probably level 30 or something.

  But she wasn't exactly someone [Rare] herself, just an [Uncommon] '{Arcanist}'.

  Luckily the dungeon only recently upgraded, so it wouldn't be as dangerous as an established dungeon that had time to ferment, nor as hard to besiege. With her level it wouldn't be that hard to just force through everything with some arcane bolts, apparently there were only slimes inside anyways.

  The real thing that worried her was where to sell it, and if she should sell it for cheap or at a high price.

  But that was for a future her to properly worry over, first she had to get through 'The slime plains'. The dungeon, not the 'Slime plains' which was a section of the dungeon.

  At least she could be assured it would be easy, a level 50 coming into a low-level dungeon like this would be far less dangerous than when she first traveled back in the wastes.

  And just as she thought, with only the pale blue light of manifested mana to guide her way along with the already set torches kindly provided by the locals, Dahey easily passed by the slime plains with not a single difficulty.

  Yes, the acid shot by the slimes did seem quite dangerous if hit. But that was only if hit, and even if she was hit she could maybe even snuffle its existence out with enough mana. Since the acid was just made from mana, by the same principle that water made with would not sate thirst because it would disappear in time the same would happen to the acid.

  And a few more facts about made water were true also for the acid that had brought so many difficulties to the locals, unlike real water created by magical water was easily sensed with . Even if its level was low, as long as she focused on sensing any magical acid coming towards her, it was a breeze materialize an arcane barrier moments later.

  Though, she had to admit that it would be nice to level it a bit more, because then she would maybe even be able to sense the mana inside the slimes themselves. Not that she would hunt them for their slime cores though, she didn't have time to waste.

  Exiting the slime plains and climbing and descending the stairs once or twice, she found a hole in the ground without the rope prepared as she had heard. Though, considering that she had normally asked and hadn't bribed or seduced for it, it was expected for the information to sometimes be wrong. Considering her previous streak of correct information; it had been a good run.

  Luckily, she had taken her supplies with her because she was afraid of it being stolen. She took out a rope multiple meters long along with a large iron nail and a hammer to force it into the rock, and quickly set up her means of descent.

  Imbuing her skin of her palm and fingers with mana before then also manifesting it, she ascertained the stability of the nail with a good pull. And from what she could see, it was stuck as a rock.

  So, with not a moment of hesitation, she took the rope in her hands and carefully descended step by step. Though she was confident in herself, her physical stats weren't exactly the best even if they had been forced to grow in the midst of constant adversity. Even the protective layer on her skin was just there to stop her hands from chafing, it could not stop a fall.

  ...If she tried her best, she could stop the direct impact of a large fall, sure. She could do that, but it wouldn't stop her insides from sloshing violently from the sudden stop.

  She made her way down a bit further, passing the section of the hole where it expanded. Though Dahey didn't know why it had been designed as such- Or if it had even been designed instead of being accidentally created that way- She ignored it, it wasn't exactly important anyways.

  Only a bit further down, something felt strange. Specifically the rope itself, it felt as if it were shuddering with each slight decrease in height on Dahey's part. Actually, it felt more like see was falling, as seen from the-

  "I'm falling?!" She couldn't help but exclaim as the air flowed through her trimmed hair and one or two month old clothes, the rock around her passing her by. Without a second thought she tried to claw for one of the edges as best she could, but they were to far away for how she was oriented. Whether or not she could reach if she went on her back or belly was left in the air, as her frantic attempts at escape found her tangled by the rope that had failed her.

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  And before she could get herself out by some miracle, Dayeh already entered a certain room in where her legs were used as dampeners to a surprisingly good effect.

  She could feel her knees give way, even if her eyes didn't look at it happening. And she couldn't stop herself from a momentary scream "AAAAAAHHH!"

  But the next moment she bit her lip as hard as she could, not caring if she lost it in the process. She forced out as much mana as she could, draining all the 96 mp left in her mana pool, materializing all of it in a bid to stop any possible attacks. She couldn't use a single healing spell, though maybe she could find a way to put her bones back in the right places if she made it out alive.

  And as she had thought, countless blasts of acid came her way, rapidly corroding through her defenses.

  A certain dread began to settle in, one that drove her to pour out the meager amount of mana she gathered in the few moments it took to fully take in her situation.

  But it- The acid was easily gnawing through her barrier. It wasn't like this before, in the slime plains- Even if she merely used the bare minimum of mana to interrupt the shot acid's momentum, which she didn't have the chance to do- Her mana stood strong, only slightly decreasing. To the point that it couldn't even be counted as a percentage, whatever that was.

  But now, it went through. And it wasn't even the end, as a new volley came a few dozens of seconds later, with only one or two being stopped in their tracks.

  She had a high spirit stat, yes. But her wasn't up to par, only in the 30's.

  It was obvious, with no way to detect her enemies in any reasonable time-frame, her legs basically useless and her defences gnawed through quicker than she could renew them; Her fate was sealed.

