Syl

Chapter 7: Tree Traversal

Old Tom looked at the grassy plains with a frown, his tanned and wrinkled face showing immense displeasure. There were far fewer slimes than they expected this morning, and this would be normal after a slime feeding as they would sometimes dissolve one another by accident as they fought over the food scraps. But if that had happened, there would be a few much larger slimes from the results, which always produced a higher quality mana slime for an unexplained reason and were quite sought after.

Some of these recurring larger slimes even had nicknames from their more notable colored cores; his granddaughter was in tears this morning when she couldn't find the slime 'Rosey' who was named after its rose-red core and would always produce very high-quality mana slime.

Tom's thoughts were interrupted by the friendly voice of Bertha,

"Do you think it was goblins?"

"Gods, I hope not. If they are trying to raise a shaman, we'll need to mobilize the guild with an emergency quest." Tom replied while spitting in disgust.

Monsters were bad enough as is, but sapient monsters with class levels have the potential to be a nightmare. Ordinarily, goblins only had access to the basic classes they were born with, such as Fighter or Scout, but on rare occasions, one could even get a magic class if they met the right conditions. There was an infamous goblin tribe whose matriarch discovered that if she ingested copious amounts of blue slime, she would keep birthing goblin shamans. Her tribe raided countless villages and smaller settlements and even attempted to attack a walled city directly as she went mad with the power of her magical spawn. When they finally ended the vile creature's life and studied her corpse, they found her mana levels were abnormally high, which in turn was causing her spawn to be born with the mana capacity required for a shaman.

"Hopefully, it was just a few starving wolves since they have a history of eating slime out of desperation." Bertha tried to reassure Tom, wiping the meat blood off her hands onto her apron.

"Could be, but I think I'm going to ask the guild to put up an extra goblin extermination quest just to be sure."

They continued to chat for a while longer, then headed home. Many of the poorer townsfolk were extremely unhappy with the poor harvest today.

After my successful first extraction, I moved on to the remaining tusk to repeat the process, and eventually, I had my second reward. Now that I had secured both tusks, I wanted to see the benefit of my new trait, so I dismissed the claw that took so much prior effort to make to start fresh. Honestly, [Shape Slime] was absolutely amazing as it almost effortlessly recreated my claw, as if following a blueprint and instructions. I made a second claw and snapped both repeatedly like a threatening crab.

After playing around with my claws, I looked at the remains of my food; most of the meat was gone by now, and its internals thoroughly dissolved. Its leathery skin was ruined, with multiple holes where my slime attempted to eat it, the bones were picked clean and looking somewhat decayed.

'Maybe I should only eat meat and organs, and I could collect hide and bones for something useful.'

I left the hide and bone to continue dissolving since they were already partially ruined, and I did not want to waste the food. I formed my slime rapier, which took on a much more refined form thanks to my new trait, and then floated one of the tusks to its tip. Initial tests weren't successful, as the tusk would shoot deeper inside of me upon stabbing, and I had to lower the density of my rapier somewhat so that I could put a reinforced density around the tusk to hold its position better. Managing multiple densities in a single area was tough, and I prayed for my trait's level up to arrive swiftly. I stabbed a few times and was happy with the noticeable improvement, and I made sure to test a slime rapier without a tusk since I wanted a comparison from before I got [Shape Slime].

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Now, I wanted to try it on something living, but I wanted to stay amongst the tree branches to retain my element of surprise - the slime jellyfish strategy worked disgustingly well. I needed to improve my traversal speed, and I was sure I could use my pseudopods more efficiently.

I flung a tendril out and grabbed a higher branch of a nearby tree, then released my body grip on the branch I was sitting on and tried to swing... It went horribly, and I splatted against a tree and then the ground with a disturbing squelching sound. I tried two tendrils and then lifting myself upwards, and it somewhat worked but was frustratingly slow. The back of my mind kept tickling me like I was missing something obvious. I crawled back up and attempted another swing, only to embarrass myself further.

Splat. Splat. Splat.

Eventually, I had a brilliant idea of shifting my mass along my destination tendril to relocate myself. But, much to my disappointment, my body refused to reallocate all of my mass for some reason and would always stop at a certain threshold.

'What am I missing? Why can't I move all my slime?'

I focused on the orange sky above; it was late afternoon, and I would soon need to return to my tree hole. I stared at the glowing orb in the sky and sighed.

'I'm sure this tingling feeling in my mind is Gramps laughing at me. Ugh, my head hurts.'

Head. Mind. Core?

'Right... My actual self is my core, which keeps a minimum amount of slime around me. Could I move my core?'

I felt desperation as I was on the verge of an epiphany and quickly flung out a pseudopod and latched onto a higher tree branch. I focused mentally on my core. Move. Push. Travel. Go! My perspective abruptly changed as I flew towards the branch like a missile. My slime mass rapidly followed after me like it was magnetically attracted to my core. My core tapped against the branch, and pain assailed me so much that I immediately let go of the branch and fell to the ground below with a massive splash.

I screamed in pain and rolled on the ground with my tendrils flailing wildly. I was shocked at how much it hurt, and I could only hope I didn't do any real damage to my core. Eventually, I got myself under control, but I felt miserable.

'Shit! That was so stupid. I desperately need to raise my core's defense if a simple branch felt that bad. But at least I proved I can move my core, so let's try that again, safely this time...'

Again, I sent up a pseudopod to latch onto a branch, although this time, I confirmed there was a lot more slime mass at the destination to act as a cushion to catch my core. On the bright side, this time, I required much less effort to move my core and soon found my vision flying through the air again until I reached my slimy cushion.

'Success!'

I wanted to do a happy wiggle but stopped myself, frustrated at the pain that still throbbed in my core. I flung a tendril to another branch and promptly sent my core again. It was getting slightly quicker and easier with each success. I continued to practice as I headed towards my tree hole, feeling very satisfied with my new traversal method. Before the final jump back home, I created two tendrils, latched one to my current branch, and sent the other to my tree. I then sent slime mass along the tendril and focused it on the halfway point between the branches. Then, I flung my core to the middle and was very happy when I stopped safely, suspended and hanging between two branches.

I grinned happily at that surprise message and produced my long-awaited third tendril from my center position. Bad mood be damned, as this was a moment deserving of a happy wiggle, and my freshly-produced pseudopod was more than up for the task, which it completed with gusto.

After an appropriate amount of wiggle time, I headed to my tree hole and entered inside. It felt a little cramped from the extra slime mass I had gained from the boar, which had finished dissolving at some point. I worriedly checked for my tusks, and thankfully, I still had them in a pocket of dense slime.

I formed three trusty slime rapiers without the added tusk and poked away inside my tree hole, doing some last-minute expansion. Once completed, I decided to get an early night sleep. Tomorrow, I have some ideas to try out.

'Goodnight, Gramps...'

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