Creation system

Mitch had entered a cold, focused state, his own kind of killing trance. The world around him had narrowed to a single purpose: survival through systematic extermination.

At the outskirts of the massive slime chamber, he hunted down every lone nature slime he could find, one by one.

The chamber's walls glistened with moisture, and the air hung thick with the acrid smell of decomposing vegetation and something else, something alien and primordial that made his skin crawl.

The slimes weren't challenging in isolation, their translucent green bodies wobbling with deceptive sluggishness. But Mitch preferred to avoid venturing deeper into the chamber, where the slime density was overwhelming.

Through the gloom, he could make out clusters of the creatures, their bioluminescent cores pulsing like diseased hearts in the darkness.

Inside those deeper reaches, he would've had to face up to ten at once, an impossible fight at his current strength, no matter how much his confidence had grown.

Even against single enemies, Mitch didn't come out unscathed. Nature slimes were deceptively vicious, their attacks emerging from the very ground beneath his feet.

Gnarled roots would suddenly erupt from the earth, whipping through the air with surprising speed and leaving long, shallow cuts along his legs.

The wounds stung like paper cuts but spread across inches of flesh, creating a network of angry red lines that mapped his growing experience with pain.

They didn't bleed much, the cuts were too shallow for that, but healing them nonetheless drained his energy reserves at an alarming rate.

Each casting of his healing spell felt like running a sprint, leaving him breathless and slightly dizzy.

Mitch quickly learned that the more he healed, the hungrier he became.

His stomach would gnaw at him with increasing ferocity, as if his body was cannibalizing itself to fuel the magic.

His healing spell was powered by both his mana, that strange energy he could feel pooling in his chest like warm honey, and his body's energy reserves, each use slowly depleting him like a phone battery running on its last percentage.

Frustrated by the spell's limitations, he tried flooding the healing spell with extra mana, hoping to speed up the process.

The magic responded eagerly to the additional power, but not in the way he'd hoped. It only expanded the radius of the spell without increasing its potency or speed, creating a wider area of gentle warmth that felt pleasant but accomplished nothing more than before.

The larger area didn't help much when the wounds were already localized to specific spots on his legs.

Between healing sessions, Mitch absorbed slime cores with growing efficiency.

The process had become almost meditative, he would hold the translucent orbs in his palm, feeling their strange warmth, and then will them to dissolve into streams of experience that flowed into his very being.

Each core pushed his experience closer and closer to a level-up, the sensation building like pressure behind a dam.

Eventually, he sat just one XP point short of leveling. The number glowed tantalizingly in his peripheral vision: 499/500. But he held off, his hand trembling slightly as he resisted the urge to absorb just one more core.

The "level-up high" acted like a powerful stimulant, akin to a triple espresso or a can of energy drink back on Earth, but magnified tenfold.

 Every nerve in his body would sing with renewed vitality, every muscle would feel like it had been reforged in celestial fire.

He wanted to save that energy boost for when he'd need it most.

Desperate to lure more nature slimes to the chamber entrance, he tried throwing rocks at them. It was a crude strategy, but his options were limited.

The stones would arc through the dim air and strike the slimes with wet slapping sounds. They reacted, their gelatinous bodies rippling with what might have been confusion or mild irritation, shifting a few meters forward before lazily returning to their original spots like bored guards on patrol.

The stones weren't threatening enough to provoke a real chase, he needed something more substantial to trigger their hunting instincts.

Out of lone nature slimes to hunt, Mitch turned to the next type: earth slimes. These creatures were darker, their brown coloration making them blend seamlessly with the chamber's earthen floor.

He had no idea how they attacked, so he moved with the careful deliberation of a man walking through a minefield.

He approached the nearest earth slime, creeping forward with a sturdy branch raised above his head like a primitive club. The wood was thick as his wrist and heavy enough to deliver a satisfying impact.

