Prosper, a black metal found within the wastes, is a unique substance. Theorized to be imbued with the ruin that perpetuates the wastes, it is inherently resistant to decline. Not change however, only decline. Which proves it is not related to the eternity aspect, please do not ever bring up that idea, it has been thoroughly debunked.

  Unlike most other inclined substances known, prosper as already stated has become resistant to its inclined aspect.

  It has traditionally been used by the inhabitants of the wastes after being mixed with other metals to create different items, the resistance of ruin still being surprisingly prominent with how little prosper remains. The most common alloy created being nine parts copper, nine parts zinc, ten parts iron and one part prosper. The low proper quantity in traditional prosper alloys being due to rarity, it still being used for mostly small items such as the renowned 'Connate dagger' and other less renowned items such as nails and other far far smaller things.

  This text shall be an introduction of said material, its properties, its history and traditions surrounding it.

  -Except from 'Introduction to prosper properties and history' written by an anonymous person or persons, registered as a class 3 confidential document within the republic.

  Falc looked at the slimes under his direct management, specifically slime apostle 2-11 and friends.

  Made of slime water- The new official term for said substance being 'Genuine water', yes- Held together by pure mana, given agility with wind mana and gifted the ability to shoot acid by a grand design intrinsic to them.

  He had asked his instincts what the word 'Slime' specifically meant, and he had found it actually had two meanings. A 'Thick and slippery liquid' and 'An amorphous blob of liquid bound and freed by arcane means'.

  Which brought him to an honestly slightly demented question 'Do slimes, like, not need muscles?'

  A quick check and he found a new schematic in his long list of variants; 'Immobile slime'.

  A true paragon of slime kind, immune to all causes of seizure. If only all slimes could be like the grand immobile slime that he had created in the 3m by 3m by 3m right next to the room where his core rested. Where, funnily enough, it was actually taking in mana to make a nuclei.

  Honestly, of the two things the slime aspect he was aiming for could be, he'd rather have the one related to the little epileptic blobs.

  Seriously, why would he want a thick liquid that was probably elementally-based? At least slimes had some use, even if barely any.

  Still, while he had examined the feeling he could still not describe and understood the nature of genuine water a bit better; he had no clue how he interfaced with any of his four accessible aspects.

  But he had an idea, maybe it wasn't that good. Maybe it was even futile to try to understand and plan, but, there was an idea.

  With the aspects he knew, they were always related to something. Like the water aspect and water, earth aspect and well rocks and stuff, wind aspect and air and fire aspect and fire.

  And he was certain that water and the water aspect had similarities, he was absolutely certain. So, wouldn't a slime and the slime aspect also have similarities he could use as a basis to find said aspect?

  That reasoning being the reason he was looking at his prototypes, the bleeding edge of slime technology. Though, they weren't really that outside of the already established formula except for their aspected weaves. He had already taken the time to completely examine every single still living slime variant, attempting to very specifically form a feeling for the slime aspect. Not that it actually bore any fruit, a futile endeavor it had been.

  And it seemed his highly intrusive inspection of the prototypes was to be futile as well.

  Though he felt something strange as he couldn't help but metaphorically furrow his brow and metaphorically curse the slimes in his gaze, as if it were trying to get his attention 'Huh? Oh, slime apostle 1.'

  He had actually completely forgotten about it, he had just left it in a little bubble of air deep inside the recesses of his domain. So, what do you want slime apostle 1?

  And in response he got thoughts, well, more like intentions? It asked for space, and space was easy to provide. He expanded its little home into a- Yea, 5 meters long, 3 meters tall and... 5 meters wide. For a total of 75 cubic meters of volume.

  And that should be enough to satisfy the little thing.

  ...And it was! Woooo! Anyways, he took a bit of time to completely appraise slime apostle 1, not caring enough to inform it of the whole prototype situation. Not that it could possibly understand even if he told him, but at least it seemed... Happy with the room? Probably. Falc wouldn't know, he directly ignored its thoughts and looked elsewhere.

  Obviously Falc had a simple goal, try to forge a feeling for an aspect of his choice. But what if said feeling was instead formed when he got access to an aspect? Hmmm... Falc wasn't certain, as always, trying to just examine slimes wasn't really working out. Maybe he just needed to be able to look at an aspect in order to get access?

