"Okay, I think that’s hidden well enough," Lisa said with satisfaction, looking around the room and realizing that the dry leaves, beetle remains, and whatever else they’d found had finally managed to mask the glow of the stars on that chest.
As great as it was to have been granted the right to use that chest, the downside, that anyone with access to it could see inside, was a huge drawback.
Because of this, the pair felt that storing truly valuable items there wouldn’t be a good idea.
"I hope this disguise holds up until my staff reaches the Open World..." Lisa said thoughtfully, mentally calculating whether that would be enough or not.
"How’s their progress? Is it still a long way for them to reach Level 11?" Lohan asked curiously.
"No, my assistant is handling the ’pre-guild’ structure in the Novice Villages, ensuring that even though they’re separated by different Novice Villages, everyone has enough privileged information to accelerate their own progress, as well as providing sufficient real-world resources for them to convert into in-game resources to further speed up that development." She spoke matter-of-factly.
Hearing that, Lohan was surprised by this structure. "Wouldn’t it be easier to gather everyone in one Newbie Village and develop together?" he asked curiously.
But Lisa shook her head at that. "No, the Newbie Village each Player is placed in is decided randomly. Major financial groups are spending a fortune to recruit Players in the Newbie Villages they’re in, since developing synergy early on will give them a huge advantage when they reach the Open World."
"Ohh, that makes sense... and the location they’ll end up in the Open World is also random?" Lohan asked curiously, having no idea how it worked.
"There are two known ways to leave the Novice Villages. One is to leave randomly, being placed in some random small or medium-sized city that best suits your Race or Class. The other known method is to follow a friend who is already in the Open World and go somewhere near them, which is the method we’ll use," Lisa explained patiently.
"I don’t think those are the only methods... right?" Lohan asked, noticing the emphasis she placed on the word ’known’.
That question made the fox look at the Slime, who was currently lying on top of Queen Beetle’s body, and shoot a small fireball at him to keep his [Hemolymphatic Tissue] active, before answering. "For now, this is just a theory, since none of my people have managed to pull it off, but there’s a rumor that depending on how you act in Novice Village and the relationships you form with the people or monsters from Elysium who live there, it’s possible to influence where you’ll be sent when you come to the Open World."
This surprised Lohan, making him wonder just how great Lisa’s influence in the real world was to be able to obtain information like this, which ordinary Players like him couldn’t even imagine existed.
Thinking about the previous owner of this body, Lohan realized that from his perspective, if he had gone to Novato Village and landed a job with some financial conglomerate, he would likely have made enough money each month to pay off his own debt and wouldn’t have had to kill himself like he did.
’Well, as the young masters say, how lucky for me that you couldn’t see Mount Tai right in front of you, haha...’ He laughed inwardly, thinking about how foolish someone was who would be happier with a Common Base than with a Mythic Class AND Race.
After that, Lohan continued digesting the Queen’s corpse while Lisa went out to better explore their Guild’s new base.
To keep Lohan’s [Hemolymphatic Tissue] active, he created a tiny clone that attached itself to Lisa, so she could continue keeping him in combat even while not by his main body’s side.
Over the next few hours, Lohan carried out the tedious task of digesting the Queen’s corpse.
Given his high digestion rate, Lohan had an idea to keep himself from getting bored.
Evolve Skills and see what would happen.
To make it more interesting, he decided to focus on the skills that were close to level 11.
Most of the biomass he digested, he stored inside himself as a reserve tank, while the rest he used to evolve from time to time, so he wouldn’t get bored for too long.
[Mass Expansion Lv 9 → Lv 13]
The first evolution was Mass Expansion; feeling that he now had enough biomass in stock, Lohan finally didn’t care about the cost of filling the larger mass as it did when it leveled up. Spending a total of 260 Biomass just on the evolution, Lohan leveled up this skill four times, and his base diameter grew another 12 centimeters, reaching a total of 49 centimeters!
’Phew... if it weren’t for the Mana Stone I got that gave me the Magic to shrink my size, Lisa would hate me when she saw how big I am...’
With this increase in size, his digestion speed also skyrocketed!
Rising from 1,221.45 Bio/h to a staggering 1,657.68 Bio/h!
[NunuNote: For math nerds like me, the formula for calculating his biomass gain rate will be at the end of the Chapter.]
And then came the long-awaited ability!
[After 10 minor evolutions, Mass Expansion is undergoing a qualitative evolution...]
[New ability obtained, Super Mass Expansion!]
[Abilities - Super Mass Expansion: The user’s mass can expand beyond the usual limit, consuming biomass and sacrificing density to become even larger and engulf enemies.]
Reading what that ability did, Lohan got excited and tested it out.
Just as he spent biomass to increase his own size whenever this skill evolved, the cost to maintain his ’Super Expanded’ form was also proportional to the size he wanted to be.
From what he sensed, if he were willing to spend a few thousand units of biomass per second, he could even swallow that Beetle Queen whole, tremendously accelerating its digestion, but considering how much biomass he would waste on that, Lohan didn’t try it, content to simply test the effect by growing to a diameter of 1 meter and feeling what it was like to be that big again.
But as he looked around curiously, he saw a small white body entering the room again.
Lisa entered the room in a great mood; on the way, she had found two frozen beetles, just like the ones in the Queen’s room, but she hadn’t killed them, deciding to kill this one with Halon to share the experience.
When she looked ahead, what she saw made her eyes widen and the hair on her body stand on end.
"My God... no... you haven’t gotten bigger again... HALON!!!"
[NunuNotes: Slime Data for Nerds - 53.46 bio/h + (390% Mass Expansion) + (80% Passive Digestion) = 304.72 + (70% Clone) = 518.02 bio/h + (320% Hemolymphatic Tissue) = 1657.68 bio/h]