Big Bad Evil Jello… Cube…?

I reached the boss door again and pushed the key inside. It went easily into the slot and after twisting the key, the lock and chain on the door disappeared in a sparkle like effect. The doors automatically swung open as well leaving me a view of a dark room. I slowly pressed forwards wondering what was going to happen, would this be when the camera crews finally came out? Or was this for real? Was i really born into a different world? I took my 10th step past the door and it slammed shut behind me.

"Damn… guess theres no going back now…"

As i stood in the darkness i saw a faint light that grew brighter over time. Then another, and another. One after another crystals scattered across the top of the cave came to life illuminating the area. The whole room was set up in the guise of an arena. A large circular center about 50 feet across with a 20 foot difference between the floor and top of the walls. The area above had staircase like seats carved into the stone. I saw the ground slope down to the arena floor as well as stairs on either side leading to the seats. The roof was at least 100 feet high. I carefully walked down the ramp to the center where there was a large puddle of slime.

'Great… probably some big slime creature.'

As i drew near the slime it started to form itself into a large cube, maybe 8 feet in all dimensions. The core at the center was definitely too far for me to reach even with the sword i had made.

"Cool… a cheat of a boss… god i wish it had a humanoid form to make this more interesting…"

Suddenly the slime shuddered before it reformed itself gathering into a humanoid shape. 'Thats weird…' its shape continued to shift until it finally set on a female appearance. Slender and decently tall at about 5 and a half feet tall, just a bit shorter than me. Its slime hair fell neatly past its shoulders to the small of its back. Its face looked almost like a cute anime girl, decent sized bust for some reason, and the wide hips lead to the refined legs of a runner. It had a sword made of slime in its hands… or was it a her at this point…?

"Hey… uhhh… sorry about this but i have to defeat you i guess…" *i looked the creature up and down as i readied my sword.* 'what level is this thing even?'

Like magic the answer made itself apparent.

"Level 10 Slime Queen"

'Slime queen? Ive heard of slime kings but never a queen… i guess it makes sense…' i tensed my legs for a brief second before i charged forwards swinging my sword diagonally for my upper right to lower left. The creature blocked my attack easily as it side stepped before lashing out and striking one of the shoulder straps on my chest piece making it hang loosely from my chest. 'Shit this thing is fast…'

i tried to swipe my sword horizontally yet again it deftly dodged and took out the other shoulder strap leaving my chest unprotected. "Damn it let me hit you!" I shouted as i tried to stab the slime queen. This time it let my sword go into its gut as it knocked off my helmet. It had a sickening smile on its face before it placed its free hand on my face. The slime starting to tingle on my face as i tried to withdraw. After a brief struggle i saw how close i had come to death just now.

HP 2/14

I entered the system interface and went to use a healing salve when i saw i had 9 points to put into stats… i knew i needed speed from dexterity so i put 5 into that, and the last 4 i put into constitution. My stats now read,

Name: Jack Tradesman

Level: 5

Experience: 440/800

Class: None

HP: 18

Mana: 9

Armour: 35

Free Stat Points: 0

Strength: 9

Dexterity: 14

Constitution: 18

Wisdom: 9

Intelligence: 14

Charisma: 7

I could feel the energy flow into my body, making me feel a bunch tougher, and quite a bit faster. I glanced at my hp and saw i had 6/18 and used a salve bringing me back to 16. This wasn't going to be easy but i at least had a chance now… or so i hoped…

"You know if i had a spell you would be dead by now. Especially an ice type spell…" i smirked at the slime in cocky arrogance ready to destroy it, only to be interrupted by the system.

"Congrats, due to your uncapped potential, you have learned a new spell, ice bolt. The magic tab has now been revealed and unlocked. Be careful when casting spells as node networks can often be unstable."

"Huh…?" I check the system and sure enough i saw the magic tab below the inventory and crafting tabs. I mentally opened it and saw the spell appear.

Ice Bolt:

Fire a bolt of ice at any target. Trajectory, damage, and temperature depend on how the caster casts this spell.

Node network: (image of nodes)

'What the fuck is that…' i stared in shock at the complexity of the node network. It was 3 layers of circles on the diagram in the middle was a main node that presumably was the start of the magic? I selected the spell to be active and exited the menus. I initiated the spell and saw something horrific… the node network on the menu was a simplified version of the spell in reality. It was a sphere for starters, and each layer spun independently of each other. I disengaged the spell and charged forwards with my sword. Almost twice as fast as i was before and i swung my sword at the slime queens waist. It was unprepared and got cut in half neatly. There i saw the core light up in its chest and went to stab it, only to be blocked just in the nick of time.

The slime queen put its two halves back together and stood up ready to attack me and now prepared for my new found speed. We started exchanging blows left and right, pieces of slime flying off as i swung into its body, patches of red skin where the slime had started to eat away at my body. Surprisingly the slime core sword had taken no durability damage at all though the armour i wore was mostly in tatters now, still with a few hit points on the chest and helmet, though where the helmet was i didn't know, at least it still added to my overall armour. The gloves were still in decent shape and so were the boots, grieves had holes burned into them here and there though.

It seemed like for a while we were fairly evenly matched, until i saw the slime queens pace slow down, it was also different enough now to notice that it had shrunk a couple inches during the battle… i guess hacking at it work to remove some of its slime and weaken it over time. I kept pressing my advantage and popped my 5th salve this battle. Slowly but surely my advantage become ever more prominent until i was left with the perfect setup to parry an attack and stab my sword into the core. It looked at me and from the facial features i could tell it was shocked to have died, though the expression didn't last long as it fell to the floor in a puddle, soaking into the stone and slipping through the cracks in the rocks. I pulled the core of the tip of my sword and stashed it to receive the ever familiar dings of the system, telling me what i already knew.