The ashlands whispered beneath Zeke's filaments, heat rising in slow currents from fissures that pulsed faintly with ember-light. He drifted low, compact, conserving mass after the strain of resonance. The echoes of yesterday's weaving still clung to him—sizzling sparks burned into memory, threads stretched near to breaking. The lattice had held, but only barely. Instability still gnawed, and the hunger pressed sharper now, chewing at every pause. He ignored it. Hunger had become familiar, a constant that no longer commanded him.
He pulsed faintly, testing his cohesion. Threads trembled but did not spill apart. Yet cracks lingered within. He could feel it: his body was not strong enough. The loom held together only because of precision, not resilience. A single slip, a single overextension, and he would collapse. It was not enough to refine the weave. The vessel itself had to be shaped.
So he turned inward.
Zeke let his form collapse outward, spreading across a field of broken ashstone. Jagged shards cut into him, shearing filaments and scattering fragments. Sparks flared, instability ripping through him. For a moment, he nearly lost control, his form unraveling into dust. But he forced cohesion, pulling mass back together, fusing fragments. The pain was strange, raw yet instructive. Each tear was a lesson in reform.
He repeated the cycle. Stretching thin over the rocks until his body split into strands. Letting them tear, then weaving them back. Collapse, reform. Break, reshape. Each time the process grew smoother. Sparks still flared, but the intervals shortened. His body remembered, filaments binding faster than before. What once threatened unraveling became practice.
The ashlands themselves became teacher. Fissures belched sudden heat, air shimmering with distortion. Zeke slid into one, letting his body sink against the molten stone. Heat seared through him, burning essence raw. Filaments warped and collapsed, essence boiling away. He pulled back, reshaping quickly, then plunged again. Each cycle hardened him. Where heat once tore holes, now it only thinned him. The reshaping followed without hesitation.
He expanded the trial further. Instead of retreating the moment collapse threatened, he let it happen. He allowed fissures to burn him hollow, let jagged stone rip him into ribbons, let ash collapse bury him entirely. Then, from fragments scattered and unraveling, he forced cohesion back. It was agony, essence dragging itself into unity when all logic screamed to disperse. Yet each time he returned, faster, tighter. Collapse was no longer end. It was stage of training.
Still the hunger clawed. Each collapse burned mana, bleeding sparks into the air. His mass quivered, thinned by strain. Prey scurried near, their sparks tempting, but he refused. Consumption would dull the lesson. Hunger pressed him harder, forcing every reform tighter, every collapse sharper. To endure without feeding was to sharpen endurance itself.
He shifted to mobility. The ash-crust beneath him was fragile, riddled with burrows and hollow veins left behind by the burrower. He spread wide, testing ground that gave way without warning. His form dropped into collapsing tunnels, fragments scattered through shifting dust. He reformed on instinct, pulling filaments back together mid-fall. Sparks bled, but cohesion returned. Again and again he let himself fall, and again he reformed. The cycle carved instinct into him—resilience not from strength alone, but from inevitability of recovery.
He layered training further. Pseudopods lashed outward while his body reformed, striking at shards of ashstone, breaking them mid-collapse before pulling himself back together. Split fragments stretched wide, then drew in even as fissures roared heat against him. Every motion demanded simultaneous adaptation: reform while striking, compress while spreading. Sparks flew, instability churned, but he endured. Each collapse became trial, each reform a smoother cycle.
Hours passed. Zeke pressed himself into every hazard, every fracture, until his body no longer unraveled with each collapse. Sparks still flared, but they no longer devoured him. The vessel bent, but it did not shatter. Amorphous flesh shifted fluidly, reshaping without pause. He had not removed instability, but he had built a vessel that could endure it.
He condensed slowly, folding inward until his mass formed a compact sphere. He pulsed faintly, testing. Filaments flexed, threads stretched, but no cracks formed. Where before he had been fragile lattice, now he was resilient weave. Not yet perfect, but sharper, steadier. The vessel itself had grown stronger.
Affinity stirred within the calm. Fire threads no longer surged wildly, but simmered like coals, steady and enduring. Darkness pressed tighter, binding weak seams, drawing loose sparks inward. Light flickered sharp but brief, no longer scattering uncontrollably, instead flashing in bursts he could shape. The three remained crude, jagged in resonance, but their edges felt closer to refinement. The boundary of Basic neared its end. Soon, he sensed, they would shift. Not today, but soon. The hunger in them was not unlike his own—it was the pressure to grow.
Hunger pulsed again. He allowed himself one vermin, drawn trembling into his mass. Assimilation burned faintly, but did not overwhelm. The spark soothed the hunger only slightly, yet it was enough. Prey could wait. The vessel was the true prize.
He lingered in stillness, reflecting. The predators had taught him lessons—coordination, patience, anticipation. Training had honed Split into weave, resonance into crude harmony. But this was different. This was not the loom of threads, but the vessel itself. If the loom was mind, then the vessel was body. Both had to be forged together. Without strength in one, the other would collapse.
He thought of hunger not as a curse but as a whetstone. It gnawed, yes, but it also sharpened. Every collapse resisted was proof of endurance. Every reform completed was a testament to growth. Hunger was not weakness. Hunger was forged.
The ashlands whispered. Dust spiralled faintly in heated winds, vermin scurried, and fissures glowed. Zeke pulsed quietly, steady now. Hunger remained constant, but it was no longer a flaw. It was a foundation. Pressure to refine. Pressure to endure.
The System stirred.
System Update
StatusName: Ezekiel AshbourneRace: Prime Slime (Unevolved)Level: 15
Affinity: Fire (Basic), Light (Basic), Darkness (Basic)
Stats
STR: 9
AGI: 9
VIT: 12 → 13
WIL: 10
RES: 11
MNA: 50 → 51
CTL: 20 → 21
Skills
Active Skills:
Split (Lv.7): Divide body into fragments. Threads sustain wider spreads and finer densities with reduced mana bleed. Braided layering stabilizes under strain.
Assimilate (Lv.8): Absorb matter or energy to recover essence; smoother, more efficient absorption. Can now pull minor elemental traces.
Pseudopod (Lv.9): Tentacle-like appendages with whip precision and crushing power. Now integrates more fluidly with Split, striking alongside threads without delay.
Passive Skills:
Amorphous Body (Lv.6 → Lv.7): Greater resilience under stress, faster recovery after collapse, mass reshapes with less instability bleed.