"Ding!"
The system sound rang in Nawa's head, and a message window appeared before him.
(New Skill)
(Fire Wall - Using psychic power to control spacetime fields, the time flow of particles in the air can be accelerated. When particles' time flow is accelerated, they become distorted and vibrate, destroying the atomic structure and releasing energy in the form of heat, similar to a wall of fire. The size and intensity of the fire wall depend on the amount of mana used.)
As soon as a player uses a new ability, their equipment processes and records it as a skill, notifying the player. This is similar to the principle of notifying the player of their stats as their body strengthens.
This differs from the in-game system where players usually acquire abilities before they can use them.
Frankly, the Fire Wall skill Nawa is currently using is the first step of the Fireball skill, which also uses spacetime field control to generate heat.
However, Fire Wall doesn't compress the heat and release it in an explosion like Fireball. Therefore, it is inferior in both destructive power and attack range, classifying it as only a D-rank skill.
But Fire Wall does have advantages… It has a wider attack range and uses less mana. The fire wall Nawa created is less than 4 meters long and only a little over a meter high.
The heat isn't intense; it's almost indistinguishable from a normal bonfire. Even so, it's more than enough to dissolve any slime that enters the radius of the flames.
Using the Fire Wall skill has increased Nawa's mana regeneration rate compared to its usage rate. Furthermore, his stamina decreases at a much slower rate.
Nawa roughly calculated that even if he maintained this fire wall for several more hours, his stamina wouldn't run out.
If Nawa's mind remained filled with fear and anxiety, he wouldn't be able to see this solution. This is the benefit of letting go, the heart of Buddhism that Nawa has learned and absorbed since childhood.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Explosions erupted from slime after slime as they charged towards Nawa. None of them could penetrate the fire wall; most exploded before reaching it.
Nawa watched the hordes of slimes approaching. The difference was that he no longer panicked; his eyes were filled with confidence. It seemed that the thought of escaping was no longer on Nawa's mind.
His thoughts were now focused on how much money this hunt would bring him.
The swarm of slimes was like moths to a flame; their fearlessness had become a serious weakness, leading to their demise. In less than half an hour, hundreds of slimes had transformed into piles of energy crystals and black pebbles.
Once he was sure no slimes remained in the area, Nava stopped using his firewall skill, and soon the wall of fire began to die down.
Nawa surveyed the scattered energy crystals on the ground with a joyful expression before gathering them all together. Before long, a large pile of copper-colored energy crystals began to melt and fuse together.
Normally, fusion of energy crystals to a higher level would be done in a state-of-the-art energy furnace, but in The Oneness, this phenomenon occurred naturally.
Before long, the large pile of copper-colored energy crystals transformed into four silver energy crystals and dozens more copper crystals.
The value of this pile of energy crystals, if sold in the real world, would fetch at least 40,000 baht. Combined with the slime core and quest rewards, it could bring him over 100,000 baht. All this from hunting in less than half a day.
But the reason Nava's eyes trembled wasn't the value of the energy crystals, but the phenomenon of their fusion—the same kind he'd seen in the Himmapan Forest. This confirmed Nava's conviction that The Oneness was the same world he'd stumbled into five years ago.
"Wait for me, Ren. I will find you," Nawa said to himself.
He thought of the granddaughter of the wizard Alfor, the woman he met when he got lost in the Himmapan Forest. Without her, Nava might not be alive now. Besides the desire to repay her, Nava's heart was filled with complex, inexplicable emotions.
But even if the Himmapan Forest were in The Oneness, traveling there would be virtually impossible. The Oneness was vast; perhaps ten times larger than the human world, and fraught with danger. Most players can't even travel across realms.
That's why, even though humans have been in The Oneness for over 10 years, they haven't even explored half of its territory.
No, to put it mildly, it's only half the tip of the iceberg. With Nava's current abilities, traveling to the Himmapan Forest is out of the question; even traveling between cities might be impossible.
Not to mention that the Himmapan Forest is inhabited by terrifying beings alike. If the images of the great war Nava saw in White Snake's memories are true, there's a high chance he'll be targeted by those gods as well, because White Snake, in his current body, seems to be an enemy of them.
Nawa dismissed his worries. He'd survived today anyway; the future is unpredictable. He stored all the energy crystals in his dimensional storage and then looked at the large pile of black, rocky slime cores.
