NunuNote: The initial development of the story is a little slow, with plenty of information to deepen the world and develop something more realistic.
Don't expect a protagonist who challenges the world and everyone in a few dozen chapters, or a story full of face slaps with clichés all the time.
For those who like something more realistic and immersive, welcome to Slime Evolution.
-xXx-
In an apartment in the suburbs, the sound of the television was what distracted Lohan from the noise outside.
[A total of 1.5 billion players were registered playing Elysium yesterday, millions of people quit their jobs to invest in a future in this game, including myself, who says goodbye tonight to...]
The image on the screen began to freeze with the presenter's smile showing a joy totally opposite to his life.
On the screen was a clean, white studio with a beautiful, well-dressed woman, while next to the TV screen was the wall of the small apartment, with mold rising to the ceiling and peeling paint hanging down.
He looked away from the TV and stared at the window. On the other side of the glass was a gray sky laden with dark clouds, old and worn buildings with exposed bricks, and people walking down the street wearing protective masks, their shoulders slumped and their faces blank.
Rising cautiously, Lohan staggered slightly to the refrigerator and saw only industrialized nutritional powders there.
He took one of the packages, tore it open into a disposable cup, probably used dozens of times, and turned on the tap. A greenish-brown liquid flowed out, thick and exuding an odor of rust and mold.
When it touched the "water," the powder reacted, bubbling until the smell disappeared, but the taste remained horrible.
He forced the liquid down his throat, leaning his back against the sink as his gaze rose to the rope hanging from the ceiling.
"In the end, you chose this cowardly way out..."
This had been a constant question in Lohan's mind since he arrived in this world a few hours ago, struggling with a rope hanging around his neck in a body that was not his own.
The original memories of this body came in waves as time passed.
[Buy an Elysium Neural Helmet and live the life you deserve!]
[Gold Coins will be purchased at a high price in real life!]
[Become a better version of yourself, be a better person!]
Since Elysium's announcement, several advertisements like these have popped up around the world, promising a better life, a way to escape this endless rat race.
And old Lohan believed it, taking out loans, maxing out credit cards, betting his promising future on a dream.
And for a brief moment, he believed and lived that dream.
Elysium was a world where rain didn't corrode the skin, where breathing clean oxygen was a pleasant sensation, and the sky still had color.
A virtual paradise that sold the poor a reason to keep working and the rich another way to get richer.
But the dream collapsed the first time he opened the Status screen.
[Name: Halon
Race: Slime (Mythical)
Class: Devourer (Mythical)
Level: 01
Experience: 0 / 100]
An eerie silence ensued after that.
He had achieved his dream of becoming a Mythical race... but the most useless one of all.
Guilds offered fortunes to players with rare races such as Elves, Werewolves, and Dwarves, and even unusual races such as Goblins received more than ordinary Human players, but who would want a Slime?
Lohan didn't even expect to receive a Mythic race; even being a human with an unusual class would have been enough for him, as he would still have hope of earning enough money to pay off the debts he had incurred.
But as soon as he called the Guilds offering himself as a Mythical Race Player, when they heard the name of his race, he heard a "click," or an "I'm sorry," and silence returned.
In desperation, the former Lohan tried to fight it, looking for ways to change his class, his race, his luck...
But in Elysium, just like in real life, his race and class were automatically generated when his account was created by an AI, and nothing could be redone.
At some point, he gave up trying...
And despair led him to the rope still hanging in front of him.
But for this Lohan, it still seemed like a foolish choice.
Having spent his entire life stuck in a hospital bed with constantly flashing screens, with tubes connected to his body, needing the help of machines even to breathe...
Throughout his entire life, he had never been able to move even a finger.
He felt like nothing more than a dead weight that others supported out of pity.
Looking at his current hand, feeling the living muscles, the firm fingers holding that disposable cup... Lohan couldn't control himself and smiled.
"Even if this world is in ruins, here I can be someone..." He thought.
Ding, Dong...
The doorbell rang.
Lohan froze. Through the intercom camera, he saw a fat man covered in gold jewelry and a hologram floating over his left eye.
When he saw that man's face, memories came flooding back to him, and Lohan remembered who he was... Oscar, the owner of the apartment where he lived.
Seeing the impatience on the man's face, Lohan quickly opened the door.
