'Some things feel real precisely because they are unbelievable.'
That wise maxim left by an ancient sage had sometimes served as a signpost in my life.
And now, amid this surreal sensation, I was experiencing its truth with my entire body.
No matter how absurd the situation was.
I could hardly deny even the vivid sensations against my skin.
There was only one clear fact.
Without my knowing it.
The curtain had already risen on my next stage.
***
It was hard to control my body.
For some reason, I couldn't feel my arms or legs.
What in the world was happening inside my body?
I turned my gaze for a moment and looked up at the ceiling.
Brilliantly colored Mana Stones were embedded throughout it.
'Huh?'
One particularly smooth Mana Stone gleamed brightly.
My reflection appeared clearly on its surface.
Only then did I grasp my current condition.
A soft, translucent, blue, spherical creature.
A single round lump of jelly sat forlornly inside the Mana Stone's reflection.
That was right.
I was now inside the body of a Slime.
An astonishingly clear and lustrous mass of blue jelly.
Concave, star-shaped eyes sparkled on its round body.
Within it, a round core the size of a ping-pong ball floated and glowed faintly like a pulse.
The body was unfamiliar, but its sensations were strangely vivid and alive.
The texture of the soil came through perfectly wherever my body touched the ground.
It did not feel as bad as I had expected.
A strange curiosity arose in me, like a child who had received a new toy.
First, I should try moving.
I tried to stretch out my arms and legs with all my might.
SQUISH.
I merely rolled along the floor and spun uselessly in place.
Perhaps that was only natural, since I no longer had any arms or legs.
It was not as easy as I thought.
I wobbled this way and that like a roly-poly toy and rolled across the cave floor.
The texture of the ground traveled straight through my jelly.
I twisted my body sharply from side to side to build momentum.
The sloshing lump of jelly lost its balance and toppled forward.
Flattened against the floor, I looked like a stick of taffy melting in the sun.
Tsk, this was not it.
Of course, I felt no despair. Compared with the days when I had faced death dozens of times while mastering the pinnacle of swordsmanship, this was mere recreation.
After several attempts, I finally managed to move, though only barely.
I was slow. At this rate, I would have to crawl across the ground more slowly than a snail.
I quietly recalled what I knew about Slime ecology.
Surely these creatures also hunted, and fled when predators appeared.
If so, they had to possess a unique means of movement.
Did they regulate the friction along the surface of their jelly?
Or did they instantly release the water pressure inside their bodies?
I focused my awareness on the core floating within my transparent jelly.
Like a weight setting my center of gravity, I tilted the core slightly forward.
The sloshing liquid flowed smoothly in the direction of the core.
There. That was it.
I recalled what I had observed while cutting down Slimes in the past.
Countless hypotheses flashed rapidly through my mind.
I raised the viscosity of my lower body, pressed against the floor, to its limit.
I made my body one with the ground like an ancient tree taking root.
A firmly fixed support.
Now it was time to contract my body like a bowstring pulled taut.
'I'm still an S-Grade Hunter, Han Yuri, the man with the greatest talent in history!'
HAAAH—!
Once more, I put all my strength into my round body.
I had to erase the methods of using human joints and muscles from my mind completely.
I needed to discover an entirely new form of movement suited to this squishy body of jelly.
I compressed the water filling my insides sharply toward the floor.
It felt like forcing a spring with incredible elasticity all the way down.
SQUEEEZE.
Tension built inside my jelly.
The core within me shook as it released mana.
A little more, just a little more.
The force compressed to its limit swirled violently within my round membrane.
After narrowing the area touching the ground to a single sharp point, I released the suppressed pressure all at once.
I squeezed out my mana and thrust my blue jelly body forward.
BOING—!
At last, my body cut through the air in a light leap.
'Good grief, I did it!'
I cheered and landed lightly on the ground.
A springy sensation bounced through me.
The recoil was quite refreshing and pleasant.
Once I grasped the trick, the next attempt was much easier.
Boing, bo-oing.
I stretched and contracted my round body elastically, springing into the air again and again.
My body was as light as a feather that barely felt air resistance.
Merely twisting my center of gravity slightly allowed me to change direction at will.
I could curve smoothly to the right or leap straight up from where I stood.
Only then was I able to take a proper look at my surroundings.
An endlessly sprawling, pitch-black underground cavern.
Stalactites hung everywhere, and soft blue moss carpeted the floor.
The faint fluorescent light radiating from the moss created a dreamlike atmosphere.
An uncanny silence reigned.
Not so much as a breath of wind could be heard in that absolute isolation.
It felt as though I had been left alone in the middle of the deep sea, cut off from the world.
Yet I was not afraid in the slightest. The blue light emitted by the Mana Stones and moss did more than illuminate my surroundings; it even carried a cozy warmth.
The bitter scent of earth brushed my nose each time I rolled across the floor.
This was virgin territory no human had ever entered.
A mysterious space where the primeval natural world remained perfectly preserved.
Clear drops of water gathered at the tips of the stalactites overhead.
Drip, pitter-patter.
The rhythmic sounds echoed softly through the cavern.
Even they sounded like a gentle song.
The core of an adventurer facing a new world pounded violently like a heart.
I had noticed it from the beginning, but this place was undeniably rich in mana.
