Alwin’s eyes fluttered open and he found himself staring at the ceiling. How long had he been out for? He tried to sit up, but even the slightest bit of movement sent a wave of ache through him. His whole body was sore. It was like he had worked out every single muscle all at the same time and now the lazy gods had come to punish him.

  "Relax, slime boy apprentice of mine," a voice called out next to him.

  It didn't take a genius to know that was Lapis.

  "Yeah, relax," another voice said. "Here, have a muffin."

  That was Gus.

  "I'm sorry, Alwin," a third voice chimed in.

  It was uncharacteristic of the person, but judging from the pitch and the vegetable aftertaste her words left him, that had to be Uchronia. Why was she apologizing to him?

  "Where am I? What happened?" Alwin asked.

  "You're in the med bay," Lapis said. "And what happened to you? It's just a little something called overwork."

  "Overwork? I'm pretty over with work, but how does that explain what happened to me?"

  "Let me dumb it down for you slime boy. Between refining Essence, being my guinea slime, the tribulation, getting into a fight with your classmate, ingesting a third-rate pill, and training. When's the last time you rested? When's the last time you ate? When's the last time you even used the bathroom? Your body couldn't handle the stresses and it kind of just shut down. "

  Alwin's worst nightmares had come true. He had been actually doing work. This whole time he thought he was just having fun.

  "But wait, what does eating a pill have to do with—" Alwin felt bile begin to pile up in his throat"—overworking myself?"

  "Well, your body had to do extra work to remove all the toxins you ate, so it counts," Lapis said, with nary a worry in her voice, just her usual chirpy self.

  "Sorry, Alwin. I shouldn't have fed you that Medium Healing Pill. And I'm sorry for causing you trouble, Minister Lapis," Uchronia said.

  "Do I get to try a pill?" Gus asked, completely oblivious to the situation.

  "Yup, you shouldn't have," Lapis said. "Pills are a tricky thing, especially when they’re made by someone who’s self-taught. Too many weird side effects. Not worth the hassle. That's why I pay someone to make pills for me. The trick is to buy in bulk so that you can get a discount."

  "So the pills did this to me?" Alwin asked.

  "I'd say about 1% of it give or take. My math ain't the best, so I may be wrong. Anyway, it doesn't matter. What you need is bed rest and regular rest—or just rest rest."

  "But what about the final exams?" Alwin asked.

  "No idea. Not my department," Lapis said. "But, honestly? I'm sure you'll do fine, prep or no prep. Anyway, now that you're awake. See ya, wouldn't want to be ya." Lapis disappeared in a flash of light—teleportation.

  "The exams are in a week's time, Alwin. I think it's best that you rest up before it. I'll try to talk to Milvus to be more lenient about your grading. It is partially my fault too," Uchronia said.

  "You don't have to do that," Alwin said. Deep down he really wanted her to do it. He got to rest and had an easier time passing. Who wouldn't want that?

  "Just let me talk to Mr. Milvus, okay? You're doing a good job. Never expected you of all people to collapse from overworking yourself. But, now you need to rest, okay."

  Alwin was delighted. This was even more good news. Uchronia's perception of him had risen up again. This calls for a celebration! He would do this victory dance, but any movement sent a wave of jiggly pain throughout his rotund body.

  "So, does that mean I can try a pill, Uchronia?" Gus asked once again, interrupting the moment.

  "No, Gus. Don't be a nuisance and stop asking me. "

  "Not even half a pill?"

  "For the last time, no. And don't disturb, Alwin. He needs his rest." Uchronia walked out of the med bay, dragging Gus along with her.

  Now it was just Alwin—and technically Winal and Niwla—all alone with their thoughts. He didn't have to train. He didn't have to study. He didn't have to do anything, but rest. It was the perfect life.

  Time crawled at a snail's pace. Alwin lay there, staring up at the tiled ceiling. With nothing else to do, he had been entertaining himself by counting the number of dots across the surface of the tiles. There were 412 on the tile right above him. He was confident about that, because he had counted it about twenty times already.

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  His body was a little bit more mobile now, allowing him to check the clock. The amount of time that had elapsed? 30 minutes.

  Who knew resting would be so boring?

  With nothing to do and still too tired to actually move, Alwin did the only thing he could do other than sleep. He entered his Core.

  Inside, he found Niwla and Winal working on the latest iteration of the new spell crafting institute. When Alwin had passed out, so did Niwla and Winal. That unfortunately meant that everything that they had painstakingly worked on was reset. Now, they were focused on restoring everything back to how it originally was.

  Winal was busy setting up the conveyor belt line, while Niwla focused on getting the DIY freezers set up—most of it anyway. The most important part could only be done by Alwin, of course. For he was a genius of the nth degree.

  Alwin got a good look at how Winal constructed the conveyor belt. As per his suspicions, the belt itself was made out of paper, but he didn't realize what type of paper until now. It was toilet paper. And the rollers underneath? Toilet rolls. Way to kill two birds with one stone—or perhaps two slimes with one stone? Or even two birds with one slime? Two slimes with one slime?

