Space twisted around him. When his vision cleared, Zhou Yuan found himself beneath a shadow as towering as a mountain.
In the distance, the colossal spires of a hive city pierced the smog-choked sky. Nearby stood an enormous garbage mountain reeking of rot and mixed with industrial waste.
For a human, this was hell.
For a juvenile slime, however, it was practically an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Zhou Yuan wriggled his jelly-like blue body and asked in his mind,
"Great Sage, report my coordinates and the timeline."
The AI known as Great Sage answered in his head:
"Answering host: current location is the Realm of Ultramar, on a hive world at the edge of the Ultramar sector, near Mining Town No. 42. Current time: the end of the 41st millennium."
"Ultramar? That's a good place!"
Zhou Yuan was delighted.
"That's the home turf of our Second—cough, I mean, the Thirteenth Primarch. The people there are way more reasonable than the barbarians in other sectors, and public security is top-tier by Imperial standards—"
Then, in the very next second, his smile—if a slime could be said to have one—froze.
"Wait… the end of M41? The Great Rift? The Eye of Terror expanding?"
His body instantly shifted from blue to gray, a clear sign of fright.
"Isn't this right before the Plague Wars? Mortarion and his gang of foul-smelling rust buckets are about to come here for a little team-building exercise?!"
The moment he imagined the aesthetic of Nurgle's forces—pus, rot, maggots, and certain indescribable excretions—his entire slime body felt awful.
"Gah! No way! Just because I've got Devour All Things doesn't mean I want to eat Nurgle's stuff! How is that any different from eating shit?!"
Great Sage calmly cut off his rant.
"Correction, host: from a biological standpoint, you are currently a slime. You possess neither taste buds nor a sense of smell. To your digestive system, Nurgle daemons are merely mobile bundles of experience points capable of providing large amounts of EXP."
"Is this a matter of biology? No! This is a matter of dignity!"
"Unable to understand. Nurgle units provide ten times the experience value of ordinary organisms. There is still a buffer period before the war breaks out. Recommendation: during this time, the host should avoid being picky and raise their level as quickly as possible. Once the war begins, you may then quietly devour daemons belonging to Nurgle's forces. I consider this a near-perfect opening."
"A perfect opening means forcing me to eat shit, is that it?"
"Host, I believe that once you take a single bite, you will come to love the vast amount of experience they provide."
"Impossible. Absolutely impossible. Even if I starve to death, die outside, or jump off the top of this hive city, I will never eat a single bite of shit!"
"Host statement recorded. Famous last words may arrive late, but they never fail to arrive. I hope you remain this stubborn when the time comes."
"..."
And so, in order to stay alive, that little blue blob silently burrowed deep into the garbage mountain and began a life of eating whatever it could find, with the occasional extra snack from the mines.
…
One year later.
The garbage mountain, once over a hundred meters high, had somehow shrunk by a considerable amount.
In a dark corner, a mass of semi-transparent matter slowly wriggled.
"Burp—"
Zhou Yuan let out a belch rich with the flavor of radiation.
Over the past year, he had practically become an environmental champion.
Highly toxic heavy-metal wastewater? Drink it.
Scrapped promethium fuel canisters? Chew them up.
Irradiated wasteland soil? Swallow it.
Ding! Devoured high-concentration industrial waste. Acquired Toxin Resistance!
Ding! Devoured radioactive ore. Acquired Radiation Resistance!
Ding! Level increased to LV.36!
Zhou Yuan checked his status screen and nodded in satisfaction.
Level 36.
At this point, taking on a few ordinary Astartes would not be much of a problem.
He had dumped all the attribute points he had accumulated over the past year into Intelligence, Mental Power, and Self-Regeneration.
In a world crawling with lunatics, brutes died the fastest.
Only intelligence and mental strength could support the enormous mana cost of his core cheat ability—Thought Manifestation.
"The foundation's set. Next comes the skills."
With a thought, Zhou Yuan's large slime body instantly split apart into more than a dozen smaller blobs. Then they swiftly merged back together, ripples spreading across his surface as he simulated the texture of stone.
Mimicry. Division. Physical damage reduction. High-speed regeneration.
He had already trained these signature slime abilities to perfection.
"Great Sage, with my current strength, I should be able to run wild through this little town now, right?"
"Answering host: if your goal is merely to become a local tyrant, then more than enough. But if your objective is to deal with the coming Plague Wars, I recommend that you begin mass-producing troops as soon as possible."
"Of course. One person's strength is limited."
His plan had always been simple:
Lie low.
First, keep hiding until he grew strong enough. Then, use Mimicry to infiltrate human society and worm his way into this planet's ruling class.
After that, use Thought Manifestation and Division to secretly create an army absolutely loyal to him.
And when Nurgle's fleet descended and the planet's defenses collapsed, that would be the moment for him to step out from behind the scenes and onto center stage.
Today, as usual, Zhou Yuan came to the mine to grab a few snacks. Compared to the stuff in the garbage mountain, he still preferred various ores.
"I'll just eat a tiny little bit. This lousy mine caves in all the time anyway. Nobody's going to notice if a few tons of ore go missing."
But when he arrived at the tunnel where he usually stole food, he found it unusually lively.
Gunfire rang out. Screams echoed one after another.
A gang of mutant raiders, with strange tumors growing from their bodies and sickly gray-white skin, were waving crude autoguns as they pinned down a group of ragged miners.
"Hahaha! Kill them all! The mine belongs to us now!"
The mutant leader laughed wildly and blew apart a miner's head with a single shot.
Bodies were already strewn all over the ground. The remaining miners cowered behind cover, on the verge of being slaughtered to the last man.
Hidden in the shadows, Zhou Yuan frowned—at least metaphorically, since he did not actually have eyebrows.
"Hey, hey, hey. This is my private cafeteria."
If this bunch of mutants seized the mine, they would definitely start digging recklessly and tighten security. Sneaking in for snacks later would become a huge hassle.
"Can I let that slide? No way. They need to be physically persuaded to leave."
With a thought, Zhou Yuan's body split apart at once.
More than a dozen inconspicuous little blue blobs clung to the ground and, using shadows and cracks in the rocks for cover, silently slid toward the mutants as they reloaded.
One mutant was just about to throw a grenade toward the miners' cover when he suddenly felt something cold at his feet.
"Hm? What the—"
Before he could finish, the blue slime abruptly swelled and splattered over his face with a smack, then forced its way madly into his mouth, nose, ears, and eyes.
There was no scream.
In just a few seconds, the mutant went limp. Along with the gun in his hands and the clothes on his body, he vanished completely into that writhing mass of blue slime.
Status Panel
Level: 36
Strength: 58
Agility: 42
Stamina: 65
Intelligence: 80
Mental Power: 75
HP: 3200
MP: 1500
MP Recovery: 15/minute
Active Skills: Devour All Things, Infinite Leveling, Thought Manifestation, Mimicry LV5, Division LV6, Perception LV3, Water Manipulation LV6, Environmental Concealment LV4
Passive Skills: Physical Resistance LV7, Energy Resistance LV5, Radiation Resistance MAX, Toxin Resistance LV6, Super Regeneration LV8
Send Chapter 3 when you're ready.
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My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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