"Damn, it’s getting harder and harder to find other monsters to kill and absorb... what’s going on? Shouldn’t forests in games be the most dangerous places possible?" Lohan wondered in frustration.
He had been playing for two hours and hadn’t found any creatures worth killing.
In addition to the vegetation he was devouring, Lohan also found small insects that weren’t even worth 0.1 Bio, which he was devouring just for variety, but so far he hadn’t received any new skills from them.
Fortunately, after 1 hour of absorbing biomass, he accumulated enough Biomass for another upgrade in [Efficient Digestion].
Strangely, instead of just increasing his total efficiency by 10% as it always had, another window popped up.
[After 10 minor evolutions, Efficient Digestion is undergoing a qualitative evolution...]
[New feature obtained, Digestive Filter!]
[Efficient Digestion Lv 10 → Lv 11]
[Increases digestion speed and efficiency in converting matter. (+10% per level - exponential)
Features - Digestive Filter: The organism is now able to identify and isolate specific components during molecular breakdown. It can choose not to digest certain parts of an object or creature, keeping them intact inside its body or expelling them after cleaning.]
Reading this description, Lohan was confused.
It didn’t seem like a bad option, it was obviously something good and that would be useful to him at some point, but at that moment, would it change anything for him?
Sure, leveling up the skill made Lohan’s efficiency in absorbing Biomass increase even more, rising from the 15.84 Bio/h he gained with the clone to the current 17.56 Bio/h, an increase of 1.72 Bio/h in just one upgrade of this skill.
This was the snowball effect that Lohan had been hoping this skill would bring him.
From small decimal upgrades when he entered the game, to now each upgrade increasing the amount he received per hour by a huge amount, and this was a value that would only grow more and more from now on.
But the issue of the Digestive Filter was still somewhat confusing.
Paying attention to his insides, to the objects being digested, he saw a mess.
Small pieces of rocks, small balls of dirt and dust, leaves from different plants, petals from various flowers, even the remains of insects he found along the way floated inside him, around the Mana stone he received from the Elf girl.
Since some things were digested faster than others, in the last few days Lohan absorbed various things and let his body absorb different things at its own pace, without worrying about wasting or absorbing insufficient Biomass, since his absorption speed was constant, regardless of what he was absorbing.
Since there was no difference in absorption speed based on the quality of what he absorbed, Lohan just absorbed everything.
But wanting to test the filter, Lohan decided to explore this peculiarity.
With a thought, he managed to pause the absorption of everything inside him, reducing his Biomass gain to zero.
Then he focused on absorbing only the remains of insects, which quickly raised his Biomass gain to a maximum of 14.64 Bio/h (disregarding the value of the Clone).
At such a high rate, the few insects inside him disappeared in a few seconds, being consumed at an alarming speed.
Surprised, Lohan began to absorb the flower petals, and a little slower than the insects, the petals were digested, followed by plant leaves, then roots and other plant matter.
After a few minutes, Lohan had digested everything inside him, leaving only the Mana Stone, and with these tests, he discovered something very interesting about the Digestive Filter.
With this feature, not only could he choose between several objects what he wanted to consume, but he also had complete control over what to digest in the same object.
He could control the acid inside him to digest only the dead parts of plants, only certain parts of an insect’s body, or even digest only the most nutritious parts scattered on the ground, ignoring the useless parts with little biomass value.
In these tests, Lohan also discovered that he was getting in his own way by absorbing everything that appeared in front of him.
Instead of wasting internal space to carry soil and stones, which had very low biomass value, losing some bodily control to keep these things inside him being slowly digested, it would be better to absorb only things rich in biomass and carry several of these small things, just as he carried the Mana Stone.
Carrying less stuff but more Biomass would allow him to maintain a large stock of Biomass and not sacrifice so much of his own mobility.
Not to mention that Lohan finally had an idea of how to get Gold in Elysium with this race!
If he found something precious, such as valuable ores trapped in rocks, or valuable botanical items with structural problems, he could absorb the defective parts and sell only the completely clean valuable parts, which would probably make those things more valuable than their original value, generating even more profit for him!
"Sure, I still don’t know where to find something valuable like that, or even where to sell those things, but maybe I have an idea about the second point..."
With that in mind, Lohan decided to take a little risk again.
Even though he was still a weak and fragile slime, a week had already passed since he took out the loan to play Elysium, and he only had three more weeks to get $912 to avoid being arrested.
So he desperately needed to find a source of income, preferably something stable and useful for his development.
And he had seen a possibility of that in the encounter he had yesterday, the problem was looking up at the sky and realizing that it was starting to get dark.
Nighttime had never been a problem for him as Slime, since his vision remained as good as it was during the day, and as such a strange life form, his Slime body also didn’t need rest or sleep.
But an Elf might be different.
"I just hope she’s there..."
After a few minutes rolling at full speed, Lohan returned to the place where he had found the Elf girl yesterday.
Unfortunately, the place was empty.
Some parts of the surrounding grass were completely devoured, while others remained intact, a destruction that he had not caused.
Curious, Lohan began to look around, searching for the cause of this.
He hadn’t encountered another creature in so long that the possibility of another Slime being there was exciting.
With [Instinctive Perception Lv 4], Lohan’s spatial awareness was much more advanced than it had been initially, to the point that a slight movement in a distant flower, incongruous with the speed and direction of the wind, quickly gave him the location of another creature.
This made Lohan’s heart race.
’Finally, another interesting opponent!
And to his surprise, observing that location, there was another Slime absorbing a Mana Stone like him!