[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 249 – In The Toxin Hole II

When Matt awoke again, the Shardscript was still there.

[Toxin]

Few are capable of taming the toxic nature of plants and animals. Most creatures who rely on said toxins are only ever resistant, never immune. The mire of poison you waded through to reach the start of this road represents more than a burgeoning talent for understanding and controlling toxic substances. The difference between poison and medicine is one of dose, and you have keenly shown your willingness to throw caution to the wind in order to delve deeper into the depths of poison. Though often considered evil or maligned, you understand the true beauty of their design. Toxins are efficiency made manifest. Why tire yourself out when you can let the poison build up and do your work for you? Any poison you deal is automatically upgraded to toxin, an affliction twice as potent as poison.

As a First Order Path, you gain the following per Level Up:

+1 Insight Talent | +1 Arcane Talent

+1 Poison Talent

“I like the sound of that,” Matt said eagerly.

He shut his eyes and could feel the Poison mana flow within him. Matt guessed it was now considered Toxin mana since it was automatically upgraded.

In his experience, solid damage-over-time afflictions like poison typically upgraded into a more powerful but shorter duration effect.

He was pleased to see that the Shardscript didn’t mention anything about the duration. While undoubtedly useful for games, this was anything but.

Doing double damage, but for half as long, was no different. All it meant was that he might be able to kill a few monsters faster than before. That wasn’t much to be excited about.

Doubling his Poison by trading up for Toxin was another story entirely.

No doubt Raiko would want to hear about the Toxin Path. This was yet a third variant based on what little information they had on how Paths worked. More importantly, Matt didn’t have to do any meditation or aligning of chakras (or whatever they were talking about that went over his head) in order to receive this Path.

He didn’t even have to kill a monster. Quite the contrary.

As far as Matt understood, his Path didn’t resemble anyone else’s too closely. Sam’s awarded attribute talents, whereas Xero’s fortified his abilities and body with Honor.

What exactly are Poison Talents? Matt wondered. The way it’s presented looks a lot like my Insight and Arcane Talents.

He hoped earning Poison Talents enhanced the effectiveness of consuming poisons. To Matt, that sounded far better for him than standard attribute talents.

The slime grumbled nearby. It sounded like he was hungry.

Looking over, he saw the slime’s middle rippling as the creature woke up.

“You’re just going to go and eat something dangerous again, aren’t you?” Matt asked.

“Henlo?”

Matt could guess easily enough what would happen if he didn’t intervene.

“All right, little guy,” Matt said, stretching and sitting up. He was careful to scoop the slime up into his arms as he stood.

Quite unlike what he expected, the slime didn’t drip or flow out of his arms. It reminded him of hardened gel. Like a softer version of those little rubber bumpers he used to stop his kitchen drawers from banging shut.

And a hell of a lot cuter.

“How are you doing, little guy?” Matt asked the upturned face of the slime.

“Henlo?” the slime asked, blinking out of sync.

“Hungry?” Matt asked.

“Hongry,” the slime echoed.

Matt looked around but saw nothing other than poisonous sludge and shining budding cave moss. Seeing as this was a slime, Matt figured the little guy could stand to have some roughage.

Clearly the poison muck wasn’t doing him any favors. It seemed criminally irresponsible to feed the slime meat. If he didn’t already have a taste for flesh, it wasn’t going to be Matt that introduced the Hunger to him.

Not that he thought the slime was dangerous at all.

“Here’s some tasty green moss,” Matt told the slime, setting him down next to a glowing patch. Tiny crystalline buds gave off a pale blue light that the slime sniffed intently.

Which was an…experience for Matt. The slime had no real facial features to speak of. He sort of…created them as he needed them. Aside from eyes and a mouth which at times appeared more drawn on than anything, the slime had no distinguishing features.

If Matt squinted just right, he swore the slime looked like a jellybean.

After a few tentative sniffs, the nostrils vanished from the slime’s face, and he eagerly lunged forward to consume the moss whole.

Matt was grateful that he didn’t have to guide the creature to another patch. Clearly having a taste for the stuff, the slime hopped and bounced from one patch to the next.

It didn’t take long for the cavern to be plunged into green-tinged darkness once more.

Your Familiar Bond has deepened [Academy Slime].

Familiar Bond: 64%

Your [Academy Slime] has reached Level 4.

Your [Academy Slime] has reached Level 5.

Your [Academy Slime] has reached Level 6.

Matt picked up the slime and was startled by the reaction. The slime began to illuminate the surrounding area like a glow stick. It was the same pale blue light of the cave moss buds, but it only happened when Matt was touching the slime or the creature was moving about.

Your [Academy Slime] has learned the monster familiar skill [Cave Moss Glow].

With the slime set down, Matt watched as it bounced toward the tunnel leading out of the cavern. Either it sensed there was more moss down there or it just wanted to go exploring away from the poison muck. The slime pulsed with a glow of pale blue light every time it landed with a soft little squish.

“Wait up,” Matt called to the slime. “You don’t know what could be down there, little guy. It might be dangerous.”