"Finally, kid, I thought you were hiding," the man said rudely as he entered the worn apartment without bothering to be polite.
"I was in the bathroom, I came as soon as the doorbell rang." Lohan replied, copying the calm and submissive tone from his memories of how this body acted.
Looking around in disgust, Oscar frowned at the stench and projected a hologram in front of Lohan.
"I don't care, the rent is late."
Lohan looked at the hologram that read: [Rent Payment Due: $300].
Taking a deep breath, he took the old cell phone from his pocket, something only poor people still used, and opened the bank account app.
[Atlas Bank]
Account Holder:Lohan R. Hayes
Current Balance:$ -30,132.84
Available Loan Limit:$368.00]
Gulping at the sight of his negative balance, he still requested another $300 loan to pay the rent, leaving less than $68 of credit available for that month.
[New Balance: $ -30,432.84]
'Increasing my debt from $903 to $912 per month won't change much now...' He thought with a sigh.
Even though he owed more than $30,000, he didn't have to pay that money directly. As long as he paid the 3% monthly interest, the bank wouldn't charge him any loan amortization.
The problem was that even if he paid that $912 monthly, the debt would never decrease. He would need to earn more than that to reduce the amount, and with his current income, that seemed impossible.
Oscar clicked his tongue and commented as he left. "All right, kid, next month's rent will be $310. Get your money ready."
The slamming door made the ceiling lamp sway, which illuminated a box in the corner of the room.
'Luckily he didn't see the box...' Lohan sighed in relief.
Carefully picking up the box, Lohan placed it on the table and read the label.
[Elysium Neural Helmet]
This was the helmet used to send the Players' consciousness to Elysium.
Knowing that this was his only chance to earn enough money to pay the interest in a month, Lohan lay down on the old, worn-out mattress he slept on and put the helmet on his head.
Despite the novelty of having a functional body tempting him to spend the day exploring this sensation, the pressure of knowing that he didn't have enough money to pay off the loan in 30 days made him focus on what was important.
Pressing the start button, Lohan felt a sensation very similar to when his consciousness came into this body.
Lights flashed around him, as if he were traveling through hyperspace, and in the next instant he was in a completely different place.
Lohan didn't need to "open his eyes," because as soon as he arrived, he could already see everything around him perfectly.
A beautiful blue sky with birds flying above, a dirt floor surrounded by grass and trees that looked gigantic, next to it was a blue stream with fish swimming freely, and a few hundred meters away there were dozens of gelatinous blue balls bouncing and rolling freely.
Looking closely, Lohan was surprised by his ability to see 360 degrees.
No matter which direction he was focusing on, he could still see and process everything around him as if he had been born that way!
And although he had never needed to wear glasses in either world, his vision here was even better than in the real world.
But it wasn't all roses. After a few seconds of adjustment, his 360-degree vision captured a curious scene.
The gelatinous balls around him were other Slimes, just like him, but instead of jumping and rolling innocently as Lohan had imagined, those Slimes were actually consuming all the grass in the area.
That's why the place he was in was just dirt instead of grass like the terrain around him, probably where Slimes had already devoured it.
Curious about that situation, Lohan wondered if there were other Players among that group of dozens of Slimes, which could represent risks and opportunities. But after a few minutes of observation, he realized that this was very unlikely.
The way they moved was not human at all... there was no pause, they just rolled, digested the grass, and rolled again instantly.
If a human were controlling any of those bodies, the way they would act would be different, but that was a good thing for Lohan.
"Status," Lohan thought.
[Name: Halon
Race: Slime (Mythical)
Class: Devourer (Mythical)
Level: 01
Experience: 0 / 100]
Looking at the status screen and his Class, Lohan realized that [Devourer] really matched what the other Slimes were doing.
Deciding to test it out, he rolled to a corner where there were few slimes with an ease he didn't think he would have, and stood on top of a small tuft of grass.
Surprisingly, as soon as the grass entered his gelatinous body, a window popped up.
[Organic Matter Detected]
[Wild Grass (Low Purity)
>> Biomass: +0.3 Units
New feature unlocked: [Biomass]
Biomass can be converted into vital energy, used to reinforce the body structure.
Do you wish to absorb?]
"Yes?" Lohan replied uncertainly.
