In One Year

"What?" he looked at his slimes and noticed a few of them had gone pinker. They had pink centers like a condensed cloud and God's eye told him, [Nam. absorbed the magic of healing potions and enhanced it by living within a perfect slime environment for a week, boosting all abilities.]

"So. Do you want to work with me? At least until the monster awakens in a year."

He stared at his slimes, a few more which looked like that, like how Gul had shorter gems that covered his entire body like a fluid rock armor and had a darker grey center or Mag who's heat was even more intense than before and had a dark red center. Small bubbles constantly flowed on the outer edges like a boiling kettle but never decreasing. Even Meda had changed, it was even larger than it was before and looked almost exactly like the Chaos dragon, just smaller and rounder.

In all their statuses, it kept mentioning the perfect environment and how much stronger they became from it. "Yes." he asserted, "This seems like the right choice. For now."

"Of course. but once you start, there is no quitting. You quit, you die. I will not take in any half-assed quitters, you must be determined to follow things through, even if it's tough, and especially if it's difficult. Now, time to get you stronger. You look very weak."

"Really? I thought I was fairly alright."

"I think you are mistaking diverse for strong. Yes, you have many different abilities and your slimes can do a lot of different things, but that is all useless if you cannot use them to the fullest. Your abilities are scattered all around, you need to hone your strongest point until it's the sharpest diamond. In the first lesson, make sure you have the basics mastered before moving on to the flashy tricks. Come with me. The rest of you, please follow monk Dealu, the gentlemen who brought you here. For the next year, he will teach you all in mastering the skills you know best, I only teach water."

Dealu put the bucket down and thrust his fists up, causing the ground beneath him to tremble and crack into a circle that lifted them all up. Elton trembled and fell to his knees, clacking, "oh, great god's, let me down! I hate heights! Why do I feel the urge to jump down, guys, I think I'm falling! Help!"

Eddie on the other hand stood near the ends of the rising platform and roared, pounding his chest. "Go higher!" He yelled, teetering off the edge while wobbling about. Dealu sighed and moved his hands around to twist the edges upwards and close them in so no one fell.

"Like I said," the monk walked off, "we are going to work on your foundations. And personally, I'm really glad to meet and teach you. I think your curious combinations of attributes and tamed creatures, slimes, which is a unique choice, could be the best combination for me. People don't typically waste so much on slimes. Why did you do that?"

"Kind of a long story. No, not long, just a sad one, I didn't know what my full skill was and used it all on slimes thinking I had an unlimited amount of points."

"That is so foolish. How could you think your numbers were unlimited? A hundred are already out of this world, you wanted an infinite amount? Think about others, the balance of this world would be gone with that kind of skill."

"Yeah, I know. I was young and dumb."

"Alright. We're here to work on your fundamentals." They stopped in an area enclosed like the one around Rah, a one-way barrier that didn't let things escape. Inside this bubble was a completely different place, there were green and blue plants all over the place, trees that rose and curved like an umbrella, dripping water and bubbles all around. Puddles of water filled the area and the air was so moist that his face became wet just by standing there. Slimes roamed the area like cows, splashing in puddles and hitting each other docilely. They were all a little greener than his slimes, seemingly a product of their environment. In three words, it was heaven for slimes.

the place exuded so much natural water energy and mana that he could feel himself becoming more connected with water by simply being there.

"But let me ask, why are you here? Why do you want to beat Rah?"

"To avenge a friend. We didn't have her for long, but it was a special friendship and." his voice turned into a growl, "I will end her killers."

He looked at his eyes and said, "Good. The will is there, now all you need is guidance. Right now, I believe any one of these slimes can take any of your slimes and either win or tie of course we won't make them fight, that's animal cruelty, but I know you're thinking, 'how can a normal slime beat my dragon slime?'

And yes, a normal slime wouldn't stand a chance. But these aren't normal. Not by any means. These slimes don't have fancy black magic or scales, but they have a much stronger water affinity. Your slimes are fancy and can do a lot of different things, but you need to learn how to strengthen their core, the stem of their power first. And that is their mana and water affinity, just like you. I've made a perfect place for my slimes so they can get in tune with their affinity, each becoming A to B rank in water affinity. Once you can get them stronger fundamentally, everything else can become stronger as well.

