"Well... I''ve freed you, so I guess we can part ways now." I said, my voice laced with a hint of impatience, not wanting to deal with the pixie anymore.


    "Don''t be like that, Blueblin. We might have gotten off on the wrong foot, but I''m sure we can resolve our differences." Trixie responded, patting herself and causing a comical amount of soot to fall from her person, the bright, vivid coloring returning to her once more.


    "Stop calling me Blueblin... My name is Syl."


    "Well, Syl, not all of us have [Identify] or go around rudely identifying everyone we run into."


    "You''ve clearly never been around humans for very long; I feel like everyone has it."


    "Yes, well, that''s just one of the reasons we try to avoid them," Trixie said, then vanished from sight.


    I frantically scanned my surroundings when I felt something appear atop my head and tried to grab it with an impromptu maw of slime. The source of the disturbance was the pixie.


    "Woah!" Trixie said as my slime passed through her, and she fluttered upwards.


    I tried to grab her with a tendril, but it also seemed to just go right through her as if she were intangible, like a ghost.


    "So, I''m guessing you''re a mimic, huh?" Trixie asked, looking far too relaxed despite my attempts to engulf her. "Did you lose your chest, and that''s why you''re so grumpy?"


    "What? No?" I replied, disgruntled and confused.


    If she was like a ghost, then that means magic would work, and I subtly cast my debuff spells on her from my [Sub-Cores]. I watched as my debuffs stacked up on her, and then, in a blink, they all vanished from her.


    "Oh. I didn''t expect such a rich meal of mana." Trixie replied, patting her exposed stomach, which she had pushed out exaggeratedly.


    "Y-you eat mana?" I asked, a bubbling worry of what that meant for me as a slime made of mana.


    "Us pixies are one of the spirit races; we are essentially beings of mana," Trixie explained, "We normally passively eat any ambient essence, which is how I survived being trapped for who knows how long, but direct mana makes a great snack."


    She approached me, and I tried to swat her in retaliation, but once again, my tendrils passed through her. I didn''t like this situation at all; it felt like I had no control over it. I cast [Frostbite] and [Combust], but both cleared away, with Trixie looking at me smugly and patting her belly. I tried casting more direct spells, but they either passed through her or vanished inside her. I fled, trying to think of a solution as I tried to make my escape to the outside.


    ''I can fly away if it gets risky; I doubt she can keep up with the pegasus wings.'' I thought to myself, she hadn''t attacked me yet, but that didn''t stop my mind from imagining her treating me like a delicious meal.


    When I burst free to the outside world, I traded the [Inferno Sac] trait for [Enchanted Wings] and soared into the sky—carefully watching the hidden stairwell with the help of [Eagle Vision].


    "A little dramatic, don''t you think?" Trixie''s voice rang out, and I found her seated atop my head again.


    I wanted to scream; I had no idea how she kept up with me, let alone suddenly appeared from nowhere. I tried to think of solutions, perhaps poison gas. Or I could prepare [Decay] and cast it before she ate my debuff spells.


    "I have no idea what''s going through that crazy head of yours, but I don''t mean you any harm. Seriously, Blueblin, I mean Syl. Calm down." She said, patting my head with her tiny hand. "Besides, if I harmed my rescuer, I''d become an outcast. You have my word."


    I groaned, letting out an extremely reluctant sigh.


    "Good. By the way, your mana is delicious, but I don''t want to get fat." She replied calmly, totally unbeknownst that was my exact worry.


    "Water... Fire... Corrosion... Ice... All very, very pure." She listed off her fingers one by one, pausing on her fifth finger. "Very interesting..."


    "What?" I asked hesitantly.


    "No. Nothing." She replied with a giggle. "Honestly, I''m still unsure what you are; I''d swear you were a spirit, too, with this much mana."


    "Well, I''m not."


    "Don''t you dare tell me the answer; I want to figure it out myself." She said with another giggle. "But what have you done to yourself? Your mana channels feel... Broken?"


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    "Broken...." I shuddered, remembering what happened to my [Mana Circulation] trait.


    "Indeed. Normal monsters and humans have mana channels that circulate throughout their bodies. The greater the channel, the greater the flow, the more they can output, regenerate, and so forth." She explained. Her total personality flip was jarring, and I wondered if this was another prank being built up.


    "Us spirits don''t have that. We basically are mana. We can output everything in one go if we want. If the mana in humans is a river, then we are the ocean." She paused for emphasis, fluttered off my head, and pointed at me.


    "That leaves you. You have channels or rivers, but you also have an ocean. No... More like a lake?" She continued, now tapping a finger against her temple.


    "What does that mean exactly?" I asked.


    "I have no idea." She answered and giggled. "You''re like some in-between, which is why you feel broken. Your channels are constantly maxed out, trying to output and exist as if you were a spirit, but they weren''t designed for that."


    "Great... That''s just great..." I replied, but the incomplete answer left me with more questions.


