The ember of fire burned restlessly inside him, but now it was joined by something gentler. Zeke pulsed faintly as he lingered within his crude chamber, staring outward through the narrow slit he had sealed with slime. Beyond lay ash, predators, and death. Within, there was warmth, water, and the flicker of something new: light.
He had touched it only briefly when the sun nearly destroyed him. Yet in that agony, he had remembered Cass. And in remembering, he had found resonance. Light. It was different from fire—less violent, less consuming. But like fire, it carried power. And power demanded practice.
Zeke closed in on himself, coiling his awareness around the faint glow that pulsed in his core. It shimmered weakly, a pale radiance nestled against his jellylike form. He tried to coax it outward, the way he had with fire. It responded sluggishly, resisting his push, until it finally seeped through his surface in a faint glow. The chamber brightened slightly, shadows softening at the edges.
For a moment, awe filled him. The light did not scald or burn. It did not lash against his body. Instead, it felt… supportive. The glow wrapped around him, steadying his edges, making him feel less fragile. His surface hardened faintly, his body no longer collapsing at every brush against stone.
The glow faded quickly, leaving him dim once more. But the sensation lingered, a whisper of reinforcement. He shivered, rippling across the floor. It was crude, weak, and unstable. But it was real. He could shape light.
He practiced again. And again. Each attempt drained his energy, leaving his mass thinner and sluggish, but he refused to stop. Every pulse gave him new information. When he pushed too hard, the glow fractured into sparks. When he pulled too little, it fizzled inside his core. He had to find balance. He had to find control.
Time blurred. The chamber flickered between darkness and pale glow, over and over. Sometimes his light collapsed instantly, other times he held it for seconds before it sputtered. Once he forced too much at once and the glow detonated across his surface, burning faint cracks into his jellylike skin. He hissed in pain, but even then he noted the result. Too much force shattered cohesion. Too little, and the light guttered. He was a scholar once. Now, his body itself was the experiment.
The System responded to his persistence.
[CTL +1]
The change was subtle but profound. Where before his efforts had been wild groping, now his awareness sharpened. He could feel threads of mana inside his mass, fine filaments that moved with his will. He learned to gather them, to weave them gently into steady flow. The glow no longer sputtered instantly. He could hold it, fragile but present, as though his body wore a coat of faint light.
With every repetition, his mana stirred stronger. The pool within him deepened, filling with energy until it swelled outward. His slime body grew subtly larger, swelling against the walls of the chamber. He realized with shock that he had to compress himself to fit neatly inside. Where once he had been small, fragile, he now spread wider, thicker. The growth thrilled and terrified him both. Larger meant stronger, but also more visible. More mass to strike, more surface to burn.
[MNA +1]
He pulsed faintly, marveling at the shift. His body felt denser now, every motion carrying more weight. And yet, without finer control, this growth would make him clumsier. A precursor, he realized dimly, to something greater—something to come. Compress. He could not name it yet, but his instincts whispered of a future where growth and density must be balanced.
Still he practiced. He coated his body with light, then extinguished it, then pulsed again. Each time, he learned to anchor it better, to balance the threads of mana without tearing. The reinforcement let him strike the wall harder, roll faster, stretch further. His body endured stress without collapsing. The changes were minute, but in a world where weakness meant death, minute changes mattered.
Yet there was a price. Light was not subtle. Each glow illuminated the chamber, casting radiance through the cracks. Predators might see it. He quivered with the realization. To use light was to risk being seen. It was safety and exposure in one. Comfort and danger bound together.
That conflict ate at him. Should he keep to darkness, hidden and unseen? Or should he embrace the light, even if it marked him as prey?
He pulsed faintly, remembering Cass. His brother had always been brighter, always the one to draw attention, to laugh first, to stand in the open. Zeke had been the shadow to his sun. But Cass had been his balance. And now, light was his memory. How could he reject it?
"…I'll carry it," he whispered inwardly. "No matter the risk."
With that vow, he pulsed light again, brighter this time. The glow coated him fully, casting him as a faint sphere of radiance. For a moment, he looked less like slime, more like a small lantern flickering in the dark. His surface hardened, steady. The fear of collapse vanished. He felt whole.
The glow dimmed slowly, and when it faded, Zeke collapsed against the wall in exhaustion. Steam drifted faintly from his surface, but he no longer felt like a fragile scrap of prey. He had grown. Not in leaps, not in triumph, but in persistence. Control steadied him. Mana filled him. Light wrapped him. He was still prey, but less fragile prey than before. And step by step, that was enough.
System Update
Status
Name: Ezekiel Ashbourne
Race: Prime Slime (Unevolved)
Level: 5
Affinity: Fire (Basic), Light (Basic)
Stats
STR: 3
AGI: 3
VIT: 6
WIL: 3
RES: 8
MNA: 14 → 15
CTL: 1 → 2