The first thing Aarav did once he had a moment was to understand this new system that he had been encumbered with. The dichotomy of his life had been that while necessity had pushed him into some underhanded dealing and he had been forced to get street smart. Learning the filth of the cities he had lived in of which there had been many, his passion had always been reading more particularly fantasy novels. A guilty pleasure that he would have killed associates for knowing. But the reason this had come to his mind was that many of the stories he had read and many of the RPG games he had played were surprisingly reminiscent of these stats and skills that he was seeing. That was what had first struck him so suddenly about it. Why would this be happening and how is this possible? I mean come on? Holographic screen and tabs that I can see skills, stats and all this other stuff? This is very sci-fi or fantasy or any of that other stuff I played and read. Its…a lot.

The attack immediately after gaining some semblance of awareness and then screaming to high heaven had not given him a chance to understand and appreciate his new reality, the fact that he was not even human anymore and that he was in some weird place that he did not understand and he was an honest-to-god Earth Slime. I mean, it really doesn’t get any trippier than that. Even more than that time I did those two things together. Yeah, best not to think about that. Wow, that was insane, almost definitely in the top three most stupid mistakes I made in my life. Thank the lord I didn’t have any addictions, that would have been hard to shake…wait, can I even get addicted to anything here? I mean, I am a fricking slime!

More of those fun thoughts continued to flit through his head as he contemplated the implications of having a system and whether addiction was possible. If he was going to get addicted to anything it was his love of maths that was going to get him in the end. All these numbers were an engineer’s dream! Once upon a time engineering had been in the cards for him, the universe had conspired against him but in the end, he had the last laugh! As a Slime to be sure but hey! I’ll take what I can get at this point! If they could all see me now! Actually, the proverbial “they “would probably laugh me out of the room, me and my slime body. Let dig into this fun stuff!

Having checked on his skills he saw that many of them had been created by evolution or doing some interesting or pertinent action to acquire them. The experience requirements for each level seemed to go up steadily and from what he could tell it went like this:

Level 1 – 10 Level 2 – 46 Level 3 – 116

Level 4 – 228 Level 5 – 390 Level 6 – 610

Level 7 – 896 Level 8 – 1256 Level 9 – 1698

It was a cumulative total; which was confusing and made no sense. Aarav adjusted it so that it showed the requirement for that level alone. It was the same for all of his skills.

Level 1 – 10 Level 2 – 36 Level 3 – 70

Level 4 – 112 Level 5 – 162 Level 6 – 220

Level 7 – 286 Level 8 – 360 Level 9 – 442

It kept going but for now, it was not interesting, that analysis could come later, right now he wanted to understand his skills better. Foremost of those was the senses, eyes, ears, nose mouth. None of them was able to do what he could as a human so that was important to work on. The nice thing was that they continued to gain experience steadily as long as he kept them manifested. So basically continue to do what I’ve had been doing this whole time. He had to do things in order. Otherwise, there was too much here to understand and think about. As it was he was having a hard time keeping track of everything piling on top of his unstable emotional state.

I am just going to ignore my existential crisis for now and figure out what is going on so that I live long enough to get used to my new circumstances. What next? Wait, I already asked that question. Senses. How can I speed up this process? There are a lot of notifications from the last few days so maybe that will give me some ideas. Let’s have a look. Aarav proceeded to go through the many level-up notifications that he had received over the last few days but ignored.

Watery Sight has increased to Level 23!

Oral Devastation has increased to Level 19!

Ears of Echo Location has increased to Level 16!

Smell of Watery Soil has increased to Level 15!

Digging Legs has increased to Level 20!

Quad Worm Tails has increased to Level 15!

Tough Slime Skin has increased to Level 12!

One thing that caught Aarav’s eye as he observed his skills was the magic he had available to him, before becoming a water slime he had been an Aerial Slime and gained Sonic Boom at some point, he couldn’t remember exactly when but that was not as important as having the spell in his repertoire. Then when he became a Water Slime trying Sonic Boom had instead given him Water Gun, thank you Squirtle! The idea that a badass criminal like him used to play those games as an adult in his previous life made him laugh. It came out as a rough grunt with his mouth skewed. Another reminder that I need to change into something more, becoming…

Being an Earth Slime had not given him Earth-based magic, why not, was it just that he hadn’t tried? It might be worth trying to get some kind of Earth Magic before the next evolution, right? That way he could have Earth Magic and never ever have to go back to an Earth Slime, he would be able to spend much more time above the ground. With another forty minutes still left above the ground that was plenty of time to get the magic and evaluate the options available.

“Okay, here we go!” working to psych himself up the previous spells had not taken long. However, for this, it would need to be on the ground. Gliding down to the ground again was quick, easy and much less scary than getting away from the ground. Landing softly, the next step was to figure out what spell he wanted. An earthquake would be great, or I could do something with the soil, shooting clods of dirt could be fun, like projectiles like with the sling. But using magic and dirt instead of stamina and bits of his body….in hindsight, maybe a slingshot wasn’t the best idea. The range is amazing but…

Anything was fine as long as he had something to work with. He scooped up a clod of soil and hefted it, forming it into a ball and packing it down. Next, he threw it as hard as he could at the nearest tree. Simple and straight forward and the effort was rewarded with a message.

You have gained Earth Magic Mud Projectile! Damage increases with level. Range increases with Level. This is an Earth Magic Spell and requires Mana.

…and done! Easy peasy! Languages are funny, aren’t they? Speaking of glad to see I retained the languages I knew from my past life, those I suppose since my mind was transported it would be weird if I hadn’t retained them. Wow, totally talking to myself again, and I am still doing it… Aarav paused his internal musings for a little while and resumed checking his skills and spells. With the new addition, he had a total of three spells. What Aarav couldn’t understand though, was why his spells continued to remain weak. Sonic Boom had stopped gaining any further experience without any explanation. Water Gun was still gaining though but it was a lower level. Perhaps further experimentation will reveal more? I’m surprised that the Spell wasn’t called Rock Throw or something to keep with the theme of the spells. The name flickered in his mind before settling back to Mud Projectile. Okay, that was cool! Not sure what that means but I am going to be exploring that in detail.

With the spell unlocked or discovered or whatever it was, Aarav was ready to look at what Evolutionary options it had to go for next as long as it wasn’t earth-based or an insect or a crappy evolution, definitely nothing cutesy, yeah other than any of that stuff he was ready to go!

Evolutionary Options

Slime Options – 5 Options

Tier 3 - Dense Slime Requirements Not Met

Tier 4 – Earth Emperor Slime Requirements Met

Tier 4 – Boss Copycat Slime Requirements Met

Tier 4 - Aerial King Slime Requirements Met

Tier 4 – King Water Slime Requirements Met

Water Options – 6 Options

Tier 3 – Fresh Water Mallusces Requirements Met

Tier 3 – Submarine Worm Requirements Not Met

Tier 3 – River Darter Requirements Met

Tier 4 – River Screw Requirements Not Met

Tier 4 – Water Rat Requirements Not Met

Tier 4 – River Crab Requirements Not Met

Earth Options – 4 Options

Tier 3 – Burrower Worm Requirements Met

Tier 3 – Youth Field Grole Requirements Not Met

Tier 4 – Adult Field Grole Requirements Not Met

Tier 4 – Grounded Squirret Requirements Not Met

Other Options – 2 Options

Tier 4 - Treaber Requirements Not Met

Tier 4 - Squitter Requirements Not Met