From the giant slime, another icicle was shot, and once more, the icicle slams into a nearby wall.

"Change over!" Gene shouted after deflecting the last icicle.

At Gene's command, Alex came forward, his wand in hand. He had used a good amount of large spells today, and he wasn't sure for how long he could keep this up. But even so, he must. The plan depends on it, and Alex has no intention to disappoint.

"[Conflagration]!"

Once more, Alex casts his fire spell, the sensation becoming familiar to him ny now, at this rate, he might even be confident enough in his control to use it again human opponents.

In reaction to the Alex's fire, the slime casts [Reinforce: Magic Resistance], and defended itself against the fire. Alex's fire would not touch the slime, but that's quite fine. According to Gene, the slime could probably do only one thing at a time, with the rest of its processing power focused on maintaining its large body to prevent anybody from slipping through. And so, as long as the slime is busy defending against Alex's fire, it can no longer attack.

The fire had another effect. Its heat is melting the ice encasing the guards that were in their way, and for Gene's plan to work, the guards must be set free.

With Alex fending off the slime, Gene moves into position.

"Are you ready, Tina? Everything relies on your reaction."

"Sure, no pressure or anything."

"That's the spirit!"

"I was being sarcastic, Gene."

But Gene heed her not, proceeding with the plan anyways. If she's not ready by now, then she'll never be ready, and so it's now or never.

As the sheet of ice on the guards began to melt, the guards as well, were starting to break through from within, the ice had only encased the armor, the guards within were mostly fine. Eventually, as the ice thinned, the guards did break out.

"Gentlemen!" Gene called out, drawing their attention towards him.

"Sword Saint!" one of them bellowed, and all three of them readied their swords.

However, they were too late, Gene's steel staff was already pointed towards them, and hovering right in front of them, they notice small bubbles of pure force, one before each of them.

Magic resistance is not magic nullification, it does not outright erase magic, only breaking it down and dispersing it. To have magic affect opponents protected by magic resistance, there are two main ways to go about it. One is to wield magic stronger than the magic resistance, packing enough energy or mass within it that the magic resistance could not possibly break it all down at once. Two is to use a magic that is so quick, the magic resistance could not possibly disperse it by the time it took effect. Alex was suitable to the former method due to his high amount of mana. Gene, on the other hand, with his speed and precision, goes with the latter.

All three bubbles of force expanded rapidly, the speed of their expansion approaches the limits of the sound barrier, and with such an amount of speed and force, it struck them before their magic resistance could do anything about it. All the guards were sent flying, flying towards the giant slime. Alex immediately stopped his fire spell once this had happened.

The moment the guards slammed into the slime's watery body, the slime, being a creature of magic, begins to break apart, its body reducing in size immensely, no longer was it a massive wall that denies access to everything behind it. However, it was still a slime with five cores, and it resisted further breaking down of its body.

The guards, trapped within the slime's body, began to struggle upon realizing what was going on. They tried to break free, but the slime compresses its liquid body around them, trying to hold them despite of the fact that it would probably have been better to eject them due to their magic resistance. It was clear that the slime had retained its former instincts as a cleaner to capture and consume everything organic smaller than itself or below a certain temperature, and it was just as Gene had hoped.

One of the guards, in a desperate attempt to escape, instead of heading outwards, decided to try his luck inwards, reaching towards one of the cores of the slime, hoping that if he could destroy even just one of its cores, it would weaken the slime enough for them to escape.

The cores, in reaction, shied away from the guard's reach, understanding the need to protect what was essentially its brain. Yet, the moment it did so, was the moment it had doomed itself.

It would seem that the slime was not intelligent enough to account for its reduced size and when it moved its cores away from the guards, one of them went a little too close to the surface of the body, and that was the moment Gene had been waiting for.

Without the need to be told, Tina rushed forward with her dagger drawn, her [Critical Line] showing her the path. Behind her, Gene follows.

"Platform!" Tina called out as she jumped, and in response, Gene created a [Shield] platform exactly where she needed it to be.

Jumping off the platform, Tina aimed for the core nearest to the surface, the one close to the upper left corner of the slime's body, and with a swift cut, she hacked a wedge into the core before landing perfectly behind the giant slime.

As the command spells within a slime's core are a complicated matrix of instructions and functions, even if a small part of it is destroyed, the rest of it will completely fall apart and become useless.

With the destruction of one of its cores, the slime once more reduced in size and once again, another core came close to the surface. Not missing a beat, Gene swung his staff at the core, dipping into the slime's watery body like a seagull closing in on a prey, and with a splash of water, a core came flying out of the slime's body and slammed right into a wall, cracking it and making it useless.

The slime has only three cores left now, and with three sets of magic resistant armor within it, it is weaker than ever before.

"Alex, finish it!"

Alex can feel his head pounding and all over his body feels wrong somehow. He had felt like this before, he knew this sensation. He was running out of mana. However, Gene and Tina are counting on him. He wasn't about to back away. This was the first time anyone has counted on him on anything.

