Realizing that Lisa really wasn’t going to talk about what had just happened, Lohan thought that perhaps there were some side effects to using that evolution and decided to be more careful about it in the future.
Realizing that talking about it wasn’t a good idea, he decided to change the subject.
Lisa had obviously experienced some strange sensation because of him, so he didn’t take her "sudden outburst" to heart, pretending nothing had happened and making a suggestion.
"So... didn’t you say there would be a reward for completing the first Elysium dungeon? Why haven’t we received anything?" he asked, clearly changing the subject.
Realizing he wouldn’t bring up what had just happened, Lisa sighed in relief and also pretended nothing had happened.
"We killed the dungeon boss, but there are still some monsters alive in the tunnels and rooms scattered throughout the tree. I mapped out all the ones I found and came to call you so we can kill them together, or if you’re just a little short on experience to level up, I can even leave them for you." She said, still avoiding eye contact with him.
Lohan didn’t notice the oddity in her behavior and got excited upon hearing there would be another reward, so he quickly curled up and jumped onto Lisa’s back. She froze for a moment, but soon returned to her usual self.
"Let’s go then!" he said excitedly.
The fox rolled her eyes but began running through the tree with the Slime clinging to her body.
To improve her aerodynamics and balance, Lohan had gotten used to maintaining the Living Armor form around her, especially with his [Morphological Memory] ability, which memorized the shape he took around her body, making the process and movement much smoother and faster than the first few times.
For some reason, Lisa squirmed a little uncomfortably under Halon’s close contact this time, but acted as if nothing had happened and ran at top speed through the tree, using the exercise to clear her mind.
"How much experience do you need to level up?" she asked as they were approaching the first beetle.
Lohan looked at his status screen and replied. "About 3,700 experience points."
Hearing that, Lisa calculated how many beetles she’d encountered in the tree and was surprised to realize the number was actually a bit higher than what was needed for him to level up to level 9 as well!
"Okay, so let’s speed this up. I’ll lead you to the beetles—they’ll be standing still like the statues we killed in the Boss room. You take them out on your own, and we’ll run to the next one. I’m already getting tired, and I feel like I need a hot bath and a cozy bed right away," she said.
"Sure, no problem for me," Lohan replied nonchalantly.
And so they did.
Before long, they reached the first beetle. Lohan jumped onto the monster’s head and pierced its brain with a tentacle that devoured everything in its path. He stored the beetle’s corpse in the [Astral Chest]—which functioned like an inventory—and they moved on to the next one.
[Experience: +374]
With this chest, Lohan no longer had to stand still for several minutes to digest a monster’s body, or waste valuable biomass by leaving the corpse behind.
He just needed to cut off a piece of the corpse large enough to last a few minutes, keep it inside him while he digested, then open the chest and take out another piece—so the problem he’d been facing of not having enough resources to digest was practically solved!
Now he just needed to keep the monster stock inside the chest large enough, and ensure the monsters weren’t too big, taking up more space in there than they should.
The only thing Lisa had to store in the chest were the coins she had, which took up very little space, so she didn’t mind Lohan using the Guild’s storage that way; after all, it was better for him to use that space that way than to have to slow down their hunting speed to wait for him to digest every time.
[Experience: +361]
[Experience: +373]
[Experience: +347]
[Experience: +369]
[Experience: +353]
[Experience: +378]
[Experience: +599]
[Experience: +601]
Upon finishing the second Elite Beetle, Lohan finally felt a refreshing sensation course through his body.
With that sensation, his control over the Slime’s body increased, his slime became denser and more resilient, and all his basic attributes were slightly improved.
His improvement was slightly less than Lisa’s, but he didn’t mind that, being very happy to level up again1
[Name: Halon
Race: Slime (Mythical)
Class: Devourer (Mythical)
Titles: Predator
Level: 09
Experience: 12 / 25,600
Mana: 35.23 / 35.23]
With this level-up, his digestion speed increased from 1,657 Biomass per hour to 1,936 Biomass per hour when the [Hemolymphatic Tissue] was active!
Lisa also felt the change in him, as his size returned to normal for a few seconds, slightly suffocating her, until he took control again and returned to his normal size.
"Congratulations, Halon," she said, genuinely happy.
"Thank you, Lisa. Now we only need two more levels before we undergo our great evolution!" he said excitedly, curious to know what that would be like.
The problem was that the experience required for this was getting scarier and scarier.
Yawning, Lisa nodded and started running again after storing the beetle in the personal chest with them. "Yes! Let’s go, only two more beetles left in the dungeon."
Hearing that, Lohan got excited again, but felt fatigue setting in. He was eager to kill those beetles quickly so he could leave Elysium, and he also wanted to rest in the real world like Lisa and get a good night’s sleep.
This time, the process was even faster, as Lisa used her [Spiritual Fire] to blast a huge hole in the beetles’ heads while Lohan simply had to devour their brains.
With the death of the second beetle, another alarm sounded, alerting all players in Elysium.
[Congratulations to the Astralis Requiem Guild for completing the first dungeon in Elysium!]