His stance was low, his body tense as a coiled spring, eyes darting constantly between the slime and the ground around his feet, alert for the telltale signs of incoming spells.

When he closed within three meters, close enough to smell the creature's musty, loamy scent, the earth beneath his foot bulged ominously.

Then it erupted.

An earthen spike shot up from the ground like a geyser of hardened clay, aiming directly for his right foot.

It was slower than the whip-fast root attacks from nature slimes, but it emerged from farther away, and it was significantly bigger, thick as a spear shaft, and sharp enough to punch through leather.

The attack telegraphed itself with the ground's movement, giving him a precious half-second to react.

Mitch dodged back with practiced agility and retaliated immediately, swinging his branch hard at the slime with all the force his enhanced strength could muster.

The blow connected with a satisfying thud, but the slime barely reacted. Its surface rippled like disturbed pudding, but it maintained its shape and cohesion. These things were tanky, built to absorb attacks with ease.

He hammered it five more times, each blow creating deeper dents in its gelatinous form. Its dark brown hue faded with each impact, shifting from rich earth-tone to a sickly yellow-brown.

Bits of sludge started to splash out with each strike, splattering the ground around them like mud from a construction site. Finally, on the twelfth hit, he struck the slime's core dead center.

It shattered with a wet pop that echoed through the chamber, leaving behind a brown-tinted core glowing faintly in the creature's dissolving remains.

Twelve hits. That's how many it took to kill a single earth slime. It was time-consuming and exhausting, but at least it hadn't landed a hit on Mitch.

Unlike the unpredictable angles of nature slimes' roots, which could emerge from any direction and strike from unexpected angles, earth spikes were slower and always shot straight upward from directly beneath his feet.

That predictability became Mitch's advantage. He developed a rhythm. Approach, trigger the spike, dodge, then pummel the immobilized slime.

He went on to kill 26 more earth slimes over the next several hours, methodically avoiding their spikes and whittling them down one by one.

His arms ached from the repetitive motion, and his branch had worn smooth in his grip, but he felt the satisfaction of a job well done.

Once done with the earth slimes, Mitch decided it was time to face a new challenge: electric slimes.

These creatures were perhaps the most unsettling of all, their bodies crackling with visible arcs of blue-white energy that danced across their surface like caged lightning. The air around them seemed to hum with potential energy, making the hair on his arms stand on end.

He healed up, feeling the familiar warmth spread through his battered muscles, then swapped out his worn branch for a fresh one from his pocket space.

The new weapon felt solid and reassuring in his grip. He approached the nearest electric slime with careful, measured steps, his heart beating faster with each meter he closed.

No spell triggered from the ground this time, no spikes or roots. But Mitch stayed on high alert, certain that danger was just beneath the surface. The creature's electrical field was its weapon, and he had no idea of its range or intensity.

He charged in, swinging his branch down with all his strength, hoping to end the fight quickly.

The moment the branch made contact, a violent jolt of electricity surged up the wood and into Mitch's hand.

It felt like grabbing a live wire, but magnified beyond anything he'd experienced on Earth. His fingers went numb instantly, pain shooting up his arm like molten metal flowing through his veins. He stumbled backward, his vision blurring as his nervous system struggled to process the assault.

His body instinctively fought the invading energy, some primal defense mechanism pushing back against the electrical current and keeping it from spreading past his elbow.

If he hadn't resisted, if that natural barrier had failed, his entire body might've been paralyzed, leaving him helpless on the chamber floor.

He retreated to the chamber entrance, clutching his hand against his chest.

The limb felt like it belonged to someone else, all pins and needles and disconnected sensation.

With some effort and a healing spell, the numbness gradually faded, replaced by a dull ache that reminded him of his foolishness.

That painful experience sparked a crucial realization: the electricity felt like a form of aspected mana, just like his spells.

It had the same fundamental signature, the same underlying energy that he'd learned to manipulate.

Maybe he could fight mana with mana, creating a barrier of his own energy to deflect the creature's attacks.

