The gale howled, sweeping layer after layer of snow scales across the ice plain. In the storm’s frenzy, even distant, brightly lit Winterhold had been reduced to a blurred gray silhouette.
A black dragon lay on the snow, ice crystals scraping like blades, leaving no marks on its glossy black scales.
The dragon dug its claws into the void, muscles bulging, then suddenly tore to either side.
The plane beneath its claws gave a dull tearing sound, and ether-gray mist surged from the rift, forming a slowly rotating fissure.
It probed the rift with its divine sense for a while, then released its claws; the fissure closed again.
The black dragon moved, tearing another slit, then another, again and again.
The Nanny Brother had been working on this snowfield for several days with nothing to show for it. Today was no different; there was no trace of the original coordinates.
A little dejected, it flicked its tail to shake off the snow piled on its tail spike, and glanced back at the original.
Squatting on the snow was a lump of green jelly.
It sat with its eyes closed, motionless, like that for many days.
Nanny Brother folded its wings, shrank its body, shifted from the black dragon form back into a round slime, hopped over to Chen Yu and stuck out its gel hand, scooping and pushing the packed snow aside bit by bit so he wouldn’t be buried.
Ever since the original suddenly closed his eyes and lay motionless a few days ago, it had been working on the snowfield nonstop, repeating the loop of searching coordinates and sweeping snow.
It even proudly thought that no one in Floating Winterhold could possibly be better at snow sweeping than it.
Nanny Brother pushed away the newly fallen thin layer of snow as before, but soon its gel hand stopped and a puzzled expression appeared on its little face.
“?”
It looked up. A snowflake drifted down and landed on its smooth head, bouncing once before settling back on the snow.
At first it thought it was imagining things, so it stared harder, only to find that it seemed real.
The snowflakes falling from the sky had, in an instant, turned into gel orbs; when they hit the ground they bounced several times before coming to rest.
Nanny Brother instinctively hopped up, intending to nudge a falling snowflake with its head to see how it would bounce.
?
As soon as it landed, it felt the snowfield become soft and springy, elastic enough to launch it upward.
It tried jumping again and bounced higher and higher, feeling like it was playing on a trampoline, then finally calmed down.
He didn’t know what had happened, but it was fun.
Meanwhile, in the original spot, Chen Yu shook his gel, dusted off the snow, and slowly opened his small eyes.
The Fourth Dao had finally been formed.
[Embryonic Yuan Slime Dao Lv.1]
Gel is like the womb, containing all things.
He could sum up his insight into the Fourth Dao with that single short sentence.
It was not razor-sharp like the Primordial Origin Sword Dao, not steady and weighty like the Xuanhuang Kun Yuan Dao, nor endlessly life-giving like the Hunyuan One Qi True Method.
It was like a slime’s gel—bouncy and soft, embracing everything.
He looked at Nanny Brother, who was using the snowfield as a trampoline.
Just like this snowfield, as long as something fell within the Dao and he could understand its essence, snow, ice, stone, even water vapor in the air... could be granted the properties of gel.
Including but not limited to becoming bouncy and soft, gaining blunt physical resistance, regeneration, splitting, and morphing.
These enhancements encompassed almost all of the original slime-race traits concentrated into an empowered gel, which he decided to call Dao Gel.
The most wondrous thing about Dao Gel was that it didn’t conflict with a slime’s innate monster talents; it amplified them.
If monster talents were like enchantments on a weapon, Dao Gel was like replacing the sword’s blade material with something superior.
A blade that was already tough, receiving a toughness enchantment, would only become more indestructible.
Like this.
Chen Yu exerted force, and his gel swelled.
Large amounts of gel split from his body, tumbling onto the snow in clumps, wrapping falling snowflakes into round snowballs.
They acquired vitality and, with slap-slap sounds, collided and hopped around each other, quickly forming a ring and bouncing excitedly around him.
One, two, five, ten...
