This was Slime Mother.
She probably thought he was a mischievous child who had run away from home and was about to take him back to the nest.
Chen Yu floated inside the gel, his sight descending with Slime Mother as she dove down, burrowing into the soft soil. He saw small, chubby white larvae wriggling in the earth.
They looked tasty, but in truth they were good companions to slimes.
These were the juvenile forms of swamp worms, the lowest-tier monsters in this marsh forest alongside slimes.
As youngsters they hide deep underground for safety, quietly drawing nutrients from the soil to survive.
Only when they grow to adulthood do they risk crawling up to the surface to munch on nutrient-rich leaf litter and humus, to mate and reproduce.
Swamp worms were some of the friendliest monsters in the forest; some even fed on slime excrement and would voluntarily help clean slime nests.
They were essentially the babysitters of the monster world.
Otherwise he wouldn’t mind eating some tasty friends.
Speaking of racial talents,
most slimes are only the size of a dewdrop in infancy and only reach human-head size when fully grown; they are wondrous creatures that thrive simply by absorbing sunlight and swamp water.
What made his slime body different was that it possessed the talent “Devour Digestion” — allowing him to feed like a predatory monster.
Plop...
Under Chen Yu’s gaze, Slime Mother burrowed into an underground nest and, not forgetting, secreted gel to seal the hole, preventing mud from rushing in.
The interior of the slime nest was supported by roots and mucus. The space wasn’t large — less than a cubic meter — but as his cozy little home in this dangerous world, it was enough to put one at ease.
With a pop, he was squeezed out, tumbled a few times, and landed in a grass bed that glowed faintly.
Upon closer inspection, those soft glowing dots were nothing but juvenile slimes. They sensed Chen Yu’s return and immediately swarmed him with excitement, pressing and bouncing against his body.
Slimes had no vocal organs, but the pheromones they exchanged were the most primitive language.
In Chen Yu’s perception it felt like a circle of cheering little guys had surrounded him, chirping “big brother, big brother...”
So noisy.
Chen Yu thought.
In fact, his slime body and these little ones were from the same brood, only that he had grown faster; when the other slimes were only thumb-sized, he was already approaching an adult’s fist size.
Maybe it was because he was a meat-eating slime?
“But I didn’t plan to go out hunting.”
Chen Yu tried to squeeze through the little ones and hop out of the nest.
A few of the little dots happened to be pressed against him and were pushed into his gel body, still blinking their innocent mung-bean eyes.
The surrounding little slimes thought Chen Yu was joining their play and jumped even more enthusiastically.
Slime Mother watched his movements and, as always with mischievous children, had a way of dealing with it.
She hopped into the grass bed, pinned all the little ones including Chen Yu under her, and absorbed them into her gel body.
Chen Yu floated trapped in the gel, unable to move, blinking as he saw some thicker green liquid flowing inside.
That slime fluid was rich in nutrients, similar to mammalian milk, allowing baby slimes to quickly grow after absorption.
He himself had been raised by sucking slime fluid when he was born.
But with the little slimes drinking, Slime Mother visibly shrank. After staying in the nest a while, she went out again to search for food.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Chen Yu squeezed out of the grass bed and prepared to leave the nest.
A few playful baby slimes wanted to follow, but they couldn’t jump as high as the grass bed.
“Hmm...”
Chen Yu’s gelatinous brain thought quietly: the outside world was far more dangerous than imagined, and he wondered how many of these little ones would actually live to adulthood.
In human imagination, the magical world is always veiled in gorgeous wonder — the awe of dragons spreading their wings, magical light tearing through night, and the heroic epics hummed around village bonfires.
Yet for a weak slime crawling in the marsh, the truth of that world was only cold and biting, like sunless rotten mud.
Every outing could end with them becoming food for moss monsters, or disappearing silently under the gaze of even more terrifying monsters.
The fate of these slimes was like the mats of moss fungi in the swamp forest: they struggle to grow but often cannot survive a single winter, born simply to become nourishment for other monsters.
“...”
His thoughts drifting further, Chen Yu snapped back to awareness feeling a bit hungry, and he thought again about the tastiness of that moss monster from the morning.