"[Conflagration]!" Once more, he cast the spell.

The fire rages and burned away at the slime, evaporating its body despite the slime's attempt to defend itself with yet another [Reinforce: Magic Resistance]. And as soon as the three remaining cores became unprotected, Gene jumped into the fire and smashed them all with his staff. With that, the giant slime was no more.

Alex collapsed to the ground, barely staying on his knees by hugging a nearby wall, the immense headache and nausea assaults him mercilessly. He was done for the day as far as his body was concerned.

On the other end, the guards were getting up, coughing up water and gasping for breath, and when they were done, they glared at Gene and Tina, both standing over them, their weapons at the ready.

Tina, a mere thief was one thing, but against Gene, the one they call Sword Saint, the guards knew they had no chance at this distance, with them out of formation and on their knees. And so, they tossed their swords aside and surrendered.

While Tina was against the idea, Gene sent the guards away, their weapons left behind. Tina argued that they'll just come after them again, but Gene argued that they'll be long gone by then.

"You alright, Alex?" Gene went over and asked once everything was over.

"I feel terrible frankly," replied Alex, his face pale.

From his pouch, Gene took out a vial of clear blue liquid, a liquid Alex could somewhat recognized. "Here, drink it up," Gene said as he handed it over, to which Alex gladly took.

"Thanks." Alex drank gratefully, feeling much better after it hits his stomach.

"Isn't that a mana potion!? I can't believe someone as miserly as you is willing to part with something like that!" said Tina.

"Are these expensive?" Alex asked.

"Expensive!? They're made from herbs grown only in places with high mana density and takes years to cultivate. Even if you have the money, you may not even be able to buy it."

"The Administration had some in reserve. I grabbed a few before I left. That said, I only have two vials left, so let's use them sparingly."

"Says the one who made Alex cast all those spells in the first place."

"Hey, it's a good learning experience. Isn't that right, Alex?"

"Well... I do feel more confident in my control now that I had some time to get used to casting."

"You see, it's fine."

"If Alex says so..."

While letting Alex catch his breath for a bit, Tina and Gene gathered the broken cores to sell off later, and as soon as Alex is well enough they continued on their way, this time unobstructed.

"I wonder what that slime was guarding," Alex said, remembering that Gene had mentioned that the slime was designed mainly to chase people off.

"Whatever it was guarding, I say the slime itself was clumsily made. All of the actions it took suggest that it's a hasty patch work made from regular slimes," said Gene.

"You know, for a guy who could hardly use magic, you sure know a whole lot about it," Tina commented.

Immediately, Gene's expression began to sour. "Well, even I dream of being able to shoot fireballs at whim in some point of my life, before I realized what my [Gift] was."

"Too bad it all went awry, huh."

"Speaking of awry, what were those guards doing here? They don't patrol the sewers and on top of that, it seemed like they were looking for us."

"I'll betcha someone overheard our conversation at the bar and decided to sell us out. You know what they say, there's no honor among thieves, well, some thieves. And that's why I didn't want to discuss the plan right there and then. You never know if a sneaky bastard's listening in."

"Well, excuse me, but I didn't want to risk it after the failure of you first plan."

"It was outside of my control, none of it was my fault!"

And the two continued to bicker, but Alex paid no mind, he was starting to get used to it by now.

Eventually, amidst all the walking and bickering, they arrived at the end of the tunnel. Rows of iron bars were placed to keep things coming in or out, but beyond them, a light can be seen.

"Alex?"

"Sorry, but I don't think I'm well enough to cast yet."

"Why don't you do it, Gene? It's not as if you're completely incapable of using magic. Just use that staff of yours."

"I'm afraid the staff is out of mana, it's just a regular hitting stick now."

"What about your own mana?"

"I didn't really what to rely on that, but considering the situation, I suppose I have no choice in the matter."

Gene went forward to the iron bars and held his hand out, channeling mana towards his palm, gathering it. The sensation of gathering his own mana never felt right to him, while others had described it akin to gathering a puddle of water at the end of a pool, to him it always felt like gathering mist and trying to form the puddle out of dew. Still, he managed, and a bubble of force formed in between the bar, and then, rapidly it expanded, bending the iron bars and opening them wide enough for a person to pass through.

I'll have about four or five more of that before I'm out, Gene thought to himself. He was painfully aware of how much mana he had spent for that one very simple spell.

After passing through the bars, they finally reach the end of the tunnel, where the water flows into a forest, forming a pool beneath which in turn formed a stream that eventually flows into a river within the forest.

Alex looked up into the sky and saw the light of dawn, unpleasantly surprised by how long it had taken them to get thought the sewers. He feels so tired now that they're finally out of the city.

"It'll be much harder to find a hiding place once we reached a town. Let's just find a good spot in the forest and rest there," Gene suggested, and they all agreed.

And so, they found a nice spot amongst the tree and napped there with Gene taking the first watch, Alex second, and by the time it was Tina's turn she overslept and Gene took over for her.

***