It had been eighty days since my fight with the green tiger, and exactly one hundred and twenty days since I first arrived in this world.
By this point, I had traveled roughly 5,000 kilometers in total.
Quite a lot had happened during my journey, and I had learned more than I ever could have anticipated.
It had undoubtedly been a fun ride, even if it got dangerously close to the edge at times.
Lately, I couldn’t help but feel a strange wave of nostalgia, as if I were recalling the memories of an old, familiar path.
But there was no time to get lost in sentimentality.
After all my traveling and effort, I had finally found the entrance to Veldora’s cave.
Just a few days ago, after pushing through a dense wall of foliage, I came face-to-face with the massive metal doors sealing the prison of the Storm Dragon.
Finding it hadn’t actually been that difficult.
The further west I marched, the denser the concentration of magicules in the atmosphere became—right up until about thirty days ago, when Veldora’s overwhelming presence suddenly vanished from the forest.
With Speculator assisting my senses, pinpointing the exact location of the cave was a breeze.
For a brief moment, I considered venturing inside, but I quickly dismissed the idea.
It wasn’t worth the risk.
If Veldora’s presence had disappeared thirty days ago, it meant Rimuru had already absorbed him with Predator and was bound to emerge any day now.
So, for the past forty-eight hours, I had simply been loitering near the entrance, waiting for the slime to make his debut.
You might wonder why I was bothering to wait.
The primary reason was simple: aligning myself with a being who would eventually become the literal god of this world was an incredibly convenient safety net—and besides, Rimuru was genuinely a good guy.
Furthermore, Rimuru was always at the absolute epicenter of world-changing events.
If I played my cards right and rode his coattails, it would provide the perfect catalyst for my own growth.
Speaking of growth, during the eighty days since the green tiger incident, I had gotten into about ten more high-stakes battles with formidable forest creatures.
Those encounters solidified my theory: Blind Core directly progresses alongside my personal development.
Whenever my spirit or willpower grows stronger, my core receives a permanent boost.
It didn’t grant me new abilities, but it dramatically enhanced the efficiency of my existing ones.
Thanks to this constant refinement, the mana capacity stored inside my core alone was now only slightly below Benimaru’s baseline right after his evolution into a Kijin.
When you combined my core’s reserves with my natural magicule pool, I possessed nearly double the energy Benimaru had upon his evolution.
Additionally, my metabolic efficiency had skyrocketed; what used to be a two-day limit without food or water was now closer to a full week.
My Filter ability had also undergone a massive upgrade.
My spatial inventory had expanded to the size of an Olympic swimming pool—a massive leap from its humble beginnings.
Looking back, the amount of magicules I had arrived with must have been pitifully low.
I was thrilled with this progress, as the expansion also enhanced my ability to isolate and filter complex substances, allowing me to practice larger-scale magic every day.
Interestingly, I ended up partially scrapping my plan to use Filter as a giant refrigerator.
Right now, only about 10% to 15% of my inventory space was occupied by food; the rest lay completely empty.
I made this adjustment because I had been reflecting on the highest tier of skills in this world—Ultimate Skills—and their defining characteristics.
I wondered if I could replicate their functions.
To test this, I began using the empty space in Filter to store and catalog the raw data and insights analyzed by Speculator.
The results were fascinating.
While I couldn’t say I was physically “storing” concepts, a detailed record of my spells, notes, and combat experiences was actively being written into the space.
It gave me a profound sense of security.
When it came to my offensive magic, I decided to pivot from my initial approach.
Instead of learning a specific element just to execute a single, pre-packaged spell, I dedicated myself to mastering the fundamental elements themselves.
Thanks to Speculator, it took me about sixty days of grueling practice to manipulate the elements freely without relying on rigid spell circles—though my raw, unstructured manipulation was still relatively weak.
Even with Speculator’s advanced processing—which had easily improved the most out of my three unique skills—I was only able to master fire, wind, water, ice, earth, lightning, light, and darkness.
Once I had a firm grasp on pure elemental manipulation, however, learning basic spells from other anime—such as elemental chains, arrows, barriers, and swords—became incredibly easy.
I managed to replicate them in just twenty days.
That said, highly complex, high-tier spells remained firmly out of my reach.
Over the last week, I hadn’t engaged in any life-or-death battles simply because finding monsters that posed a genuine threat to me had become incredibly difficult.
While my physical parameters had grown to rival Benimaru’s Kijin form, the strange physical discomfort I’d felt ever since the bear fight had only intensified.
It didn’t seem to limit my output, but the persistent ache was deeply unsettling.
All things considered, I estimated my overall combat power to be slightly below Benimaru’s level during the Charybdis subjugation arc.
Once again, I hit a wall.
The only curious result was that I could cause minor spatial distortions, but only within a strict half-meter radius of my own body.
Anything beyond that microscopic zone was completely unaffected.
I didn’t quite understand the mechanics behind it, but hey—it was a start.
Just as I was preparing to begin my daily magic practice, the sound of human voices echoed from the forest path.