Imagine a tree, without a strong trunk, there is almost no way to bear good fruit. The fruit will simply fall off, break the tree or never get enough to even grow, and we want to prevent any of that. With a thick trunk, it will be much sturdier and better overall. And the trunk of slimes is what their bodies are made of, water and mana."

A minute later, Zeeth was in the massive slime dome trying to conjure balls of water without moving a muscle, something way harder than he had expected.

Far, far away, Karkov hopped off a golded and red chair with a colorful parrot on his shoulder. He walked towards a door and walked past dead bodies and severed limbs. His colorful hair moved around and grabbed dead bodies left and right, ripping and crushing them to bits as the blood and bones splattered and absorbed into his hair. He stopped in front of a shaking old man, moving his hair around him. He said in a deep voice, "Tell your nation that I am your new leader and you will live. Your fat provides no satisfaction to me."

"Yes, yes! I will leave now!" he half-shouted, crawling away. His crown fell off his head and bounced to Karkov's feet. He picked it up and the parrot squawked, "King Kaiser's Crown. Grants near immunity to flames and heat while proficiency with heat will jump up. But only those who are worthy can wear it. All others will be burned to death. It is useless to us, we cannot wear it."

"But now there is no king," Karkov whispered.

The parrot shouted, "Good! Good! Grinkhald is mine!" its screech echoing into the outer walls.

At the walls, Tatio and Utha stood in front of a collapsed nation wall. A black exoskeleton wrapped around Tatio like a shell, grabbing tightly onto his skin with a black collar that had eyes and mouths. Small green globs wrapped around Utha's hands, squirming around chunkily. The exoskeleton whispered to Tatio, "he's here. The parrot is in the center of the fallen nation."

The green globs chortled with several echoing voices, "find him. We can create a nation for demons, with us as the rulers!"

"We will rule both worlds."

Any demon that came to this world and could leave the vicinity of their portals without dying was all very powerful demons. The babies could survive in the deadly air of a normal planet, but high-class demons could either create their own hell area and live or simply adapt to the air on earth. The ones that take on human hosts and not only befriend but secretly manipulate them, like all three of these demons were doing, were amongst the top-tier demons who could take humans with ease. A human host was simply easier for them to use. But over the time that Tatio and Utha were lost, they had taken on the demons and became immensely stronger, honing their own strengths and removing weaknesses. The three of them had become perfect hosts for the demons over time.

Tatio and Utha demolished rubble and kept over them using their demons, heading to the center.

Yemisia broke free but was fighting to escape the barren wasteland of Magnator after being weakened by the trident. After touching it for so long, she felt nauseous and weak. But just as she collapsed, ready to give up, a pair of blue feet walked up to her. Looking up, she could see a woman covered in blue, or rather, the woman was blue. She held her hand out and covered Yemisia in water, protecting her from the turbulent mana.

"What's your name?" the demon asked.

"I'm...Yemisia."

"Good name. Let's share it. Okay?"

"Wha- sure. You can use it." The moment she finished, Yemisia's hair turned blue with streaks of white going down. The demon looked at the sky, inhaling.

"Finally. I can breathe this poison without pain. Glad to make your acquaintance, Yemesia the human."

"What just happened?" Asked Yemisia, stroking her hair.

"A contract. After so long, I was finally able to make a contract. I am now Yemisia the demon. Perhaps Yem for short. We now share abilities, memories, and desires, working as one to accomplish our goals. With us two, we will be unstoppable."

"Shared desires? I understand skills, but desires?"

"Simply means we will both feel the urgency of both our needs, like killing the stupid monk and those boys.

"Oh, I want to kill them too."

"Of course, we created a named contract."

"No, I mean I know those boys in your memory," she said, closing her eyes to see what Yem was thinking. "They put me here, they caused this all!"

"Even better, shared wishes will make our bond even stronger." Ten declared, "We are the perfect team, you and I."

Back in Jarlon, Will, Norman, and Kelle each sat on their own chairs with five others in a heated discussion. Will yelled, "we need to send more money to the Green Life Observatory, they are on the brink of a new discovery that can push forward mankind fifty years, something we sorely need after the disaster thirty-one years ago."

