They continued to search through the tunnels, Chris paying attention to everything, noting any resources they could take advantage of as they went. They'd occasionally run into a small pack of creatures, or a group of goblins, but they never had any trouble taking care of them, especially with Beth around. The girl turned into a whirling ball of death every time she entered combat, leaving their enemies in pieces more often than not. At least when she used her knives, the pieces were still mostly intact. When she resorted to hand to hand, things got messy.

The other teams didn't run into much trouble either. On the fifth level, with their team composition and the average strength of the recruits, the only things they needed to worry about were ambushes and large groups. Large groups left signs, so they could avoid them pretty easily, leaving only ambushes as a real source of concern, which is where Chris came in. Since he was constantly monitoring the recruits, any time they were ambushed, a portal would appear, allowing the injured to escape into the Immortal World to heal. There was still a risk of death if the ambusher could kill the recruit instantly, but on the fifth level, a creature capable of that would most likely not be an ambush predator. With Chris around, the odds of any of the recruits dying went down to near zero.

The surveying itself was a very tedious and boring process. The Scouts had two ways of surveying an area. The first procedure, the scouting survey, was to send each team down a different tunnel until they reached an intersection. At the intersection, the team would explore one branch until they reached the next intersection or a dead end, then return and explore the next branch in the same way. Once they had explored all the branches, they would return to the intersection with the most branches and begin again. They'd repeat this process over and over, adding node after node. This method was useful for getting the general feel of the area. The intersections with the most branches had the most traffic, so by studying several of these, you could determine whether there were any major threats in the area.

The second process, the comprehensive survey, was to simply explore each intersection, branch by branch. You explored the first intersection and its branches, then you explored every intersection attached to that intersection and their branches, and so on and so on, until every tunnel had been explored. This method was for finding each and every resource in an area, without missing a single one.

Chris's team decided to do a combination of both methods. They first explored all the branches of the first intersection, then they explored the branches of each intersection connected to the first intersection. Then, they found the intersection who's connected intersections had the most branches in total, and explored all of those, before repeating the process again. This way, they could thoroughly explore small area's, without needing to backtrack too much.

At the end of the day, Chris left points at each team's location, so they could return to the same spot the next day without wasting time, and brought them to where the camp team had set up through the portals. Once there, they all enjoyed a quick meal together, and set up the watch for the night. Each team, plus one member of the camp team, would take one watch, dividing the night into fifths. Chris's team drew the first watch, so while everyone else moved into their tents, they paired up to watch each side of the camp. Chris was obviously paired with Beth, while Zack paired up with the girl who'd joined them from the camp team. While they watched their end of the tunnel, Chris took the time to write down the information on the area they'd surveyed that day, drawing a simple map with shorthand labels for the various resources they'd found.

The watch was uneventful, and with that done, Chris could finally go into the Immortal World and take care of the business he'd been looking forward to the entire day. He opened a portal, stepping into the Immortal World and grinning as he approached the goblin he'd captured that morning. [Hello.]

The goblin jolted as Chris arrived, staring at him with a wary nervousness. [Who- who are you?!? How do you know our language?!? Why did you bring me here?!?] The goblin had been trapped in here for most of the day, surrounded by the corpses of its old friends, too scared to even do anything.

[My name is Chris. I am the owner of this place. I've brought you here, because I can connect others to this place, giving me access to their knowledge. You seem to have a modicum of intelligence, and I believe your knowledge will be useful to me. As long as you submit and allow yourself to be connected to this place, you will live. If not, I'll probably do something horrible to you to make you. If all that fails, I'll kill you like your friends and be done with it. Oh, and I know the language because I already own another goblin.] Chris explained in his usual, semi-bored tone.

The goblin shivered at Chris's nonchalant way of threatening it, the casualness of it almost making the threat more terrifying. It knew that Chris wasn't trying to scare it. He was just stating facts, things that he would do, without blinking an eye. The goblin knew cruelty. Goblins weren't kind, even to their own, and the stronger one was, the more they seemed to enjoy torturing those weaker than them. A goblin would beat someone to death just to hear them scream. The goblin had seen this, experienced this. Yet even so, the man in front of it scared it more. Goblins were cruel for the experience. As long as you played along, giving them what they wanted, you could get through the experience relatively unscathed. This man… the goblin could tell that all he considered were results. He would be methodical, thorough. He didn't care about its screams, just whether it submitted or not. The only escape it would have was death, and it could tell death wouldn't come easily. [I-I submit! I'll do it! I'll do anything!] The goblin screeched, cowering in fear.

