The forest was silent. The sound of his jelly dragging across the ground was the only noise in the air. Sometimes an insect would fly by, its body reflecting the sunlight for an instant before disappearing into the shadows.
Fortunately, there were no other monsters either.
He spent another hour wandering through the forest, crushing insects and dissolving whatever he found along the way.
Another thing he learned was to keep a bank of Biomass as security.
During the battle, he understood that Biomass wasn't just a currency he could spend to evolve, it was the time he could afford to make mistakes. When the core was almost empty, his body began to lose shape.
In the worst case, he could use this reserve Biomass to purchase a skill that could help him in risky situations and increase his chances of survival.
The problem he encountered when using this new source of biomass was that his digestion speed was still very slow.
When consuming a small insect worth 0.5 Biomass, Lohan needed to stand still on it for 13 and a half minutes, 21% faster than when he arrived in this world, but still very slow.
After an hour, he had accumulated 2.17 Biomass.
So he decided to do a test.
Adding the biomass he had already stored and what he had farmed in the last hour, there was an Evolution he wanted to test.
He was already very sleepy, having spent the whole day studying and several hours playing games, so he knew he had to leave, but one of the evolutions had a very useful description.
[Passive Digestion Lv 1 – 2 Bio]
[The body develops autonomous microprocesses of energy conversion, absorbing traces of mana and matter from the environment. It slowly generates Biomass even at rest.]
He didn't know what would happen to his body after he left the game, but according to the definition of this skill, theoretically, as long as his body still existed somewhere, and wasn't just removed from existence for a while, he would still be able to generate biomass on his own.
'So even if I'm not in the game, I'll still be able to earn Biomass to spend when I come back, right?'
He didn't want to waste time grinding, accustomed to playing for 16 hours to farm the mounts he wanted in WoW in the other world, but in this world he had heavier responsibilities, and if he missed class, the university would have an excuse to cut costs and no longer pay for his assistance, even demanding a compensatory fine.
So he could only sigh and buy this skill, hoping that these passive gains would offset his Biomass expenditure.
Upon purchasing Evolution, a slight wave ran through his body.
The gelatin around his core began to spin slowly, so slowly that if it weren't for his own body, he wouldn't even have noticed, but this slow movement was constantly generating biomass for him!
A faint, warm flow crossed the core... as if the world around him was breathing through him. And little by little, the Biomass bar began to rise.
0.0001... 0.0002... 0.0003.
Opening the Status, Lohan analyzed the speed at which the Biomass was rising and arrived at a result of 0.00363 Biomass per minute.
One hour of this evolution would yield 0.217 Biomass, meaning that after a little over 4 and a half hours he would receive 1 Biomass, and after 9 hours he would recover his investment in this skill, starting to receive infinite profit after that!
Looking at this yield of 0.217 Biomass per hour, Lohan realized that this value was very similar to what he received by consuming grams and other insects.
'Does [Efficient Digestion] also increase how much passive income [Passive Digestion] earns me? If so, that alone would more than compensate for the cost!'
Seeing how profitable this was, he even considered focusing on this passive investment, but unfortunately, like the other skills, the upgrade price increased more than what it yielded.
'Even if the cost increases more than the income, if the 10% bonus per level of [Efficient Digestion] also applies to this Evolution, investing in it would always be relLohant, especially since I won't have to do anything to receive it!'
Satisfied with this evolution, Lohan finally logged out of the game.
Slowly, his consciousness traveled back from the game world to his body in the real world, with the helmet even providing a visual representation of him traveling through hyperspace.
As his consciousness was pulled back, his body seemed to fragment into millions of particles before being sucked into a tunnel of light.
The first sense to return was smell, bringing with it the unpleasant odor of mold and pollution.
While in Elysium, he had even forgotten how unpleasant it was to breathe in the real world, with the impurities in the air almost tearing his lungs apart with every breath.
The next sense to return was touch, as he slowly regained control of his own body.
Having hands and legs again was incredible, for someone who had no control over his own body in the previous world, being just a small ball of jelly that rolled around was not completely new, but still very unpleasant.
What came back next was his sight, but it seemed that it hadn't really returned, as everything was dark.
At that time, the street lights had already been turned off, and to save energy, everything that emitted light was also turned off in his house.
Not even the moonlight was visible through the window, as pollution smoke completely covered the sky in that area of the city.
Feeling tired, Lohan simply removed his helmet, gently placed it on the bedroom floor, turned on his side, and fell asleep, ignoring the slight hunger he was feeling.
-xXx-
When he woke up, Lohan opened his eyes and found himself in this strange room again.
It took him a few seconds to realize that he was in another world and that he had died in his previous world, but just being able to get out of bed on his own was incredible to him.
Getting out of bed, Lohan felt that something was wrong.
'Is having a functional body really that practical?
Wherever he wanted to go, he went with great ease, with every few steps he was already where he wanted to be, and surprisingly, even the hunger he had been feeling before going to sleep was slightly satisfied while he slept.
He didn't want to try the dehydrated food at home, but thinking about the price of food at the university, he accepted his fate and soaked a rancid paste that tasted like metal and ate it all.
Fortunately, a single meal was enough to keep him going until he got home.
Unfortunately, he didn't have enough money for water to bathe, so he could only use a few wet wipes to clean himself where he needed to.
Hiding the Elysium helmet under the bed and placing several empty boxes and old clothes in front of it, Lohan finally left home for college.