A curved pointed horny nail on each digit of an extremity.

  Then the question was, what is nail?

  

  A protective plate characteristically found at the tip of the digits.

  Truly, interesting. Not that detailed to be honest, and whether to trust his instincts was still to be seen. Though, as mentioned before, their reputation had indeed shot up from 'Bane of existence' to 'Fraudulent helper'.

  That didn't mean he was going to go all in on

  .

  He didn't know shit about how to add an extremity to a slime, just making a slime in the form of a sentient wouldn't work. He would know; he tried personally in the test box. It just fell over and onto itself, before then having a seizure.

  At least it wasn't that important to start working with claw, it wasn't as if one of the really good skills required them.

  But there was one thing, just a singular simple little thing that barred him from countless skills that could pique his interest.

  Affinities.

  What were affinities? Well, according to instincts they were 'Innate aspectual inclinations' or 'Possession of connate aspectual ties'. Now, what did that mean? Which definition was the skill store using? Why was this even important?!

  1, no clue. 2, no clue. 3, because there were a few skills that Falc really liked that needed them.

  One might be able to notice; None of these skills were proper singular skills like that plainly attacked.

  What Falc was looking for was something a bit more... Variable. Considering an elder slime's intelligence and a future [Rare] slime's potential intelligence, he wanted to look more into skills that might be able to strengthen other skills. Something a bit more 'Slime paragon'-like.

  Obviously, it was but mere interest that he'd cash-in on when he finally had the chance to experiment fully without threat of death. But still, it was very interesting and the potential of it; Falc could not let it go to waste just because he didn't know how to get a monster an affinity.

  But, he felt he could find out. Then he he could buy his cheap [Uncommon] skills, and start looking towards some of the big boys of the new rarity. The ones that cost more then 10000 essence, with one even costing a ludicrous 100000 essence, . While Falc didn't know why it was called that, it did seem really good. Though it required a soul like all the other 'Mancy' skills he found, with every single one of them costing 50000+ essence.

  At least they didn't require an affinity, or maybe that was a sad thing. Considering that Falc had found a skill that was perfect for researching what an affinity was; ''.

  Of course, there was indeed a singular other 100000 essence skill that he could purchase, but... Eh, it looked kinda meh. Something to do with 'Arts' or whatever, it required a soul as well.

  It didn't matter anyways, he would probably get enough essence to get it some day, but today was not that day. Instead was far more valuable, if there was anything with a 'Slime-affinity' it'd be a slime. It was just that simple!

  What if the slimes didn't have it?

  Falc would be very disappointed.

  So, of course, it was time to make an elder slime template real quick. Then felt out a little nodule, and gave it the go ahead to take the mana in his mana pool after designating its target. It taking all the mana he had, and then all that mana instantly returned and filled his mana pool completely.

  ...Question was, was that because there wasn't enough mana or because the slime didn't have a slime-affinity? He had only allowed the mana in his mana pool to be taken, so whether or not he could let it use the mana he was keeping up outside of his mana pool could give him the answer.

  An easy experiment, take out some mana from his mana pool and let it float in the air. Then he once again went out of his way to designate the template of an elder slime and said to the nodule, use this mana here, and nothing else. Capiche?

  It seemed it got the message, as seen from the mana disappearing and then reappearing the next moment 'So, it's the mana that's the problem. Surprising that it was even returned considering who was behind the store, not that it's bad. Luckily the solution is pretty obvious.'

  All he had to do was wait, though he did have a question in his mind as he started to siphon off mana from the slime plains 'If I can use mana under my control outside of my mana pool as payment for whatever proxy to give a monster a skill, how would compressed mana be counted as? The amount of mana inside, or instead the volume? Or would the amount of compressed mana determine whether or not a created skill is made-up of compressed mana?'

  Another thing easy to test, he took out 8 mp of mana. Then it was compressed into a volume of 4 mp, as was the cost of in mana that wasn't compressed. It was easy really, a trivial little experiment that could be considered easier than creating slime water.