This was his first time doing something like this, since the old Lohan hadn't even tested his abilities before leaving the game and looking for a spot in a guild.
[Starting Absorption...]
When the process began, Lohan felt energy being drained and something changing in his structure that touched the grass, slowly corroding it.
Very slowly...
It took a total of 10 minutes to consume this small handful of Wild Grass, which explained why the other Slimes had moved only a few hundred meters away from Lohan's original Spawn.
'Status.' He thought again.
[Name: Halon
Race: Slime (Mythical)
Class: Devourer (Mythical)
Level: 01
Experience: 0 / 100
Bio-Mass: 0.3]
'Can I do anything with this Bio-Mass?' he wondered.
But there was no option, so he spun around again and stopped on top of another tuft of grass.
[Organic Matter Detected]
[Wild Grass (Low Purity)
>> Biomass: +0.4 Units
Do you want to absorb it?]
This time, instead of answering, Lohan tried to control the energy in his body to repeat the action of absorbing the grass, and although it was a little more difficult, it worked!
In 13 minutes, he completely consumed that tuft of grass and received an additional 0.4 Units of Biomass, increasing his total to 0.7.
Excited, Lohan quickly rolled over to the next tuft of grass and started the process again.
In a few minutes, he gained another 0.3 Units, and his total rose to 1.0!
When the last blade of grass was absorbed, a window popped up in front of him:
[Biological Energy detected.]
[Function: Organic Evolution unlocked!]
...
[Biological Energy detected.]
[Function: Organic Evolution unlocked!]
'A new function was unlocked when I accumulated 1 Unit of Bio-Mass...' Lohan realized.
Looking at the screen in front of him, Lohan didn't think twice and opened the Status screen to see what this Organic Evolution meant.
[Name: Halon
Race: Slime (Mythical)
Class: Devourer (Mythical)
Level: 01
Experience: 0 / 100
Bio-Mass: 1.0]
---
[Organic Evolution]
[Membrane Reinforcement Lv 1 – 1 Bio]
Strengthens the outer layer of the body.
[Efficient Digestion Lv 1 – 1 Bio]
Increases the speed at which organic matter is dissolved. +10% digestion rate.
[Structural Stability Lv 1 – 1.5 Bio]
Improves control over one's own body.
[Viscous Flow Lv 1 - 1.5 Bio]
Increases agility in controlling one's own body.]
Looking at the Organic Evolution screen, Lohan was shocked.
When he saw the news saying that Oracle, the game's AI, could create unique and customized classes to better fit the players' personalities, he didn't imagine he would receive a class like this!
Of all the players who posted their classes on the internet, everyone Lohan saw followed a line of evolution very similar to the MMORPG standard he had seen in the other world.
Each class had skill trees with abilities corresponding to their classes that would be unlocked by level.
But his line of evolution was completely different from that!
It was as if, instead of playing an MMORPG, Lohan was playing an incremental game, and for everyone who had played this type of game, they knew that although the beginning was slow, in the late game the potential gains that these games delivered were incomparable!
Analyzing the options available to him, Lohan was curious to buy the [Membrane Reinforcement Lv 1] and see what changes it would bring to his body, but thinking long term, the best option without a doubt was [Efficient Digestion Lv 1], which would increase his digestion speed by 10%.
So without thinking twice, he chose that evolution.
[Name: Halon
Race: Slime (Mythical)
Class: Devourer (Mythical)
Level: 01
Experience: 0 / 100
Bio-Mass: 1.0]
Evolutions:
[Efficient Digestion Lv 1 – 1 Bio]
Increases the speed at which organic matter is dissolved. +10% digestion rate.]
When the evolution was selected, Lohan felt the energy he used to digest the grass circulate slightly faster in his body.
To test this upgrade, Lohan rolled over to a tuft of grass just ahead and began digestion again.
He could subtly feel his energy being drained faster, but in return, the speed at which the grass was being drained was also faster than before.
Using the clock on the Elysium menu as a reference, Lohan realized that instead of the 10 minutes it took him to digest 0.3 Units of Biomass, this time it only took him 9 minutes!
Excited, he continued, focused on absorbing more grass.
While his body was working, Lohan looked around and observed how the other Slimes were absorbing.