  Yeah… Alwin was rambling again.

  Niwla had made some design improvements to the freezers—or should we say freezer. No 's'. Singular. Instead of multiple smaller units, a colossal box, ten times the size of a standard, stood at the start of the conveyor belt. To match, gigantic ice trays were in the middle of being constructed. Judging by how many hands were involved in this project, it was safe to say that Winal was assisting Niwla while working on the conveyor belt at the same time.

  Talk about an overachiever. He was making Alwin look bad.

  "Glad for you to finally show up," Niwla said, spotting Alwin.

  "Well, I figured you'd need some help after the reset." Alwin lied.

  "Are you sure it's not because you got bored?" Niwla asked.

  Drats! Alwin had been found out. How was this possible? Time to lie again.

  "What? Nooo," Alwin said, dragging out the words.

  "You know we're essentially the same person, right? Just with different personalities," Niwla said. "Anyway, right now me and Winal are in the middle of setting up the production line for Ice Arrows. All we need from you is the snowstorm. Preferably extra strong."

  "One extra strong snowstorm coming right up!" Alwin declared.

  Clouds brewed overhead and snow began to pour down from the heavens. Without missing a beat, mental hands ascended skywards and began to compress the dark clouds while dragging the storm straight toward the freezer.

  Another huge conglomeration of hands dashed toward the door handle of the huge freezer. It opened ever so slowly and the snowstorm was slotted right at the top. Snow began to pour down from above as the temperature within it dropped. Inside the freezer, Alwin spotted multiple slots, presumably for the giant ice trays.

  Looks like there were some really big upgrades being cooked up.

  "We're going for giant Ice Arrows now?" Alwin asked.

  "What? No. It's just for mass production. Although what you said is intriguing. I never thought of literally scaling up the production," Niwla said. "Anyway, here look."

  Niwla guided Alwin to the ice trays. Upon closer inspection, he realized that there were multiple molds of regular sized Ice Arrows, arranged together, within a single ice tray. It was as if Niwla had just stitched together multiple smaller trays to make a really big one, which he probably did with the help of Winal.

  "Huh, neat," Alwin said. "So, what can I do to help?"

  "Honestly? Do nothing," Niwla said.

  "But, why?" Alwin whined, dragging out the words once again.

  "You heard Lapis. The main body is overworked. Frankly, we shouldn't even be doing this right now, but time's ticking," Niwla said. "Don't move and don't cause any trouble. Last thing we want is for all of us to get knocked out and we’d have to redo everything—again.."

  "Fine," Alwin huffed..

  Even though he was in control of the main body, he wasn't even allowed to do anything. Talk about lame.

  In fact, Alwin was feeling rebellious today—just like every other day. He wasn't going to move the body, but he'd be doing something else.

  While Niwla got the Ice Arrow production set up, Alwin would find a way to mass produce his Blasts. Take that, Niwla!

  However, he had no idea how to do that. Creating them one by one was easy. Transporting them to the edge of his Core was easy as well—thanks Winal! But, how would he make his Blasts en masse? Could paper mache even be done in bulk? Technically yes, but it would involve a lot of hands and even more balloons.

  What if he pulled a page from Niwla's book? Molds!

  Too bad he didn't know how to make plastic molds like Niwla. But, he did know how to play around with clay, which should be good enough.

  At the bottom of the mana pool, his mental hands scooped up some mana in the form of wet clay. From there he molded it, borrowing a toilet roll from Winal to flatten his creation until there were two perfectly flat rectangular slabs.

  With that done, he just needed to make a hole for his Spirit Blast. It was the usual process of paper mache, shoving it into an oven to let it dry, and tada—Spirit Blast.

  From there, he squished the Spirit Blast into one of the molds, and then used the other one to make a Spirit Blast sandwich.

  When he removed the top layer, he picked up the Spirit Blast and tossed it away—he didn't need it anymore. Now he had two square clay pieces with semi-spheres indented.

  Now all he had to do was chuck it into the oven to let it dry. Once done, he retrieved it and took a look at his masterpiece. Two pieces that, when squished together, would make a Spirit Blast.

  Except that Alwin made a crucial mistake. Even with a mold, he didn't know how it would help with his paper mache endeavors.

  Oh well. He'd just have to make Spirit Blasts made out of clay instead. It was upgrades, people. Upgrades!

  Alwin spent the next few days working on creating Spirit Blasts and their variations out of clay rather than his usual paper mache method. It was hard to test it out when he wasn't allowed to launch any spells out of his Core, but that would be a problem for future him.

  Niwla and Winal spent the remaining time refining the Ice Arrow production facilities and the transportation system. All of this took place as the main body lay down in bed, seemingly in a daze.

  In reality, Alwin, Niwla, and Winal were hard at work preparing for the final exams. Expected for Niwla but not for Alwin. But when you're bored and there's nothing else to do, you end up doing work—the very thing Alwin despised. Oh well.

  Eventually, the day of reckoning had arrived.

  It was exam day.