Ayla stood in the darkness of the alcove, her new skin prickling. The air in the tunnel felt cold and damp.
She looked down at her silver hair and her pale, thin limbs. This was a perfect human body, but it felt incredibly fragile compared to her original form.
As a sli, she could squeeze through narrow cracks and ignore the impact of a heavy fall. Now, she felt the unfamiliar weight of her own bones.
She reached out and touched the stone wall; the sharp sensation of the texture felt overwhelming. She needed clothes, and she needed to understand how to move this body before she faced the monsters in the dark.
More than that, she needed to grow.
Her current level was far too low. Jaxon and his friends had been Iron Rank. They were the sa level as her, but they were clearly stronger, with better control over their traits.
That was why they survived as long as they did. If Ayla was targeted by that goblin horde now, she would likely die before she could even cast a fireball.
In truth, she did not even know how to cast a fireball yet.
Ayla’s shoulders fell at that thought. Having a trait did not automatically grant her the ability to use it effectively; she had to train and develop a style of use that was unique to her.
Pyromancy was an elental category trait. It gave her control over heat. That did not an she was limited only to the fire elent; she could control any elent or combination that produced heat as an output.
Ayla could see endless possibilities with this trait.
Unfortunately, Jaxon never bothered with complex thods. He only used the fire elent. No wonder he died; he was a weak-minded idiot.
Because of him, Ayla was clueless about how to use the trait to its full potential. After all, her current thought process was the sa as his.
Ayla was a newborn sli. She was not even a day old. That was why she could not think beyond the mories she gained from those brains unless she grew up and gained more experience.
Ayla sighed. If she could read the mories of the goddess, this problem would be solved. However, doing that now might completely overwhelm her mind. If her own mories were consud by the goddess, would she simply beco the goddess?
Ayla shivered at that thought. She decided not to think about bad things; for now, her only aim was to improve her strength.
Jaxon knew only two skills: Fla Cloak and Fire Bolt. Fla Cloak acted as a second skin over her body. It ward her and also hid her nakedness.
A woman who showed skin in public was indecent; they were not "wife material" according to Jaxon, but rather "sluts."
Luckily, Fla Cloak acted as clothes. Ayla was happy to be wife material.
Then she activated Fire Bolt. Fire Bolt allowed her to gather heat into her arms and release it as a fast-moving bolt of fire.
Now she needed an easy way to level up. She turned her gaze back toward the way she had co, then shook her head.
No, the goblins were too many. She needed sothing weaker. Ayla began to walk deeper into the side tunnels, moving away from the main cavern.
Her footsteps sounded loud and clumsy on the stone. She stumbled twice, her long hair catching on jagged rocks.
Eventually, she sat down and used a sharp piece of flint to roughly saw her hair shorter, leaving it in silver layers that reached only to her shoulders. It was more practical.
She found what she was looking for in a damp, low-ceilinged chamber about ten miles away from the goblins. A pond filled with thousands of slis.
"Slis are the favorite of newbies. Easy to kill."
Ayla sounded offended. Humans believed so, but now look: those humans died, and she, a sli, survived.
A smug smile appeared on her lips. Her gaze once again landed on the slis.
They were her own kind. Dozens of them bobbed aimlessly in a pool of shallow, stagnant water. They were translucent green and blue, mindless and slow.
"Should I feel bad about killing my kind?" Ayla wondered aloud. Jaxon was heartbroken watching his friends die.
Would he feel the sa when other humans who were not his friends died? Ayla pursed her lips, feeling at a loss.
"Whatever. Since I do not know if I should feel bad about killing my kind, I can kill them now. In the future, if I feel bad, then I will not kill them." Ayla felt proud of herself. She was far too smart for a sli and a human.
She waded into the water. The cold liquid swirled around her ankles. The slis did not react; they did not have brains to process a threat.
They only had basic instincts to move toward warmth. A few of them began to drift toward her legs, hoping to latch on and slowly dissolve her skin.
"Ew." Ayla pinched her nose. Honestly, the sll was horrible because Jaxon’s mory said so. Otherwise, she would not feel anything because her sli form slled the sa.
When those slis reached the range of her Fire Bolt, she threw it. A bolt of fire hit one of the slis, instantly killing it.
[You have slain a Level 1 Lesser Sli]
[Experience gained: 1]
Different from humans, monsters were classified by their bloodline. All slis had a Lesser Bloodline.
They could never break through level 20, and so they would always remain Iron-ranked. Iron-ranked lesser monsters would give her 1 experience point.
If they were above level 10, then she would get 2 points.
All the slis in this pool were level 1. There were hundreds of them. Ayla rubbed her palms together with a glint in her eyes.
She spent the next hour in the monotonous hunt. None of these slis had traits; apparently, slis were born without traits. Only mutations changed that—mutations like Ayla.
By the ti the pool was empty, her system screen flashed:
[Level Up]
[Level Up]
[Level 4 (0/40)]
She also noticed sothing. After she reached level 3, the experience points given by the level 1 slis decreased trendously, reaching 0.01.
Now it had beco 0.001.
She had to kill monsters of the sa level as her or higher for her to receive the fixed experience points.
Ayla felt this was too unfair. She would get 1 exp from killing a Level 3 lesser monster and the sa from a level 10 lesser monster.
"Ridiculous."
Ayla only thought so because Jaxon had once thought the sa.
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