Defeat the usurper and claim victory!

That was all I needed to see before I unleashed a barrage of explosive needles at the plantoid king and queen. At the same time, I told a few of my [Sub-Cores] to rapidly work on a few projects, and I didn't even need to grow any larger for one of them—thanks to keeping tendrils around previously.

The wooden dais twisted as a bramble of roots erupted from it, forming a makeshift shield that was enough to stop or alter the trajectory of some of my needles but insufficient to fully protect them. Either way, I detonated the lot, and ringing explosions echoed throughout the throne room.

The suits of armor revealed themselves as monsters too—and their metallic appearance entirely a lie as they came to life as some strange form of ironwood treant, dryad, or wood sprite. The one group of [Sub-Cores] finished their task, and a large area of [Expansion] was formed centered around Vee and myself.

"Eye-closing time," Vee said and prepared to fight with the armor. "I'll leave the dancing fools for you."

The smoke hadn't even cleared from the explosions when my other project was completed. Then it was time for all hands on deck for a series of multiple mini-teleports, as half a dozen objects were teleported outside of me and behind the bramble shield where I'd last seen the two plantoid royals.

"Boom!" I yelled out with joy.

"Syl!?" a panicked Vee cried out mere moments before the fireworks began.

Six spell orbs detonated in a cacophony of magical devastation. Corrosion, air, earth, fire, ice, and lightning ravaged the area, causing untold devastation to its victims.

An unforeseen side effect of my expanded space meant that Vee and I were only minimally unaffected by the shockwave. It made me rather glad I didn't dare mess with dimensional explosions, as no doubt they would have ignored or even distorted the space entirely.

Imagine taking the full brunt of the blast despite being a distance away; that sounds both terrifying and amazing!

"Damn it, you crazy slime! What happened to no spell orbs?" Vee yelled.

"I really hated that dancing bastard. Plus, I didn't even use all my magic; it was done in moderation. And since we didn't get a kill reward, it seems like they survived."

Right on queue, the smoke cleared, and we saw the resulting chaos from the mess. The wooden dais were no longer even recognizable, and both thrones were entirely gone. However, rather than the king or queen, there was instead an amalgamation of various plants, trees, and mushrooms.

Identify has failed.

With [Identify] being useless again, my brain was buzzing as I was pretty sure I'd seen such a strange creature before. It was on the tip of my tendril, and when I saw it grab and merge with one of the ironwood monsters.

"Oh! It's a plant horror!" I cried out.

The true foe has been revealed! Defeat the monster that's puppeteering the corpses of the King and Queen.

"Do all dungeons have such a convoluted narrative?" Vee asked, still in the midst of fighting and cutting apart the rank-and-file ironbark soldiers.

"Nope, this is a first for me too."

Now that the official target had been spotted, I and all my [Sub-Cores] began the debuff cycle; at this point, I wanted to give it every single debuff I had so I could throw everything and anything at it.

The plant horror let out a monstrous wail as it began swelling in size, the rest of its body emerging from within the wreckage of the wooden platform. In all likelihood, the platform and even the chairs were probably concealing its body if it had merged with all the wood and plant matter in the room.

It looked like it'd taken a beating, but considering I'd detonated half a dozen spell orbs of various elements right on top of its head, something felt off.

Well, nothing a few good fire spells won't solve! Time to throw out some good old [Fireballs]. No! Wait! I have a brilliant idea.

[Waterjet] was arguably one of my mightiest basic elemental spells. But now that I could freely swap the elements of my basic spells pretty much on the fly, the sky was the limit. I began casting the spell and replaced the water Mana with fire; a spell was rapidly formed and constructed successfully. At which point my [Sub-Cores] grouped together and replicated it perfectly themselves.

Multiple beams of blue flame went bursting forward at such high speeds and intensity that I thought I'd accidentally replicated the [Light Beam] spell.

Spell [Scorchlance] discovered.

Now, that is a cool name! None of that ice bullshit!