    I tried to puzzle it out in my head. Trixie said it felt like I had both. When she described her mana as an ocean, what came to mind was my reservoir of slime and my [Mana Slime] trait. But while my slime was me, technically, it also wasn''t me. My real being was my core, which I had to assume contained my mana channels. I had tried to go beyond what my channels could output; I had thought it was as simple as having my [Sub-Cores] cast the spells, but if they didn''t have channels themselves, then that meant I determined their entire mana output. But I had forced it, trying to use beyond my channel capacity and instead use the readily available ocean that was my slime.


    ''That sounds... Plausible?'' I thought to myself, feeling a little more reassured.


    I then noticed that Trixie was floating amongst multiple tendrils that were trying to grab her; she must have done something while I was lost in thought that Alpha or Beta had decided to defend me.


    Noticing my attention, she grinned. "You were lost in thought for such a long time, and I was growing bored. I tried to poke you out of it, and imagine my surprise when you started unconsciously defending yourself."


    I retracted my tendrils, not that they had any hope of actually containing her. Then I thought back to the Lead-Silver alloy and wondered if that was the trick to containing her. I had both in storage and could probably try melting them together and making my own alloy. If I had a silver core, I could do it to my tendrils, and then she''d have no escape.


    "I swear I just have more questions after that display. My current theory is you''re a mutated elemental or a mimic that mutated into an elemental." Trixie said, still trying to solve the puzzle that was my existence. "But we can put that mystery aside. Do you care to share your thoughts on your mana situation with the rest of the class?"


    Somehow, Trixie was now wearing glasses, which she pushed up the bridge of her nose with a single finger. Her brown rags were replaced with a black two-piece suit, and her once frayed and disheveled hair was now in a neat ponytail. She gave a mischievous grin when my confused and shocked reaction met her satisfaction.


    "Maybe... But it relates to what I am, and I still don''t feel comfortable sharing that." I answered honestly.


    "Ugh. If I swore an oath, would that make you stop being so paranoid?" Trixie asked, looking fed up.


    "I don''t know. Maybe? Look, my situation is complicated, and I''ve built up a lot of things I don''t want to risk crumbling down right now."


    "Such. A. Control. Freak." Trixie said, shaking her head disappointedly. Then she started to talk aloud in another language I couldn''t understand or recognize even partially. I tried to say something, but when I opened my mouth, she held out a finger and wagged it as if warning me to wait.


    <The one known as Trixie has sworn a Spirit''s Oath to keep your secrets and not use them against you. Do you accept?>


    ''Well. Shit. Can''t get more real than that.'' I thought to myself. Even just reading the words before me gave me a sense of their binding power and the feeling that if Trixie betrayed them, there would be dire consequences for her.


    "I accept," I said aloud.


    Golden chains glowing in a rainbow luminescent light abruptly appeared and began to drape over Trixie, then bound tight across her torso and limbs. A golden lock appeared between the two chain ends and clicked shut, causing the chains to glow and then vanish in a starry sparkle.


    "Whew. That was overly dramatic. So, feel like talking now?" Trixie asked, looking at me expectantly.


    The strange thing was that I did feel like my secret was now safe with her. This was far beyond whatever the Adventurers Guild did, which was a poor, barebones imitation in comparison.


    "Okay... So... I''m a slime." I said slowly and almost immediately regretting it.


    I expected some shock or surprise, but instead, Trixie looked angry. "Syl, seriously. I swore a Spirit Oath. Do you have any idea how bad that would be for me if I broke that? Surely you can trust me now."


    I blinked in confusion, trying to explain, "No, really, I-"


    "No buts!" Trixie interrupted, shaking her head with a look of betrayal, "Seriously, this is far, far worse than you trying to kill me for the prank. You''re honestly making me doubt my judge of character."


    I kept trying to explain, but Trixie kept interrupting me, and I grew increasingly frustrated. After one interruption too many, I screamed at her to listen, causing her to flinch in response and gasp when I thrust my hand into my head, grabbing Epsilon, who was housed there, and ripping the [Sub-Core] out, holding it out in front of me.


    "Trixie! I really am a slime!" I said, frustrated out of my mind, showing her the core and waving it around as proof.


    Trixie stared at the core, almost as if she couldn''t believe her own eyes, before she started laughing almost uncontrollably. She eventually calmed down, wiping tiny tears from her eyes,


    "Okay, Syl, that was an amazing prank. It was way better than mine," she said, still giggling.


    "What? No, this is real; I am a slime." I responded, freely morphing my limbs and even stretching out my face.


    It looked like Trixie was about to try to deny it again, but she eventually seemed to accept that I wasn''t joking. "Wait... You''re actually serious?"


    I nodded, causing Trixie to stare at me rather sheepishly. I couldn''t understand why it was so unbelievable that I was a slime; she even considered me potentially being a mutated elemental, so why was a slime so unbelievable? The absurdity of it made me almost want to know the reason why before my mana situation.