A few hours after Blixie had left, Garrett, Nick, and April sat in their room in the guild hall practicing their skills. “It is taking forever to increase these skills.” Kyle groaned.

  “At least you have gained levels and have a few skills you can work on.” Garrett snapped back. “I'm stuck at level two and can't gain any other skills.”

  “Don't worry Garrett. Blixie will figure this out.” April reassured Garrett. “After that we can continue our adventure.”

  “Speaking of adventure, what do we want to do next?” Kyle asked. “Do we run the dungeon again and get our guild rank up so we can check out the deeper levels or should we head out to a different area to see another dungeon and town?”

  Garrett sighed to calm himself down. “Let's see what Blixie has to say when she gets back. If me leveling up is a simple fix then we can work on getting into those lower levels, otherwise I might not be able to handle them since I got cut in half by the boss on the second floor.”

  “Not like it matters if your mannequin body gets damaged.” Kyle said. “You fixed it just fine before we even left the room.”

  “Yea but he can't fix it if his core gets destroyed by a lucky shot or if a monster happens to have some sort of area attack.” April said in Garrett's defense.

  A soft knock on the window drew everyone's attention as Blixie was seen hovering outside. Garrett walked over and opened the window. “I hope you have some good news for me.” Garrett said hopefully.

  “What, no welcome back? How was your trip?” Blixie said in mockingly hurt tone.

  “Sorry Blixie.” Garrett said sheepishly. “I'm just really excited and nervous to hear what you found out. Welcome back. How was your trip?”

  Blixie just giggled. “It's fine. I'm just teasing you.” Blixie recounted her visit with her old professor.

  “I guess the core pillar is more important than I thought.” Garrett said. “I knew it helped speed up mana absorption thanks to you, and that it could act as a little bit of protection, as well as decoration for the dungeon, but that was all.”

  “Same here.” Blixie responded. “I guess it is very rarely a problem, so they just don't address it at the academy.”

  April looked at Garrett with a bit of confusion on her face. “So, if the core helps that much with mana recovery, how did you throw so many spears in the dungeon without running out of mana?”

  “Oh, that's easy.” Garrett said a little smugly. “Every time I have some mana while we are just wandering around, I scoop up dirt from where we are, quickly form it into a shard, and place it into my inventory. Since accessing my inventory and using my Unseen Force skill don't use mana, I just pull out a shard and throw it. After the fight I just put it back in my inventory if it is still usable. If I tried to make a new shard every time I needed one I would run out of mana pretty quickly and it would take several hours to refill my mana completely.”

  “That's a pretty efficient way of using your mana.” Blixie said with a bit of pride in her voice. “Great job on reducing the limitation of your mana.”

  “Thanks.” Garrett said slightly embarrassed.

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  “So how long does it take you to make a core pillar?” Kyle said.

  “The last time he made one it took several hours.” Blixie Responded, remembering that Garrett had no sense of time back then. “With his Earth Shaping skill leveled up to where it is it should be a lot faster now.” Blixie held her chin in thought. “But he would also need to infuse his mana into the core pillar and the surrounding area as well, so maybe an hour?” Blixie guessed.

  “I guess we could have Garrett setup his core pillar, lure monsters into his influence to kill, and then he could just undue the core pillar before we move on.” April suggested.

  “That could work,” Blixie said in her best teacher voice, “but we couldn't do that in dungeons. The core for the dungeon we would be in would take it as a sign that Garrett was invading and send the toughest monsters it has at us and destroy Garrett before he could finish.”

  “I guess that makes sense. I remember how that gnome responded when we entered the dungeon here.” April said dejectedly.

  "It would also be a huge pain to keep stopping just so you two could go look for monsters to bring back and kill while within just a few feet of me." Garrett said with a sigh. "Now I'm wondering why George made me into a dungeon core in the first place if he wanted us all to go on some adventure."

  "Maybe he didn't know about that limitation?" Kyle said trying to cheer Garrett up.

  "He's a god. Of course, he knew about it."

  "Maybe he thought it would be funny because of how we used to play as a group." April said as a though popped into her head. "He always laughed at the bad puns and jokes we would come up with."

  The others looked at April. "What do you mean by that?" Kyle asked in confusion. "I don't ever remember playing as a slime before, or even joking about it."

  "Well," April said pausing to gather her thoughts. "Garrett was always the dungeon master and would create the world we played in. So now he can literally mold the world around him and create stuff from the earth, including the dungeon you told us about before."

  Garrett scratched his head in thought. "I guess that could make sense for me, but what about you two?”

  “I always liked to play the characters that could make things. Now I'm a living shield of metal and can mold metal with a touch. Kyle on the other hand was always switching his character to play different types of characters, and now how can mold his body to be any shape.” April explained. “I wouldn't be surprised if he learned how to cast spells eventually since he usually had some kind of spell casting ability”

  “I liked to stay flexible.” Kyle quipped.

  “That is an interesting thought.” Garrett said. “We still have two more friends to find, so if we think along those lines then we might have an idea of what the others were reincarnated as.”

  “Well, Barnabas usually played a ranger or druid so he could be anything nature related.” Kyle said. “And Lucy was usually a healer of some type but I can't even imagine what that would translate as. Any thoughts Blixie?”

  “Why ask me?” Blixie replied. She had been trying to keep up with the conversation but had zoned out after a bit.

  “You know more about the monsters of this world than any of us, and George said he had placed our souls into special monster cores.” Garrett said. “Can you think of particular monsters that could match those ideas or even an element that would match?”

  “Let me think.” Blixie said as she lowered herself onto the side table and sat down. “Well, if we are talking about nature related monsters it could be anything from a plant type monster to an animal, or even an elemental. For healing, I don't know. There are not really any monsters that heal, but the elements commonly associated with healing are water, light, and fire.”

  “That doesn't give us much to go on.” Garrett said. “So, I guess we just keep our eyes out for monsters that could fit that description and have a green gem on them somewhere.”

  “They would also be able to talk.” Kyle interjected.

  “Maybe.” April said. “I couldn't talk to guys until I managed to eat some metal. We shouldn't count on them speaking to us.”

  “I guess this means we are moving on?” Blixie asked. “Since Garrett can't really level up around here, we might as well move on and see if we can find your friends. Then we can figure out what kind of adventure to do from there.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Kyle said.

  “Same here.” Replied April.

  “I guess we will head to the port town in the morning.” Garrett said. “Maybe there will be a delivery quest that goes there, and we can work on getting our guild rank up a little bit.”

  With a plan in place the group waited till morning to avoid suspicion and headed down to look at the quest board.