[Slimy Slime] Chapter 46: A Glum Slime Takes A Moment and Makes A Realization.

I was starting to think I had been… wrong. I kept thinking back to Knowledge and Orders classes. I remember exactly what they had told me, mostly. And something wasn’t adding up. There were too many… inconsistencies. Knowledge hadn’t mentioned the stat barrier, that I could break the stat barrier, or a few other things I would’ve have really liked to know and should have known. As in, they were absolutely vital to my continued being.

On Order’s side, her classes focused around [Humans] and something was off there too. She hadn’t mentioned the double experience gain thing from humans. In fact, I sharply remembered being told there was no penalty for swapping classes.

That wasn’t the only things either. I had only started to realize because I had felt an odd… twinge from my spirit. I didn’t know what it meant and that was slightly worrying but well, it was my spirit. I had felt it when I had begun to try and review the last fight. More and more smaller, subtle inconsistencies kept popping up in my mind the more I thought about it.

The changing of my skills, at least the descriptions of them. Even without the words of the Gods and Goddesses… they were still a bit too different. Hell, a simple description on the precise processes of how a monster gains strength via growth would have been awesome. Thinking more and more, those weren’t the only inconsistencies. More kept popping up.

I sat down next to a tree and really, really thought. This information was something I had based most of my literal existence around. I went through it slowly and immediately slammed into a few… issues. But they weren’t misinformation this time, I just remembered my state right after being dead. The Gods and Goddesses hadn’t realized it but I’d been… pretty far from okay. Really, really far from okay. I wasn’t exactly the type to blow up… and I’d done so at least twice during all that. My friends would’ve been horrified.

I’d decided on slime because those feelings of wanting to be a King and seeing [Prince] had practically been like a gunshot to the head. Hell, even before that I’d decided on [Monster] instead of [Human] because I’d been so focused on lifespan. I had just died and it seemed incredibly important that I immediately become immortal. The second I’d learned how long Humans lived… it’d been impossible for me to choose anything else. Monsters had immortality! It had been one the things dominating my mind, mixed in so heavily with it being called a [Crown System]. That desire to be a king, a [Crown System], a [Prince] Slime that could probably become a [King Slime]... It’d been a critical blow at my highest point of weakness. I’d tried to stuff such stupid thoughts down, far down, and the moment the ability to truly Rule had shown up… it was embarrassing to say I leapt at the chance, even knowing I’d be blind at the time.

I regretted nothing! Well… that’s true but… only in whatever the opposite of hindsight is. Imagine I didn’t get [True Sight]. I’d be dead by the first night to that first wolf, most likely. How would I have even gained sight? There’s no freaking people here to eat and form a core. Well… to be fair to me, I’d probably have chosen that slime farm option or to actually build a world custom built for-

My spirit twinged. What?

I focused on it. Something was wrong about that thought. What is it? The world? What about it? I’d barely talked to Gaia but- There it is again. A world. The world. I was put into a pre-set world-

All at once, I gasped, my entirely body crashing into the ground as my spirit hand disappeared out of shock.

Knowledge and Order’s information… it wasn’t wrong or even lacking (well, mostly…).

The World had changed.

Is that possible? Am I just jumping to conclusions? The biggest inconsistencies is the lack of information on certain vital things and I very, very specifically remember them mentioning there was no penalty for switching classes… but nothing mentioned on leveling a second one up. But wouldn’t they have? They would have told me. They would have told me about the stat barrier, the natural limits, the [Human] classes doubling to level up each, and more!

My god… that’s incredible! Who was it, the Gods of this world? A super being in this part of the galaxy?! Who could even do that?!

I stared up at the sky with awe.

*****

“HA HA HA!”

“HO HO HO!”

“BWHAHA!”

In the realm of the Gods, the ones at the very top of the multiverse, were laughing. Not just at anyone… they were laughing at one of the primordial forces and a Goddess known for her knowledge. The reason was simple.

They messed up.

“S-S-Stop!” Knowledge cried out, face Crimson.

Order was little better, feeling the soft chuckling of Chaos a million times worse than the boisterous laughter of Item, Craft, and Demon. Even the soft pleasant and malicious chuckling of Misfortune paled in comparison.

They had messed up… Slimy Slime wasn’t… entirely… wrong per se. The world had ‘changed’. Just not in the way he thought.

Besides Knowledge’s single screw up from before, all the information they gave, and anything they left out, was true. The problem was… this wasn’t the world they were giving information on. There were many versions of the same world, templates. Gaia handled all of that. With a few other Gods and Goddesses, she handled all the different timelines, dimensions, and more esoteric versions of worlds. There was, practically speaking, an infinite number of them. The creation of worlds also fell under her purview. Mostly her ‘Job’ was simply to make sure there were no errors. Not errors like a planet blowing up, errors like a world trying to come into existence… and not. It was, for a Goddess, not an issue, and she made plenty of worlds. One of them was the one they’d offered Slimy Slime, Altraisa.

But the one Slimy Slime had been sent to hadn’t been the default one, but one that had a few tweaks done to it.

The original version, had infinite stat growth. There was no barrier, a dragon could eat a million goblins and would have a million stats. [Humans] could continually level up classes and get, well, infinite stats. There was no penalty for switching and there was no penalty for leveling up. There’d been some limiters put on this, namely time. Most things would die even with high stats, sooner or later. Constitution could only fight biology for so long, after all. There was also a variety of smaller tweaks here and there that Gaia had made for balance issues. Without them, if the planet survived, it would have produced a few galaxy-level individuals most likely. Possibly universal in the far-off future. That wasn’t really the intended purpose of the world.

