[New Quest: Defeat 5 Slimes]
[Reward: Merge Realm Unlock]
His eyes lit up as the notification chimes rang in his ears.
'Another skill already?' he thought in disbelief.
None of this felt real.
He wiped the sweat off his brow, and stared towards the distance.
It was kind of like playing Minecraft with mods...dumped into some open terrain with no players, no NPCs, and not a single sign of civilization as far as the eye could see. Just trees, sky, and wobbly sentient jelly blobs.
But he figured he was getting ahead of himself. There would be time to explore later. For now, he just wanted to enjoy the magic part.
He spotted another small slime nearby and started walking toward it. As he moved, the same sound returned. That quiet wet jiggle, the same one from before.
Only it wasn't coming from around him. It was coming from inside his ears.
He narrowed his eyes slightly.
Was that sound going to be permanent?
It wasn't loud or painful. Just... annoying.
He decided to ignore it. Maybe it would blend into the background if he left it alone long enough.
Tracking down the next few slimes for the quest wasn't difficult, at least not the fighting part.
The real challenge was finding ones small.and weak.enough his stick spear. His attacks just didn't have the strength to deal with the thicker, larger slimes.
So his plan was to isolate the weaker ones and take them out one at a time.
He managed to get four of them this way, all without much issue.
Then came the last one.
As he crept forward, the sound returned again. But this time, it wasn't just a wet pop or a soft jiggle. It was louder. Like a dozen little slime bubbles were bouncing around inside his brain.
He stopped.
'Wait... are there more of them in my head now?' he wondered, panicking slightly.
He stared at the creature in front of him.
"…Is this what soul merging means?"
He hadn't really considered the implications before. Was every slime he defeated going to stick around in his mind like this?
If so, he wasn't sure he liked it. Was there a way to turn the effect off?
He held his breath for a moment. Thought about it.
But he was only one slime away. One more, and he'd unlock his first proper reward.
He clenched his jaw, and shook his head. "Just one more and I'll stop," he whispered, stabbing the stick into the slime.
[Target Soul Absorbed: Low-Grade Slime][Processing Soul Affinity…]
[Congratulations, Host. You are now 1% Slime.]
[Skill Acquired: Malleable Form – Passive]
[Quest: "Defeat 5 slimes" Complete.]
[Merge Realm Unlocked.]
[Level Up!]
[User has reached Level 1.]
[Stats have been increased by a rate of 1.2×]
"Yosh!" he shouted in satisfaction, wiping sweat off his brow. This was to most work he had ever done... in two lifetimes.
'So I even get stats, huh? I wonder if I can lift cars now,' he thought. Before breaking out into laughter. "Lift cars? Just a day ago I couldn't even lift my own spoon."
Still, he could feel the subtle changes in his body. He felt... lighter somehow.
He took a few steps forward, then broke into a jog. Then a short run.
'Well, I'm not Usian Bolt, but I'm getting pretty swift.' In fact, unlike before his legs didn't wobble and stumble randomly.
A smile crept up his face.
"If father could see me now."
The words came quietly, almost involuntarily. He caught himself and shook his head.
He couldn't keep thinking like that. He wasn't going to see them again. His family belonged to a world that didn't exist anymore. Maybe it was the silence of this place, or the lack of anyone to talk to, but the loneliness was already beginning to press in.
Still, there were more immediate things to deal with.
"How do I open the system interface?" he asked softly.
The moment the word 'interface' left his mouth, something flickered.
A glowing, translucent screen appeared in front of him.
━━━━⊱༒︎ 『User Interface』 ༒︎⊰━━━━
User: [Unnamed]
Rank: [Low-Level Soul Entity]
━━━━⊱༒︎ 『Stats』 ༒︎⊰━━━━
Vitality: [Magnitude 1.2×]
Agility: [Magnitude 1.2×]
━⊱༒︎ 『Unlocked System Triggers』 ༒︎⊰━
Merge Realm [First Evolution]
Skill Tree
━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━
He stared at the screen.
'Low-Level Soul Entity.'
'I wonder if this has anything to with that place I was in before.'
He considered it for a moment, but then decided that if it was important, he would find out eventually. There wasn't much point in worrying over details he couldn't understand yet.
He moved on and opened the Skill Tree.
Another screen appeared, filled with connected orbs, most of them dull gray and locked. At the center, a single green orb pulsed softly.
[Slime Soul Entity]
One skill node linked to it was already highlighted.
[Malleable Form – Passive]
As he focused on it, a soft angelic voice sang in his ear.
"The user's musculature, skin, and skeletal system hold slime properties. Able to absorb low-level impacts, slashes, and stabs."
He turned around, looking for where the voice had come from, before slowly turning back to the interface.
"Hello?"
However there was no response.
He focused on the orb again, and the skills description was read out. He found it a little weird that the system spoke like that, but the excitement from his new skill quickly distracted him.
He looked down at the stick in his hand, narrowed his eyes and smiled.
"Absorb stabs, huh?" He gave himself a solid jab in the side.
His skin stretched unnaturally around it, the wood pressing in but never piercing. His skin bounced back, unharmed.
"Very nice."
Two more nodes had become visible, branching off from [Malleable Form].
[Sculptable Figure] – Unlocks at 2% Slime
[Slimed Regeneration] – Unlocks at 3% Slime
Their descriptions were still locked, but even the names were promising.
"So I just need to defeat a few more of these," he whispered, then looked down at his stick.
"But I don't think this will be enough."
He had taken care of all the weak ones, but the stronger slimes would need something better than a stick.
He sighed and looked around.
He'd need to spend time figuring out how to craft a proper weapon. But that could wait.
There was still one other thing he hadn't explored.
He thought about the Merge Realm, and the moment the thought formed, the system screens vanished.
A brilliant white light spread from the center of his vision, devouring everything in sight until the world was completely blank.
"What's going on?" he whispered, his voice echoing back at him from the void.
Then it responded.
A wet giggling sound. Familiar, but louder this time.
He spun around.
Six small slime figures were bouncing in place, glowing faintly, as if excited to see him.
[Ability: Merge Door has successfully processed.]
[New Quest: Merge 2 Soul Entities.]
"…Wait, what?"