Chris raised his eyebrows in surprise as he felt the connection form, just like it had with Dyrdek. *Well… that was easier than I expected it to be.* He thought to himself. He was really expecting to have to put in some work on this, maybe even kill the goblin a few times. He knew he didn't have it in him to really sell a threat. He just couldn't pretend to actually want something that well. Shrugging, he began to go through the goblin's memories, figuring he'd find out why it'd gone so easily that way.

The first thing that surprised him was that the goblin was actually a female. Since goblins were born able to eat, they didn't have mammary glands, so it was hard to tell them apart unless you actually studied their privates, which… Chris had no interest in doing. Hell, he'd gone out of his way to buy Dyrdek a few pairs of shorts after he'd appeared. He quickly learned that goblins were not nice to their females. *Gah! Skip, skip, skip!* Chris cried internally, not wanting to experience what it was like to be cornered by a large, male goblin. Thankfully, the goblin had a useful ability, so none of the goblins were too cruel to her. She had the ability to cloak herself and the others around her in shadow. The shadows not only hid them, but also muffled any noises they made, giving the group a huge boost in their stealth capabilities.

Finally, Chris finished going through all her memories, including her thought process behind her submission, and gave her a complicated look. Finally he sighed, and patted her on the head. "Welcome to the…" Chris paused, not sure what to call his collection of creatures, which so far amounted to just two goblins. Dyrdek did call him Chief… Why not call it a tribe? The Immortal Tribe! "Welcome to the Immortal Tribe, Sidulpek." Chris finished with a nod, grinning.

[Th-thank you, Chief.] Sidulpek replied nervously. Once she'd submitted, she clearly felt Chris's authority, knowing she couldn't disobey him. She still worried about what he would do to her, even after she'd submitted, wondering if death would have been a better option. Chris waved his hand, and suddenly she found herself somewhere else. She looked around, seeing piles of food and water bottles, along with a bunch of strange toys, with an unfamiliar goblin frowning intently as he messed with a small, colorful cube.

*Dyrdek, this is our new member, Sidulpek. Sidulpek, this is my first subordinate, Dyrdek. Feel free to get to know each other.* Chris's voice echoed in both goblins' heads, causing them to look up in surprise, before turning to each other.

[Uh… hi.] Dyrdek greeted the strange new goblin who had suddenly appeared in front of him. [Do- do you know how to play chess?]

While the goblins were getting to know each other, Chris took the time to note down the information he'd just gained from Sidulpek, specifically the knowledge of the area: how the tunnels were laid out, where water was, where the goblin tribe was, the dangerous areas that needed to be avoided, etc. Her knowledge let him map out an area almost ten times larger than the one they'd surveyed that day, which was exactly what he'd wanted from her. Chris chuckled to himself as he noted everything down. "I should just go around and capture creatures. This is much more efficient than walking around ourselves."

He was about to finish and head out to get to sleep, when he noticed some rustling out of the corner of his eye, drawing his attention to a nearby sack. Chris frowned, before remembering there was a slime in there. *Oh, yeah.* Chris remembered, approaching the sack and untying the top. As he opened the sack, the slime inside suddenly jumped out, falling to the ground, before bouncing towards one of the goblin corpses, latching onto the nearest body part and pulling it into its body, slowly beginning to dissolve it.

"Hey! That's mine, quit it!" Chris yelled, kicking the slime off the corpse. The slime barely seemed to register the kick, bouncing towards the nearest corpse and beginning to eat again. Chris frowned at the slime, before sighing and shaking his head. The corpse itself wasn't very valuable, just the ability core, so he could let the slime eat a little. He just needed to make sure it didn't eat the ability core.

"Alright, let's see if I can connect you to the Immortal World." Chris muttered, focusing on the slime. This was the first time he'd tried to connect a living being that wasn't intelligent to his Immortal World, so he wasn't entirely sure how to proceed. Since he'd connected objects to the Immortal World, he figured he'd start with that and see what happened. As he focused on the slime, trying to connect the slime to the world, the slime froze. Chris was focused on what he was doing, feeling that he could sort of pressure the slime, using his will to forcefully connect the slime to the Immortal World, when suddenly, he felt the connection form on its own! The slime released the corpse it was eating, bounding over to him almost joyfully, leaping into his arms and vibrating pleasantly.

