Slime Evolution

Chapter 17: 17 - Noise

When Lohan spawned in Elysium, he was surrounded by dozens, maybe even hundreds of Slimes rolling around randomly.

Gradually, those Slimes absorbed the surrounding plants and other Slimes, becoming more powerful, increasing their absorption speed, and causing them to move further and further away from the spawn to continue absorbing biomass.

Since the Slimes had no intelligence, they just rolled around randomly, spreading further and further into the forest, which made the task of finding other Slimes more difficult with each passing minute.

The day before, it took Lohan 1 hour to find each Slime, but today it was taking him more than 2 hours to find each Slime.

However, the quality of the Slimes he was finding was getting better and better, as the weaker Slimes were constantly dying to weaker monsters or even other Slimes.

When he found his first Slime of the day, the battle was much easier than the day before.

Lohan commanded his clone to keep absorbing biomass around him, without bothering with the battle, and simply rolled aggressively toward the other Slime.

His speed was already much greater than that of most of the Slimes he encountered, and with the upgrades to his Exoskeleton, Membrane, and control over his body, Lohan easily ran over the other Slime, absorbing 6 Biomass and receiving an upgrade to one of his Skills.

[Structural Stability Lv 4 -> Lv 5]

[Improves control over one’s own body.]

With the advancement of this Skill, Lohan felt as if the jelly of his body had become even lighter and more fluid to control.

Stopping for a second and thinking about extending a hand forward, a tentacle quickly emerged from his body and stretched forward, much thinner and with more precise movements than he could make before.

’Maybe this won’t directly improve my combat level much, but it could be useful at some point.

Satisfied with that, Lohan had his little clone approach him and continued rolling and exploring the forest.

After an hour, Lohan had accumulated enough biomass to purchase another useful upgrade.

[Mass Expansion Lv 3 -> Lv 4]

[Increases Bio-Mass volume and maximum capacity by 30%.]

This was one of the best upgrades Lohan could buy, costing 5.6 Bio and increasing the amount of Biomass he absorbed by 30% based on his base absorption, bringing the total value to 9.5 Bio/h.

The problem with this upgrade was that not only did it slightly decrease Lohan’s speed, but it also required a few dozen more Biomass to increase his size and receive this 30% upgrade.

But the advantage of this upgrade was that the upper limit of Biomass that Lohan could store also increased by 30%, rising from 20 to 26, and that was an exponential value!

With such a large stockpile, Lohan could now spend almost 3 hours accumulating biomass.

And Lohan took advantage of this, storing as much Biomass as possible to keep himself safe while exploring the forest.

The more time passed, the harder it became to find other Slimes, but Lohan didn’t give up, since he wasn’t losing Biomass because of it, and he had nothing better to do.

From time to time he would encounter some new insect, but with his current power, small insects no longer posed a threat to him.

And with normal insects, he needed to absorb several to get a new Skill, which was very difficult, so he just continued farming Biomass.

-xXx-

Two hours later, Lohan noticed something strange.

The trees around him had small marks on their trunks, marks made in approximately the same position on all the trees...

’Could there be a civilization around here?!’ Lohan thought excitedly.

Since he started playing Elysium, he hadn’t encountered any other players. From what he had seen in the real world about the game, there were several NPCs throughout the game who exchanged gold for real money. These NPCs were located in human cities, but since Lohan spawned in a forest, he had never come across anything like that.

’Wait... I’m a Slime, will they accept me?’ He was scared.

He had heard several people comment that Slimes were the weakest monsters in the game, the easiest monsters for beginners to kill and gain experience to level up easily.

If he arrived in a human city, wouldn’t the Players just kill him?!

Thinking about this, Lohan became even more frightened.

Knowing that he wasn’t powerful enough to face a human right now, Lohan gave up on this opportunity and turned around, fleeing from that place.

But then his [Instinctive Perception Lv 3] noticed a strange movement in the leaves of the bush ahead.

Knowing that there was no time to run away, Lohan did the best thing he could do, flattening himself and trying to camouflage himself in the grass, even stopping his digestion, which had not been paused at any time since he started playing.

Despite having 360-degree vision, Lohan still needed a direct line of sight to see his target, and since he had crouched down, he could only feel the vibration of the ground and hear a slight noise accompanying the vibrations.

These vibrations in the ground were rhythmic, with thumps on the ground that closely resembled the footsteps of a bipedal creature.

”I know that what is coming is bipedal, but I don’t know if it’s better that the cause of this is a human or a monster like a Goblin...”

In a short time, but what seemed like an eternity to Lohan, the vibrations and the sound of footsteps slowed down, but became more intense, indicating that the cause was very close to him.

Lohan looked around in fear, hoping not to be noticed, but with [Mass Expansion Lv 4], his size had already reached 22 centimeters in diameter, almost the same size as a basketball.

Even though he flattened himself down to hide, his slightly shiny blue body still stood out very much among the green grass.

When the bipedal being got close enough, Lohan saw what it was.

With thin white legs, dressed in a green outfit made of leaves, with straight, silky blonde hair, a wooden staff on her back, and a curious expression on her face that further emphasized her blue eyes, a girl of about 15 years old emerged from among the leaves.

But the most shocking thing was not even the dizzying speed at which the girl moved, which was much faster than Lohan’s top speed, but rather the shape of her ears.

With Lohan’s knowledge, the girl was clearly not human, but an elf!

And just as Lohan stared at the girl in amazement, the girl also stared at Lohan with wide eyes.

’Shit!’