Gems of a Slime

He came back to the swarm of beetles, confused but trying to carry over that feeling of focus and aim and stomping many more with more accuracy. But after trying to attack for a bit more, many more had gotten to the top and his shoes and he was unable to push them off as more and more started climbing his legs. Soon, more than thirty of them had gotten to his legs, stopping him from kicking around and allowing the rest to climb up as well.

He made a link to Guls head and told him telepathically, 'Gul, get them!' they both released a torrent of water and flooded the beetles off his body and pushing them back a few feet.

"His first attack is stomping the bugs, the fourth most popular form of attack. The second attack, a wave of water. We can assume he has a strong affinity to water." He spoke into his little device again, a nametag on his recorder labeled 'C.M.'. He quickly wrote something on his screen with a pen, filling in the affinity section with "possibly strong w/ water"

Zeeth continued trying to push water out of his legs, washing them off and crushing them.

'This is a really ineffective method, I need to do this faster. What if I tried to drown them?' he created a ball of water and held it together with a layer of mana, much like what his slimes are like. He lowered the ball of water over some beetles, opened a small hole to let them in, and held them in the ball of water for a few minutes. They kept flailing their legs around, trying to grab onto something solid to escape the water. Soon, their legs stopped moving and limped towards the ground, the dead carcasses letting gravity pull them down.

Realizing that this could work, he created a long rectangular panel of water to trap and contain beetles, his poor control, and inexperienced only allowing him to make it so big. Still, it was a lot more effective than stomping them, and he managed to kill them all before long.

Page was uncovering the circle, slowly revealing strange, squiggly symbols. The slimes appeared to be doing much better than they were before, they stopped pouring so much water on themselves. It seemed that they had gotten used to the heat when they were forced to stay so long. Even ones that didn't have a natural fire affinity eventually developed one with help from the others that were more resilient to heat by pouring cool water on them every now and then. One particularly large slime seemed to be doing exceptionally well, it had not just gotten used to the heat, it was absorbing the heat mana and using it to create its own magic within itself. It's inside had a slight steamy look, with a tint of red on its outsides, possibly from the heat magic, the red sand, or both.

Zeeth continued trying to get out of the maze, taking so many wrong turns and meeting so many dead ends he had lost count at fifty. He didn't feel hungry or tired at all, receiving health from his slimes, but his palm hurt a lot, after killing the beetles the gems dimmed down again. He noticed that the paths started to get wider and he took it as a good thing, maybe as it got closer to the outside, it got wider. He tried a few times to climb the walls, but the top was covered in gems a lot like the walls.

"Bastard, I will strangle you myself when I get out of here!"

C.M. spoke to the recorder again, "subject isn't attempting teleportation or eye skill to get out. Doesn't appear to have many escape related skills. Letting loose the test subject 6, the bull."

Just as Zeeth made another turn, he heard a loud thumping coming from the left. The sound suddenly got quieter, to the left, to the right, and then straight at him from behind as the thumping got even louder. It sounded like the hooves of a massive, four-footed animal.

The gems glowed again, and with each thump of the creature, the glowing lights got closer and larger. This time, the lights reached all the way to the middle and revealed a massive, brown bull with two big, black horns. Above the neck, it seemed to be the top half of a buff man covered in fur, massive arms, and red eyes. As it charged at him, it lifted one of its large arms, getting ready to punch him; the hand was covered in sharp horns on each of the knuckles and a few more growing from the back of his palm. Zeeth jumped to the side of the much larger path. The bull charged past him, wildly swinging a fist at him that missed and hit a part of the wall, lighting up a large circle of gems around him while piercing a part of his fist and sprayed blood on a few of the gems. Zeeth kicked off the wall and jumped onto the back of the bull. It swung around fiercely, trying to shake him off. It suddenly stopped and turned its torso around, ready to slam Zeeth off with a fist of spikes, but it wasn't able to turn completely around and the fist lost all momentum and began to reel back without even reaching Zeeth.

He pulled out Gul and slammed it onto the head of the bull as he created water around his feet to make the bull slip right into a ball of water he made near the ground earlier.

The bull seemed to falter for a moment and landed right into the water, but it quickly jumped back up as if it was hit with a dart filled with steroids. The ball of water was still around its head, but it continued to swing at Zeeth on his back and the fists seem to get closer with each swing. Its back began to crack and the torso began to turn a bit red. Zeeth swung Gul at its head again while dodging the incoming fists, one of the fists almost connected, but the water and Gul knocked him out just in time. The bull fell to the ground with a thump and the gems lit up a bit once again. Before the gems turned off, he went to check the head of the bull, making sure it had really passed out, and noticed a strange, bleeding dent in its head. It looked like the shape of the gems. That's strange, I don't remember the bull hitting a gem. It was just Gul…

He pulled Gul up to him and noticed a strange little bump on its head. It was a bump in the exact shape of the purple gems and it glowed a lot like them as well, giving him a small source of light that he could use to inspect the bull even when the other lights turned off.

C.M. watched the entire thing closely, wide-eyed and clenching his pen as he hurriedly said into his recorder, "test subject 6, the bull appears to have been defeated, showing changes near its torso, turning from brown to red. Signifying growth in flexibility. Test subject 24 has revealed a slime that he was hiding within his clothing this entire time. He also appeared to have copied one of the gems, creating a small source of light." he scribbled something on his screen and continued to watch the feed. From his view, he saw blood shoot out from the wound on the bull's head and cover the floor in a small puddle of blood. "Test subject 6 is bleeding profusely from the head, pulling it back now using drone 8."

Out of nowhere, without even a single sound, a massive, metallic beetle came from above them. It released a thick fog, covering Zeeths view from the bull. Two of its legs extended out to wrap around the bull and pulled him back up. Zeeth realized the bull was being pulled and held onto its arm, dragging himself with the bull and the drone having it carry him out of the maze. After a few minutes though, the beetle stopped and realized that the weight it was carrying was a lot more than just the bull. A third leg came out and wrap around Zeeth, yanking him off and threw him to the ground with a thud.

"Hey, you could've been more gentle!" Nevertheless, he was glad that he had been carried much further out of the maze.

Zeeth held Gul in his hands again to inspect the little gem that was in him. Actually, it seemed to grow from outside his skin. It's inside was also a tint of purple and little pieces of transparent, purple gems were growing from within. There were only two, but they seemed mystical. The many sides and the glow that refracted light made them look like magical stones of some sort.