  But he wasn't sure how he even looked at aspects, he just could. It wasn't even the feeling that let him do it, he just could. He didn't need to attempt anything, he could just do it somehow. Then, if it was like that, how could he focus on it?

  He kind of... Just focused, he sharpened his spirit to think about only one thing. It wasn't anything special, at least it didn't feel special.

  It seemed that focus was also a dead end, that was another added to the list of failures. Well, he decided to give it a try anyways. He focused, or at least did his best to. Directing his mind towards what he felt would be the slime aspect considering how the water aspect felt like.

  ...

  'No? Really? Shame.' Not unexpected, but still a bit of a shame as stated.

  But he really couldn't think of anything else to take a look at to get his aspects accessible, he tried to think of anything else. But honestly, Falc couldn't think of anything reasonable, he could think up repeatedly creating and killing slimes, sure. But that'd be a large expense if it didn't work in the first few dozen slimes, especially if it needed any of the better ones.

  Maybe a few of the things he had tried would work if he kept at it, and some ridiculous thing like looking at slimes for hundreds of cycles, but that wasn't really worth it. Sure, he might get another aspect to play with, an [Uncommon] one probably. But did he really need that? Honestly, he had loads to do with the other aspects. He could probably wring them dry of a semi-viable slime.

  While it was a shame that he couldn't make the most of the essence he had put in, sometimes he had to just cut his loses and move on.

  Specifically to making an even better slime variant baby! All that aspect stuff was really getting to his nerves, a little random slime experimentation was sure to bolster his spirits.

  This time it wasn't exactly slime experimentation, but, it was related. So, a slime was 'An amorphous blob of liquid bound and freed by arcane means'. Not 'Water', 'Liquid'. Then the question was, what would happen if he used uh... Genuine rock? The genuine water was probably freed by arcane means because it wasn't restrained by whatever it was not bound by, so maybe if he could find some way to make an earth aspect liquid he would be able to make a slime out of it.

  It was a stretch, sure. But that really didn't matter, the whole genuine water situation had really just given him a whole load of ideas he wanted to try out. He wasn't even exactly sure about what 'Earth' was, was it really restricted to just stone and dirt? Well, he'd have to find out!

  He made a little bit of stone, a little cubic centimeter of the stuff in the ever reliable test box. Nothing much, a trivial amount. Then he designated another cubic centimeter for something greater, a true pioneer. Though it took a few tries and some major finicking, along with a few weird rock cubes.

  He did make some of it, some genuine stone. And the weird rocks? He wasn't exactly sure, the instincts called the brown-ish one 'Granite', the white-ish one 'Diorite' and the other white-ish one 'Marble'. Though they were all apparently also rocks, strange. Anyways, now that the geniune rock was freed from whatever was keeping it material it had become a purely physical object.

  Now the question was how he would make a solid thing a liquid... 'Well, what's the difference between a solid and a liquid?'

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Luckily, this question was easily answered by just looking at a rock and a bit of water, unlike the great aspect conundrum 2 minutes ago. All he had to do was look at the rock and see that the material that made it up kept the other material in the rock in a rigid structure, stopping movement relative to other material. And then with the liquid that was water, the normal stuff, while they weren't completely disconnected the material inside was quite easily able to move relative to other material.

  Nice and simple, easy to understand and find out about.

  Now just to disconnect the connections inside the rock, and... They just reconnected the next moment. Hmmmmmm, was it impossible for rocks to be in a liquid state? If that was true, would that mean water couldn't be a solid either?

  He made a bit of normal water, and looked at its make-up before making the water material link up. It was a bit troublesome, but he found that the connections between water material was slightly different in nature from that of rock. Maybe that was the reason it was a liquid and rock was not?

  After lining the material up nice and orderly, forcing them together and releasing his iron grip. He found that they broke free the next moment, it seemed it was just a waste of time.

  ...Falc thought of something, something a bit crude. But he just decided to try it before he gave up, he looked at the water and called on the water aspect to make it solid.

  And it turned solid, it actually expanded a bit in volume as well. He was honestly surprised, he wasn't exactly sure what he had done in the moment but it seemed that it worked. From what he could see it wasn't as if the solid water had somehow become some weird version of water, it was just arranged solidly. The bindings he had thought indicated that water was a liquid kept the material together without issue, but why?

  They weren't exactly stronger, so maybe the change was in the material itself and not the bindings?

