"Heya…" Lapis stared at the Yin-Yang Slime. "Ant boy and turkey boy, apprentice of mine—or is it apprentices? Seriously, could you just go get your weird multiple personality issue thing sorted out?"

Winal shook the main body's head, while Niwla said, "No."

"Worth a shot. Anyway, it's time for more experiments. Yay!"

"No, Lapis," Niwla said. "Not yet."

"But why not? I gave you time to go read your books. I know you read all of them; the list said so. Now, we can continue with the experiments!"

"It hasn't even been a day, Lapis. We still need time to consolidate all of the information that we just read. Plus, those were only theory books. We haven't even had the chance to look at other Skill Books. We need to expand our repertoire of skills so that we can tackle all types of Tribulations."

"Excuses. Excuses. Excuses. You don't need any Skill Books. When you know the theory, Mana becomes your playground. Skill Books are for skillless monsters."

"No, Skill Books are meant to serve as a guide. You still need the skill to pull off the spell," Niwla countered. "There's no point reinventing the wheel each time you want to learn a new spell."

"There is a point," Lapis said. "You learn. You learn the most by experimenting. Theory will equip you with the tools to make your greatest spell dreams come true. As the Minister of Magic, I know what I'm talking about."

"But are you talking as the Minister of Magic or Lapis right now?"

"Yes," she replied. "Moving on. I was thinking about exploring that Cold Turkey side of yours."

"Why?" Niwla asked, more intrigued about that than arguing about the necessity of Skill Books.

"Remember how I said that the Essence purity of your pre-evolutionary form doesn't have an effect on your subsequent form?"

"You mean, how the Essence purity of my Tier 1 form doesn't affect the Essence purity of my Tier 2 form?"

"Yeah. I've been doing some thinking and realized I may have jumped the gun on that conclusion. I even leaped past the cannons and launched past the railgun."

"Okay… your point?"

"What if the Essence purity of your pre-evolutionary form does affect the Essence purity of your subsequent form? What if the only reason why there wasn't any noticeable effect was because of the conflicting nature of Dark and Light Essence?"

"That's certainly an interesting theory."

"Exactly! So why don't we continue the experiments! I've got the best grade equipment that your body can handle and the highest strength Pills that won't permanently damage you. Since it's just a Devolution Tribulation, it should be a cinch. So, let's hop to it. No need to study when scientific progress is on the horizon."

One part of her ramble stood out. Alarm bells rang even louder when he heard it. "What do you mean, permanently damage me?"

"Oh, you know, just a casual reduction in your body's natural ability to heal, replenish mana, or resist certain elements. Nothing big. It's only temporary."

"No. I am not taking that risk."

"Then what about the experiments? Please," Lapis pleaded. If she had eyes or a puppy dog, she'd be using them to her advantage to convince him.

Niwla paused to think. What Lapis had said did have some basis behind it—her hypothesis, not the rambling. He wanted to explore that idea with her, but at the same time, strengthen his knowledge of magic.

"Why not both?" Alwin, returning from the Core, chimed in.

"That's… Okay, that might actually be possible."

"Alwin the genius strikes again."

"You do realize that that idea hinges on you, right?"

"Hinges? Like a door?"

"No, it means you need to work. Winal and I will work on putting our newfound knowledge to the test, while you have to refine Ice Essence."

"Work?" Alwin opened his mouth.

Niwla expected a long drawn out, over dramatic, "No."

"Okay," Alwin said.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Okay? Are you planning something? What about vacation and having fun?"

"Circumstances have changed. I am now okay with doing work if it means the betterment of us as a whole."

"What changed?"

Alwin didn't say anything. He just continued looking straight ahead. Niwla followed his eyeline. It led to Winal. Fire and electricity poured out in droves from the ant as he glared Alwin down.

His bark was definitely more than his bite because Niwla, sharing the control seat with him, didn't feel the slightest warmth of flame or zap of lightning. Though he would keep that a secret from Alwin.

Back in the real world, Niwla looked up at Lapis and said, "Okay. We'll refine some Ice Essence and trigger a Devolution Tribulation. But on my terms."

"And what are these terms, turkey and, or, ant boy?"

"The Essence Refinement will be slower due to reasons I don't want to get into right now. Also, I want another trip to the library. A proper trip to the library. Not a quick couple of hours."

"Fine," Lapis sighed. "Is that slower reason because you're splitting your brain power? Some of you work on the Essence Refinement while the other yous work on practicing whatever you learnt from the theory books."