Merely breathing made it feel as though inner energy was steadily accumulating in my dantian.
Of course, I did not know whether a Slime body had an organ called a dantian.
But every living creature ought to carry a similar concept somewhere within its body.
I gently closed my eyes.
'Huuup!'
With my breath, the mana in the atmosphere swirled and surged into my body.
Where a human body had a complex network of acupoints, I now had this core.
The round core floating within my jelly served as my dantian.
The transparent jelly formed mana circuits and voraciously drew in energy.
I gathered the energy inhaled from every direction into a sphere at the deepest center of my body.
The dense energy compressed into a single point, creating taut tension.
The condensed energy then exploded within the core and spread violently through my jelly.
Crackle, tingle.
Behold.
Had I not already reached the First Stage of the Lightning God Style?
Blue electrical currents flowed across my round jelly body.
For reference, the Lightning God Style was a unique martial art I had invented myself. I had roughly named it after the tingling electricity that arose whenever I manipulated mana.
It had taken me a full 6 months to awaken the First Stage in a human body, but this body needed only a single breath.
'Hmm, what should I do now?'
No matter how abundant the mana or how peaceful it was, I could not spend my entire life holed up in a dark cavern like this.
I had to find an exit where the wind from the surface blew in and get outside.
I needed to learn what had happened to the cunning traitors who had driven me into the mire, and what state the world outside was in now.
I slowly bounced along the cavern wall.
I should explore the area again and determine where I was.
Boing, boing, boing.
I bounced lightly and advanced cautiously into the unknown.
The sound of clear groundwater flowing along the wall tickled my ears.
Nameless mushrooms growing in cracks between the rocks scattered spores in time with my movements.
A small pool of groundwater blocked my path.
I leaped lightly and sailed over it.
I even indulged in curling my body into a ball in midair before landing gracefully.
My jelly body was far more flexible and agile than I had expected.
Even narrow crevices between the rocks posed no problem at all.
All I had to do was flatten my body like a pancake and slip through.
It was exhilarating.
A refreshing sensation, like welcome rain falling on parched skin.
After exploring a little farther.
I was able to define this place as follows.
Everything in this ecosystem revolved around mana.
Even ordinary pebbles contained traces of magical power.
More than anything else, the brilliant Mana Stones scattered in heaps everywhere caught my eye.
Stones glowing red, blue, and yellow were embedded in the soil like jewels.
And in addition to that.
'Yum!'
I gulped down one small Mana Stone embedded in the ground.
Some instinctive attraction had compelled me.
My intuition as a Slime told me it was edible.
The result was astonishing.
A sweet, pleasantly sharp burst of freshness.
It tasted like the soda-flavored candy I had enjoyed as a child.
The hard shell broke apart, filling my mouth with the concentrated mana inside.
And then.
HISSS.
The Mana Stone dissolved smoothly within my body.
I was able to absorb the pure mana contained within it directly.
Explosive spiritual energy rode through my liquid body and spread relentlessly into every corner of every cell.
The blue currents circulating within me thickened and writhed.
This truly was an incredible discovery.
Supreme-Grade Mana Stones, desperately sought by Hunters in the human world for hundreds of millions of won at auction.
Not only were they scattered everywhere like roadside gravel, I could chew and swallow them for immediate, perfect absorption without a single side effect.
There were no savage guardians or troublesome traps protecting the Mana Stones, either.
Elixirs of astronomical value lay in heaps beneath my feet.
'This might be rather fun.'
My heart swelled with anticipation.
I bounced happily and continued exploring deeper into the unknown cavern.
I greedily filled my belly by gobbling up every Mana Stone I saw.
The red Mana Stones tasted sweet and spicy like strawberries, while the yellow ones tasted tart like lemons.
I swallowed a purple Mana Stone.
The fragrance of grapes filled my mouth, and the popping sting of carbonation struck my core.
The green Mana Stones had a bittersweet melon flavor.
Their tender, easy-to-chew texture was strangely addictive.
Such delicious and convenient consumption of elixirs.
As a human, I had been forced to endure a rather difficult process to neutralize their magical properties.
But a Slime's digestive fluid broke down all mana perfectly.
It filtered out only the crystals of pure mana and absorbed them into my core.
It truly was a blessed anatomy.
Yum, gulp.
Crunch, crunch.
Like a vacuum cleaner tidying the cavern, I swept up every piece of ore on the floor.
The more I ate, the more the inner energy in my body expanded out of control and grew denser.
My once-transparent body gradually took on a deeper, more lustrous blue.
At that moment, I was roaming the endless cavern, feasting in high spirits.
It happened.
[Ding, ding, ding-a-ling!]
'Huh?'
A cheerful alarm struck my ears.
Familiar translucent System windows appeared one after another before my eyes. A cacophony of rupturing sounds echoed through the air, as though a machine had awakened from a long slumber.
[You have successfully absorbed mana above the required threshold.]
[Your Soul Rank is rising.]
Suddenly, scorching heat began swirling in the deepest part of my body.
Dazzling white light burst violently from within my round jelly body.
A brilliant flash drove back all the surrounding darkness.
My vision flickered completely white, while powerful tremors shook my entire body as violently as an earthquake.
Wait, what's happening to my body—?!