  He took a bit of water and put them together just like how the solid water was oriented, and compared the material. And there was a simple difference, the liquid wanted to move more. So, if he just stopped it from trying to move about, he'd be able to make it a solid without an aspect to help him? If so, then what made it want to move?

  First was just a basic attempt, he took the water he had created and just wrung whatever he could out of it and forcing it to stop even try to move. And, it worked. Though, strangely the air around it was a bit more energetic than before. That hadn't happened with the aspect-made solid water, talking about that, said solid water was already starting to return to liquid state. At least the solid water at the edges of its mass, while he found that the around it was seemingly moving less than before.

  'So, there's some kind of force that causes the... Movement of material, which can be transferred... Instincts, name it!'

  

  Temperature

  'Good enough. If temperature can be transferred around, and temperature determines if something is a liquid or a solid, can't I just try to make rock but with a high temperature?' The juvenile core wondered, off-handedly thinking about whether there might be a temperature aspect or something.

  Though he was slightly confused why the rock wasn't already a liquid, since its temperature was the same as the liquid water... Maybe different things had different temperatures for their liquid and solid states? It did kind of make sense, maybe air could even be a liquid or solid with a higher or lower temperature.

  Anyways, he decided to try and make rock but with a high temperature- Eh? For some reason he tried to use the fire aspect, because of a feeling. What, was the fire aspect related to temperature? 'Hmmm, well, looking at one of the torches. The flames do have quite the high temperature, as if they're creating it.'

  But that didn't exactly feel right, that temperature was being created by it. But related? That didn't seem that far off.

  ...Fine, he'd let whatever his feelings were trying to do happen. They seemed pretty reliable so far, so he'd put in a bit more trust than he did with instincts. He took action with both the fire aspect and the earth aspect, attempting to create liquid rock. Doing so by creating rock of high temperature, which was for some reason red. Maybe temperature also caused light? Considering how hot the rock was, he wouldn't be surprised.

  The water next to it and the rock below it already started to whine a bit about its temperature, as the water somehow became akin to air and rock began to grow in temperature as did the air and water. Actually, so did the slimes that were nearby. Would genuine water act differently than material water?

  Problem, the liquid rock- 'Magma'- Was already cooling off. Falc was slightly confused, why did it want to share in the temperature? The same had happened with air and solid water- 'Ice'- The air wanted to let the ice enjoy the wonders of warmth. It was as if they were autonomously trying to equalize the temperature...

  Though he didn't care why that happened, it was kind of annoying. Both because it seemed that two slimes had died from their genuine water turning into something instincts called 'Steam' the same way... The same way as when he had made a slime with a fire mana weave. So that was what steam was, an interesting finding to be sure.

  And while the deaths of those slimes were exceptionally sad, the magma had also started to cool off enough for it to return to the state rock usually was; solid, specifically as a black rock called 'Basalt'.

  Though it would certainly take some time for it to completely cool down, which gave him time to stew. For the focusless Falc 'Schematic technician' Navator to ponder about how he might be able to stop, until he had a thought 'I can make rocks non-material, why can't I just make rocks with a lower temperature for being liquid?'

  It probably wasn't that reasonable of a thought, but when it came to aspects, he couldn't be sure. Maybe it'd work, just maybe it'd somehow make itself work. There wasn't any feeling that was actively whining that it was impossible, so it might be possible. So why not try? It didn't really cost that much mana to try, an insignificant amount in the grand scheme of things.

  He had a vision, a simple vision. The material in the rock floating around as a liquid without being as warm as magma, a simple thing to imagine. And then only to grab onto the aspect like a little child begging for liquid rock, offering just a pinch of mana in exchange. And he exerted his feeling, actively and consciously this time, trying to keep in mind what he wanted.

  ...

  A droplet.

  A droplet of liquid rock.

  For what would've been enough for an entire cube centimeter, he had made a mere droplet. Actually, it was less than a droplet. How? Like, honestly, sure. Genuine water was a slight itsy bitsy bit more expensive, like 1 to 2% more mana for the same amount of mana. Why did a droplet of liquid rock cost more than 1000% more? More around 1900-2000%, but still.

  'Wow, it actually worked! That's surprising, but even more surprising is the cost.'

