Oh for Christ sake! Aarav not prone to swearing but sometimes nothing else quite captured the essence of what he felt. I can already tell that this Talent is going to be soooo annoying…

Fine! I’ll stop dwelling…happy now!? The thought was, unsurprisingly, met with complete radio silence. Arrrgh!!

Aarav took a breath in and let it out slowly, having no idea where the air was going or coming from, he did not need breathing but it did help him calm down. With that he was ready to understand what was happening. This new level twenty-five had been a turning point. With level ten a change happened in each Skill, it was related to what he required of the Skill, nothing fancy or significantly profound but tangible.

Now with this new level up there had been another change, when he had gone past level twenty-five with Land Dwelling he had experienced something similar, again the memories from his time being Resh filtered gradually through in incoherent spurts. It was like stages. First Stage was up to level ten then level twenty-five was the next. Hmmm…when is the next one? Fifty maybe? Or are there just two stages? Aarav knew he was over thinking this built-in agony aunty but it didn’t seem to have a problem with this line of speculation so he could keep going with it.

The change in Land Dwelling had not been as profound as this though, the colours continuing to swirl in front of his damp eyes. He couldn’t help himself, it was just so good to be able to see in colour again instead of an old eighties movie. This was real life, you should always be able to see in colour.

After his brain had settled down a little Aarav finally did something he had been meaning to for a while and that was to try to understand what these stats and Skills and all this was about. Having lived in a world where it was not normal to naturally see numbers and a screen hovering in mid-air, this was bizarre to the extreme. However in this world it was normal to have life boiled down to numerical values. So he was not an abnormal in that regard. While observing a villager earlier in the day he had seen him pause glance at something in the air that no one else could see and then continue. He might have just been enjoying the view but Aarav was happy to assume that he was also checking out a status menu or something. His hands hadn’t moved but that maybe people were more intuitive that way? It could be especially true here where they would have grown up with it.

Aaarav then did something that he had been meaning to for a while, he brought up his status screen, the whole thing. It was massive stretching from the top of the red roof tiles up to above his heads height. It was too big and too much to look at all at once. A little at a time…he thought sceptically.

He looked at the first section, talking about his level, species, name and various other mundane details, not telling him much about what he was capable of but more about where he was at now:

Name:

Aarav

Species:

Boss Copycat Slime

+30% assimilate

Tier:

4

Level / Max:

11

15

Exp / Next:

10

77

Units

Volume

152.40

cm3

Weight

777.26

g

Density

5.10

g/cm3

Volume, Weight and Density seemed to have some significance to his abilities and power and damage. That did make a lot of sense and he would need to become bigger to take full advantage of it. Well, I suppose I am working on that now aren’t I? The slime looked down at the half digested juvenile pigeon underneath his body. He was forced then to suppress the urge to vomit, however it was a human thing and he had no stomach to vomit the contents of. Likely he would have spewed up some of his matter as he normally did to shoot a projectile.

Coming back to the point while pointedly NOT looking at the dead bird under him, Aarav continued using Consume which had momentarily stopped when he gagged.

The Volume, Weight and Density combination was interesting; he had never thought that would be important or monitored. I guess for a constantly evolving and changing Slime it makes sense... After all, his density had increased from 2g/cm3 to 5.1g/cm3. That change had then lead to further development and even been incorporated into both defensive and attacking mechanisms. Logically it all made sense but it was still a bit of a mind bender, trying to wrap his head around all of these numbers flying around and their implications. And this was the simplest part of each section. Next, and below the first part were his sixteen “core” stats, whatever this mechanism was that displayed the numbers called it “core” and it seemed that they were the ones he would expect from a game of any kind. Not real life at all but, who was he to judge, maybe the old world had been wrong and this was the natural order of things?