Chris froze, his eyes widening as the slime's actions stunned him. He could tell that the slime had willingly connected to his Immortal World once it'd sensed the connection. *What the-* Chris thought in confusion, before shaking his head and diving into the slime's memories to figure it out. The slime was a very simple creature, so there wasn't much to go through. It didn't have a sense of sight or hearing, only capable of vaguely feeling the vibrations in the ground and catching whiffs of scents, so its memories were just a series of touches and tastes. Some were good, some were bad, but the slime's ability was to harden its surface to the extreme, almost to the level of steel, so nothing could really harm it once it went into defense mode. The only surprising bit was the end, when it felt Chris's connection appear. The slime felt a sense of familiarity and closeness with the connection, so it immediately accepted it, bounding towards the source happily, wanting to be closer with this familiar, comforting presence.

Chris's frown deepened even further as he went through the slime's reasoning. Why would a slime feel close to him? It was almost like it thought they were relatives or something. *Have I ever met a slime before?* Chris wondered to himself, thinking maybe he'd somehow saved the slime's life or something, before realizing that was ridiculous. He'd just go through the slime's memory and nothing like that had ever happened to it! Chris looked down at the happily vibrating slime with a perplexed look. No matter how he thought about it, its reaction made no sense to him. Eventually, Chris decided it wasn't important. The slime had connected with the Immortal World, so it was his now. Why or how, he didn't know, but the result was the same, so it didn't particularly matter.

Chris went to put the slime down and leave, but the moment it left his arms, the slime sent a spike of complaint and jumped back up! "Hey, no! I have to go to bed!" Chris scolded the slime, putting it back down, but the slime refused to stay put, immediately jumping into his arms again! "Uh-uh, no, this isn't how this works." Chris scolded the slime, sending it away to a different area of the Immortal World. Immediately the slime sent sad, desperate emotions back at him as it began bouncing around anxiously, bombarding him with wordless complaints.

Chris ignored the slime, heading back to the real world and climbing into his tent, but the slime's complaints never stopped! Chris couldn't even sleep with the creature's constant pestering! "Ugh, fine!" Chris finally groaned in defeat, opening a portal and letting the slime hop through, happily bouncing into his arms and vibrating again. Chris sighed and shook his head, before finally managing to doze off.

The next morning, Chris awoke with a yawn as the last watch called revelry, feeling particularly well rested. For some reason his pillow felt particularly comfortable this morning, just the right mix of soft and supportive, maintaining the perfect temperature, not too hot or too cold. *Mmm, maybe I could sleep for five more minutes.* Chris thought to himself, pulling his sleeping bag tighter around him, before sitting up in a panic. *Shit, where's the slime!* He looked around for it, looking for any holes it could have escaped through, when something jumped onto his shoulder and started vibrating.

Chris breathed a sigh of relief, taking the slime into his arms and petting it. "You scared me for a second there. Where were you hiding?" He muttered, before realizing the slime shared an odd similarity with that wonderfully comfortable pillow he'd just been using. He looked back and noticed his actual pillow had somehow disappeared, probably eaten by a certain creature in the middle of the night. Chris turned back to the slime with a frown. "You do realize this means you're my new pillow from now on, yes?" The slime sent back mindless happy emotions in response, causing Chris to sigh. "Yeah, you probably wouldn't complain about that. Though, I guess I better feed you more. Don't want you eating anything else around here."

Chris continued with his morning routine, stabbing himself in the head to return to the Immortal World and putting on his uniform. He'd debated whether he should just clean himself up normally, like the rest of the recruits, because of the chip, but he really just could be bothered to take the extra time just so he wouldn't lose something he didn't even particularly need. Though, this did mean he'd probably need to get that damn shot again the next time he came to the Maze… eh, worth it.

Chris exited the Immortal World, freshly dressed, and the slime immediately jumped into his arms again. It'd been complaining ever since he'd left, giving him a minor headache in the process. "You are way too attached to me." Chris grumbled, petting the slime. He debated whether he should throw it in the Immortal World or not, but seeing its behavior every other time he'd left it, he was pretty sure it'd just end up whining the entire day, which would be more annoying than just keeping it around. "Fuck it. I'll give you today." Chris sighed, shaking his head.