  He didn't even bother to examine its make up, he was done with the experimenting for now. He just made enough liquid rock for a slime, then made five weaves just to make sure it kept together. Added ten times the muscle as normal, one musculature per weave with twice the muscle for the standard musculature of a slime.

  Then, with a sigh he give it the gift of life. And; it didn't fall apart and die immediately. That was enough, that was enough. He just had to test its jump, so he ordered it a bit forcefully to show case itself.

  And, ehhhhh, it wasn't that good. He could see it struggle to contract its muscles in order to hop a fraction of a normal slime's jump distance and height, along with the regular weaves deforming by an extremely slight degree because of the muscles pulling them away from the liquid rock that they were attached to.

  A bit lacklustre, but it was fine. He could find a way to make it work, he was kind of curious if it could make a liquid rock nuclei. Probably not since it wasn't genuine liquid rock, though he wasn't sure if it was even considered a slime if wasn't made of something genuine.

  Ignoring the notification he had obtained for a moment, he just looked at the liquid slime. He was honestly surprised when it was still considered a slime when he registered the schematic, it was so different from the regular slime already. What would happened if he added fire mana, or wind mana, or any other kind of mana for that matter? Could he make a slime with normal water instead of genuine water?

  It really showed how large the category called 'Slime' was.

  Huh?

  -What was that? Falc just saw something, no- No, no, he felt it. But also not, he saw it. It wasn't the fire aspect, not the wind aspect, not the earth aspect and certainly not the water aspect. It felt different from the others just like they felt different from each other, but more so.

  It was an aspect! He knew it, he could feel it somewhere inside himself, there was an aspect a foot. But which? He couldn't be sure, but, he felt it was the slime aspect. What else would it be?

  He had to find it, he'd scrounge about every where he could. It existed, he was certain of it, and it wasn't a hopeless endeavor as well.

  Even if it were the last thing he'd do, he'd find it. Falc wasn't letting it escape that easily.

  As the rain and storm continued to roar above, a certain blacksmith trudged through the gravel streets stained with mud.

  His expression a bit grim, he clutched on tightly to the bag at his side, unable to stop himself from muttering "It hasn't rained for a month... Why does it have to be now?"

  At least he could see his forge was still going strong from the smoke bellowing out of a certain house's chimney, it would be a struggle to relight wet coal.

  Still, all it did was dampen the tension. It staying with him the whole way back home and through the door.

  He dropped the bag on the floor and removed his dirty boots from his person before continuing further into the residence, water dripping on the floorboards from his soaked clothes. But that didn't matter, wood could be replaced.

  "How was the shower?" His wife asked, jokingly.

  But this was not the time for jokes "This isn't the time for jokes."

  Not fazed by his tone in the slightest she jeered back while sitting at table "Yeah, it isn't, dry yourself off sweety. You're going to get the floor water stains, it was so hard making those without a sawmill."

  Normally, he would laugh it off and listen. Normally, but what rolled out of the leather bag as it was hoisted on to the table made this day anything but normal "See this?"

  "Yes? A slime core? Why are asking this? I'm not blind."

  He begged to differ, even if he'd never say it aloud. As he looked at it, the seemingly perfect sphere. It reflected the light of the lantern comfortably laying on the same table as it, a blue and ethereal gleam on its edges as he wondered about what was on the inside of the grey-ish and opaque orb "It is the core of an elder slime."

  The lady that he lived with just shook her head and sighed, speaking a few words as if placating him "And, what is an elder slime?"

  "H-How do you-" He couldn't help but stutter out, baffled at her lack of knowledge of honestly niche monster topics, before he recollected himself "How do I even explain this... Uhm..."

  After a moment of pause, him holding the bridge of his nose as he pondered "So, an elder slime, is a slime."

  "Yes, I could tell." Aer quickly interjected.

  "But," He took a deep breath to make sure his words communicated what he wanted to say "Elder slimes are an evolved slime, an [Uncommon] monster. And their slime core is also [Uncommon]."

  It seemed to dawn on her, the immensity of the situation "Uh- Where did you get this?"

  "Oh, you know, from an adventurer. One of the ones that went into the dungeon, they got it from the plains; all real trivial, don't you think?" He jeered, a bit as pay back for her previous nonchalance.

  "Oh... Ohhhh... Oh no, oh no, no, no." The {Carpenter} stated.

  "Oh no indeed." Teryn affirmed