After the heavy rain, magical creatures were everywhere in the swamp. Slimes had become so numerous they were countless, shimmering like sparkling emeralds under the sunlight, casting a soft green glow over the forest.
Chen Yu was an inconspicuous member among them, hopping and walking through the afternoon swamp, with occasional dappled sunlight filtering through his transparent gel.
It felt warm and very comfortable.
Having been away from his territory for so long, he began to miss the warm, cozy slime nest, along with Slime Mother and those little ones.
With the poison-stinger wasps watching over them, probably no magical creatures would dare bully them...
But he still felt the territory wasn't secure enough.
It would be best to complete the territory construction before the next heavy rain arrived, making it capable of withstanding rampaging magical creatures.
This wasn't particularly difficult, just time-consuming.
After traveling day and night, Chen Yu finally returned to the oak tree territory.
Fortunately, with the poison-stinger wasp soldiers managing the oak tree territory, the breeding farm remained exactly as before, though it now housed some plump moss monsters.
After enjoying a satisfying breakfast, Chen Yu dove to the bottom of the swamp and returned to the slime nest.
During his absence, many new slime nests seemed to have been established in the surrounding area, but only the area around his slime nest remained untouched, with no slimes daring to approach.
With a soft plopping sound, he squeezed into the nest and saw Slime Mother feeding the little ones who had already grown to thumb size.
The little creatures stared blankly at him at first, then recognized him and began happily rolling and bouncing in Slime Mother's embrace.
When Slime Mother saw him, she slowly released gentle pheromones, conveying something like faint joy.
As Chen Yu wriggled inside, he realized that with his growth, the originally spacious nest now felt somewhat crowded.
He touched Slime Mother with his forehead and used the Sound Transmission Technique to convey the idea of "moving."
"Oak tree... my territory... move..."
Slime brains were even simpler than poison-stinger wasps, clearly unable to understand such complex language.
Fortunately, slime pheromones contained primitive expressions for "moving" and "territory," as if some slime had actually acquired territory before and moved its nest out of the dark swamp bottom.
Slime Mother blinked her eyes, remaining dazed for quite a while before seemingly understanding his words, then quietly pressed each little one into her gel to carry them away.
Chen Yu collected the gray gravel crystals he had previously buried in the nest, then left the nest and swam upward, with Slime Mother silently following behind as they surfaced together.
This was the first time the little ones in the gel had ventured outside the nest. Gazing at the vast, verdant world and feeling the warm sunlight penetrating their bodies, they radiated excited emotions.
Chen Yu reached the shore and hopped step by step toward the beetle's original nest at the base of the tree.
The tree base nest was spacious enough and convenient for coming and going, making it perfect for use as their new nest.
As he passed by, moss monsters scattered in panic everywhere. Even so, this was Slime Mother's first close contact with such predators, and her body trembled with fear, taking a long time to catch up.
The little ones, however, having witnessed him hunting beetles before, weren't as frightened. Instead, they blinked with curious eyes, observing the entire world.
Slime Mother followed Chen Yu back into the dim underground, then squeezed out the little ones.
The beetle's tree base nest was twice the size of their slime nest, spacious enough for the little ones to play and frolic inside.
"Not a bad start."
Chen Yu thought with satisfaction.
Slimes were originally the weakest magical creatures in this land. He didn't expect these little ones to become particularly powerful when they grew up—just living ordinary, peaceful lives would be enough.
At least within his oak tree territory, no magical creatures could bully them.
Just after completing the nest relocation, Chen Yu immediately began bustling with territory construction.
First, he expanded the territory's range to include three surrounding oak trees, encompassing Sekashi's previous camp.
The central tree area became the slime habitat, while the moss monster breeding farm was relocated to the moss-covered tree area filled with fluorescent moss.
The camp tree area was reserved for Sekashi to stay overnight—perhaps she would return someday.
He hadn't yet decided what to do with the last oak tree growing in the swamp, but he claimed it first anyway.
After driving away the fluorescent mycenen sleeping within the territory, the poison-stinger wasps began vigorous construction according to his plans.
Actually, choosing swamp oak trees as territory was quite a poor choice.
Typically, noble lords would choose to build castles and fortresses on high ground in villages or towns, taking advantage of terrain for easy defense.
The oak tree territory was completely flat and visible at a glance, allowing magical creatures to swarm in from all directions. Another mana surge could easily wash away the entire territory.
But the territory he wanted to build couldn't be planned according to otherworldly thinking.
It was less like a territory and more like a cultivation grotto.
Recalling the contents of the Lost Trail Formation Diagram in his mind, he directed the poison-stinger wasps to bury stones as formation veins in the earth, with the range exactly encompassing the four oak trees.
However, asking poison-stinger wasps to dig soil and move stones was practically torturing them. Whether they could move them was one thing—digging trenches was extremely difficult for their delicate limbs.
Chen Yu began to miss his beetle brothers—those beetles were true experts at digging.
Since the poison-stinger wasps couldn't manage, he personally took charge of digging pits.
Meanwhile, behind him, Slime Mother and the little ones also emerged from the nest to help transport stones.
Slime Mother didn't understand what he was doing, but quietly helped with the work.
The little ones treated stone transportation as a fun game, each exerting all their strength to move stones larger than their bodies, pushing them into the trench grooves.
With the whole family's help, the Lost Trail Formation construction speed accelerated, completing the basic formation foundation in just one day.
Then, using slime mucus filled with spiritual energy to draw spiritual patterns, the entire Lost Trail Formation only needed the final step.
At this exciting moment, Chen Yu took out the gray gravel crystals he had discovered earlier and buried them in the tree base nest.
These could substitute for spirit stones as formation eyes, but they glowed like light bulbs—too conspicuous—so they could only be buried in the tree base nest.
This also conveniently provided lighting for the dim nest.
After proper installation, Chen Yu counted down, injected spiritual energy, and as the gray gravel crystals glowed, the formation activated. Outside, a thin mist gradually spread, enveloping the entire oak tree territory.
This mist was quite peculiar—it appeared like floating clouds yet couldn't block sunlight, which still shone through the fog onto the territory.
From the outside, the Lost Trail Formation had completely merged with the poisonous mist, making the territory's appearance barely visible from beyond.
He caught a moss monster and threw it outside to test.
He discovered the moss monster seemed to be under an illusion, continuously wandering outside the Lost Trail Formation but never managing to enter.
"It worked."
Chen Yu slowly climbed up the oak tree, overlooking the vibrant scene of his entire territory, and couldn't help but feel a surge of pride.
This was a new beginning.
Everything was developing in a positive direction.