[Slimy Slime] Chapter 36: Power Up! Also, What?

I flew back down to the ground, only to grimace hard. The fight was over… but the results weren’t. It wasn’t like I had levels or experience points. My whole way to gain more power was to eat and eat some more. Specifically the dead bodies of my enemies. Only that would lead me to stat growth.

But a dozen dead birds splattering on the ground created a… gruesome scene. Some had clearly fallen limp, while others had… burst like a balloon. It was horrifying, even worse than the wall of dead wolves I’d once seen. I felt my whole slimy body shudder.

Gore… it was something I was going to have to get used to but… there was just so much blood.

Feeling sick to my stomach, I crawled forth, thankful I’d decided to evolve into an [Acid Slime] first. Without that, eating everything would take me much, much longer. I didn’t want to stay here and do this for more than a minute.

It took some time still, but I tried to ignore it. The blood, the guts, the gore, it all was absorbed by me. I had never been more thankful I had no sense of taste or smell. Sadly, touch might be vague, but it still existed. Ughh.

Still, more annoyingly was the stats. I’d eaten over a dozen birds but… some had been too damaged to yield anything at all!

[General/Crown/Evolution/Dungeon

Name: Slimy Slime

Free stat points: 8

HP: 287/287

MP: 166/166

STR: 50

AGI: 35

DEX: 35

CON: 35

END: 35

INT: 35

WIS: 35

SPI: 35]

Still, even that was another eight points. With that, I could finally start to level out a few of my stats!

….or….

It wasn’t like stat points were going to disappear or become harder to get, as far as I knew. For a laugh I decided to try putting another into strength. I had no intention of really focusing or specializing but I still remembered that trying to break that damn wolf's hide was nearly impossible. More strength would be more than worth it.

Except, something surprising happened.

[Unable to allocate. Generation too low.

Crown System User detected.

Able to break stat barrier after defeat of a Generation 2 Creature.]

…what?

…there were stat barriers? Why didn’t Knowledge tell me?! That seems like a pretty vital piece of information to know! This is… good and bad.

On one hand, YAY! LIMITS! Finally! I don’t have to worry about the Dragon that has lived for a million years and has billions worth of stats! Even better, I was an exception! I could break the rules and gain power that no [Acid Slime] should ever have!

I would cry tears of happiness if I could. Since day 0, I’d been worried about the failure rate and the overpowered monsters and people out there. This removed one of my countless worries and fears.

On the other hand… a Generation 2? Isn’t that what that demonic looking wolf and Krrrgg is? Those… are not weak creatures at all. Krrrgg had already been stupidly fast before her evolution. Faster than I could ‘blink’, seeming to teleport. I hadn’t seen her fight since she’d evolved but I highly doubted it was slower. And the wolf had multiple abilities but still, it was seemingly am ambush predator. One that was purely focused on more direct combat might be even harder to fight. If I evolved into gen 2, I become that overpowered [Acid Metal Slime]. Even if I’d taken the evolution path I wanted to, that would still be a [Core Slime], which had a myriad of abilities.

It’s not that I lacked confidence for those fights… just surety. I didn’t know if I could win those fights, even if I could survive them. Still, this makes things a little tougher. The stupid [Omen of the Fool] prevents me from using any weapons for the first 6 months I’m here. Beating things to death has worked so far, my spirit hands weren’t exactly made to be weapons. Slowly but surely, I was essentially turning them into cannonballs. So damn near every stat was useful because of that. Strength for, well, strength, Endurance and Spirit for the durability, Intelligence to control all of them, Dexterity for more precision when necessary, and Wisdom for mana. I’d only realized that recently, sadly. Constitution and Agility may not be useful for my hands but to stay alive and to move faster than a snail's pace while on ground, they definitely came in handy.

The problem is… even if I get everything to 50… can I punch through that damn wolf's hide?  Troubling.

Still, I can only do what I can do.

[General/Crown/Evolution/Dungeon

Name: Slimy Slime

Free stat points: 0

HP: 287/287

MP: 166/166

STR: 50

AGI: 35

DEX: 35

CON: 35

END: 43

INT: 35

WIS: 35

SPI: 35]

The birds had to work to tear my hands apart and I’d like to keep that up. It royally sucks to have your hands be torn to pieces, over and over again. Shudder. Hopefully I’m leaving those days behind me. Just call Iron Slime, slime of a thousand fists!

Chuckling, I continued on my way. Now that I knew there was a barrier and it would only take, uh, hmm, carry the 3… 97 more murders, I might as well fill them up!

…97 more murders, Jesus Christ. Even if you’re mindless monsters… this day already feels heavy enough.

But if I don’t improve, then what’s the point? I’m stuck here for a year, and I’m stuck here in this world for… ever? Dozens, if not hundreds of times my previous life. I could be here for thousands of years…. I need a better goal. But I’ll settle for survival for now. After all, Wolf, Potentially a Goblin Chieftain, future rapist, all threats I need to be ready and trained for. I can start, I don’t know, a garden or something after I’m not in constant potential danger.

Flying through the forest, I began to search for more enemies. The vultures had been a random coincidence, not the main target, after all. Time began to pass as I couldn’t find anything. I knew my fight with the wolf horde had lowered their numbers in the area but come on! Where is everyone?!

Eventually, an hour went by and I was starting to lose hope when I saw one! Oddly, only one. I knew wolves were usually in packs so it seemed a bit strange but I also didn’t have any idea how wolves in a fantasy world acted.

I flew towards it, readying my hands to fight as it growled at me. Alright, sorry wolf, your time has come.

Closer and closer I flew. Closer. Soon, I’d unload all my fists on it! It’s growls grew louder and louder.

Closer-

Woosh!

I stared, fist cocked and ready to fly… watching the wolf disappear into the distance.

It… ran away? From me?

I looked down at myself, realizing how I must look to it. A slime floating on a ghostly hand, nine others around it. That had to be a pretty scary sight to your average wolf…

This… I could maybe catch up to it but… chasing it down just seemed wrong…

Well, no matter! Surely, that was a fluke! I’ll just find a different wolf who attacks first to kill and eat it.

….

…..

………

………….

It was starting to get dark…

I’d ran into more wolves, plenty actually. Even a few packs of wolves! And… they all ran away. I’d even chased that last pack, when-

“Oof!”

I slammed into a solid wall. At least, that’s what it felt like. I reached out with my hands in amazement. In front of me was the forest, I could clearly see it. But in front of me, in mid air was… nothing. Yet that nothing was exactly what I had slammed into. I was confused for a moment before realizing it.

Barrier! I had run into the barrier. I was stuck in a thirty mile radius for a year. Had I… really gone that far from my base? I had flown for a while, but thirty miles in a single day is a lot! I looked up towards the sun and noticed that morning had become evening. I had tried to find monsters to eat all day but they all ran away….

Frowning, I began to fly back. This was… not the most productive day. What was I going to do now? I could… ambush wolves? If I saw them first and acted like a normal slime, they could attack me first. But it just felt, somewhat wrong when they were willing to run away in a moment. Still… I needed some stats. It was 97 for the normal stuff but I had no idea where the line for HP and MP was. 500 each maybe?

It was as I was flying back that I heard growls. Growls I recognized. I headed forward, peeking out through some bushes. In front of me… were goblins.

And not just a few goblins. I was shocked I’d somehow missed them. There were a lot of goblins. What seemed like at least fifty.

I took a second to reorient myself.

Aren’t they… heading directly to my house?!