Although they all looked the same at first glance, each one had a different characteristic.
Some Slimes were larger than others, and these Slimes were able to cover more grass with each digestion, so they were able to digest more grass per second.
Other Slimes had a slightly higher digestion rate than others, moving more frequently than those with slower digestion.
There was even a difference in the speed of the Slimes, with some able to roll faster and jump higher than others.
"So I'm not the only Slime with Biological Evolutions... apparently everyone else can evolve like me too." Lohan analyzed what he was seeing. "That's understandable, considering that Slimes are at the bottom of the food chain, it makes sense that their line of evolution and progress would be different."
Looking at the amount of grass already absorbed around them, it was understandable that each Slime had already obtained enough Bio-Mass to achieve at least one evolution.
But despite all the evolutions they had achieved, their biggest disadvantage was also clear.
While rolling around to get more biomass from a tuft of grass, one Slime accidentally fell into the stream and was carried away by the current.
Another Slime was simply jumping from side to side, and on one of its jumps, it landed on a sharp rock that pierced its gelatinous body and reached its inner core, causing the Slime to spill out onto the ground, dead.
Despite the immense evolutionary potential that the Slimes had, there was apparently no upgrade on the list that improved the intelligence of these beings, so even if they became bigger, faster, or more resistant, because they lacked intelligence, they still died in the most idiotic ways possible.
Surprisingly, when Lohan was looking curiously at the Slime core thrown on the ground, a battle began!
Many of the Slimes that were around apparently saw/sensed that core there and began to jump and roll desperately in that direction.
Strangely, several Slimes did not react to the core and just continued to digest grass, but dozens of others noticed it and rushed to try to absorb it.
The first to reach the core was the smaller, faster Slime that Lohan had noticed. Apparently, that Slime used all of its Bio-Mass on speed, making it at least a third faster than the others.
As soon as it covered the core with its body, it stood still, focused on digesting it.
But that didn't stop the other Slimes from continuing, even if they were slower.
In a few seconds, a slightly larger Slime arrived and, without worrying about anything, jumped on top of the smaller Slime, and a grotesque scene began to unfold.
With his enhanced vision, Lohan saw in detail the scene of the larger Slime slowly digesting the smaller Slime's body until it approached its core!
But the battle didn't end there. The other Slimes that were on their way also arrived, and they all began jumping on top of where the core was originally, causing these Slimes to mix and a mess of mutual digestion to occur.
The smaller Slime that arrived first didn't even finish digesting the core it found when the larger Slime digested its body and began to digest its core.
After a few minutes, the core was completely digested by the second Slime, giving it enough Bio-Mass to achieve another Organic Evolution and allowing it to begin to struggle.
But just when Lohan thought he would evolve into something that could help in this carnage, the speed at which he was struggling increased slightly...
'He didn't use his biomass to increase his speed, right?'
...
The Slimes' carnage was in full swing, but Lohan knew that trying to join in on the mess would not end well, even if the potential reward was very good, so he contented himself with continuing to digest grass, and in 38 minutes he had accumulated another 1.5 Units.
Opening the store, Lohan looked at what he would buy next and quickly made a choice.
[Organic Evolution]
[Viscous Flow Lv 1 - 1.5 Bio]
[Increases agility in controlling one's own body by 10% of current agility and controls.
When that choice was made, Lohan felt as if his body had become lighter, and the speed at which the gelatin around his core moved under his command increased.
His estimate was that his speed had increased by 10%.
'If the trees around me are of normal size, I would say that my previous speed was 0.25 meters per second, now it has increased to 0.275 m/s, meaning that instead of taking 4 seconds to roll one meter, now it will only take me 3.6 seconds.' Lohan thought excitedly.
And what excited him most about this was that this statistic scaled in percentage based on his previous speed!
In other words, 10 levels in this evolution did not mean a 100% increase, but rather 160%!
Among all the possibilities Lohan had to choose from, survival was the priority.
The first Slime in that battle only died because he was stupid enough to keep digesting the Slime's core while others came to try to kill him.
If he was fast enough to get to the core first, he also had enough speed to run away with that core, or at least run away alive.
Just as if a predator appeared in that area, the slower Slimes would surely be the first to die.
"If I'm alive, I can farm as much biomass as I want, but if I die, only God knows where I'll end up."
