Oil Tree

A few hours ago ....

Rowan covered Mina with a blanket, and kissed her forehead wishing her a good night. 

"No, read a story!" his sister insisted. 

She is twelve, a bit too old for the story and being tucked in, but Mina just liked it. 

To her it felt like she had become a princess. Usually, she's not that fussy, and as long as Rowan wishes the good night, she closes her eyes. 

After all, she's not a baby, despite looking like an underfed eight year old. 

Rowan smiled at her. 

It seems she sensed he was going to go out, and she's stalling him in hopes the city gates will be closed by the time he leaves. 

It's a futile effort, for Rowan was going to go out illegally. 

All the same, he sat down and read the story of anastasia. 

Mina looked quite smug and happy as she heard the clock hit twelve. 

"That's enough, Brother. You can go to sleep now. Don't you know all fairy tales are lies?" she mocked him, as she turned to the other side and closed her eyes. 

"Of Course not! Fairy tale of princess Mina is true. All she needs is for her kingly brother to build her empire, then spend her days shopping, browsing and partying." Rowan answered. 

"Damn! That's the best story ever! Good luck building the empire, brother." Mina said, yawning and closing her eyes. She has kept herself awake with some effort. 

She was out like a light before Rowan even finished tucking her in. 

Rowan locked all the windows, and the door, then, biked straight to their plot in between the mountains. 

The patrol ignores the little bit of wall section between there, because it's an abyss and a steep cliffs on the outer side of the wall. 

No animal can climb up, no man could go down. 

Now, this became the perfect cover for rowan. 

He climbed up the mountain, and retrieved the stone slime he left there. 

The slime ate through the boulder, and on the other side, an opening appeared right in the middle of the cliff. 

Rowan looked at the status of the stone slime. 

[ Category : Stone slime ] 

[ Eats : Stone ] 

[ Status : Can eat more ] 

Rowan smiled at the slime, patted it on it's head. 

[ Experience , +1 ] 

[ Collect slime into the dungeon ? ] ( yes) ( no ) 

Rowan collected it. 

Then, he hung the rope he brought with himself, and rappelled down the cliff. 

This much is a cakewalk for most of the graduates, for those people who do not have physical fitness to rappel have perished long since in one or other beast attack by now. 

Yes, Nature is cruel that way. 

Rather than jumping in the thick grass below, Rowan hung on the rope and cast appraisal on the ground where he was about to land. 

[ Snake Nest : Currently asleep. ] 

[ Snake grass : Grass that grows from the nutrition provided by the snake skin. Rich in biotin and collagen. Best used as beauty supplement. ] 

Wow! 

Seriously ? 

If he had been a guy who was born in the apocalypse, he would have cursed the god for providing him with such an unreasonable herb. 

Given he transmigrated over from all too capitalist and vain earth, he knew the importance of the herb. 

Rowan retrieved the plant slime whose trait is tonic extraction. 

This slime could eat only one type of plant per cycle. 

Within a minute, the slime ate away all the snake grass, and waited on the edge of the exposed snake nest. 

Rowan climbed ten meters up, and steadied himself on one of the nooks looking down at the snake nest. 

It is still without any movement. 

He retrieved the stone slime, and opened the detailed description about the slime. 

To make a stone slime drop boulder, hold its gray spot, and massage its red spot. 

The longer the massage on the redspot, the bigger the boulder stone slime drops. 

It sounded strangely like making someone poop, but Rowan decided not to think about such implications. 

He kept massaging the red spot for ten minutes. Then, he held the gray spot up and held the slime over the snake nest. 

The slime increased in size till it became the size of a teenager. 

Thankfully, the slimes always weigh nothing despite the amount they eat, as if they are some kind of otherworldly predators. 

Then a perfectly spherical ball dropped from the height of ten meters to right on top of the snake pile. 

[ red snake killed, +1 energy ] 

[ red snakeling killed, + energy ] 

[ red ringed snake killed, + 2 energy ] 

The messages kept climbing up, till Rowan reached hundred and fifty points of energy. 

Even if the snakes are killed, Rowan did not make the stupid mistake of directly jumping down. 

