Ethan examined the level 15 slime jiggling in front of him with interest. It had grown noticeably larger since he first summoned it, its gelatinous body no longer the small, pitiful blob it once was. Actually, it was still pitiful.

The thing looked a little cute but otherwise, it was completely useless. If he allowed the rats they would make a short work of the slimes in a couple of minutes. They were not even good punching bags.

Maybe four or five of them at the same time can hold down a rat for some time but in the end, the rat always clawed them into shreds.

Ethan crouched down, poking at it with his dagger. The blade barely sank into the surface before the slime jiggled in protest, its body undulating as it reformed almost instantly. He sighed helplessly. "At least I only have twenty of you."

He hoped that they would get more skills or maybe at least become a bit sturdier and whatnot with higher levels but so far, they weren't showing much promise.

"I will just take this as a good lesson. I need to choose my minions more carefully in the future." Ethan rubbed his temple as he watched one of the slimes flop onto a rat corpse, attempting to consume it. The process was painfully slow, the slime barely making a dent in the carcass.

Ethan groaned. "Alright, you guys get back now." After level 15 it took a lot of rats to gain another level and he still had a lot more minions to power level.

His evolution requirement of bringing all of his minions to level 25 truly sucked balls. This was precisely why he stopped with twenty rats and did not allow them to fill up the rest of his summoning slots.

As he dismissed the first slime with the rat carcass still inside its body, Ethan had an idea for an experiment and he ordered all of his other slimes to eat up a rat carcass each before dismissing them as well.

He had never paid attention to what they ate before and maybe that had something to do with their uselessness. Or maybe slimes were just useless in general. After all, they were just beginner-level monsters that everyone used for training. Only their cores had some registered uses and that too for basic alchemy potions.

Ethan soon dismissed all of his slimes and then summoned his nine spiders and his single green worm.

The spiders had proven to be more useful than he thought and he didn't mind spending the time and effort to level them up. Their only drawback was that they kept getting killed fast but maybe the level-ups would make them sturdier.

Then there was the green worm.

Ethan grimaced as he looked at the slow-moving, wriggling creature. "Hi there, buddy."

The worm barely reacted, just lazily undulating its fat, slimy body. So far, it had done absolutely nothing useful, and unlike the spiders, it didn't even seem to have any redeeming qualities. Unfortunately, he simply couldn't kick it out of the summoning list.

Ethan stared at the little worm for a while as it continued to slowly inch towards the rat barn. Yup, this thing was not going to level on its own anytime soon. He thought for a moment before calling Grug over and giving a few simple commands to the goblin.

The goblin snorted in what sounded like disgruntlement before using its fingers to pick up the worm from the ground. It then gently carried the worm inside when it used its other hand to grab a rat by its neck.

When the rat was almost dead, Grug made sure to place the worm on the exposed flesh and gave it a couple of seconds to take a small bite or lick or whatever it was that a worm did. After which, Grug immediately proceeded to finish off the rat.

[Ding! Your summon Green Worm has leveled up]

Ethan immediately received a notification. With a wry smile, he gave the goblin a thumbs up as it continued doing the same thing again and again.

Lia peeked over his shoulder, her expression a mix of amusement and curiosity. "Master, do you think the worm will get stronger?" She did not understand why her master was taking such special care of the little creature.

Ethan could only smile at her in response. "Just trying something out." He awkwardly added. He would be a lot more upset about all of this wasted time if not for the rat horde keeping his spirits up.

By now a third pile of rat corpses started forming outside the barn and the horde was still going strong.

Ethan did not complain. The more the merrier. He grinned from ear to ear as he watched all of his summons get their fill. Even the rats he had only just now added were already leveling up quite nicely.

Meanwhile…

Inside the big castle-like building at the center of Valdren city, a man was busily going through reports flashing in his system interface. As a city lord, his class entailed a lot of administrative work and if he slacked in the slightest he would lose his class.

Bilat sighed when he thought about the stories of his grandfather about an era long ago before the system ever showed up. It seemed during that time the Lords were lofty beings who barely had to do anything at all. They lived lives of debauchery and excess, with women and booze the only thing on their schedule.

But alas, he had been born in the wrong era. What was the point of being a Lord with a Lord class which pretty much kept handing him hours and hours of dull, boring mundane work? Nothing exciting ever happened in his life.

Bilat let out another sigh and opened up another document in his system interface when suddenly his blue translucent screen turned red.

[Ding! Warning! Warning! Warning!]

[Ding! Warning! Warning! Warning!]

[Ding! Warning! Warning! Warning!]