He doubted things would be as simple as stepping on Slimes for long. ‘The best thing to do would be meet up with family and take turns watching the children while we all get stronger.’ Being born into a family of rednecks and country folk wasn’t looking too bad in this situation.

‘Well, I’m certainly not going to sit here while there’s fun to have!’ Taylor thought as he started walking further into the plains towards the hills where no houses or businesses had been built.

Luckily, based on where everyone was lying, he could get a general sense of direction.

….

After about two hours at a light jog, he finally came close to the base of the hill and bent over while breathing hard. ‘Holy shit, I wished I’d done some cardio and not just lifting weights occasionally.’

*Squelch* *Squelch* *Squelch*

Recognizing that noise, he became excited, and it sounded like more than one was around. Taylor quickly ran up the hill and looked down the other side.

There were Slimes everywhere! Yellow, red, blue, green, clear. He couldn’t help but grin.

“I don’t know who or what to thank, but thank you for providing this early grinding farm!”

He didn’t want to dive in just yet, so he looked for slimes hanging out near the edge. The first one he approached was a yellowish color and didn’t look quite as gooey as the first one he’d killed.

These things weren’t big, and they were extremely slow. This one was about the size of a rabbit. Taylor bent down to look at it and was able to make out its core in the center. He brought his hand up and slapped it down towards the middle of it, hoping to extract its core like he had the first one.

As soon as his hand met the top of the creature, it felt like he’d slapped a thin sheet of drywall. The top of the creature cracked a little, but his hand didn’t sink into it.

‘What the hell, this isn’t slimy at all. Grimoire, inspect it please.’

:Slime: This Slime has spent time-consuming dirt and many of the rocky materials on the ground. It has slightly taken in the properties of the Earth element.

HP‐ 16/20

Grimoire level too low to detect other attributes:

As he was examining the creature and reading its information he felt a dull pain on his skin. It felt like someone had thumped him. He looked down and noticed a small pebble on the ground.

The next moment he managed to see another pebble being spat out by the Slime and hitting his left arm. It didn’t hurt, so Taylor decided he would experiment with the creature. Flipping over to the first page, he saw that his health had gone down by one point. He currently had 80 HP after adding the 3 points to Defense.

‘Well, slapping the creature did 4 points of damage to it. I wonder if there’s a difference between how I hit it or how much force I put behind it.’

He raised his hand and chopped down on it like he was chopping through a block of wood.

:Slime; HP- 8/20:

Next, he tried punching it.

: HP- 3/20:

‘Not enough left to test anything now.’ He thought as he slapped it one more time and removed its core.

:Slime Core- This was once the Core of a Slime that had weak ties to the Earth element. It can slightly harden an object or can be crushed to gain experience:

‘Slightly harden an object, huh?’ He mused at the lewd thoughts before moving on to more practical means. ‘I suppose that it could be used to harden this cloth to form a weak armor. Or maybe use it on a stick to form a makeshift weapon.’

As he thought about it, his Grimoire chimed in: These items cannot be used unless you have unlocked a crafting Talent:

‘Oh bummer, I’ll save the new ones I get for now and crush any doubles that I find.’

Looking around, he found another yellowish Slime not too far away that also had 20 HP. This time, he kicked the Slime and checked the damage.

:13/20:

‘That did less damage than chopping it.’ Next, he tried an ax kick, although it was awkward due to the small stature of the creature.

This time, it died instantly, but he had realized the difference. I was because the Slime was solid. The moves that had a slashing-type motion did more damage than the crushing attacks.

‘I wonder if weapons will have different effects against different creatures as well.’ Taylor picked up the core and crushed it, watching the dust turn into small light particles and flow into his Grimoire.

This time he looked around for another red Slime like the first one he’d killed. He located one and didn’t hesitate to attack. This time he tried to pierce through the creature directly with his fingertips in an attempt to grab and pull out the core in one move.

Surprisingly, it worked! Though after looking at the Battle Log in his Grimoire, he found that it only had 10 HP in the first place.

‘The Earth Slime had a higher defense, so it would make sense that it has more HP if creatures’ attributes are similar to our own.’

Glancing at the Battle Log again, he found that he was getting the same 5 Exp from each Slime, plus 5 Exp from the two cores he’d shattered. 15 more Slimes or cores before he would reach the next level.

Taylor jumped to it without hesitation, clearing out a small patch of the Slimes and this time storing all of the Cores. He wondered if he could give them to his family to use as their first “kill.” He couldn’t picture the children killing anything yet.

Once he reached level 2, he was happy that it still only took 100 Exp to reach the next level.. He continued walking around stomping on as many slimes as he could.