In his previous life, he was a gamer. He was the kind of gamer that reached the level of rankers. Though this is not a game, now that he has a system, he would rather take all the caution he would in a game. 

So, first to go down was an special earth slime, which ate boulders, and produced soil. 

The second to go down is a blood eater, then a flesh eater, finally, an earth eater, to clear away the snake nest, and make it a clearly visible place where no snakes could hide. 

The herb slime just sat at the edge and waited patiently, like a game character that couldn't leave too far from its spawn location. 

The earth slime finished the boulder too fast. Rowan had goosebumps looking at the bloody mess underneath the boulder. 

Blood slime was like a little blood drop, whose arrival killed more snakes than the boulder did. 

Rowan's spirit energy reserve boosted to 450 by the time blood slime is done. 

The flesh eater was even faster, and they both slowly rolled themselves over to the herb slime, and lined up like soldiers once they finished feeding. 

It would be quite cute if only Rowan hadn't seen the scene where flesh and blood were vanishing like a giant beast bit into it. 

Earth slime finished eating away the entire soft mud of the nest, and it joined it's fellows on the rim of the nest. 

It is only then that Rowan jumped down. 

He patted all the slimes to praise them, then stored them away. 

He figured out the way of the system. 

The slimes must come out into the real world from the imaginary slime dungeon at least once every three days. 

If they do not, they perish permanently. 

Night is the time of predators, so Rowan moved carefully, letting plant slimes eat half the vegetation to clear a wide path. 

From maps of his father, he knew within one kilometer, there's a big jatropha cluster. Almost ten thousand of his slimes eat various parts of Jatropha, so that's the best place to feed them. 

Time to time, small animals like squirrels and bats jumped in front of Rowan. These are small animals. He was quite happy to kill them with his slender spear for +1 spirit energy and feed away their corpses to the slimes. 

Thankfully, there were not many of them. 

In an hour, they reached the orchard. It's one thirty in the night now, and there's no moon in the sky. 

Rowan felt confident releasing all the plant slimes, and told them to eat their fill till he called them back. 

Then, he tied his hammock to two tall trees, and laid down to catch a nap, after spraying enough beast repellant on himself. 

In no time, it's four o'clock. 

Rowan woke up, wiped his eyes with the wet wipes, only to be shocked at the scene in front of him. 

The slimes ate away the entire Jatropha cluster, and the area is not small. 

It would form half the ring around the base. 

Shocked, he called them back. He must escape before dawn breaks. It would be all too easy for the base soldiers to spot him otherwise. 

The slimes all rolled back to him. 

Rowan hurriedly collected them all into the dungeon, retrieved his hammock, and fled to the snake nest at express speed. 

He climbed up as fast as he could and vanished into the hole just as the sun's first rays touched down on the ground. He closed the hole with the special spherical brick that stone slime made. 

He returned home sneaking through the places with cameras. 

𒅉

Mina Pendragon looked surprisedly at the all too scrumptious breakfast on the table.

White porridge, two fried omelets and a sauced meat. 

Omelets are fine, but both porridge and meat take time, and more importantly, money ! Money, which they do not have ! She knew as much. 

How early did her brother get up to accomplish something like this? How much of their savings did he burn through ? 

Was she being given the last meal before her brother goes on an impossible quest? 

What's happening here? 

"You little kid! Stop thinking too much about it. " Rowan scolded her half way through. 

" I am going out just to collect wood, no less, no more. " Rowan assured his sister. 

"Fine. I am believing you just this once." Mina acquiesced, before finishing her meal, relishing each and every bite. 

Just as she opened the door to their house, two official looking men were about to knock on his door. 

"These sirs ! May I ask why are you here? " Rowan asked politely. 

The men looked surprised. 

"Ah! We are here to talk about the cleared land outside the base." One of the men spoke. 

Rowan's heart beat slowed down. 

A chill went up his spine, and his hands cooled down with nervousness. 

He has been found out? 

There isn't a possibility of someone seeing him. 

Unless they are specifically looking at him, it's impossible to spot him at all. 

'Don't chicken out, Rowan. Wait for them to speak!' He encouraged himself internally. 

"How about we discuss it over some warm water? " he asked the men, as he invited them to sit. 

"Ah! There's no need for that. Could you come with us? " They asked.