  Only half was taken to give the slime a little sections of weave with unnecessary loops within, which was quickly cleaned up. The excess was recycled for a free 0.4 mp that was added back into the mass of mana he was stockpiling slowly, which was being compressed 'So the amount of mana is what's important, not the volume... I can work with that.'

  That meant there wasn't an absolute limit to how much mana he could build up for a skill, like there would be if compressed mana wasn't expected. It also gave more space for mana than if the volume mattered instead, so it could be possible to use his D-18 thread to maybe even get a [Rare] skill up and running.

  He took a look at how essence generation was, right now it seemed to be going as fast as usual, so no aberrant sentients had appeared. Though there hadn't been a sudden and final burst of essence from what he could see, so slime apostle 2-01 had not killed a single sentient yet.

  Not that he was complaining, Falc had specifically ordered it to be as careful as possible and to not take a single risk. Though it might've resulted in a paranoid slime that didn't have a lick of courage, that was fine. He wasn't looking for a rising star that burst into the sky in a blaze of glory, he was looking for a permanent resident in the night sky; one that would hopefully come to shine as brightly as their forefather.

  He would instate sentient-hunting season when enough candidates had taken their place, when he could reasonably sacrifice a few eggs for the cause in a trial by fire.

  But the most important thing for him right now was just to see how intelligent a normal elder slime was, it seemed they could understand what a 'Risk' was. But it didn't have a certain edge that slime apostle 1 had, not that he knew what that was. He'd see if that came from leveling or something else, Falc was certain it didn't come from evolution since the edge was there since before the evolution.

  The good thing was that it seemed that the automatic clean-up system had an unintentional side-effect, as shown from a group of sentients silently watching a metal point stuck in the floor being pushed out ever so slowly. Not moving for quite a while afterwards, probably because they were seeing if anything other would happen.

  But enough of that, a 1000 mp had been saved up finally. Then he made sure to once again say that the elder slime was the target and the free floating compressed mana was means of payment, and once again the mana disappeared. This time only a part of it though, a total of 354 mp.

  Considering that had been 4 mp but then turned to a mere 1.3, if that same decrease was the same for then it would go from 354 mp to... Around 115~ mp, give or take a 0.05 mp. He'd have to see how worth it it was before he considered making it an official slime apostle 2 ability.

  -But it was kind of annoying that the mp bounced back again. Not that he hated the refund, he was just really hoping he got a proper grasp of affinities. Or at least the one that the skill seller was referring to while trying to scam him.

  If a slime didn't have a slime-affinity, what would it require? There was an affinity for fire, water and other aspects. So the 'Slime' the description was talking about was the aspect, so he would probably need to work with that aspect to get to the experimentation phase.

  So, how did he get a new aspect again? Something like... 'Combine or ignore'. Kind of vague, still a lead though. It'd lead him in the right direction, hopefully.

  At least he didn't feel worried about him, he didn't think that 'Slime' was an 'Elemental aspect'. Fire, water, earth and wind weren't really directly associated with slimes as a foundation to it. They were related, sure, but could it really be said that the very aspect of a 'Slime' was directly based off of the four base elements?

  Though he could be wrong, he wasn't exactly sure about what an 'Elemental aspect' was just yet, he needed data to start analyzing. Feelings didn't equate to facts, at least he thought they didn't.

  What he really wondered on what the 'Combine or ignore' was directed at; aspects, or something else? He'd start with aspects, mixing wind and earth made some weird earth-wind mana, so maybe that was what it meant by 'Combine'. Would that earth-wind mana be considered elemental, or was it something else? It was definitely more difficult to control than wind or earth mana, but was that because it was elemental or because it was extremely active in nature?

  Then came 'Ignore', if he wanted the slime aspect in his bag of tricks, did he need to forget about the aspects he already had? But how could he get access to an aspect? How could he know what an aspect was by ignoring the ones he had?

  What even is an aspect?