The slime rested over the remains of the second goblin, its green surface quivering in fatigue.
Eating a creature that large—twice—left its core flickering unsteadily.
It hated this feeling of exhaustion and weakness.
The slime's instincts pulsed inside it like a beating heart:
"Eat. Eat. Eat. Grow. Adapt. Evolve!"
Yet its gelatinous body sagged against the stone floor. Even lifting itself took effort.
Frustration burned inside the creature. Its body trembled from anger at its own limits.
For several minutes it simply stayed still.
Then, as soon as its core regained a sliver of strength, the slime pushed itself forward.
And it continued to eat.
The slime devoured anything its membrane could cling to.
It absorbed moss, each type leaving a different tingle in its body:
Bitter blue moss that hardened its outer layer.
Sour yellow moss that increased mana sensitivity.
Toxic green moss that flowed into its Poison Resistance.
Each one triggered the same whispering voice inside its core, telling that its Consume skill kept progressing.
But it was still not enough.
Once every surface in that chamber was scraped clean, the slime oozed into a neighboring tunnel.
The stone floor changed texture. The air felt thicker with mana. The slime sensed new things to devour.
It found cracked minerals jutting from the walls. It was a small, dull fragment of mana ore.
The slime engulfed the first shard.
A cold sensation ran through its whole body.
Then—
[You used Consume skill]
[Absorbing raw mineral mana…]
[Stat increased: Defense +1]
The slime felt power and trembled with delight.
So it kept consuming minerals and stones, moss and plants.
Some minerals taste worse than the goblin did. Some of them tasted metallic and foul.
Some made its body temporarily rigid.
Some of them made it vibrate with unstable bursts of mana.
But the slime didn't stop. When its body convulsed and flattened against the floor in exhaustion it rested only long enough to stand again.
Then it devoured more.
Time passed in the same activity.
The Bottom Floor never slept. Monsters roared, and mana storms drifted through tunnels.
But the slime ignored everything.
Its existence became a cycle of eating, collapsing, recovering, eating again.
The slime keeps absorbing mana. Grow stronger little by little. Repeat.
Hours blurred into days.
By the second night, its body glowed with stored mana.
By the third night, stones and minerals start to melt faster. Moss dissolved instantly and weak goblins were eaten faster.
Its membrane thickened into a darker shade of green.
By the fourth day, its jumps were higher, its body was denser, and its core was brighter.
Its instincts sharpened.
Its awareness grew. Thoughts became clearer.
Predators like giant centipedes, stone-backed boars, and corrupted wolves passed by, but none of them paid attention to the tiny slime stuck to the wall eating rocks.
The slime was too small to notice for now
—
On the morning of the fifth day, after devouring the last chunk of mana-rich stone in a cavern, the slime felt something crack inside its core.
A pressure built like something was trying to break free.
The slime froze in its place on the stone floor.
Its membrane rippled from top to bottom.
Then it felt like something exploding.
A surge of mana exploded outward from its core.
A notification pulsed through its mind:
[Consume skill level 1: 100 / 100]
[Consume skill leveled up!]
[Consume skill is now level 2]
Its membrane tightened and the the slime heard new line:
[Consume Skill (Lv.2): Efficiency greatly increased]
[Digest speed: x3]
[Core Mana absorption: x2]
[Chance to gain new traits from prey increased]
The slime quivered. This was its first real evolution step!
A small, weak slime had just obtained a skill growth most slimes never reached in their entire lifespan.
The hunger returned stronger than ever.
Then the memories of what it had been through rose all at once.
The slime quivered, not from just hunger this time, but from something else.
It remembered the goblins kicking it day after day, being tossed like a toy, slammed into walls, mocked by their foul language, and stepped on.
The slime was also being ignored by larger predators like it was worthless Dungeon trash.
All those moments of humiliation, helplessness, and weakness compressed inside its core.
Now, with that new power that awakened inside its core, those memories finally have a way to be realized.
A new thought bloomed beside hunger. A thought that no slime should ever have.
It was anger.
The slime's whole body vibrated with the memory of goblin laughter.
This was the time. It would get its revenge.
It had lived in this Dungeon for years, even if most of that time was spent in a weak, brainless, and helpless state. But most of the details of the Dungeon were carved in its instinct.
And now those instincts became memories.
It remembered the tunnels, chambers, moss locations, monsters, and the goblin's nest.
The slime slid forward, its movement sharper and smoother than ever before.
It moved through winding tunnels coated with moss and dripping with stagnant mana.
It remembered the way perfectly.
Whenever a predator passed by, the slime froze and clung to the wall.
A hulking Stonehide Boar snorted as it marched past, tusks scraping stone. Its body was covered in plates as hard as iron.
A ten meter long Burrowing Maw-Lizard slithered down another tunnel, its mouth filled with three rows of jagged teeth.
A Shadowfur Wolf lurked behind a cracked pillar, its eyes glowing purple. It was hunting for anything big enough to satisfy its hunger.
But they paid no attention to the slime. To them, it was still nothing. Just a meaningless creature.
Only the weakest monsters eat slimes. Strong ones don't even bother.
The slime didn't care and let them ignore it. For now.
It oozed along the walls, slipping past predators easily, unseen and unthreatening.
The deeper it moved, the more familiar the mana signatures became.
It was close.
At last, the tunnel opened into a large chamber.
The air here stank of rot, smoke, and unwashed bodies. But the slime who hadn't developed its senses yet couldn't smell it.
Bones littered the floor. Animal bones, monster bones, and some bones that belonged to unlucky adventurers.
Old rags and broken weapons were scattered everywhere.
Crude huts made of wood and stone sat in clusters around the room.
Torches flickered along the walls, throwing shaky shadows across the cavern.
This was the goblins' nest.
Dozens of them lived here. This was a dangerous place.
And the slime who was now pulsing with hunger and anger, slid forward without hesitation.
—