The Slimes' carnage was in full swing, but Lohan knew that trying to join in on the mess would not end well, even if the potential reward was very good, so he contented himself with continuing to digest grass, and in 38 minutes he had accumulated another 1.5 Units.
Opening the store, Lohan looked at what he would buy next and quickly made a choice.
[Organic Evolution]
[Viscous Flow Lv 1 - 1.5 Bio]
[Increases agility in controlling one's own body by 10% of current agility and controls.
When that choice was made, Lohan felt as if his body had become lighter, and the speed at which the gelatin around his core moved under his command increased.
His estimate was that his speed had increased by 10%.
'If the trees around me are of normal size, I would say that my previous speed was 0.25 meters per second, now it has increased to 0.275 m/s, meaning that instead of taking 4 seconds to roll one meter, now it will only take me 3.6 seconds.' Lohan thought excitedly.
And what excited him most about this was that this statistic scaled in percentage based on his previous speed!
In other words, 10 levels in this evolution did not mean a 100% increase, but rather 160%!
Among all the possibilities Lohan had to choose from, survival was the priority.
The first Slime in that battle only died because he was stupid enough to keep digesting the Slime's core while others came to try to kill him.
If he was fast enough to get to the core first, he also had enough speed to run away with that core, or at least run away alive.
Just as if a predator appeared in that area, the slower Slimes would surely be the first to die.
"If I'm alive, I can farm as much biomass as I want, but if I die, only God knows where I'll end up."
With the mindset that he would prioritize staying alive, Lohan decided to focus on speed for his next evolutions, at least so he wouldn't become such an easy target in that group.
For the next level of this skill, Lohan needed to accumulate biomass for 56 minutes, and his speed increased to 0.30 m/s.
[Viscous Flow Lv 2 - 1.88 Bio]
In that last hour, the Slimes just continued to consume grass while the battle for the dead Slime's core was still going on.
After another 1 hour and 10 minutes, Lohan accumulated 2.4 Biomass and evolved Viscous Flow again, increasing his speed to 0.33 m/s.
[Viscous Flow Lv 3 - 2.34 Bio]
With this improvement, Lohan felt that his speed was equal to that of the Slime that first reached the core of the dead Slime, probably the highest speed among the Slimes so far, which gave him a sense of relief.
As much as the feeling of progress was very enjoyable, with the time for each evolution increasing more and more, Lohan was almost falling asleep.
Fortunately, something interesting happened.
The mixture of dozens of Slimes trying to devour the core of the unfortunate one who jumped on the rock finally showed a winner.
Lohan didn't even know who had won, since at that point all the Slimes had just mixed together, leaving a mess of cores there.
But what happened next made Lohan worry.
The speed at which the cores inside that monstrosity were being absorbed increased, and after a few minutes it increased again, and again.
Until the size of that Slime also increased.
With the percentage increase it received, added to the already gigantic mass it had by absorbing dozens of other Slimes, that creature was now at least 8 times Lohan's size!
The Slime that won that war was undergoing Evolution after Evolution with how much biomass it was absorbing from those cores.
And for some reason, Lohan felt that this was not a good sign.
'A bigger Slime means it has more gelatin to spin, which means a speed upgrade is more powerful on it, which means it will be much faster than a smaller Slime with the same level of [Viscous Flow], meaning even with my Skill at level 3, I will still be easy prey for it!' Lohan soon realized.
'And considering that that Slime grew so much after digesting other cores, it's very likely that after tasting the sweetness of rapid evolution and seeing no worthy opponents, it will try to consume the other weaker Slimes.'
Understanding that in a few hours, or minutes, he would soon become the target of that monstrosity, Lohan didn't think twice and abandoned the tuft of grass he was digesting and began to roll away from there.
The other Slimes, oblivious to the fate that awaited them, continued to happily digest grass while enjoying the sweet sunlight under that blue sky.
Lohan, on the other hand, rolled through the forest as if the big Slime was rolling behind him.
Even rolling forward, Lohan could see everything around him... the leaves breaking beneath him, insects fleeing underneath, and the sun's reflections fragmenting in the drops of his own jelly.
Through the Slime's vision, everything was more vivid, slower, closer.
It was only after 30 minutes of rolling that Lohan felt minimally safe.
With a pathetic speed of 0.33 meters per second, Lohan only managed to distance himself 600 meters (656 yards) in those 30 minutes, which was not 100 percent safe, but considering that the Slimes' intelligence was not the highest, it was enough safety for Lohan.
In those 30 minutes, he prioritized passing over grass and bushes to farm more biomass, gaining 1 more unit while fleeing, but some bushes had thorns, which caused his membrane to tear, and a strange cold ran through his body, as if his density was escaping through cracks.
With the cut in the membrane that held the gelatin together, his body began to leak, and a feeling of weakness spread from the inside out.
The pain spread through his body like a cold current, and the sensation of the liquid flowing out was so realistic that Lohan felt chills.
'Am I going to die because of a bush?!' he thought in fear. 'Wait, didn't the biomass description say I could use it to heal myself? System, help me heal myself, use my biomass for that!'
But nothing happened.
In desperation, Lohan remembered the feeling he had when he controlled his body to digest grass, with the feeling of what it was like to use Biomass to Evolve, and tried to circulate the energy in his body while spending biomass.
Surprisingly, the energy ran through the core and began to consume the Biomass. His body glowed in soft shades of blue, pulsing slowly as the lost gelatin regenerated, drop by drop.
For a few seconds, everything stopped.
There was no sound of wind, of leaves... just the soft pulsing of the gelatin recomposing itself.
Then...
shlp... shlp... shlp...
A wet, dragging noise came from behind.