Exhausted from having slept little the night before, attending college during the day, and playing a few more hours in the repetitive process of digesting grass nonstop, Lohan was satisfied with that day’s progress and went to sleep.
The next day was Saturday, the day the old Lohan used to earn some extra money to live better, but considering the large debt of $30,000 he had, and the $1,000 installment he had to pay at the end of the month, doing a job to earn $20 would not change anything.
The only alternative he had to deal with this problem was Elysium, and that’s what he decided to do all day.
"With a whole day available to play, I think I’ll be able to make a big breakthrough!"
The problem was that after hours of nonstop grass digestion over the past few days, Lohan began to feel something he didn’t expect to feel... boredom.
Since he started playing, he had just been slowly rolling around the clearing, absorbing small leaves, flowers, and roots, watching the Biomass numbers go up, buying upgrades, which was fun for a while, but the hours of silent grinding were tedious. Even though it was efficient, he couldn’t help but think about how slow that progress seemed.
"If I continue at this pace, at least for the next few days my life will be boring..." he thought, staring at the ground with slight discouragement, while the jelly of his body continued to digest the grass beneath him.
It was then, in the middle of the grass, that he noticed something different. Tiny dots moving in a straight line, carrying pieces of leaves and hiding among the dry branches.
Ants.
At that moment, an idea crossed his mind... absurd, but tempting.
’These little things are small, but they are literally living machines of strength, endurance, and efficiency... if I can absorb some of them, with luck I can get useful biomass, maybe even improve some skills!
The only animal he had consumed was the bloodsucker slug, which not only gave him a new skill, but also made one of his existing skills evolve.
If he gained a skill and an evolution for every monster he killed, these ants would be a gold mine!
The problem was that, looking at their size, Lohan wasn’t very confident about that.
’How much biomass can an ant like this have? ’ he wondered uncertainly.
Despite his desire, Lohan soon realized that there was an obvious obstacle: he was too slow... or rather, those ants were frighteningly fast!
Lohan knew he wasn’t fast, his speed was only 0.33 m/s before, and after becoming bigger, that speed dropped to 0.31 m/s, almost a 10% drop.
The ants, from what he had analyzed, had a speed of 0.34 m/s, which was only slightly faster than his, but considering their ability to climb trees and the reinforcements they could call in, which would make it difficult for him to escape... he needed to compensate for that first.
Taking a deep breath, Lohan began to digest grass as he slowly approached the path these ants were traveling, while analyzing them.
These ants were different from the ants he knew in the other world.
[Viscous Flow Lv 3 -> Lv 4 - 2.93 Bio] - 0.31 m/s -> 0.34 m/s.
[Increases agility in controlling one’s own body by 10% per level.]
Unlike the ants in his previous world, these ants were much larger, perhaps as big as half a human finger.
The larger size not only explained the greater speed of these ants, but also indicated greater strength and endurance...
[Viscous Flow Lv 4 -> Lv 5 - 3.66 Bio] - 0.34 m/s -> 0.37 m/s.
’But even though the ants are much stronger and more resilient in proportion to their size, my way of battling them will be to absorb them into myself and resist their escape... and even though they are strong, they are still small, so even if they are strong, they won’t be able to tear me apart.’
That was a good sign.
Looking at the path the ants were following, Lohan saw that they moved in a perfectly coordinated line... a steady stream of dozens of small creatures going back and forth, carrying fragments of leaves, twigs, and even pieces of other insects.
But every few minutes, a slightly smaller ant would leave the group and walk in seemingly random directions.
[Viscous Flow Lv 5 -> Lv 6 - 4.57 Bio] - 0.37 m/s -> 0.41 m/s.
’A scout ant!’
This was perfect! Lohan was worried that if he attacked one ant, the others would also join the battle and he would lose in the war of numbers, but with the scout ants, he had his chance!
The problem was that these ants were also faster...
Even with his new speed, which was already slightly superior to the worker ants, the scout ants were still slightly faster than him, but only by a small margin.
[Viscous Flow Lv 6 -> Lv 7 - 5.71 Bio] - 0.41 m/s -> 0.45 m/s.
Now at Lv 7, the price of Leveling the Skill was already getting heavy... with the 4.72 Bio he earned per hour, he could still buy upgrades in less than an hour of grinding, but from here on out, the time would exceed 60 minutes...
’I’ll buy just one more upgrade, just to be safe...’
Now that he had a goal in mind, even though he was farming just like before, the game no longer seemed boring.
Not only did he feel that he was very close to his goal, but he also had something to watch and analyze.
Observing these ants for 3.5 hours, Lohan was able to analyze a subtle pattern in the scout ants, and when he was about to accumulate 5.71 bio, he moved to the route where the next scout would come.
[Viscous Flow Lv 7 -> Lv 8 - 7.13 Bio] - 0.45 m/s -> 0.50 m/s.
’Finally half a meter per second!’
He was still slow, slower than a small human child, but currently twice as fast as ordinary Slimes!
And in his line of sight, a lone ant was finally coming.
Ants see with terrible quality, seeing everything as mere blurry images, but their perception of movement is extremely high, as if they see the world in low resolution but at high FPS.
To deal with this, Lohan stood completely still, letting the ant approach him on its own, curious and interested in what this thing was, and whether it could be nutritious for the colony.
Despite being a fast insect, the ant was not moving at full speed. As an explorer, its job was to understand everything around the colony and look for any useful information.
So Lohan had to be patient, watching her small steps slowly approaching, while getting distracted by strange things along the way.
When the small insect finally entered his range, Lohan instantly began to roll in that direction, startling the little ant, who thought quickly and tried to turn around to escape.
But despite using all six legs to turn and run, that small delay was enough for Lohan to cover the distance between them and throw his gelatinous body over it.
As soon as his Slime body covered the insect, his gelatinous mass began to corrode the ant, and notifications popped up.
[Forced Absorption—Starting...]
[Hostile Organic Matter Detected]
[Efficiency: +20% due to Hemolymphatic Tissue Lv 1]
[Hemolymphatic Tissue Lv 1]
[During combat or under active damage, the conversion of absorbed matter into vital energy is accelerated by +20%.]
As soon as the notifications appeared, the ant, which was already being digested quickly, began to struggle even faster inside Lohan’s gelatinous body.
Despite having monstrous strength in proportion to its size, without a foothold or anything really solid for it to grab onto and attack, that strength was almost completely useless.
In one minute, the ant’s outer layer was pierced, in the next minute the ant lost its life, and in less than three minutes its body was completely digested.