Novice Reincarnator

I was a man when I woke up in the morning. How nice it would be if that was true. Overwhelmingly large breasts, a short stature, and an ice white tattoo over my lower stomach greeted me in the mirror.

Whether it was my short ice blue hair, my golden eyes, or the rest of my body, nothing had changed since the day I first appeared in the Upper Realm. It was time I faced reality. I wasn’t getting anywhere by reincarnating as soon as I hit max level.

My appearance after reincarnating was based on the records my soul had collected. My trauma from the Crystalline Colossus had been carved deep into my very being. This was evident from how I couldn't get rid of that hateful [Weak Bladder] skill. If I wanted my appearance to change, then I needed to create an overwhelming record that drowned out everything else I had recorded so far.

I needed to defeat a Crystalline Colossus on my own and overcome the trauma that marked the start of my life as the demon girl Ash. Leah would leave me further behind the longer I spent running away from my problems.

I sat down at my computer and began to seriously investigate what it would take to bring down a Crystalline Colossus.

First of all was the location. The Crystalline Caverns was a dungeon suitable for level 30-40 on the first floor. The level range increased by 10 up until the bottom floor, which was suitable for explorers level 70-80.

A variety of monsters lived in the depths of the caverns, but luckily for me, the first floor only had Crystalline Colossuses. Additionally, these Colossuses were solitary monsters. I would almost never encounter multiple of them at the same time.

That was where my good fortune ended. No matter how I looked at it, a level 10 would never be able to damage a Crystalline Colossus' core. This type of colossus was famed for its strength and toughness.

Even level 35 explorers had troubles damaging the protected core. The Crystalline armor that protected the colossus might as well be invincible to all explorers under level 60. The common strategy to defeat a Crystalline Colossus reflected this fact.

Whenever the core received a strong impact, its defenses were scrambled and it lost all connection to its Crystalline armor. Its defenses were significantly weaker in this state because it could not circulate any mana to reinforce itself.

Since the core was only vulnerable for a brief moment whenever it received a strong impact, defeating a Crystalline Colossus usually required a skilled team to take advantage of the small window of opportunity.

I watched video after video of different explorers defeating Crystalline Colossuses in search of an idea. Every battle boiled down to two simple ideas. Disable the core with a strong impact and then defeat it while it is weak.

My finger tapped against my desk as thoughts raced through my head. Disabling the core was not outside the realm of possibility. For example, one explorer party disabled the core by tripping the Crystalline Colossus and letting gravity do all the work.

No matter how I looked at it, a level 10 with an assembled cast of contracted monsters would never be able to destroy the core. We simply couldn’t penetrate the natural defenses of a level 35 monster.

I couldn’t come up with an idea for now, so I temporarily set that problem aside and focused on how I would disable the core. The only tools I had available was my one free skill slot and my [Contract I] skill I had from being a Hornless Demon.

This time, I looked up information on the Novice class and how low ranked Demon’s typically fought. The article titled the Strongest Novice was particularly enlightening.

The current leader of the Novice Club was once in my state several years back. He was a Hornless Demon with only 3 personal skill slots and the Novice class. Rather than give up like everyone else, he fully exploited the advantages of his situation.

I had experienced it myself. It was easy for a Novice to reincarnate after a single day of dungeon diving. That was something that was impossible for an Uncommon talent or above to do because it took them much longer to level and their level caps were much higher.

The leader of the Novice Club repeatedly reincarnated over and over again, taking a different set of skills in each reincarnation. Even if he lost the skill in the next reincarnation, some of the sense and intuition he gained while using the skill remained behind.

He saved tens of years of effort by exploiting this loophole. I could do the same, but no number of half remembered skills would help me bring down a Crystalline Colossus. What truly interested me was the combination of skills that caused him to be called the Strongest Novice.

It was rather obvious in hindsight. All of his skills strengthened the monsters he had contracted. Being a level 10 Novice didn’t really matter if he could use [Summoning Magic] to summon a level 60 Death Knight to fight for him.

The dead and the ghost system type monsters were particularly weak to a Demon’s [Contract] skill. Of course, the Strongest Novice needed a place to store his contracted monsters. The greater the distance, the more mana it took to summon a monster from. Since Hornless Demon’s were notoriously bad at handling magic, the contracted monsters had to be as close as possible.

The skill [Shadow’s Refuge] allowed living beings that had a contract to the user to live in the user’s shadow. Similar to a Human’s [Item Box], it created a pseudo-dimension that was indirectly connected to the user.

Unfortunately, the skill was not without its flaws. [Shadow’s Refuge] put a burden on the user’s body as the owner of the skill was responsible for maintaining the dimension. Additionally, it was something of a one way door. It was easy to enter but hard to leave. Otherwise, the leader of the Novice Club wouldn’t need to use summoning magic to bring his contracted monsters out of his shadow.

The final skill of the Strongest Novice was [Undying Loyalty], a skill that boosted the strength of undead contracted monsters.

To be honest, I thought his title was a bit of a misnomer. It was true that he used the Novice class to gain the strength required to form contracts with undead monsters, but in the end it was his [Contract] skill from being a demon that served as his main source of strength.