Mitch tried channeling his own energy into his hand to create a defensive barrier during his next attack.

It was extraordinarily difficult, managing movement and using mana at the same time wasn't something he'd mastered.

The multitasking required splitting his concentration in ways that left him feeling clumsy and slow. But he persisted, practicing the technique until nightfall painted the chamber entrance in deep shadows.

The next morning, after a restless sleep filled with dreams of crackling electricity, he absorbed all remaining cores and finally allowed himself to level up.

[7 x Small nature slime core converted into 70 xp points!]

[26 x Small earth slime core converted into 260 xp points!]

CONGRATULATIONS

You leveled up!

#%#%@! SYSTEM ERROR!!

NO CLASS FOUND

@$!@$!@%%%%err_code 7222223; Rewards table NULL; Basic reward will be given!

+1 to ALL stats!

"AHHH!" Mitch shouted as the power flooded his body like liquid fire. The sensation was indescribable, every cell in his body singing with newfound vitality.

His limbs felt lighter, as if gravity had loosened its grip on him. His senses sharpened to an almost painful degree, allowing him to hear the subtle drip of water from stalactites he'd never noticed before, to smell the complex mineral composition of the chamber's air.

"I might become a level-up addict," he muttered, grinning despite the lingering pain in his hand. The rush was intoxicating, better than any drug he'd ever heard of.

His daily routine now was a far cry from the life he used to know. Gone were the days of alarm clocks, morning coffee, and commuter traffic.

Each morning, he'd cast a water spell to drink, wash up, and douse last night's fire.

The water tasted pure and clean, better than anything that had come from Earth's taps.

Since acquiring the fire spell, he always kept a small fire burning overnight for warmth, feeding it with wood from the forest.

He'd used his earth magic to mold a crude bed from hardened soil, shaping it to roughly match his body's contours and padding it with weeds, leaves, and dry grass.

It wasn't comfortable by any civilized standard, but it was his, perhaps the first thing he'd truly owned since arriving in this strange world.

Still… he missed his real bed. The memory of soft sheets and supportive mattress haunted his dreams. And people.

Mitch hadn't spoken to another human being in weeks.

The silence was starting to wear on him more than the physical hardships. He found himself talking to the slimes sometimes, narrating his attacks or cursing their stubbornness, just to hear a human voice, even if it was only his own.

After leveling up, Mitch returned to the electric slime with renewed confidence. His enhanced stats made him feel like a different person entirely, stronger, faster, more resilient.

This time, he successfully pushed mana into his hand as the branch connected.

The electricity only reached his skin, causing sharp pain but not the disabling numbness he'd experienced before.

He killed the slime in two hits, the second blow shattering its core with a satisfying crack.

"Next time, I'll do it in one."

And he did. Mitch spent the next day hunting every lone slime he could find, nature, earth, and electric.

His movements had become fluid and efficient, each strike calculated for maximum impact.

Only two or three new ones spawned each night, materializing from the chamber's mysterious depths like manifestations of the dungeon's will, but he made the most of them.

Eventually, he reached 328 out of 500 XP for his next level. Another round of core absorption pushed him to level 9, the familiar rush of power coursing through his veins once more.

The next level, however, required 2000 XP, a huge leap that made his stomach sink.

He'd need to kill at least 200 more slimes. At the current spawn rate, that would take weeks of grinding, and he wasn't sure his sanity could handle that much isolation and repetitive combat.

It was time to take risks. Lone slimes wouldn't cut it anymore. He needed to venture deeper into the chamber, to face groups of enemies and risk serious injury for greater rewards.

He devised a strategy: target groups that were mostly electric slimes.

They could only attack through direct contact, unlike the ranged nature and earth slimes that could strike from a distance.

If he prioritized eliminating the ranged attackers first, he could reduce incoming damage, then clean up the electric ones in relative safety.

Mitch scouted the chamber's deeper reaches, moving through shadows and keeping his breathing shallow to avoid detection.