The flame beams crashed directly into the plant horror, some of them penetrating straight through while letting out a fiery conflagration at the point of impact. Yet, most bizarrely of all, the plant horror did not catch fire; instead, it seemed to be growing from my flames.

A plant monster that's not weak to fire? And after I just discovered the awesome and amazing [Scorchlance]—I feel cheated!

The monster swelled further in size and revealed a seed pod, which popped with an ear-shattering crack and scattered what seemed like thousands of tiny seeds across the entire room. Each seed then detonated on impact with the first surface it hit, creating a purplish smog.

"Shit, more poison!?" Vee cried out.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

If that wasn't bad, the poisonous smog that emerged near the back of the room where my fire spells had penetrated further exploded in contact with the flames. Whatever that cloud was, it was highly flammable.

I quickly cast [Bubble] and [Zephyr Shroud] on Vee, not wanting her to be poisoned again. It seemed that plant monsters often resorted to strength or toxins to handle their fights.

Which is kind of funny if you think about it. The elves say they hate [Corrosion Magic], yet here, the plant monster is effectively using it in a strange harmony with nature.

Of course, I had nothing to worry about with poisons. And if I couldn't burn it, then the next major plant weakness was, naturally, ice. I activated [Glacial Aura] and couldn't help but wonder if it would be impeded or not by the expanded space.

Speaking of auras, I could always wait until I get [Intermediate Elemental Magic] and then just use the elemental replacing feature. It would be a way for me to cheat my way to some quick and easy auras. Although I definitely want to explore the dimensional aura first.

I cast [Icicle] numerous icicle spells and watched as the frozen projectiles went hurting toward the monstrosity of all things plant. But, before my spells even impacted the creature, vines sprouted and grew all over it, creating a natural armor.

I cursed in annoyance as I recognized the vines from the duel between those two elves, and when my spells collided, they began to be swiftly eaten away by the frost vines.

"Okay, ice doesn't work either… lightning?" I asked out loud and cast [Lightning Bolt]. The thundercrack boomed throughout the room as the bolt of pure energy struck the monster. It surged throughout its body, and I thought I'd finally found something when I saw it get directed toward the floor and its roots.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," I grumbled.

"Just go and eat it!" Vee shouted. "That's what you said you'd do against that elf girl's tree, so go and fight monster to monster."

"I thought this would be more fun…" I grumbled.

"Didn't your mother teach you not to play with your food? If you don't go and eat it, I'll start cutting it up with [Rift Thread]!"

"My mom taught me nothing. And if one of those slimes back at the farm was my mom, then she very well tried to eat me," I sighed and started shifting my form.

Vee had somewhat taken the wind out of my sails, and I didn't even bother taking my worm form. Instead, I was just a massive formless blob with giant [Pseudopods] spread out like an angry octopus.

In response, the plant horror also grew in size, forming its own massive body of bark and vines. It even replicated its own version of my tendrils but made from roots and vines.

Both of our monstrous forms collided with each other; however, I had my ace in the hole—[Acid Slime]. It seemed that its counter to ice and fire was just a coincidence and not something Ygdran had prepared as a counter to me, as otherwise, the plant horror would never have allowed me to come into physical contact with it.

Our tendrils wrapped around each other, but mine began eating into it. It soon realized its mistake and began firing razor-sharp ironbark shards toward me from a bizarre, plant-like organ it had formed. In response, I added [Metal Slime] to the mix, propelling my defenses to a whole new level, and its projectiles bounced off effortlessly.

It then began releasing various clouds of spores and smog, which I ignored, and I continued to grab onto it. More and more slime mass was being withdrawn and produced as I started trying to envelop it.

"Use the atomic breath!" Vee cheered.

"It grows from fire, I can't."

"Then, I don't know… grow some massive crab claws or something?" Vee suggested.

"I… don't think I've eaten a crab. I can make some makeshift pincers, I did it before, but they won't have any bonuses."

