My experience with can be said to be both enlightening and frustrating, born of the same aspect of spatial manipulation; It's restrictive, simple and versatile nature.

  To do anything with it, one must first designate or define a specific point or area in space. Of course, said point in space must be relative to our world, otherwise the designated space will drift away into the empty abyss beyond the sky. Then, after said space has finally been designated, one can start trying to do things.

  Like; expanding the amount of space. Which could indeed have many usages if not for the fact that merely maintaining said expanded space and keeping it stable costs mana, and enchanting anything with 'Designation', 'Expansion' and 'Stabilization' combined is not possible with any random inexpensive material.

  It also requires a grand master enchanter to help out, minimally. These restrictions and others which haven't been mentioned leading to only three spatial artifacts being made throughout my sixty years with the skill, one of which is in my own possession and two in the hands of the emperor. All of which barely considered [Legendary] because of the presence of the space aspect.

  -Except from 'Introspection on the nature of spatial manipulation' written by 'Dargen Von Norne', a respected duke of the Empire.

  Falc wanted that aspect.

  He really wanted it, he was just on the cusp.

  And no, he did not feel that.

  But even then, without the verification of the feeling, it was obvious. He had seen the aspect, with his own metaphorical eyes. If he could see it, he could try to grasp at it.

  And it was proven, it was possible to see it! All that was left to do was find out how he got to see it.

  If he replicate it on demand, he might be able to use it just like he did the four elements. Then he would finally be able to find out what an affinity was with , yeah, he was doing this to learn what affinities were. At least originally, and honestly. It would've been way smarter to just pick up a water-affinity requiring skill instead of , and he could probably buy one by now.

  But this wasn't about the affinities anymore, it wasn't about pride or anything else. He wanted that aspect, he would need a [Rare] one to turn 'Juvenile core' into its superior counterpart anyways. But still, he wanted that damn aspect.

  So, what was he doing when he finally gotten the chance to look at the presumed slime aspect?

  He was... Looking at the liquid rock slime. So, he started to look at it.

  Then... He was appreciating it and surprised by how large the Category 'Slime' is. It was not really possible on his part to force surprise, but he could appreciate the liquid rock slime. That was easy, he was already planning to marvel in his grand creation, and also ponder what he could do to make it work better.

  But he wasn't plotting out his future experiments when he got a peek of the aspect on his mind.

  So he'd probably need to take his time to enjoy the view, since him pondering about the viability of the addition of a wind mana weave wasn't making the aspect come on down to praise his name.

  ...

  ...

  It wasn't working, just like always, aspects couldn't just be simple could they?

  Was it because the view enjoyment process was artificial? Or was it because it wasn't genuine and from the bottom of his heart of hearts? Or was it some entirely different thing that he did completely unrelated to looking at the liquid rock slime which let him feel the aspect?!

  Or maybe it was actually related to it, it was just what he had done wasn't actually relevant and he needed to do that other thing. Maybe, possibly, it was not beyond the realm of reason.

  Instincts once again remained silent in the face of his annoyed questions and his feelings weren't helping him either.

  He didn't like this, the aimlessness. He didn't like aspects, they were weird and aberrant. At least it could be somewhat clear when something was hopeless, possible or practical when he was experimenting with slimes. He could calculate and predict what somethings would do, and could find patterns like how compressed mana took less of himself to keep in the world.

  He knew how much effort it would theoretically take to create a slime core with two times the diameter, eight times specifically. But he couldn't conceive of what an aspect even was, nonetheless how he was supposed to get a new one.

  Playing with the aspects he had, that was fun, that was interesting.

  But this wasn't fun, it was just a chore.

  And from what a dungeon core such as himself could see, it was all just leading him to one dead end to another with not a single bit of useful data in sight. Then came a little tease of an aspect, as if it were luring him. And who knew if it could try to lure him; try to perpetuate this endless stream of wasted time.

  He had things to do, and time to not waste on something that he was probably never even meant to accomplish anyways.

