Lohan felt a chill run through his core, a sensation of "emptiness" that stood in stark contrast to the sense of fulfillment he had just attained.
If the evolution of the Slime race had been a physical reconstruction, a battle to ensure that its gelatin didn’t collapse under the weight of two energy cores, the evolution of the Devourer class seemed something far more conceptual and profound.
It was as if, after reinforcing the walls of its laboratory, the system were now updating the software of its microscopes and the potency of its chemical reagents.
The crystalline gelatin, which seconds ago had exuded great density, suddenly became flaccid, almost liquid. Lohan felt like a puddle spread across the forest floor, and the fear of losing the form he had fought so hard to stabilize struck him.
However, this time there was no excruciating pain of his body self-destructing internally. Instead of feeling his body being torn apart, he simply felt his body generating a pull, sucking everything around it inward and analyzing it much more carefully.
"Halon! What’s happening?!" Lisa shouted over the link, her voice frustrated and worried. She was ready to celebrate, but seeing the Slime "melt" again after the previous scare left her emotionally shattered.
"It’s okay... I think..." Lohan said, though his own mental voice sounded muffled, as if coming from the bottom of a well. "I’m going through my class evolution now, but this feels... easier."
Alice and the group took a few more steps back, and the aura emanating from Lohan changed drastically.
An invisible suction force arose around him, with the dry leaves surrounding the bluish puddle beginning to be drawn toward him, as if the very space around Lohan were hungry.
Lohan noticed the difference instantly.
When those leaves touched his body, instead of just sensing the biomass of what he was digesting, his perception of what he was digesting had become much stronger.
He could taste the "flavor" of the leaves, understand how alive those leaves still were, characteristics of leaves that differed from others, likely because they came from different trees, even if of the same species.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have information like "Oak Tree Leaf," which made sense, since there was no reason for Devourer to come with a glossary of what he was digesting, but after eating something for the first time, Lohan could remember the details of it and compare them to something he ate later.
Analyzing this new ability, Lohan’s mind buzzed with excitement at the thought of all the possibilities for how he could use it.
[Optimizing Feature Extraction Matrix...]
[Congratulations! Class Evolution Complete: Devourer Level 11]
[Qualitative Gains:
Digestion Speed: The molecular bottleneck has been removed. (Processing capacity now scales with core density).
Traits Extraction: The probability of obtaining rare evolutions from non-Player prey has permanently increased by 15%.Abyssal Storage: The internal biomass reservoir now utilizes spatial compression (Capacity tripled without changing external volume).]
’Is it over already?’ Lohan wondered, confused, but remembering how quick and fluid Lisa’s evolution had been, this was actually supposed to be his natural process as well.
’I just hope my next evolutions in my Race aren’t like that again...’
Lohan slowly reshaped his body, rising from the ground. "Yes..." he replied.
The sensation of perceiving his surroundings was incredible. Lohan felt like a child, taking in everything around him with curiosity, learning and understanding the structure of each thing, and enjoying it.
Taking the corpse of a cockatrice they had stored in the Astral Chest, Lohan processed it and began to understand the magical structure of that creature, how that monster used its Internal Mana to peck at targets and turn them to stone.
And to his surprise, the cockatrice’s peck didn’t turn enemies to stone using Mana, but using Natural Energy!
By injecting a large amount of natural energy into the enemy, the struck area became saturated with that rich energy, and the physical structure couldn’t hold up, quickly turning to stone!
’Doesn’t this resemble the three sacred sites and the practice of Naruto’s Sage Mode?!’
Through this analysis, he gained a better understanding of how it worked, and as he tried to learn it, a notification appeared before him!
[Uncontrolled Natural Injection Lv 1] 240 Biomass
[Allows for the extreme injection of Natural Energy into a specific point, causing an energy imbalance in the target’s body. If the target’s control is low, there is a high possibility of turning to stone.]
His eyes sparkled as he read that.
Before, he could inject Natural Energy into Lisa in a controlled manner so she could use that energy to fight, but after evolving the Natural Energy within himself into Holy Light, he lost that ability.
’Will this skill give me access to Natural Energy again? Or will I be able to use Holy Light with it and make this attack even more powerful?!’
Lohan was getting more and more excited as he sensed these changes, completely satisfied with the results of his evolution, but right in front of him, a small, delicate white fox snorted, blowing a fireball in his direction in anger.
"Hey, I’m talking to you!" Lisa said.
Instinctively, Lohan, who was taking everything in like a child with new toys, didn’t think twice and tried to absorb Lisa’s fire.
"Arrrrghhh!!" The burning sensation he felt as he absorbed it made him scream in pain, but the most shocking thing was that he managed to understand how it worked?!
It was as if he had drunk a cup of boiling coffee. Nothing screamed louder than the pain of being burned by "eating" it, but deep down he tasted the Spiritual Energy that Lisa had used in that attack!!
But he didn’t have time to think about or make sense of that feeling; Lisa was furious that he was ignoring her, and seeing her mouth form another fireball to shoot at him, as tempted as he was to try to understand that energy, he knew that his top priority right now was to calm down the sweet, gentle girl who was worried about him.