He counted. Aside from Chubby One, who was still acting as a gateway in the Shadow Mountains, and Nanny Brother working nearby, the gel clones that split from him numbered a full thirty.
Twice the limit of his previous split proliferation.
Although these newly split clumps were not as substantial as before, even they hid power capable of tearing a giant dragon, mana so deep and broad that Foundation Establishment cultivators paled at the thought.
A single clump couldn’t defeat a true Legendary, but bullying a twelfth-tier Extraordinary professional was more than within their ability.
Beyond split proliferation, the precision of his mimic talent and the speed of gel regeneration had also improved dramatically.
Previously, to mimic an object he had to deliberately copy its textures and colors; now, as long as he understood the object’s material, the Dao Gel would automatically generate on its surface environmental-consistent textures and optical properties.
You could say that any monster talent related to gel’s original properties had undergone a metamorphosis.
Embryonic Yuan Slime Dao was essentially the ultimate interpretation of slime gel, granting gel a deep, root-level essence.
From now on, any slime that comprehended the Dao would see his shadow within the Dao’s root.
It was like the divine right a deity wielded, the authority to explain a rule’s endpoint.
He had the right to define gel.
But the enhancements Embryonic Yuan Slime Dao gave monster talents were only an appetizer—the truly terrifying part was its ability to assimilate all things.
As long as he could grasp the essence of something, even a grain of sand, a roadside rock, or a drop of dew could be given gel’s properties.
If something bounces like gel, feels like gel to the touch, self-heals when injured, and regenerates when shattered, then it becomes gel.
At first glance this didn’t seem extraordinary—just softening things, making them bouncy.
What use would making sand bouncy be? Would you bounce enemies to death by bouncing them around?
But he also had a monster talent called Gel Projection.
Gel Projection’s effect was simple: any gel existing within his gel demiplane projection could form a life link with him and share damage.
But what if the thing linked to him by life was ground that had been assimilated into gel?
He also imagined giving gel properties to other races—human soldiers, dwarf gunners, Elven Rangers, Lizardfolk Dragon Cavalry... even Floating Fortresses themselves could become part of his life pool.
In the future, Gel Projection might not even need to rely on the Slime Legion; an entire army could become a walking gel community, every inch of assimilated land serving as his health bar, every fortress given gel properties extending his body.
A world-covering gel deluge that could not be cut down, shattered, or permanently destroyed—blow it to pieces and it would regenerate.
The undead scourge once swept the continent with its unending legions; his Slime United Empire might be able to replicate that.
Of course, the undead were not what they once were; the surviving undead lords have mostly become minions of demons, hiding in the Abyss to cling on.
And his Dao had only just begun; he was also its first pioneer.
Slime ascension had never happened. Perhaps he would be the first.
At the Dao’s end, there might be nothing different from a deity.
Chen Yu issued orders to the little clumps still frolicking and bouncing.
“Go fetch some monsters back for a test.”
The little clumps made slap noises and transformed into thirty streaks of green light, flying off in all directions across the plain. Moments later they returned in unison, inexplicably bringing back several dazed ice wolves and ice elementals.
These monsters didn’t even realize what had pulled them out of their lairs. Dizzy, they tumbled on the snow a few times before regaining their footing.
Then they saw the pale green slime crouched in the center of the snowfield.
The title Slime Emperor had its effect—several ice wolves immediately prostrated, and even the ice elementals trembled with fear.
Chen Yu hopped over to an ice wolf.
The elemental creature whimpered and lay flat in the snow with its head buried, assuming a posture of submission.
He extended his gel hand and lightly touched its forehead.
A ring of pale green ripples spread, enveloping the ice wolf’s entire body.
The ice wolf let out a puzzled whimper, seeming to feel some strange change in its body, but it dared not move and only lowered itself further.
After Chen Yu hopped back, the ice wolf cautiously peeked up and then tentatively stood.