The slime paused at the mouth of the tunnel and twisted around to look at Matt. “Dang’rus.”

Matt edged out in front of the slime. “Just stay behind me, okay?”

With his dagger drawn, Matt slipped into the tunnel. He didn’t need to rely on his superior vision for long because more of that cave moss appeared just around the bend.

As he took up the lead, Matt could hear the slime behind him munching on more moss. Clearly, the stuff had some experience stored in it since the guy leveled up, though Matt couldn’t figure out how.

Maybe that’s just how slimes work?

It wasn’t like he had a degree in Slimology. He was curious about trying to feed him some equipment, but they didn’t have enough spare lying around to risk awakening that appetite. Which was nearly the same problem as offering meat.

The path wasn’t without its problems. A few minutes later, they came to a tunnel that stretched from left to right. It reminded Matt of a disused subway. A rumbling shook rubble free from ancient supports embedded in the rock. Whoever had built the supports must have done so a long time ago. They looked ready to crumble to dust.

Worse yet were the monsters lurking around the arched supports holding up the roof of the cavern. Spiders that glowed with vivid poisonous colors. Red stripes, green banding, yellow arches. There was even one with a purple skull on its oversized abdomen.

Living in Hawaii, Matt had become intimately aware of how many damned bugs there were. The touristy areas were sanitized almost daily just to keep them limited, but anywhere else was a horror show for arachnophobes.

After just a few years living there, Matt realized a small but not insignificant portion of his brain had been trained to look for the telltale silvery glint of a spiderweb.

It had saved him from being bitten or worse on more than one occasion.

Unfortunately, these were not small spiders that he could swat away. The smallest creatures he could see were the size of labradors. Most of them were at least as big as he was.

Matt wasn’t confident in the slime’s ability to survive fighting those monsters. He was just a little, low-level guy. All he needed was a chance to grow strong.

Though maybe I’m being a little too optimistic here, hoping he’ll be just like Chompers.

Though gross, getting hit by a dose of spider venom wasn’t going to bother Matt. If anything, it would boost his attributes temporarily.

For some reason, those spider legs were starting to look appetizing.

I guess I’ve never tried eating spider before…

It seemed oddly poetic. He had been afraid of spiders all his life. Now he was functionally immune to them.

Kill ‘em all with fire, Matt thought to himself.

He only reconsidered after he inched into the room a few feet. While his vision was better than a human’s in the darkness, it did have its limitations.

Only once he approached one of the crumbling pillars did he realize that the spiders might actually be more useful than he first thought.

The pillars were wrapped in webbing.

Most of the ancient stone and brickwork littered the ground, but the webbed-up pillars remained strong and whole.

I could always let Lenal and Bal’daz know, he reminded himself. Killing a room full of spiders wasn’t exactly a fun idea, but leaving them at his back seemed dangerous.

He was no Scout. He lacked Raiko’s smooth, almost gravity defying movements. He would attract their attention and the best way to deal with them would be to kill them at the choke point here.

Sam might be able to wade in with that massive sword of his and slay everything that looked at him wrong, but Matt’s fighting style required a bit more finesse.

Another idea entered Matt’s head. What if the slime could learn to use that webbing too? He would just have to defeat a spider to render it safe enough for the slime to consume.

Assuming that was how slimes worked.

“Time for a little experimentation,” Matt muttered to himself, creeping back into the tunnel and turning to the slime. “I need you to wait here, okay?”

The slime scrunched up its face. “Otay.”

“You look like you’re trying to take a dump every time you think,” Matt said.

“Doomp.”

“Yeah, I walked into that one.”

Matt turned back to the tunnel, hoping that the slime would follow his command and realizing that even if it didn’t, he had no way of enforcing it.

I’ll just have to hope for the best.

Matt took out another dagger and pinched the blade between his thumb and index finger. Cocking back his arm, he threw the dagger true. It sailed end over end in total silence until it sliced into the colorful abdomen of a spider the size of a small child.

Clearly, the dagger wasn’t enough to do much damage, but that wasn’t the point.

Matt watched to see how the other spiders reacted and noted that only the other spiders with the same coloration appeared to notice or care.

Even then, the lone agitated spider was the only one to roam around looking for the threat.

Matt was used to video games and tabletop gaming where an enemy always seemed to preternaturally know his location. Most of his fighting had been in a group or alongside others. This was one of his first major forays on his own, and it was turning out to be enlightening.

The spider looked around for the threat. Its fellows growing increasingly disinterested as no rival creature came forward. Matt shrugged and threw another dagger. One imbued with poison.

Sensing the poison coursing within itself, the spider went berserk, disturbing the webbing of its fellows and inciting more than a few minor skirmishes.

It can’t be that simple, can it?

It was still dangerous. One slip up and he might draw the ire of all the spiders. However, if Matt was patient and attacked them from afar one by one, he might be able to slay all of them.

Doing so would reap a tremendous amount of Experience. And maybe some for his little slime too.

Matt grinned to himself and took out another dagger. Glad that he had found so many throwing knives after the last conflict. Time to grind out some spiders!