  Falc looked away from the test box, it was time to go back to doing something actually probably interesting and almost certainly more fruitful. He was going to do something with aspects, but that something was better than whatever else.

  That something else being; something with... Hmmm... Eh, maybe that weird wind-earth mana. Now that seemed interesting, that held some potential.

  But how would he put it into a slime?

  'You know what? I'll just make it and see what happens.'

  With 10 mp of earth mana and 10 mp of wind mana Falc mixed the two attributed mana types into on to create 15 mp of the strangely rebellious 'Wind-earth mana', and he couldn't help but stare at it for a moment. And he could indeed feel that it was related to earth and wind, in some twisted way. Not that it mattered, he had done so without even really thinking about it.

  ...He needed to think for a moment how to use the mana, he could try to make a full weave of the stuff. But that didn't really seem that interesting, something else. Maybe... Why not make an weave out of it? He had enough, for sure. It'd just cost around 2 mp, less than a fifth of his current stores.

  It didn't matter what effect it had, or if it actually did nothing at all. What was important was that it seemed interesting, and so; he poured a small bit of his wind-earth mana outwards while siphoning 4.2 mp from natural mana regeneration to form both the genuine water and the regular weave that surrounded the wind-earth mana-made weave.

  It was a bit troublesome to keep the wind-earth mana in place properly, but it was probably fine. He'd see what would happen after the slime was given the beauty of existence, which he granted with a singular mental tap.

  And all the while it cascaded towards ruin in an ever accelerating decline, he watched on in curiousity. From what he could see, its end was easily dividable into a few steps. First was the wind-earth mana starting to rampage slightly, breaking free from the rest of the weave with a bit of finagling. The second step was said freed wind-earth mana deforming into something different than what Falc had designed it to be. And finally the third; The wind-earth mana went on a rampage as it loved to do.

  A bit of a shame, but he had only put 6.2 mp into the slime. He could just try again, and he would. Because a certain little fact about how the steps played out interested him, while step one and two were slightly simultaneous. The latter only really started in full when it was freed from the rest of the slime, which was an interesting little tid bit of information in the eyes of any singular being with an inherent sense of curiousity.

  Because maybe, if he intensified the wind-earth weave's detention... He could find the path to a new age, one defined by the hegemony of wind-earth mana! Oh, and he could see what would happen with the skill too, that was pretty important to him too.

  But how would he do it? He could maybe try to use a more compressed weave? Hmm... But that'd probably cost a lot for a mere experiment. Falc wanted something cheap and quick to make for increased imprisonment efficacy 'Hmmm... Something cheap... Something that isn't my go to like compression... How about, maybe, an extra weave or two?'

  It was possible, easily even. There was even a precedent with the 'Second weave acid slime', which had an weave the size of an entire slime weave anchored to another normal weave below it. It was not impossible to connect a weave below or above another weave to said other weave as to keep it stable, why could another weave not help another weave keep its skill weave nice and obedient?

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  There was no way to find out outside of trying it, at least whatever other methods there weren't exactly things that the miserly dungeon owner held any knowledge of.

  He created two weaves and some genuine water, leaving out an sized hole in both of them. Before then taking a bit of wind-earth mp and forming the revered and reliable shape of a certain skill weave, then connected the edges of the weave with both the weave on its own layer and the one above it. Before finally giving it the core of slime existence, the very essence that let it live.

  And it seemed his efforts were not for naught, even if they were proven to be a little lacking as the weave ripped free of each and every chain one by one as it began to deform at a snails pace.

  But it seemed to have worked, and quite well as well. He wasn't sure how many weaves it would take to completely lock it down, but it wasn't as if he were trying to fill a hole without its bottom.

  The next iteration was with a reasonable 5 weaves, one as the host and the other four as pillars that kept the prisoner's arms and legs nailed to the ground. It was crude yes, but was it effective? Also yes.