  Falc Navator, slime extraordinaire, had been taking some time to design slime apostle 2. Meanwhile also pondering one whether he should use , bide his time and save up for or remain a puritan; making sure that slime apostle 2 remains untainted by secular frivolities.

  Looking at it from the perspective of striving to make the best of the best to rival even slime apostle 1, he should obviously go for the second because compromises existed only in times of crisis. But in the eyes of fearing sentients, he should definitely go for the first because he had not a single second to waste before a legion of essence rich sentients appeared to reduce his halls into mere caverns. And in the mind of efficiency, the extra costs incurred by the other options when considering the amount of slimes he would have to make before he could once again stumble upon good fortune.

  And it was hard to argue against any of them! Based on the beliefs that fueled all three, they were not arguable in their respective bases. Because their foundations were built on subjective reasoning and the exact same facts as the other two.

  And, finally, he caved to the last one. He could afford the first, certainly, considering how cheap he was planning to make slime apostle 2 in comparison to some other slimes. But every drop counted and slime apostle 2 didn't exist in order to test what would happen when met leveling. Even if he was very much interested in the idea, now was not the time for possibly irrelevant research.

  It was the time for innovation!

  Well, not exactly innovation, it was more like applying ingeniously.

  Still, it took quite of bit of effort to do it well. Right now he had it as a D-4x20-Windx5-Acid(5)x2 with an elder slime nuclei, though he was wondering whether...

  ...Should he compress the wind mana?

  Obviously he probably could, but it wasn't that simple, the effort it would take would probably make it way more annoying. But he also had a lot of free mental labour just waiting for something to do, and it wouldn't particularly hurt his interests, it'd also allow him to add an extra wind weave considering the bit of space he had left over.

  But he wasn't exactly sure about the effects of compressed wind mana, would it get it in the way or not?

  Luckily, the slime plains were ripe- Falc gave a quick look through his entire dungeon for any disturbances, and found a sentient body being in the process of being cleaned up in the kill room. He couldn't be sure about their essence-generation capabilities, actually he could

  '200 essence?!' Falc couldn't remember any big essence generators coming through, and he had yet to see a big influx of sentients compared to before... Though he wasn't really paying attention to if one entered actually, nor was there really a mechanism to tell him if there were a real problem actually.

  So, Falc thought for a bit, just considering somethings. Whether or not he should set up some warning mechanism somehow, stuff like that.

  In the end, he had decided to repurpose some of the unused him into something of a bit more value; a little register of essence generators. Making a register of essence generators, times when they gave him essence along with little memories as proof if possible.

  -Not sentients specifically, it could register anything that gave essence, as long as it was running- Though, it could obviously be over run if there was too much to handle- He made sure it could, because; who knew if there was some other source of essence he didn't know about? It was just prudence and curiousity at work.

  In all honesty, the juvenile core wasn't that sure about what to do with his new wealth. Though it was basically certain it would be spent on a skill, which brought about the real question, there were so many skills just there waiting to scam him out of all he had. Which of those many options weren't there to steal his hard-earned essence?

  Though, luckily, he wasn't looking to test skills interacting with leveling. He already had good data on that due to a 'Slime apostle 1'- Long may he reign- So Falc wasn't that antsy to get a good look at the effects.

  He'd take some time to look through the list in time.

  Anyways, he felt that the D-1 weave of wind mana was the right option. He also wanted to see what it did, so he created a D-1 slime in mere moment before then taking out 3 weaves worth of mana and turning it into wind mana before stretching and molding the mana with a bit of difficulty into a singular weave, compressing it all down into a C++ weave.

  With great difficulty of course, aspected mana was still the bane of his existence even if slightly less than before. But he'd get used to it, he got used to it with normal compression. All it would take was acclimatization, and maybe a pinch of adaption as well.

  Then he spliced the new wind weave onto the slime template created, before giving the curse of life, bringing about the first D-1-Wind(1).

  What? The notation was different? Of course it was, Falc found it far too annoying and confusing to keep on saying 'Second weave acid slime', which was honestly far, far too unspecific for his tastes. And with aspects taking on a role as well, what was he supposed to call slimes 'Second acid-third wind-fourth wind slime'? No!

  He already had a standard set-up, so there was not a single reason to not just expand it!

  Now, Falc ordered the slime to do the only thing it was good for; to jump.

  And it flew, not that far, actually, only a few percentages further than the original. At least it seemed to have no negative effects, that was the important part. As long as the mana had the equal or higher effect when compressed, he would be happy with the results.

  It was just... A pain.

  But, an apostle was an apostle.

  With that done, he started to prepare the mana he needed for apostle prototype 2-01. Yes, he wasn't really a core with high hopes. How many he would need to make before one of them climbed out of the rubble as a respectable member of slime apostasy?

  Falc's guess? Maybe 50, could be a 100 too if he were optimistic.

  If he were realistic? He expected like 150~ failures.