"We all know they've been saying that for three years. It's time to focus on other things, like enhancing weapons, something we demonstrated the necessity for just this year after that mess with the Tentacon." A woman with long blue hair and red eyes slammed her fist and yelled back.

"Gianna, everyone knows you just want them for yourself-" Norman started.

"It's not," she interrupted, "and even if it is, the funding will still benefit the entire city. We will focus on protection and hunt more efficiently than ever. No one will go hungry. What can Green Life do?"

"To address your first point, Gianna," Kelle said with calm disgust, "you said it yourself, you will use this to kill and hunt. We need to keep the balance as it is right now, creatures are already on the losing end, if we hunt any more efficiently they will all die and the wildlife will collapse, "and my second point, Green Life has gone very far with scientific discoveries in producing cleaner energy like solar or wind, they have been revolutionizing this stuff. They've also found how to create mana batteries so dense it could power an entire car for months, we need to fund these things, not weapons for mass killing and further destruction of our land."

"That is stupid," Gianna retorted, "if we make things even easier for the people they will simply become fatter. If we fund weapons, we can encourage more children to explore the wilderness."

"And destroy them in the process?" Will asked.

"Ahp- do not interrupt me." she paused, "And become healthier and richer than ever. We are the rising underdogs, if we make everyone here a killing machine, we can become the greatest place ever, civilization will build around us, imagine it, we clear the forest and leave kingdoms in the dust." Gianna got up from her chair and raised her hand to the air. The others nodded with her but there was still discussion amongst the rest of the group as to who they should agree with.

"That is ridiculous, we are the bordering city, we were stationed here to protect the kingdom from dangers of the forest, we have to deal with monsters so others can live safely. But the solution is not destroying the forest, we had a massive population crisis before the apocalypse, we can't go back after seeing how wrong it can go. Funding Green Life will benefit everyone, not just this one city or the greedy world destroyers like you, Gianna."

Now, most of the people seemed to agree with her, nodding and approving. Gianna looked at them with anger and shouted, "you morons! Help me help us! We can make better weapons!"

Two guards opened the massive doors and escorted an old man in. "Elite Councilman Gylkof," they all got up and bowed in unison.

"Take a seat, council. Today, I will be stepping down from my position as Elite Councilholder and promote one of you to my position," said Gylkof in an old, shaky voice, "and I just want to extend a warm welcome and congratulations to the person who has been helping us the most in this time of need your new Elite Councilwoman is…"

Gianna grinned gleefully, thinking, 'at long last, he is finally stepping down and recognizing my talents.'

Kelle saw her grin and wondered what kind of deal Gianna struck with him, worried what she might do as Elite Councilwoman.

"Kelle."

A pause. Kelle stared at him, happy but confused and hesitant to believe what he said. Gianna was equally shocked but mortified at what she heard. "Elite Councilman Gylkof, are you sure?" Gianna nervously asked, "I mean, has she really shown that much initiative? I don't mean to question you, but haven't others shown equal or more gumption and readiness? Heh-heh."

"My choice was not wrong, young Councilwoman. She will be the next leader of the councils."

Gianna looked like she wanted to talk back but she sneered, glaring at Kelle, and watched her gracefully accept it, with both humility and authority.

"And as Elite Councilwoman, I vote all three of my votes fund the Green Life Observatory. The balance should now be seven to three."

Gianna rushed out the building angrily, looking back and growling, "I'll get you back for this, Kelle. I swear on it."

Underground below Bloody Banks, Iustus and Sinistra stood in a pitch-black chapel with only one source of light, a small fire in the center of the room above a pentagon altar. A tiny wood and metal doll lay in the center of the altar with all sorts of magic circles and items around it.

"My sister, our great lord, the benefactor who will level the world will soon arise," Iustus said.

"And he will be made of our flesh and blood!" Sinistra replied.

And all around the world, warriors, magicians, friends, enemies all trained with one thought in their minds. "Next year, I will kill the Monster of the East."

And so, the world went on as they were all mercilessly trained.