  The slime, it lived. It could hop about like all its other slime friends, though for some reason the skill weave was a bit finicky. As he commanded it to shoot out its acid, it spout out not a bolt of liquid acid; But instead blasted a concentrated little spray of some kind of dust out. And not even that well, as it found itself in a foray multiple degrees off from where he had told it to shoot. At least it was obvious why, and happily he found that whatever it had spouted out was quite effective.

  As he found the portion of the floor it had taken as its home had already started to degrade, and this wasn't even some concentrated blend of wind-earth mana! He couldn't help but find himself imagining all that it could do with something like a D-10 full weave wind-earth , and he could confirm; he liked what he was cooking up in his spirit.

  Then it reared its ugly head again, that aspect... Falc actively shooed it away, it was obvious it was trying to lure him away onto some time-wasting venture, unhappy that he was actually doing something worthwhile in favour of burning the midnight oil to find it. And he wasn't regretting it, not one little bit!

  Luckily after a little work, it was scared off by his disdain. Or maybe it just got bored, or maybe it didn't have emotions and was working off a set pattern?

  It didn't matter, what mattered was how he was going to deal with the now actively dying dust acid prototype. And by that he meant; how he was going to make this not happen with the next iteration.

  The slime had died from the deformation of the wind-earth mana beyond its bindings, it coalescing to bypass its imprisonment and then starting to corrode the slime as it always did. He needed some way to interfere with the deformation of the mana in the middle of the skill weave, but how? It would certainly require a few more bindings, that was for sure. But he'd need to extrapolate on his current methods with a bit of innovation... Maybe whatever screen had popped up- Which he had ignored until now- Would help somehow?

  ...That looked pretty good, he let it take the place of 'Schematic technician', it being pretty obvious that 'Schematic mechanic' was its superior version. It also seemed more helpful than the mere 1% increase in mana control when making new schematics which was the previous title's effect.

  He didn't exactly feel anything, which wasn't that surprising considering the minuscule increase it gave. But even if it didn't give anything, it wasn't that much of a problem since that would mean the other title also didn't do shit.

  So, then, how would he bind the inner recesses of the wind-earth skill weave. Well... Hmmm, maybe he could just... Not leave a hole in the upper weaves? But then it'd probably be difficult to connect the weaves more than one layer away to the skill weave, and he wasn't sure whether or not one- No, two weaves would be enough to bind its edges.

  But as always, the only way to be certain was to test it out in the real world.

  He took some mana, made an entire blob of genuine water, made three weaves, with the second layer of them having an -sized hole which he then filled up with a wind-earth weave. But that wasn't the end of the story, as he first connected the three weaves together with the edge of the skill weave as the crossroads between them, allowing three weaves to act as chains.

  But still, that would not be enough, the wind-earth mana would shift and contort on its own without something to keep it still.

  And he had a small clue as to how to do it.

  He made a string of mana that traversed the boundary between layers, going from the first layer to the second layer, connecting a part of the skill weave to the regular weave below it. Then he did the same with the weave above it, as if a spike pierced through the skill weave to keep it obedient. This process repeating over the whole volume of the skill weave, it becoming more and more easy as he became more and more familiar with the act.

  It cost about... 0.6 mp extra, though he could probably start using compression to increase the amount of suppressive force. There was also almost certainly space for more and even ways to array the piercing mana strings for more room, but that was fine. He wasn't going for perfection, he was going for 'Good enough'.

  As he watched the newly formed slime live its pathetic little blind life, he inspected its innards as usual for such experiments. And he found, to his mental ovation, that it was not falling apart at the seams.

  The weave was certainly writhing about in an attempt to escape the detainment enforced by the slime weaves around it, but it didn't seem to have much of a chance to do so.

  Ignoring the tease of an aspect which he had swore off chasing after, he went after the most major and most important thing. He demanded from it, as its creator, to shoot out its dust-like acid. And it obliged, stirring the skill weave and allowing the mana inside to flow. As, in the end, a spout of dust was launched out with an arbitrary direction it was aimed towards. And it was accurate, not perfectly so, but to an adequate degree.