With the mindset that he would prioritize staying alive, Lohan decided to focus on speed for his next evolutions, at least so he wouldn't become such an easy target in that group.
For the next level of this skill, Lohan needed to accumulate biomass for 56 minutes, and his speed increased to 0.30 m/s.
[Viscous Flow Lv 2 - 1.88 Bio]
In that last hour, the Slimes just continued to consume grass while the battle for the dead Slime's core was still going on.
After another 1 hour and 10 minutes, Lohan accumulated 2.4 Biomass and evolved Viscous Flow again, increasing his speed to 0.33 m/s.
[Viscous Flow Lv 3 - 2.34 Bio]
With this improvement, Lohan felt that his speed was equal to that of the Slime that first reached the core of the dead Slime, probably the highest speed among the Slimes so far, which gave him a sense of relief.
As much as the feeling of progress was very enjoyable, with the time for each evolution increasing more and more, Lohan was almost falling asleep.
Fortunately, something interesting happened.
The mixture of dozens of Slimes trying to devour the core of the unfortunate one who jumped on the rock finally showed a winner.
Lohan didn't even know who had won, since at that point all the Slimes had just mixed together, leaving a mess of cores there.
But what happened next made Lohan worry.
The speed at which the cores inside that monstrosity were being absorbed increased, and after a few minutes it increased again, and again.
Until the size of that Slime also increased.
With the percentage increase it received, added to the already gigantic mass it had by absorbing dozens of other Slimes, that creature was now at least 8 times Lohan's size!
The Slime that won that war was undergoing Evolution after Evolution with how much biomass it was absorbing from those cores.
And for some reason, Lohan felt that this was not a good sign.
'A bigger Slime means it has more gelatin to spin, which means a speed upgrade is more powerful on it, which means it will be much faster than a smaller Slime with the same level of [Viscous Flow], meaning even with my Skill at level 3, I will still be easy prey for it!' Lohan soon realized.
'And considering that that Slime grew so much after digesting other cores, it's very likely that after tasting the sweetness of rapid evolution and seeing no worthy opponents, it will try to consume the other weaker Slimes.'
Understanding that in a few hours, or minutes, he would soon become the target of that monstrosity, Lohan didn't think twice and abandoned the tuft of grass he was digesting and began to roll away from there.
The other Slimes, oblivious to the fate that awaited them, continued to happily digest grass while enjoying the sweet sunlight under that blue sky.
Lohan, on the other hand, rolled through the forest as if the big Slime was rolling behind him.
Even rolling forward, Lohan could see everything around him... the leaves breaking beneath him, insects fleeing underneath, and the sun's reflections fragmenting in the drops of his own jelly.
Through the Slime's vision, everything was more vivid, slower, closer.
It was only after 30 minutes of rolling that Lohan felt minimally safe.
With a pathetic speed of 0.33 meters per second, Lohan only managed to distance himself 600 meters (656 yards) in those 30 minutes, which was not 100 percent safe, but considering that the Slimes' intelligence was not the highest, it was enough safety for Lohan.
In those 30 minutes, he prioritized passing over grass and bushes to farm more biomass, gaining 1 more unit while fleeing, but some bushes had thorns, which caused his membrane to tear, and a strange cold ran through his body, as if his density was escaping through cracks.
With the cut in the membrane that held the gelatin together, his body began to leak, and a feeling of weakness spread from the inside out.
The pain spread through his body like a cold current, and the sensation of the liquid flowing out was so realistic that Lohan felt chills.
'Am I going to die because of a bush?!' he thought in fear. 'Wait, didn't the biomass description say I could use it to heal myself? System, help me heal myself, use my biomass for that!'
But nothing happened.
In desperation, Lohan remembered the feeling he had when he controlled his body to digest grass, with the feeling of what it was like to use Biomass to Evolve, and tried to circulate the energy in his body while spending biomass.
Surprisingly, the energy ran through the core and began to consume the Biomass. His body glowed in soft shades of blue, pulsing slowly as the lost gelatin regenerated, drop by drop.
For a few seconds, everything stopped.
There was no sound of wind, of leaves... just the soft pulsing of the gelatin recomposing itself.
Then...
shlp... shlp... shlp...
A wet, dragging noise came from behind.
