Chapter 24 The Main Meal Comes with Snacks

Ybur huffed and puffed as it crawled to the entrance of the buffet.

Just as it arrived, it happened upon several Fungus Lord's minions carrying food by.

Ybur's heart leapt with joy: I've come all this way, and they even brought me snacks? How enthusiastic!

It immediately rolled over towards the minions.

Over the past few days, although there had been no advancement in Rank, Ybur's strength had nevertheless undergone a substantial change—its body was getting larger, and its strength was increasing correspondingly.

For Slime, size was indeed a very important indicator of strength. This not only meant an increase in power and endurance but also indicated a rise in its Acid reserves and recovery speed, and even the range of its Acid spray. Since assimilating the brown mud creature, Ybur's size had progressed from that of a Corgi towards a Husky, and its combat abilities had improved rapidly in every respect... except for its still sluggish speed.

The minions, which could previously exchange blows with it, Ybur now completely disregarded.

It launched a jet of Acid without hesitation.

Ybur had now mastered a new application of its Transformative Weapon— by shaping the Spikes on its body into nozzles, it could adjust the shape of the nozzles to either perform a spray-like wide-range continuous coverage or a squirt-gun-style long-distance precise shot.

This kind of nozzle was actually a byproduct of its previous experiments with "hollow Acid-filled Spikes," a little gadget inadvertently created during a failure. But after trying it out, Ybur felt this might be an even more suitable use. This incident indeed served as a reminder: the Slime's vastly transformative body was truly useful, and sometimes the only thing limiting it was its own imagination.

Ybur swept through with its Acid like a showerhead. The minions were drenched in Acid and died within moments. Ybur moved leisurely and without hurry, crawling over to drag the minions into its body.

Glancing into the darkness afar, there were more minions running and crawling around.

Ybur extended a tentacle and scratched its own head.

For a Fungus Lord's lair, it was common for some minions to die during a hunting trip. But with it eating at this buffet every day, sooner or later the lair would realize something was amiss.

At that time... would the Fungus Lord get angry?

But even if it did get angry, what could it do about it, grow legs and come out to kill me? Ybur hummed and hawed in its mind, its body twisting as it crawled towards a safer distance.

...

The city, night time.

The curfew had begun. After washing up, the two sisters lay lazily in bed.

Just as they were about to turn off the lights and sleep, Cherie suddenly rolled over, her slightly curled hair cascading down her forehead, resembling the grapevines often depicted on the shoulders of the God of Wine. She looked at Karlo with her eyes and said, "Tonight, there shouldn't be any other dreams, right?"

"Should be..." Karlo muttered ambiguously, feeling an inexplicably mixed emotion, unsure whether to feel relieved or regretful. What exactly was Jingguang, that entity which appeared in her dreams, teaching her mysterious knowledge and harboring what purpose? After bathing in the Holy Water, would it ever appear again?

And I don't even know if that's good or bad...

Thinking was never Karlo's forte. The more she thought, the more complex her emotions became, as if caught in a tug-of-war. After a while, she felt oddly irritated and turned over, facing away from Cherie, pulling the blankets around her: "Hey, no more talking, let's sleep! I'm going to try meditating."

She closed her eyes.

Cherie fell silent beside her and then turned off the light.

In the quiet, Karlo carefully recalled all the key points about meditation.

She didn't know if any of this stuff was even useful.

Meditation required desire...

Come to think of it, why did she long to become a Transcendent?

That seemed like something from a long time ago.

She and Cherie were sisters, with her being a year and a half older.

Tragically, around the age of six or seven, their father went out to mine and was caught in a cold wave, never to return. Not long after that, their mother passed away, and the two sisters ended up living at their uncle's house. The feeling of dependency wasn't pleasant. Uncle Pan was decent enough, but he kept a certain distance; their aunt was a different story altogether, glaring at them every day as if they were enemies. On several occasions, Karlo overheard her aunt cursing them as "two freeloading leeches" behind their backs.

The aunt had a son, a few years younger than them. Children's words were unguarded and, thus, the most hurting,

During one argument, the cause now forgotten, only the triviality remembered, their cousin yelled, "This isn't your house! Get out!"

At that moment, Karlo's heart really turned cold, as if pierced straight through by a glinting knife.

Then she hit her cousin. The cousin wailed. The aunt saw it and began scolding them fiercely and beating them; at the time, Uncle Pan wasn't home. They escaped from the house, and at first, hoped Uncle Pan would come looking for them, but as day after day passed, he never did.

So they never went back and became two little beggars.

To this day, Karlo regretted it; she felt that if she had just endured a bit longer and not lashed out, at least Cherie wouldn't have been driven out. It was hard living at others' mercy, but it was better than wandering the streets.

Luckily, things got a little better after they met Uncle Pan and other friends and became scavengers. The first time she earned money, although it wasn't much, Karlo cried with joy. For a long time after that, life for Karlo was full of hope. She felt herself growing stronger, more mature, and savvy by the day. She saved a little money each month, believing that things would get better.

Until a year ago.

They encountered a Thunder Lizard.

Two companions died in an instant; she survived purely by luck. She watched helplessly as acquaintances of many years were turned to char by the Lightning Breath of the Thunder Lizard.

That day, Karlo truly grasped the meaning of death.

She suddenly realized that people could die. She kept thinking of steadily saving up money, but her life was not unlimited, one injury could deplete her savings, and one accident could take her life. Even if everything went smoothly, what about it? Uncle Pan was the oldest in the group, having been a scavenger for over thirty years! But did Uncle Pan's life improve? Not at all!

And besides... dwarves were a long-lived race, capable of living over two hundred years, but they were not. In thirty years, they would be old, without savings, without any skills beyond scavenging, what could they do then?

From that day on, immense pain tormented Karlo; she felt her life had no way out, either to age in agony or die in it. It was then that the intense desire for Transcendent Power took root in her heart. Not for anything else, but just to make a change! She didn't want to continue suffering like this; she didn't, she just didn't! She didn't!!

But she could do nothing.

After all, that was "Transcendence," something beyond the reach of mortals…

Karlo felt her breathing grow heavy, tears flowing uncontrollably.

She didn't want Cherie to hear her crying, so she sobbed softly, wiping away her tears with a raised hand.

But when she opened her eyes, Karlo was taken aback.

——A vast expanse of azure Shallow Sea unfolded before her.