Chris left the tent and found a place to wait for Beth and Zack to get ready, sitting down and placing the slime in his lap, petting it lightly as it vibrated pleasantly. He had to admit, the slime was actually rather nice to have around. There was a weird sort of… comfort that came from the slime's rumbling. The slime could change color too, usually remaining monochrome, but when it was vibrating, its color would swirl and twist through it in random and intricate patterns, that was almost mesmerizing.

"Chris? Chris!" Beth yelled, snapping her fingers to get his attention.

"Hm?" Chris looked up in a slight daze to find both Beth and Zack standing over him, giving him weird looks.

"Chris, why are you sitting here zoned out staring at a slime?" Beth asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Oh, it's one of the new creatures I own. It's weirdly attached to me and complains every time I leave, giving me a headache." Chris explained.

Beth looked at the slime, frowning. "It complains?!? How? It's a slime!"

"It sends emotions through the connection." Chris explained. "Loud, persistent emotions."

"Couldn't you just tell it to stop?" Zack offered. "Don't they need to obey you?"

"Not really, no." Chris sighed. "See, it's not actually doing anything, it's just having loud, persistent emotions. It's like it's calling to me because the emotions are directed at me and they draw my attention. In order to get it to stop, I'd have to tell it to stop feeling things and that just feels wrong. I mean, I'm not even sure if it's possible, but even if it was, manipulating a creature on that level seems like a line that shouldn't be crossed."

"Hold on, I'm still confused about something." Beth interjected, shaking her head. "You're saying the slime is attached to you? Like, emotionally? Do slime's even have emotions?"

Chris blinked at her, looked down at the slime, then back at Beth. "Apparently? I mean… at least it does now. I can feel them."

Beth frowned at the slime. "But… it's a slime! They're literally just big balls of jello! Their core barely counts as a brain!"

Chris shrugged helplessly. "I really don't know what to tell you."

Beth didn't have anything else to say either, so the three of them went and found Captain Nefred, Sergeant Callista, and their other veteran supervisor, before heading back to where they'd left off the previous day. Much like yesterday, they'd have five groups out surveying the area while the group of five stayed back to protect the camp. With surveying, catching up with what someone else had done would just waste time, so it didn't make sense to switch up the teams at the moment.

A bit after they began surveying again, Sergeant Callists approached Chris with a strange look. "Private Vincent, is that a… slime you're carrying?"

"Yes, ma'am." Chris nodded.

Sergeant Callista frowned. "Why?!?"

"Because it's attached to me and it refuses to just stay in my world without complaining nonstop, giving me a headache." Chris explained with a sigh.

Sergeant Callista blinked, looking down at the slime, then back at Chris. "The slime?"

"The slime." Chris nodded, a vaguely exasperated tone creeping into his voice.

"But-" Sergeant Callista began.

"Okay, look, I know it's a slime, but I also know what I've experienced, and even though it is a slime, it has emotions. Annoying ones. For weird, unknown reasons." Chris interrupted her, a bit aggravated by the fact that he had to explain this again. Why couldn't people just believe him when he said the slime was attached to him? Did they think he was stupid? Or lying?

Sergeant Callista paused, before nodding. "Just make sure this doesn't impede your performance." She advised, before stepping back again.

Chris nodded. He wasn't worried about the slime getting in his way. After some testing, he'd learned that objects he owned could be directly sent in and out of the Immortal World. Unlike other objects, portals could be opened directly on top of connected objects, and the portal would shape itself around the object, almost instantly. It was much faster than when he wanted to open a portal otherwise, but it only brought the object into the Immortal World before disappearing, not letting anything else in. He'd tried to cheat it and take a box he owned, place something inside, then send both into the Immortal World, but the box simply disappeared, leaving the contents outside. He figured this was how he was sent to the Immortal World each time he died. Chris paused as he thought about this. Did that mean he didn't need to kill himself anymore to get clean? Of course, death did still help him get stronger… eh, he'd think about it. The point was, once they ran into enemies, he could instantly switch the slime out for his bow.

Since Chris already had the area around the goblin territory mapped out, he directed the team away from that area, while keeping a lookout for any creatures with a moderate level of intelligence he could abduct to expand his map even further. From Sidulpek's memory, he knew there was a kobold tribe somewhere around where they were heading, though she didn't know the exact location. There was also an imp tribe and several small to medium sized beast packs in the area, each with their own territory. He wasn't particularly interested in the beasts, figuring they wouldn't give him much mapping info, but the kobolds and the imps were on par with the goblins in intelligence. He was looking forward to subduing them.

