This bird was the largest creature Lohan had consumed so far.
Although there were large Slimes, their size was nothing extraordinary, whereas the insects he devoured, as the name suggests, were just small insects.
Confirming once again that the bird was dead, seeing no signs of life, Lohan rolled toward the dead animal.
Slowly, his slime covered the bird, still without softening the exoskeleton to confirm for the fourth time that this was not a trap, and began to dissolve the bird with the exoskeleton.
Only when he felt no resistance in digesting the bird’s flesh did Lohan relax.
’Sigh... dealing with creatures like this while I’m so fragile is scary.
Noticing the speed of absorption, Lohan was surprised by the amount of biomass this bird had.
Although it had no Mana, the vitality of its flesh alone was very rich!
However, this bird was so large that Lohan couldn’t carry it while digesting it, as he did with the Mana Stones, so in order to digest it quickly, Lohan completely paused the digestion of the Mana Stone and even controlled the clone to come and help digest this creature.
In order not to attract other predators, he even completely covered the bird while using the Digestive Filter to digest the exposed blood, which could spread its smell through the air.
But even though the bird was rich in Biomass, it still couldn’t compare to a Mana Stone.
At a speed of 17.56 Bio/h, it took Lohan only an hour and a half to digest it completely.
[Instinctive Perception Lv 4 → Lv 5]
’Meh, it wasn’t a bad upgrade, saving me 4.39 Bio, but it wasn’t that great either...’
With this Skill leveling up, Lohan felt that the world around him became even clearer, with more details being easily seen by him.
The grass around him became greener, small movements of insects were perceived as different from movements caused by the wind, and details in more distant things, which previously seemed blurred, now became clearer.
With so much Biomass gained from consuming this bird, Lohan felt his Biomass stock filling up again and bought more upgrades.
[Efficient Digestion Lv 11 → Lv 12] - 14.5 Bio
This raised his Biomass gain to 19.32 Bio/h, an increase of almost 2 Bio/h with a single upgrade, even though the price of upgrades for this skill was getting more and more expensive.
But it was in the next Skill that a surprise came.
[After 10 minor evolutions, Viscous Flow is undergoing a qualitative evolution...]
[New feature obtained, Selective Adherence!]
[Viscous Flow Lv 10 → Lv 11] - 10.26 Bio
[Increases agility in controlling one’s own body by 10% per level.
Features - Selective Viscosity: The organism can now alter the viscosity of the part of the body in contact with the ground to become perfectly slippery or extremely adhesive at will.
Reading the description of this new characteristic, Lohan’s eyes lit up.
Not only did his speed increase from 0.51 m/s to 0.56 m/s, but now he could make his body as sticky as glue or as slippery as wet soap!
Understanding this characteristic, a bold idea popped into his mind.
Extending a tentacle upward, Lohan grabbed the side bark of a tree and tried to swing forward, like a certain web-headed creature.
His heart was excited by the sensation of swinging like that, but as soon as he rolled forward, generating the kinetic force necessary to launch himself, a tremendous pain arose in his tentacle.
Looking scared, Lohan saw in detail how his jelly membrane couldn’t withstand the weight and slowly tore.
The pain of having his membrane torn was agonizing, causing Lohan to desperately cancel the grip of that limb, but the damage had already been done. His body rolled forward uncontrollably as the tentacle retracted and Biomass was used up to heal itself.
Even the Clone was ignored, remaining static due to Lohan’s lack of control, who at that moment was only trying to heal himself and deal with the pain.
’What a stupid idea! How could a membrane as thin as an egg membrane support my basketball-sized body filled with my acid jelly?!’
Frustrated, Lohan spent Biomass to heal himself and went back to diligently digesting grass and small insects, focused only on accumulating Biomass and buying new upgrades.
When his Biomass stock reached its maximum, Lohan would buy another Evolution and continue the process.
His focus was on buying upgrades that improved the efficiency of biomass digestion, but in order not to be limited to the space he could cover, so as not to stray too far from the Elf’s location, Lohan bought a few more upgrades in speed, while discreetly spending a few units of Biomass to buy upgrades in membrane resistance.
This process of grinding after a failure was good for his mindset, which was already starting to get bored.
What he didn’t know was that while he was dealing with failure and buying several Evolutions at a speed that no other Slime could match, even with an infinite supply of Biomass, a pair of curious eyes was analyzing him.
The same white fox that saw Lohan learning to control the Clone the previous morning now looked at that silly Slime with even more suspicion.
The fox’s small eyes looked between the Slime and the tree he had attached himself to a few seconds ago, and a very human expression of suspicion appeared on her face.
Lohan had no idea that the reason he couldn’t find any other Slimes, magical animals, or insects wasn’t because the Slimes had spread out too far, or because it was too safe near the elf girl, but because there was another predator like him desperately killing monsters.
The little fox, still with the white fur of its mouth slightly stained with blood, kept its distance and watched uncertainly, not knowing whether to approach or not.