Finally, he spotted a perfect group of eight clustered around what looked like a natural formation of crystal: five electric slimes, their bodies crackling with contained energy, two earth slimes sitting motionless like brown boulders, and one nature slime with visible root tendrils already extended into the surrounding soil.

Perfect.

He approached carefully, every step calculated to avoid triggering premature attacks.

His plan was to ambush the nature slime first, eliminating the most unpredictable threat before it could coordinate with the others.

But as he closed in, moving with what he thought was perfect stealth, a root shot up under his right foot like a striking snake.

The slime had sensed him somehow, through vibrations in the earth, or some other method he didn't understand.

Then, almost instantly, two earth spikes erupted from the ground, one under his left foot and one directly in front of him, cutting off his direct path to the nature slime.

The creatures were working together, their attacks coordinated in a way that suggested intelligence beyond what he'd expected.

No time to think. Analysis paralysis would get him killed.

He rolled left, his enhanced agility allowing him to barely avoid the spikes, and sprinted toward the nature slime.

His legs pumped with newfound power, covering the distance in seconds. He had just a brief window before another barrage would force him to retreat.

Two swift blows, delivered with all the force his enhanced strength could muster, and the nature slime burst into blue specks of mana that dissolved into the air like fireflies.

Mitch felt the difference his level-up had made, he was stronger, faster, more coordinated. Each movement flowed into the next with mechanical precision.

Next were the earth slimes, but they were positioned behind the electric ones, protected by their crackling allies.

He had no choice, he had to bash his way through the electric barrier, accepting the pain as the price of progress.

Electricity sparked through his arms with each hit. His hands went numb repeatedly, forcing him to rely on muscle memory and determination.

The pain was extraordinary, but he fought through it with gritted teeth and furious determination.

An earth spike caught his leg while he was distracted by the electrical assault, slicing it open from ankle to knee.

Blood ran down his leg in warm streams, but the limb still moved, still supported his weight. He couldn't afford to stop now.

He finished off the electric slimes with methodical brutality, then turned to the earth slimes and battered them to death with increasingly desperate strikes.

His vision was starting to blur from pain and exhaustion, but he forced himself to grab their cores before limping back to the entrance to heal.

The wounds were painful but not critical, no major arteries had been severed, no bones broken. After hours of rest and multiple healing sessions, he felt strong enough to return for another round.

And another.

And another.

Days passed in a blur of violence and recovery. His technique improved with each battle, his understanding of slime behavior deepening.

He learned to read the subtle signs that preceded their attacks, to position himself for maximum advantage, to time his strikes for when they were most vulnerable.

Eventually, after what felt like an eternity of grinding combat, he stood at the chamber entrance again, bloodied and battered but victorious.

His clothes hung in tatters, his body bore dozens of small scars, but his eyes burned with the fierce satisfaction of hard-won progress.

CONGRATULATIONS

You leveled up!

#%#%@! SYSTEM ERROR!!

NO CLASS FOUND

@$!@$!@%%%%err_code 7222223; Rewards table NULL; Basic reward will be given!

+1 to ALL stats!

CONGRATULATIONS

You advanced to tier 2.

Based on your experiences, you will get to choose a class.

Tier 2 Citizen – The most basic class, and an upgrade to the Tier 1 Citizen, you will gain two allocable stat points at every level. You will be given a skill at every key level.

Mage – The ways of magic are not a mystery for you. You will get 1 allocable status point, 1 status point in mana capacity, and 1 status point in mind at every level. You will be given a skill at every key level.

Warrior – You pushed your body past your limit, you will get 1 allocable status point, 1 status point in body, and 1 status point in mana regeneration. You will be given a skill at every key level.

Mitch stared at the options, his mind racing with possibilities. Each path offered its own advantages, its own vision of what he could become.

The choice would define not just his abilities, but his very identity in this strange new world.

The moment of decision had arrived.