Unfortunately for Chris, it seemed that the kobolds were further away than he initially suspected. After working for the entire day, they still hadn't managed to run into a kobold. It could be said they were pretty lucky to run into that goblin party the first day. On the higher levels, the more intelligent creatures would all group into tribes to increase their chances of survival, but since the Maze had limited resources, the tribe needed to control a sizable area to ensure their survival. Another tribe being too close would easily lead to a war, where either one or even both of the tribes were wiped out. Due to this, once tribes learned of each other's existence, they'd begin developing in different directions, even leaving a sizable buffer zone between them, just to ensure there weren't any conflicts.

Of course, the higher one went, the closer the tribes could be due to having access to more and more resources. Going up a single level would mean taking on twice the risk, as not only were the creatures stronger, but they were more populous as well. Down on the first level, Chris might run into a creature once a day, maybe less, but on the fifth level, that had increased to once every one or two hours. Even if all the creatures were at the same level as the creatures on level one, this fact alone would make the level incomparably more dangerous. The fact that they were all at least high end low-tier creatures just made things worse.

As Chris went to sleep that night, resting his head on the slime, he wondered if they should switch to a pure scouting survey until they found evidence of kobolds. Once they found one, they'd be able to add a large section of the map, without much effort. However, the more he thought about it, the more he rejected the idea. Yes, it'd be an easy way to expand the map, but the point of this exercise wasn't so much about making the largest map, but about the process they used. Surveying was a foundational skill of the Scouts, and half assing it using his ability would defeat the purpose of the examination.

Chris sighed, giving up the idea and beginning to drift off to sleep, when his new pillow rumbled, letting out a slight complaint. Chris paused. *Oh, right, I have to actually feed you.* He sighed to himself, climbing to his feet and opening a portal to the Immortal World, bringing him and the slime inside. They'd collected a bunch more bodies that day, so the slime had its pick of food, but Chris had an issue. How did he make sure the slime didn't eat the ability core? According to Captain Nefred, the ability core could be anything, including bones, skin, organs, whatever. If he just let the slime eat randomly, there was a good chance the ability core would be consumed as well.

Chris frowned at the bodies, before sighing and making a table, moving a corpse on top. He made himself a scalpel and began cutting into the corpse, looking for anything that might be an ability core. He started with the chest, carefully peeling the skin back, cutting through the muscles, sorting through the organs, and separating them all out, before moving on to the head, and then the limbs. It took him a good hour or so, along with several tool changes, until the corpse had been split into a pile of bones, a pile of meat, a pile of skin, and a pile of organs, none of them showing any obvious sign that they were the ability core.

"Well, shit." Chris sighed, staring at the dismembered pieces of the creature with a frown. It was clear that the ability core wasn't something you could notice with the naked eye. There had to be some other method to find it, probably an energy reading or something. But how was he supposed to do that? "If only I could analyze thi-" Chris froze as suddenly the body began to break down, dissolving into nothingness. He stared at the empty table, blinking a few times, as a wealth of information began to flow into his mind, detailing every part of the creature, how it was made, what it was made of, how it all fit together, everything. He even found the ability core, which happened to be the creature's smallest rib. Additionally, as the creature dissolved, Chris noticed the mass wasn't actually disappearing, it was just breaking down into the most basic elements and sort of… dispersing.

Chris frowned at all this. "This… doesn't actually fucking help! How am I supposed to use the ability core if you get rid of it! Am I supposed to make- ah…" Chris paused as suddenly a portion of the dispersed mass suddenly converged again, reforming a small rib. "Well… yes, that's good. Thank y- who am I talking to?" Chris shook his head in exasperation. He then turned to the rest of the corpses, waving his hand and dissolving them as well, before recondensing the ability cores, forming a nice little pile on the table. He stared at the pile in satisfaction, before his attention was brought to all the extra mass floating around and he sighed. With all that mass, he could have made even more ability cores, except for the fact he was missing one crucial ingredient: energy. Without the energy, the core would just be a random mix of useless body parts.

"Ah, well. It is what it is." Chris shrugged, turning to open a portal, yawning as he was looking forward to getting to bed, when the slime signaled him again and he smacked himself in the head. "Right! Your food." He remembered, turning back and waving his hand, remaking one of the creatures from the extra mass. "There y-" Chris began, before pausing, staring at the creature. He blinked at it. The creature blinked back. "You-" Chris began, raising a hand to point at it.