To its surprise, when its previously rigid ice limbs exerted force, the whole wolf bounced as if on springs, springing several times before barely stabilizing, each rebound flinging it several meters.
It looked down at its paws, then glanced over its shoulder; even its formerly rigid crystalline tail had softened, swinging with much greater amplitude and a spring-back.
After a brief confusion, the ice wolf fell into unprecedented excitement.
In its not-very-bright mind, this great being before it must have accepted its submission and granted it these wondrous changes.
Seeing Chen Yu remaining impassive, its courage grew bolder, and it began experimentally bouncing on the snow.
Once it started, it couldn’t stop. It bounced higher and higher, farther and farther, even learning to flip in midair before landing.
It even developed a new skill: using split-off bouncy ice shards as balls, chasing the hopping crystals across the plain.
When it finally bit down on a crystal, it bounded back to Chen Yu, carefully placing the shard beside his gel, then sat with its tail wagging excitedly and its head tilted with expectant eyes.
Chen Yu habitually picked up the shard and threw it far away; the ice wolf barked happily and simultaneously leapt forward, bounding off toward the thrown shard.
Well, you call yourself an ice wolf, but you’re clearly a dog.
He repeated the experiment on the remaining ice wolves and ice elementals, successfully granting them gel properties across the board.
The ice elemental’s reaction was the most amusing. Originally a hovering aggregation of jagged ice crystals, once given gel properties all its edges rounded into springy curves, and the whole elemental looked like an irregularly shaped transparent jelly.
It seemed confused by its new appearance and tried to revert to its former sharp shape, but no matter how hard it tried, the crystals retained their soft curvature.
Chen Yu also noticed that the gel property wasn’t permanent.
By the time the first ice wolf finished chasing its crystal and returned, the gel trait on its body had already faded. It could no longer bounce happily and came back to Chen Yu looking wronged, whining softly.
“Is there any way to make a creature permanently acquire gel properties?”
What he could think of was leveraging the fact that his gel clones could also perceive Embryonic Yuan Slime Dao, merging a gel clone with a creature so that even when away from him, the creature would retain long-lasting gel traits.
In many scenarios, Dao Gel was incredibly useful.
If injured, you wouldn’t need life potions; water and sunshine could gradually heal wounds, and the concept of fatal injury didn’t really apply—after all, gel bodies have no heart or brain as vital points.
If poisoned, the gel could expel toxins from within immediately, saving the need for antidotes. Split gel in battle could also catch enemies off guard.
After merging with a gel clone, one could borrow the clone’s stored mana and magical energy, directly using monster talents as one’s own.
In the future, no one would have to worry when their child went adventuring.
At least for Sekashi, that clumsy fool, it would definitely work.
Chen Yu shook his gel, satisfied, and looked at the silly wolf sitting before him, its tail wagging so hard its entire rear was bouncing.
He felt this little one was quite endearing.
“Good. You’ll be called Snow Bounce from now on.”
He casually chose one of the little clumps that were chirping and bouncing around; the clump made a slap sound and saluted, then leapt.
Before the ice wolf could react, the clump jumped onto its back, quickly seeping into the crystal surface and completely melding with it, tinting the crystal a pale green.
The silly dog didn’t know what had happened, only feeling a soft thing brush it. It turned to look but saw nothing unusual, then resumed wagging its tail at Chen Yu.
Chen Yu tossed the crystal shard; Snow Bounce wagged its tail and eagerly chased after it.
He thought about placing Snow Bounce into Count Bran’s special training squad.
Ice wolves had decent combat potential, and Snow Bounce was Silver rank; if it trained and fought in the Shadow Mountains with Bran, perhaps it would improve.
Moreover, if anything happened over in the Shadow Mountains, a gel clone could immediately become a teleportation gate and call the imperial legions for support.
Snow Bounce returned with the crystal in its mouth, hopping along, unaware that its fate had just shifted forever.