The blue-haired one was the first to react to me. Appearing from what he must've believed was my blind spot, a short sword flashed toward my neck. Naturally, I immediately produced my own weapon from my stomach and parried his blade with ease.
"Good instincts… But you're still too green." What?! Suddenly, the white-haired ogre was behind me, and my body had been cut in half. My mind struggled to process what happened, but my instincts knew what to do. My body immediately reattached itself, healing up in an instant thanks to the healing Art I'd learned from the herbs. Combining that with my self-regeneration, and I could temporarily gain healing abilities on par with Ultraspeed Regeneration for cheap.
"Huh." I muttered to myself, reevaluating the old ogre. I'd thought that the redheaded one was the most dangerous, but definitely nope. He'd gotten past all of my senses.
'Izzy. Keep track of that old man for me. Don't let him out of my sight.'
'Hmm!'
After that, the next few moments were a blur of motion as the redhead, purple-hair, and blue-haired ones all rushed for me at once. I parried the purple-headed one's blade with my arm, dodging the blue-haired ogre's sword by an inch and using my sword to block the redheaded one's katana. His blade creaked under the pressure of mine.
"Young master! That sword, it's a Unique!"
Huh. The plain one knew his swords.
He was right. Under Kaijin's tutelage, my ability to make swords, specifically, had improved by leaps and bounds. Making a single sword took me two or three days of hard Processing, but I could routinely make them Special grade.
The sword that I was using right now was my chosen weapon. Reforged three times in my stomach, it was my pride and joy, on the high end of Special Grade. On top of that, I'd named it Solslicer, and temporarily instilled the second Salamander inside of it. With the Salamander inside of it, the sword had the power of a B-ranked spirit and magicules to match. Simply holding it gave the user access to the Control Flame and Flame Transform skills, more than earning the title of Unique.
As for Solslicer's dimensions, it was thin and had a blade made of magisteel, somewhere between a shortsword and a longsword, with a hand-and-a-half handle. That made it the perfect size to use with one hand or two, and it sliced through the air like a dream, faster than the eye could see.
'Hmm!' With Izzy's warning, I was ready for the white-haired ogre this time. 'SHIING' Our blades made a sound as they clashed right in front of me.
"Not gonna work a second time!" I gloated. The ogre responded with a flurry of attacks faster than even my eye could see.
"You can't win, Orc Master!" he shouted. By now, I didn't even have the capacity to think about his words, my mind was wholly focused on keeping him from killing me. But he was quickly reaching his limit, too.
"Swordmaster!" the red-haired ogre shouted.
'HMM!!' Something strange happened as Izzy warned me of the redhead ogre pressing in to attack me while I was occupied with the elderly one.
Time seemed to slow down, and I heard the World Language.
'Requirements Met. Energy provided from entity: Izzy via Sub-Skill: Breakdown met required threshold.
Entity: Izzy fully assimilating with user via Unique Skill: Processor. Complete. Evolution to Manas:Izzy, complete.
Slime: Risa evolution into Spirit Slime commencing. Complete.
Unique Skill: Processor, evolution requested. 80% Failed. Insufficient Data.
Unique Skill Acquired: Chaotic Warrior.'
Apparently, Izzy had caused all of these changes himself. After I'd gained the spirits' loyalties, I'd given Izzy access to part of my Unique Skill: Processor, to aid me during battles. Specifically, Breakdown, to allow him to share his magicules with me, and the group of skills that I'd gained from random monsters.
But sensing that I was in trouble, Izzy had decided to overcharge himself, fully assimilating his soul with mine in a way that spirits normally couldn't do via Breakdown. Now, normally that would mean that his soul would disappear, but instead, Breakdown had transformed it into another 'entity' inside my soul. He'd lost most of his self-awareness as a result of his 'evolution,' though.
But what Izzy had lost hadn't completely disappeared. The 'capacity' that his soul had lost had been essentially 'added' to mine, his spiritual attribute combining with Veldora's inside of me, triggering an evolution. Though I was now a 'spirit slime,' my physical composition hadn't changed much, just gotten stronger, and not by much, either. Instantly, all of the strength that I'd lost naming him had returned. Right now, I was slightly stronger than Big Bro.
But the real boon was with my skills. Now, Izzy was acting as a sort of support assistant, taking control of Processor in my stead. Processor itself had attempted to evolve, but apparently I didn't know enough, or maybe the right, skills, so it'd failed. But it had changed a bit.
My stomach's capacity had doubled, I didn't have to think over every little detail when I used it anymore, now that Izzy was there to take over those tiny details. It'd also integrated all of those random skills into a new Sub-Skill, Databank, for easier access.
And I'd gotten a new Unique Skill.
Instantly, everything was so clear and easy. My Thought Acceleration sped up nearly a hundred times faster than it'd been before. Instead of thinking 100 times faster than normal, I was now thinking 10,000 times faster than normal.
My new skill, Chaotic Warrior, was actually a pretty simple skill. It had three sub-skills: Hasten Thought, Predict Future Attack, Battle Senses, and Control Magic.
Hasten Thought, Predict Future Attack, and Control Magic were self-explanatory. Control Magic gave me near-perfect control of every single one of my Special A ranked magicules. But Battle Senses were where it was at. During a battle, it helped show me the best possible moves.
And right now, it was showing its worth and then some.