If I copied the Strongest Novice’s skill set and launched a surprise attack from my shadow, then I was confident I would be able to disable the Crystalline Colossus’ core. There was only one problem. I didn’t have three open skill slots to use.

I only had one skill slot and both [Summoning Magic] and [Shadow’s Refuge] were absolutely critical. I couldn’t exactly walk around outside with a horde of monsters by my side without raising some serious red flags.

It was no good. I would have to find a different strategy. My unwillingness to give up had me double check my status.

 

Name: Ash

Class: Novice

Level: 1/10

Personal Skills (1/3): [Weak Bladder]

Racial Skills: [Contract I]

Class Skills: [Novice]

 

As I thought, it was no good. I couldn’t get rid of [Weak Bladder] and I needed [Breast Binding]. That left me with only one skill slot. Was a single skill really enough to take down a level 35 Crystalline Colossus?

There was no way a single skill could overturn the difference of 25 levels. It was impossible for a Novice like me to defeat a Crystalline Colossus.

“[Summoning Magic], huh? I always wanted to be able to use magic as a child, but I had no talent.”

A sense of relief filled me once I gave up on fighting an impossible battle. I still had time. It was fine for me to waste a couple of days reincarnating if it meant fulfilling one of my childhood dreams. Summoning magic required me to sense a connection to the monster I wished to summon via our contract.

After getting Lime to sit in front of me, I closed my eyes and tried to summon Lime to the palm of my hand. My contract to Lime was always present in the back of my mind. It was easy to sense the connection, but I stumbled when it came to activating summoning magic to bring Lime to the palm of my hand.

I was intimately familiar with this feeling of frustration. Back in my homeworld, almost nobody could use magic. When I was little, I thought I would be an exception to the rule and practiced with all my might to cast a fireball spell. My efforts never yielded any results.

I couldn’t even feel mana, the resource needed to activate spells. Trying to activate summoning magic without being able to manipulate mana was a fool's errand, but I didn’t care. Repeating my childhood dream of trying to use magic and failing made me feel a lot more like Asta Ashford than I had in a long time.

I reached out to Lime through our connection and tried to pull the slime towards me. Nothing happened. That was to be expected. Simply wanting to use magic was never enough to activate magic. Most explorers spent their entire lives without ever being able to use magic.

What was not expected, however, was that my efforts were actually bearing fruit. I still couldn’t summon Lime like I wanted to, but my vague image of summoning magic was gradually being refined to a sharper, clearer image.

Excitement filled my heart as I sensed that I was slowly getting closer to my goal. I lost track of everything and single-mindedly devoted myself to activating summoning magic. I would have even skipped meals if not for [Weak Bladder] remindeding me that I needed to take proper breaks.

Eight hours later, something clicked into place in my mind. A strange sense of confidence filled me as I spoke.

“Summon Lime.”

An intense draining sensation filled me as something was sucked away. At the same time, a flash of light hit my closed eyes and a familiar cool, slimy sensation appeared on the palm of my hand.

My eyes opened in disbelief. I had done it. I had fulfilled my childhood dream and activated my first spell.

“I did it, Lime. I did it!”

I threw Lime in the air as I celebrated. This called for a feast. I ordered some pizza and popped open some cans of Dr. Pep. Lime and I sat down together at the couch and watched an animated movie based on a popular video game in the Upper Realm.

About 20 minutes into the movie, the pizza delivery guy showed up at my doorstep. I paused the movie and opened the door to grab the pizza.

“Here is your tip.”

Thankfully, the academy gave its new students a basic amount of money to live each month so that they could focus all of their efforts on training to be an explorer.

“Ah, err, t-thanks.”

The pizza guy was a stammering, blushing mess for some reason. I didn’t spare the brief encounter any extra attention and quickly returned to my spot on the couch with my sweet treasure in hand.

It was a good movie that had me crying near the end of it. Why did the mentor character always have to die so that the hero could mature?

I was in a strangely uplifted mood after my impromptu celebration. I didn’t want it to end, so I did everything I could think of.

I installed a couple of games on my computer and played them while Lime watched. I watched  silly cat videos on the internet. Lime let me kick it around like a soccer ball and I tried to see how long I could keep Lime in the air by kicking my contracted slime back and forth.

There was no special meaning to my actions. Playing video games or horsing around with Lime wasn’t going to get me any closer to my goals. Even so, these silly little things made me feel like a person again.

The month after I encountered the Crystalline Colossus was a dark time for me that I didn’t like to think about. After Leah showed up in the Upper Realm, all of my time was devoted to being an explorer and diving into dungeons.

Asta Ashford wasn’t an explorer. He was an ordinary boy that spent his youth having fun with his friends and attending school. For the first time in a month, I felt like I was myself again.

My appearance didn’t matter. I was still the same guy that liked to play video games, eat pizza, and mess around with my friends. I hadn’t suddenly become someone else when I reincarnated as Ash, the big breasted demon girl. I didn’t need to be in a hurry.

“Sorry, Lime. We aren’t going into the dungeon. Instead, our mission is to have as much fun as possible.”

Today was a rest day.