"Well, then, we gotta eat some crab on our beach trip. But sure, as long as they look cool."

I noticed Vee had finished cleaning up the remains of the ironbark monsters and was effectively just spectating now. I figured I might as well put on a show and started replacing what would be claws with various jaws and fangs that I had copied. The closest I got to her original request was the massive mandibles from the ant queen's royal guards, which I used to create a vice grip on the plant horror.

At the same time, I started creating various blades and swords so I could begin cutting at it and pulling smaller chunks into me for rapid eating. I leveraged the help of [Dissection] and extracted valuable parts by targeting specific weak points.

The entire time, Vee was cheering me on and even threw in her own "finisher move" by cutting off a large bark limb it had created. She teleported in, sliced with her [Rift Thread], said some strange made-up words, and then teleported back before the limb even finished collapsing.

I decided not to question her playful antics and instead grabbed the dismembered part, adding it to my growing food supply.

"I reckon the snake boss was far harder than this one. Do you think Ygdran gave up?" Vee asked.

A Plant Horror would be a formidable foe for any normal opponent. It's also one of the most hated enemies of the elves, so it makes thematic sense for it to be the last boss for an elven trial. It's not my fault that, apparently, its biggest weakness is being eaten alive by a slime!

Vee cackled with laughter as I began finishing it off. If it wasn't a dungeon monster, it probably would have tried to flee, but beyond retreating for better positioning, it had a single-mindedness to it to "defeat" me, which ultimately meant that it had no chance of survival.

While I'd gained nothing new from eating it, I'd gained so many various plants, trees, and funguses that it was like an endless wall of text. I chose to simply ignore it for now, as I didn't want to get involved with anything plants as I had enough of collecting slimes, monsters, and magic. At the center of its mass, I found one thing I hadn't eaten, though. It was a large, oval fruit covered in thick, sharp spines, and the entire thing shone brilliantly like a yellow topaz.

I spat the thing out and lowered it to the floor for Vee.

"I think this is another fruit?" I informed her.

"Oh?" she said, teleporting to the site. "Oh! Is this what I think it is!?"

"I have no idea; it looks like a weaponized pinecone to me."

Rather than eat it in one go, Vee split open the fruit, revealing pale yellow flesh in soft, creamy lobes nestled within chambers. At the same time, a pungent aura of stench burst outwards.

"Oh gods, was it trapped!?" I cried out and toggled my [Olfactory Sense] off.

"Haha, nope, this is a durian! The king of fruits!"

"Dran, I think the king of fruits has rotted while inside the plant horror. Can we get a replacement?"

It has most certainly not.

"Yeah, don't bully Ygdran," Vee said. "It might smell terrible, but trust me, this thing has an exquisite taste! And if it's improved as much as the other fruits, well, then I'm in for a delectable treat!"

"You do that… I'm going to go to the other side of the room and look at my level-ups," I said and slinked away while slowly storing my slime.

While returning to my elf form, since our next task would be dealing with the ambush, I started to look over what the result of the final boss was. Even if it was rather pathetic, I had hoped it was worth its weight in experience points.

Racial Experience threshold reached. Chimeric Cluster Slime (Blue) is now LV 35.

23 Trait Points are now available.

Class Experience threshold reached. Elementalist is now LV 22.

15 Skill Points are now available.

Racial Experience threshold reached. Chimeric Cluster Slime (Blue) is now LV 36.

24 Trait Points are now available.

Two race levels and a class level! Just four more to go, and I can finally evolve again. Then I'll swap over to a class focus and see if I can get my level thirty milestone skill. By then, I want to swap to Riftmancer, assuming I unlock it.

I was a very happy slime. And then I saw two more notifications that had me feeling rather giddy.

Proficiency gained. [Acid Slime LV 7] improved to [Acid Slime LV 8].

Proficiency gained. [Dissection LV 7] improved to [Dissection LV 8].

Wow, the two partners in crime! Glad to see you both leveled up together; you honestly earned it.