  Though, it was a bit worrying that its use allowed the skill weave a chance to wriggle itself out of its jail cell. Not entirely mind you, and from what he could see it was repairing itself slowly. Like how slime apostle 1- Long may he reign- Fixed its deformed weave a long, long, long time ago. The most morphed part being the inner sanctum, which lead to a certain question; what would happen if he ordered it to shoot again?

  And he found the answer easily, it was less accurate just like when the previous iteration shot out. And afterwards, the morphing became even more intense.

  Then came the question that any self-respecting researcher would ask, especially a research like Falc who had for some reason been 'Seeing' a certain aspect a bit too much for his liking. He'd shoo it off in a bit, this was important; would it die if it shot dust-like acid enough?

  The slime shot out, once, twice, thrice even. And by the fifth time it shot as soon as its cool down ended, its spout more than 40-ish degrees off mark, the wind-earth mana broke out of containment.

  And the result was very much obvious.

  It was a bit of a shame that it took seven shots in a row for it to die, but it was fine. He could probably find something to do to increase its life-expectancy, but finding a way to so easily have such a great attack power... Now that wasn't something he could do.

  Though, maybe the normal aspects could do the same, he wasn't sure. He'd do it later, he was more fascinated at what it could do when it was compressed. Normal acid was already so powerful when it was made by D-7 or above mana, what about the more powerful dust-like acid?

  Falc was already giddy about the possibilities!

  To think that a slime, which had once been such a pathetic, disabled and irrelevant little creature. Could maybe face off directly with the sentients with large essence generation someday, Falc couldn't help but feel a little proud at how far he had come.

  -Okay, this is getting annoying. That damn aspect kept on rearing its disgusting mongrel-like head, taking its sweet time seating itself with the other four aspects that he could see at all times.

  'Shoo! Shoo! Get lost! I have better things to do than go after you you damned waste of time!' He yelled symbolically, the aspect slowly losing its foot hold. But it kept to the little home it had carved out with slight effort.

  And seeing it not actively trying to run away, he couldn't help but start to ponder 'Why is it even here? I haven't even been trying to find it, did my research into slimes somehow stir it up? Or did me ignoring it after it thought me caught in its scheme spur it into action?'

  Either way, it seemed like it wanted to stay. And Falc finally relented, as long as it didn't bother him he wouldn't actively push it aside.

  Eh?

  It was that easy to get access to an aspect? Seriously? Falc couldn't help but be a slight bit skeptical, the new aspect was far less stable in its seat of choice compared to the four elements. He needed to check his status, just to make sure he wasn't getting messed with by the presumably newly accessible slime aspect.

  It was actually there, huh. With 73% affinity, it was originally at 63% affinity. Falc wasn't exactly sure about how much of an effect that would have for him, but he did know that this probably meant he could start using the slime aspect.

  So... He wanted to try a singular little thing, after registering the 'Dust acid suicide_7 slime'. Ignoring the possible nomenclature changes that would soon be required, and tried to take a weave's worth of mana and beat it up into slime mana.

  And it was difficult, both in the way that it required substantially more effort to transmute it into slime mana and that it was harder to even start the process. The latter almost certainly a consequence of a feeling that felt shaky and... Hollow? Incomplete?

  It took a total of three independent tries before the first bit of slime mana came into being, then it was only a matter of time for the entirety of the magical mass to accept its new nature.

  Throwing the dust mana into the slime plains casually, he formed a slime's worth of genuine water and anchored the slime mana as the one and only weave of his prospective creation, and gave it life.

  And, Falc Navator watched on as the slime mana fell into the genuine water, integrating with it somehow. Without it falling apart at the seams, or collapsing into a puddle of genuine water, it remained still.

  Then, somehow without a weave, the musculature that hadn't dissolved into the slime took action.

  The forces tearing the slime slime apart.

  It seemed he needed to get his schematic mechanic chops into over drive to make the most of this, after he registered the newly failed creation as 'Slime slime prototype'.