Type

Name

Stats

Effect

Physical

Strength

29

158.00%

2% more melee damage per point

Physical

Vitality

37

HP / SP

+10 HP, +1 HP Regen, +6 SP regen

Physical

Endurance

31

HP / SP

+4HP, +6 SP, +6HP Regen, +2 SP Regen

Physical

Resistance

33

96.70%

0.1% Physical and Chemical Damage Reduction

Physical

Charisma

-1

Your attractiveness / persuasiveness

Ranged

Speed

73

73.00

cm/s movement speed

Ranged

Dexterity

31

162%

2% more ranged damage per point

Ranged

Accuracy

43

186%

better aim, faster reload

Ranged

Perception

30

75

cm spiritual sense

Ranged

Reaction

91

274.7

ms Reaction time, improved physical co-ordination between limbs

Mental

Intellect

101

MP

+4MP, +1MP Regen (+ Telepathy)

Mental

Acuity

93

MP

+1MP, +2MP Regen

Mental

Fortitude

39

96.1%

Magical Damage Resistance - Mental Attacks, Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Light, Dark

Mental

Command

46

Ease with which commands are executed without distraction

Mental

Focus

41

141%

1% more magical damage per point

Mythic

Luck

40

Chance of good things happening.

Special

Life Expectancy

35.4

Years

This is a rough estimate only. Nothing more.

They were neatly separated but wow! There were so many, some of them seemed completely unnecessary…Intellect and Acuity? Why both? One would have done the job right? And Vitality and Endurance…anyway, it was not worth dwelling on that. The effects of the stats were indicated there as well, giving a much clearer understanding of what was going on.

Then he saw, right at the bottom, in small writing Life Expectancy he didn’t care that it was just an estimate. A feeling of satisfaction and relief filled the large Slime, his slime body sagged and flowed over the pigeons that were underneath. I have years! He wasn’t going to drop dead unexpectedly from “old age” he had plenty of time to figure this out! Hearing some creaking on the tiles below him, Aarav realised that without knowing it, he had been doing a little victory dance, it didn’t work as well in a Slime body but the feeling was the same! He would have time to figure this out and find a place for himself in this new world. Not only that, but his little built-in agony auntie was going to get him though! No more falling into old ways, no more worrying about death behind every door.

Most of all though, more important than all of these other things combined…he might be able to get himself back to a human shape, or pseudo-human or whatever, he would take it! What he wouldn’t give to have four solid limbs! Instead of weird pseudo-tentacle things with claws or paws or feelers at the ends! This is going to be amazing!!!

With death averted and feeling a little more like time was on his side, he breathed in the fresh free air. Relaxing on the comfortable roof of a building and basking in the sun he felt that difference in the air he took in. The winds were making it feel fresher than ever. Even if it was the same air he didn’t care in the slightest.

Next was the literal wall of Skills below the core stats. Also neatly subdivided but also overwhelming with the sheer number of different Skills.

Exploration related Skills:

Type

X Exp per Use

Lv.

Exp

Next

Description

Exploration

Strong Identify

10

208

532

Understand Items / Environment / Objects / Skills and everything around you, more information is available with level. +1 Exp per piece of information after level 10. Xm away

Exploration

Mental Map

1

5

10

Create a Map of the world around you, intrisically understand and log the world around you as you explore, different things are unlocked with level. +1Exp per Sq km

Exploration

Water Adjacent

24

70

2632

Stay in water Density*Lv. minutes without losing cohesion. Gain 1 Exp per minute while fully submerged in Water. This trait will help you adapt to life in the water. 2 Exp per minute if you are being eroded.

Exploration

Underground Living

18

1484

1540

Stay underground Density*Lv. minutes without losing cohesion. Gain 1 Exp per minute while fully buried Underground. This trait will help you adapt to life in the earth. 2 Exp per minute if you are being eroded.

Exploration

Land Lubber

28

1034

3520

Stay above ground Density*Lv. minutes without losing cohesion. Gain 1 Exp per minute while moving out of water and above ground.

They were all mostly self explanatory and related to the different mediums that he had been moving in, Underground, Underwater and on Land, in the Air. Again nothing there out of the ordinary but interesting none-the-less. He thought maybe with a little more thought there would be other Skills that could come in useful to him in the future. Nothing was coming to him right now but that didn’t mean that they would not.