Nawa selected 50 black slime cores to use for the weapons merchant's quest and kept another 100 to sell to the weapons merchant. This is expected to fetch a good price because there is currently a shortage in the Matterhorn region.
Nawa decided to keep the remaining slime cores for now, because if he sold them all at once, their price might drop.
But suddenly, an idea struck him. He summoned White Snake and offered it a slime core. White Snake opened its mouth and quickly swallowed the black slime core.
Nawa wanted to know if these slime cores were edible. The only way to prove it was to try. If it wasn't, he could just have White Snake regurgitate it.
Soon, a familiar voice sounded in Nawa's head.
"Ding!"
(You ate 1 slime core. Your maximum mana (Mpmax) increased by 2.)
Seeing this, a joyful smile appeared on Nawa's face. Not only was the slime core edible, but it also increased his maximum mana, a stat Nawa desired most.
With increased maximum mana, his skills would become more powerful.
Nawa abandoned the idea of selling the slime cores. He only kept 50 slime cores for the quest. He intended to let the White Snake devour the rest. Even if the stat increase rate decreased when eating the same type of slime repeatedly, he didn't care much.
Money wasn't a big deal for Nava anymore. He'd already earned hundreds of thousands from just one day of hunting. The stronger he became, the more he could earn.
Even if the White Snake devoured something worth hundreds of thousands, as long as it made him stronger, it was a worthwhile investment.
The large pile of black slime cores was devoured by the White Snake like a vacuum cleaner. In less than 5 minutes, hundreds of black slime cores disappeared into the White Snake's mouth, not a single one left.
"Ding!" The system sounded.
(You consumed 459 slime cores. Your maximum MP has increased.) (Dexterity increased by 50, Str increased by 35)
Nawa jumped for joy when he saw the system message window stating that his maximum mana had increased by 290.
This meant that Nawa now had twice as much maximum mana as before. Therefore, the effectiveness and power of his skills would also be doubled. Nawa was now over 80% confident that he could handle a single Pro-level monster.
But before he could fully recover from his joy, the system window displayed something that stunned Nawa even more.
"Ding!"
(New Skill)
(Acid Concentrate - Creates concentrated acid from the body. The amount and intensity depend on the mana used.)
Nawa was very surprised to see this message window, because he had never used any similar ability before. Even in the Himmapan forest, he never had the ability to create concentrated acid.
Even so, Nawa didn't think the system had misprocessed the information.
Nawa tried to use the ability the system indicated. But nothing happened; everything seemed normal. No part of his body was producing acid. Then he heard a strange sound nearby.
"Hiss, hiss, hiss."
Nawa quickly looked in the direction of the sound. He thought it might be a surviving slime, but when he turned to look, he found that it wasn't a slime, but a White Snake, now releasing a thin, transparent slime from its body.
It was the same kind of slime that appeared in the slime's body, causing the leaves in the area to turn black and smoke to rise.
Nawa immediately understood that the new ability the system had mentioned was the one the White Snake was currently using. Once he was sure the system wasn't wrong, Nawa tried to figure out how the White Snake had acquired this ability.
Soon, Nawa remembered reading in a book by the wizard Alfor that, while in the Himmapan Forest, those who ate the flesh of a large number of monsters of the same type, or consumed the demon soul of a monster, had a chance of acquiring certain abilities of that monster.
Even though Nawa had hunted many monsters in the Himmapan Forest, he still couldn't recall this. Even though he had obtained some monster souls, Nawa didn't dare try it. There were two main reasons:
Firstly, Nawa didn't have White Snake at the time, so he couldn't consume large quantities of monster flesh like White Snake did. Secondly, the human body is too weak to consume monster souls.
Eating a monster soul is like consuming a large amount of monster flesh all at once; if the body can't cope, it could lead to immediate death.
Only Jack, Nawa's best friend, a half-werewolf, half-vampire known for his incredible life force and regeneration, could consume a monster soul. Even then, he nearly died, so Nawa never considered trying.
As for White Snake, Nawa thought it must possess superior physical attributes compared to his friend, as it had the bloodline of a legendary being, the World Serpent King, capable of devouring even gods. A slime's soul like this was insignificant to it.
Nawa secretly regretted that he couldn't use this ability directly; it could only be accessed through White Snake.