He was still a slime, after all.
But a slime who practiced cultivation was destined for a different fate.
At least when it came to food, his stomach would never be neglected.
Starving? Impossible.
He squeezed out of the gel opening, slowly climbed out of the muck, and returned to the surface world once more.
A pair of round, glossy eyes cautiously poked from the mud and surveyed the surroundings.
In his view the world was made of towering trees and thick miasma; the forest smelled intensely of rot and humus, and light was blocked by layer upon layer of huge leaves and vines, leaving everything dim.
The slime nest was hidden beneath the massive, moss-covered roots of the brown tree that rose like a mountain before him.
Compared to underground, the surface clearly had more life.
The wet, slippery ground steamed with humidity; some much larger swamp worms slowly wriggled, munching on waterlogged, blackened fallen leaves.
Thick moss layers covered roots and rocks like a sticky carpet; moss monsters hid within, relying on their perfectly camouflaged backs to remain unnoticed.
Chen Yu wasn’t in a hurry to leave the pool; his gaze stayed on the rolling moss, secretly trying to spot moss monster movement.
The only truly dangerous thing about a moss monster was the acid it secreted from its mouth.
Chen Yu had seen the acid drip to the ground and corrode a hole right through a rock.
The corrosiveness was terrifying!
Monsters are still monsters; even decomposers can kill.
Of course, harmless creatures like slimes were an exception.
If slimes had to be assigned an ecological niche, they were not decomposers but rather the lowest-tier food — humus or a patch of ground vegetation.
These organisms could even suddenly appear in waves when moisture was abundant; no monster knew exactly how they were born.
Like tender, juicy grass that covers the ground after a rain.
Moss monster acid was dangerous; acting rashly could lead to ambush. His small body couldn’t take that kind of abuse.
Besides, moss monsters were still low-tier in this marsh forest.
If a slime dared to boldly leave its nest to forage, the flying and ground predators would gladly have a feast.
And to these monsters, slimes seemed delicious.
At least judging by the moss monster’s strong desire to attack slimes, their tastiness was indisputable to them.
“However, they probably never imagined that, with a one-in-a-trillion chance, this little marsh forest would welcome a slime transmigrator.”
Thinking this, Chen Yu quietly prepared his toothpick flying sword and lay in wait.
As the sun moved, noon arrived. Moss monsters occasionally stirred across the moss — secreting acid to gnaw wood and soil, fighting rivals, mating and reproducing.
Chen Yu could clearly see the wisps of green smoke from the acid from inside the pool.
When he felt he had mapped out the moss monsters’ positions, he silently swam to the tree root nearest the pool.
There were three lone moss monsters there; if he struck fast enough, taking out one or two wouldn’t be a problem.
Chen Yu moved slowly; the moss monsters on the root didn’t notice his approach.
When he was less than half a meter from the nearest moss monster, the toothpick flying sword stuck in his gel vibrated and shot out.
Object Manipulation
Whoosh!
The toothpick flying sword struck the forehead of the nearest moss monster; its arched back instantly flattened.
“Hiss!!”
This startled the other two moss monsters, and as they retreated in panic their mouths spat acid that sizzled on the ground, warning others to stay away.
Chen Yu knew the moss monsters needed two seconds before they could spit acid again. Seizing the gap, he hopped out of the pool, pitter-pattered to the corpse, swallowed the moss monster and the flying sword into his body, then dove back into the pool.
He had chosen his position cleverly; by the time the moss monsters reacted, he had already left the acid spray range.
Watching the two furious moss monsters, Chen Yu felt very pleased with himself.
After half a month of trial and error, he had long since figured out the moss monsters’ acid spray intervals and range... with a bit of Object Manipulation, these moss monsters were helpless against him.
Chen Yu lay in the muck, eyes on alert, watching movements across the moss while patiently waiting for the moss monster inside him to be gradually digested.
Devour Digestion Lv.1 triggered — recorded moss monster features, talent gestation in progress (9/10)
Almost there, just one left.
Chen Yu set his sights on the two moss monsters on the tree root.