"Roo-" The creature began, lifting a paw to point at him. The creature frowned, before suddenly shifting into the form of a goblin. "Ah, much better." The creature sighed, before turning back to Chris. "So… apparently this is a thing."

"Can this not be a thing?" Chris groaned. "I'm getting a headache just looking at you."

"How do you think I feel!?!" The creature complained, before pausing and frowning. "Wait, you know how I feel…"

"Which is also contributing to my headache." Chris grumbled. "I feel weird about being a goblin even though I'm not a goblin."

"Well, technically-" The creature began.

Chris rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, you're me, so I am a goblin, it's just… weird."

That was right, the moment Chris had created the creature, he'd become the creature! He hadn't really thought about what he was doing, and just made the creature according to what he knew the creature was supposed to be, before it was killed. There was no reason for it not to be alive at that point, and once it was alive… It was Chris. Human Chris and goblin Chris stared at each other for a moment, trying to process the fact that there were now two of them, and what exactly that meant.

"You know… I bet if you dissolved yourself I could share your form as well." Goblin Chris pointed out. "Then, one of us could continue with the survey, while the other…"

Human Chris nodded slowly, getting his thought process, which, since he literally knew his thought process, was fairly easy. "A me for the Scouts and a me for the Maze, huh? We could even send a third one of us back to the City-"

"Why stop at one? We could have one for books, one for games, and one for TV!" Goblin Chris cackled.

"It'd be perfect!" Chris chuckled.

"Well, then, let's get you broken down and analyzed!" Goblin Chris exclaimed, waving his hand at human Chris excitedly. Human Chris dissolved quickly, before goblin Chris changed, turning back into human Chris. He snapped his fingers, and his clothes disappeared from the ground where they'd fallen and reappeared on him. "Well… that was an interesting experience. Why don't I have an ability core? Is that why the Readers couldn't figure out what my ability was?" Chris paused, falling into thought. He glanced over at the slime. "Right, you need some food." He remembered yet again, making another creature for it to eat, this time just an arm. He didn't need to make another him again.

The slime wrapped itself around the arm, slowly dissolving the limb, breaking it down into whatever it needed to survive. Chris glanced at it, wondering just how the slime's digestive system actually worked. Between the arm and the pillow it'd eaten yesterday, the slime didn't seem to have any requirements for food beyond being able to fit it in its body. Could it get nutrients from anything? Or did it just not know whether something was healthy or not, just caring about whether it could eat it? How did a creature without a stomach feel full? How did it feel hungry? The more Chris thought about it, the more questions he had. He was almost tempted to break the slime down, just to see, but killing a creature purely for his own curiosity felt wrong.

Leaving the slime to its meal, Chris considered what else he could dissolve. The first thing that came to mind was clothing. As long as he knew how to make them, he didn't need a bunch of outfits sitting in his closet, taking up space. Once they were dissolved, he could just make whatever outfit he needed that day and be done. Plus, he wouldn't need to do laundry or iron or anything.

The second thing, which probably should have been the first, was trash. Particularly trash from the goblins he'd been keeping in the Immortal World. Water bottles, chip bags, candy wrappers, and the inevitable results of consuming all that had been accumulating in the Immortal World, packed in cases that Chris had made so they weren't just lying around. He'd been thinking he should get rid of it all at some point, but there wasn't any easy way to do it, plus, with all the space available in the Immortal World, it'd never seemed important. Now, he could just dissolve it, giving himself more mass to work with.

Thinking about it, Chris just dissolved everything of his, and remade everything he needed. Why not? The end result was the same, and this way, he'd have more blueprints available to him. There was no real downside. The only things he didn't touch were the other recruits' belongings. Anything he dissolved would automatically be connected to the Immortal World, and he didn't need to be able to constantly spy on his fellow recruits. He'd already found a few too many secrets with just the watches, which the recruits knew about. He didn't want to see what they'd show when they didn't think he could observe them. Particularly not when he could actually see, like if he dissolved their laptop or their phone.

Once the slime was finished eating, they returned to his tent and went to sleep. Chris decided he'd wait till morning to make any more other selves. What would be the point if they would just both immediately go to sleep? Plus, there was only one slime, and he was not sharing his pillow.