And Knowledge and Order had given the default experience. The [Crowned System] always fit itself into a world and it took them no time to see into the future and see his choice. They knew which world he would pick and structured their brief lessons around that. They just… hadn’t looked far enough.

“This is hilarious.” Demon said, roaring with laughter. “You made him think the World changed.”

“It is quite funny.” Angel said.

And it was pretty good. Order, a primordial Goddess, able to see all that there is and Knowledge, one of the most Knowledgeable entities in possibly all of Reality, had made a mistake. A mistake… because they didn’t take the time to know something.

When dealing with Godlings, they all tried to limit themselves. It was like trying to fit a universe into a single celled organism. Part of that was a self-chosen limited perception. It got… boring knowing everything.

While everyone was laughing though, one of them was merely politely smiling. Gaia was still a bit glum.

“Hey,” Chaos said, coming near her. “He survived didn’t he?”

“It was… too close. If I’d used the original version-”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. Well, it would, but absolutely for the worse. There’s a reason you didn’t create that world.”

Gaia nodded, smiling slightly. The recent near death of the godling had shaken them all. Even for Gods… it was tough watching all your hopes and dreams nearly die. This was always par for the course though. And the number of tragedies… was too high. It took a long time, even from a primordial perspective, to find and nurture a godling. Eons might as well have been seconds while numbers larger than any mathematician could count passed. Everything, as it was, did not easily submit to new Gods. For all Chaos and Order’s power… this was the one area they were limited.

“So,” Gaia said, shaking off her malaise. “Was that the Godling Bullshit you couldn’t see?”

“Oh no, of course not. We saw that happening long ago. No spoilers, you know that.” Chaos said, chuckling lightly. Even Chaos and Order didn’t like to see too far ahead.

*****

Wow… a whole world can just change like that? Did it change my system? Was my system so malleable? Was I only given a list of worlds where that system could be integrated? Were there worlds I couldn’t choose, like earth, where the system just wouldn’t work?

I was suddenly filled with so many questions about the cosmos.

Still… after a while, I got back to thinking. I’d puzzle most things out over time, as it mainly related to system stuff. So maybe I’d run into some weird things with Skills or Status Effects… but there shouldn’t be any more ‘Surprises’ now that I solved the stat system.

But that wasn’t everything. I had already started to do a review and there was one more scene replying itself constantly in my mind.

The Crown Selection.

Where I had formed my crown via picking Authories and my Crown Typing. That had been… bizarre. Bizarre in so many ways. It was like standing in that area, I had become someone else. Conceptual knowledge, things I just knew had flowed into my brain. Picking those ‘abilities’... was more akin to redefining my personality itself, it felt like. Or, maybe it was more like, my very Core of my Being had suddenly been let out. I’d picked things I felt were smart choices, sure, but also… things that I had far too many opinions on in hindsight.

Minions for example felt… good but wrong. Like ruling over puppets. It wasn’t what I wanted but it might be something I needed.

Sustenance had felt incredibly smart when I picked it… but I had never really used it. There was no real reason too… actually, that might be changing now that I thought about it some more. I had a whole army now that I needed to equip! It would take too much to use it to equip everyone I had just blown threw my stockpile and only got the ability to make 2 pounds per day, roughly.

But I could make the most mana expensive thing possible, eat it, and then reproduce it for some of my elites. I had to do that.

But it wasn’t just smart… I wasn’t a glutton but it had just felt right. Because it called to a different part of me. ‘Shortcut’. This Authority was weak and useless, more or less, now but… it would grow stronger as I ascended the tiers and stronger as I ate more valuable things. I wouldn’t be outfitting an army any time soon but if I eat “Super omega thing everyone wants” I now had an endless supply of it. Wait a minute… that gives me an incredible idea…

Then there was Life Authority. This wook a whole week of saving up to use but… I was really regretting not using this during the fight with the wolf. It was a full heal! But I didn’t feel too bad… the Crown was a lot. I was far too weak to wield it. I took a glance at it.

[General/Crown/Evolution/Dungeon

Summon time: 10 seconds

Time stored: 0

Crown types: [Immunity Type] [Enhancement Type]

Authorities: [Sustenance Authority] [Life Authority] [Minion Authority]]

10 seconds. It took a moment to pull out and was hefty. I had a few more seconds to pull it out today, sure, but it didn’t just have a summon limit based on my Generation. It also took Time Stored to wield. I couldn’t even summon it right now if I wanted to. It wouldn’t till generation 19 that I could have it out all the time, and I still wouldn’t, because I’d prefer to store up the Time instead.

If I tried to summon this while under attack, I’d have died, even if I could summon it.

I still remembered the other Authorities and the one that for some reason had felt like a maggot crawling through my skin. Dominate Authority. If minions made me feel annoyed and unhappy, then Dominate made me outright Hostile. It went against the very Core of who I was and I wasn’t talking mentally. From a purely mental perspective… yeah, no, fuck slavery and all that. But from apparently a Core perspective, the idea of ruling over slaves made me… disgusted.

My whole slime body shivered from the very idea. It was strange. It was me but… not the conscious me? Like I had a whole second sub-conscious this whole time that had been woken up when I’d gotten the crown.

I shook it off. As for the typings, those were less ‘Core’ and more ‘Showing’. Kind of like a king wearing robes or wielding a scepter. The actual abilities of being stronger and immune to status effects, were nice but non-critical for now. I’d damn well be happy if I ever got poisoned or could use my crown for more than 10 seconds, but still, good enough.

I smiled a slimy smile. I’d made a pretty startlingly discovery and reviewed everything I could. I had some great new ideas and ways to utilize my abilities and ways to train and I’d start immediately.

An army was coming but I’d be ready.