"Yeah. How did you know?"

Sparkles and glitter rained down from the ceiling as Lapis said, "Magic."

"That doesn't explain anything."

"And that's all the explanation you're going to get. Is there anything else, oh, annoying turkey and ant boy apprentice of mine. I miss slime boy. He was so easy to manipulate—I mean, it was really easy to convince him to do stuff."

"No."

"Okay, great. We've wasted enough time. Now go get to work, apprentice of mine." Lapis zoomed out of the room, the door slamming shut behind her.

Alone, the three of them went into the Core to get some work done. Alwin began the process of refining Ice Essence, using the freezing storm clouds only he could conjure to freeze the Mana into Ice Mana, super-concentrating those same clouds to freeze the Ice Mana into even colder Ice Essence.

Niwla and Winal were revamping the spell-crafting capabilities of the factory from the ground up. They made everything flow faster, more efficient. The conveyor belts, which brought the completed spells to the edge of the Core, were redesigned. No longer were they Mental Hand cranked powered.

Winal, based on the knowledge gleaned to him through the theory books, had figured out a way to integrate his Mental Hand prowess into the new and improved Mental Conveyor Belts. He had modified the Mental Hands to the point that hands were a grotesque miscategorization of what they actually were.

The rollers of the new and improved Mental Conveyor Belts were actually the fingers of the Mental Hands. They had been fattened and stretched into huge, silvery sausages. Joints had been altered, and the fingers could no longer bend; instead, only able to roll. To improve its speeds even further, they could only roll in one direction, the desired direction. The palms of the Mental Hands had been widened, forming the frame of the Mental Conveyor Belts.

With these new improvements to the delivery system, the Core could ship an estimated five times the amount of spells within the same time.

As for Niwla, well, he wasn't having as much of an easy time as Winal. His strength had always been in theory. More of a planner than a doer.

No matter how hard he thought, he couldn't formulate a way to make the spells they created more efficient. Whether by reducing the Mana cost, the time to form the spells, or even the shaping process. Niwla was stumped.

Somehow, he had become the most useless one of the trio. Even Alwin of all people was actually contributing. Though the constant groans after each unit of Ice Essence being refined weren't needed at all.

Niwla sat there, thinking. He stroked his beak with his feathers, trying to come up with something, anything.

Let's start with something simple. Ice Arrows.

How could he make the Ice Arrows—his supposed 'specialty'—better? Was there some way to make the Ice Arrows, Icier? Arrowier?

Oh, Cor, now he was beginning to sound like Alwin.

Nilwa just kept thinking. And thinking. And thinking. He kept thinking until a certain no-good slime interrupted his oh, so important thought process.

"I'm done!" Alwin shouted.

"Good," Niwla said. "Now, let's get the Devolution Tribulation started. Winal, are the factory upgrades completed?"

"Yes," he signed.

"Great. And Alwin, just to be sure, you've filled it with one hundred percent Ice Essence?"

"Yup."

Nilwa slid out of the Core and into the main control seat. "Any objections to me being in control for this one?"

Winal shook his head.

Alwin opened his mouth about to say something, his eyes drifted over to Winal. Flame and electricity pouring out of his downturned eyebrows. Alwin closed his mouth, shaking his head.

"Great."

A flash of light later and their Yin-Yang Slime form was flushed down the drain. Instead, taken out of the fridge was the one and only Cold Turkey.

Niwla waddled over to the pedestals in front of him. He ignored the vials of pills and instead went towards the gear, specifically the one labelled Ice. He put on a thick orange and white fur coat, the hem dragging along the floor, too large for his frame.

Now that he was properly equipped, he brought out his Status Screen.

Begin Tribulation?

[Yes] [No]

'Yes'.

Immediately, the temperature dropped several degrees. A snowstorm invaded the room, obscuring his vision. Because of the snowcoat and his physiology, he felt fine. Perfectly comfortable.

Walking toward him through the shadow of the snowstorm was a tiny being with an ice cube for a head. Ice, undoubtedly, here to investigate the anomaly that was their Core Skill. Why couldn't Alwin just be clear when Dark and Light were interrogating him?

Whatever the case, continuing this charade would only drain more time and cause more harm. He'd clear things up with Ice once and for all, and hopefully, he'd relay this information to Light and Dark so that they'd stop wasting time on a pointless investigation.

As Ice drew closer, the temperature dropping with every frigid step that it took, the heat being sucked away from the room, Niwla had an epiphany.

I've got it! he thought. I know how to improve the Ice Arrows!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.