I didn’t even want to question how I could seamlessly understand the language, but I quickly identified three distinct voices.
It was the trio of adventurers destined to open the cave doors.
Since my current appearance wasn’t exactly approachable by human standards, I decided to keep my distance.
I would wait for Rimuru to emerge, and then intercept him before he crossed paths with the goblins.
Exactly ten minutes after the voices neared, a heavy grinding sound echoed as the massive metal doors were pried open.
Moments later, a small, translucent blue sphere came bouncing out of the threshold.
There he is, I thought, a grin tugging at my lips.
My future best friend.
I forced myself to wait, letting him get some distance from the cave so my sudden appearance wouldn’t startle him into attacking.
Once I judged the timing was right, I stepped out from the foliage and casually crossed the dirt path directly ahead of the traveling slime.
As I stepped into view, the slime froze in its tracks, its expressionless body somehow conveying utter shock.
Getting into character, I crossed my arms and spoke aloud:
“Now, why would a basic slime carrying that many magicules be wandering around a place like this?”
I didn’t get an immediate response.
Rimuru was likely listening to the Great Sage analyze me.
After a tense few seconds of the slime staring at me, a high-pitched, incredibly loud voice vibrated directly inside my mind.
Even though I knew it was coming, I couldn’t help but flinch.
—Hello!
Do you need something from me?!
Rimuru asked.
I immediately waved my hands, grimacing.
“Whoa, whoa!
Turn down the volume, will you?
You’re killing my eardrums.”
—Ah!
Sorry, sorry!
I didn’t mean to shout, he apologized, his voice dropping to a much more comfortable telepathic level.
“Don’t worry about it, we’re good,” I replied, shaking my head.
—So…
do you need something?
the slime pressed, tilting his body slightly.
“Not really,” I shrugged.
“But a slime leaking that much raw magicules isn’t exactly a common sight.”
—Leaking magicules?
What do you mean?
“Are you serious?
You’re walking around looking like a walking natural disaster, flaunting your power for the whole forest to see.”
After all my sensory training, I could gauge Rimuru’s current strength with high precision.
He was undeniably powerful, but at this exact moment, I still held the upper hand.
Damn, all that grueling training I did, and a slime who literally just spent his days eating weeds and rocks is almost on my level, I grumbled internally.
Talk about frustrating.
Pushing my petty complaints aside, I decided to drop the ultimate hint to let him know I was a fellow reincarnator, offering a lighthearted grin before he could process my previous comment.
“Seriously, with an aura like that, you look like a Super Saiyan.”
The slime stiffened.
—Ah, right…
Wait.
From Dragon Ball?!
Are you…
have you been reincarnated too?!
he blurted out, his telepathic voice spiking with excitement.
Pretending to be utterly blindsided, I gasped and leaned forward.
“Wait…
‘too?’ You’re a reincarnator, too?!”
—Yes!
he bounced eagerly.
Man, I didn’t expect to find someone else from Japan so quickly!
[POV: Rimuru]
I had literally just told Veldora that I wanted to find other people like me in this world, but I never imagined I’d run into a fellow reincarnator on my very first day out of the cave!
[POV: Kaelion]
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been lost in this forest for over a hundred days, fighting tooth and nail just to survive,” I chuckled, scratching the back of my head.
“So it hasn’t felt very ‘quick’ to me.
Besides, reincarnating with this monkey-like appearance hasn’t exactly made things easy.”
—Huh?
A hundred days?
Rimuru pondered.
That’s actually about how long I’ve been in this world, too.
I was trapped inside that cave the entire time, which is probably why we never crossed paths.
Yeah, no kidding, I thought dryly.
It’s not like I actively avoided the cave until now.
Keeping my meta-knowledge to myself, I gave a sympathetic nod.
“Wow, that sounds rough.
How did you even manage to survive inside a cave full of monsters as a slime?
Do you have some kind of cheat skills?”
—Yeah, pretty much, Rimuru replied, sounding a bit sheepish.
If it weren’t for my unique skills, I probably would have kicked the bucket on day one.
“I hear you.
I’m in the exact same boat,” I said, offering a friendly smile.
“By the way, just out of curiosity…
compared to the monsters inside that cave, how strong am I?
I want to make sure I don’t accidentally wander in there and get vaporized.”
I asked purely to get an objective benchmark of my current power level.
I knew Great Sage was running in the background and could provide a far more accurate assessment of my magicule count than my own rough estimations.
—To be honest…
I don’t know, Rimuru replied, leaving me momentarily stunned.
Before I could ask what he meant, he continued, —My skill says it can’t evaluate you.
For some reason, whenever it tries to analyze your parameters, it just returns a system error.
Hearing those words, a sudden, explosive realization shattered months of lingering doubts.
The first request I had made to the Voice of the World…
the bizarre nature of my current race…
my ability to cause localized spatial distortions…
and the nagging feeling that my skills were somehow “incomplete.”
In an instant, the puzzle pieces fell perfectly into place.
—Hey, are you okay?
Rimuru’s voice snapped me out of my daze.
You’ve been standing there staring into space for a while.