He moved slowly across the ground until he came upon something with a familiar texture.
It was a plant of some kind. Thin, fibrous, rooted into a crack in the stone.
He settled over it.
Slowly, the plant beneath him began to dissolve, breaking down and merging into his mass.
This was another thing he had learned.
In this body, he didn't feel hunger or thirst in the traditional sense. There was no growling stomach, no dry throat. But that didn't mean he didn't need to eat.
His mass was finite. And it was being consumed just by existing - by moving, by maintaining his form, by simply being alive.
He had noticed a few days earlier that he was getting smaller. His body was shrinking little by little, and he hadn't understood why at first. Afraid that he might disappear completely, he had desperately searched for a way to sustain himself.
That was when he discovered he could absorb things like this.
It seemed to be an innate trait of his species. Anything organic that his body enveloped would slowly break down and merge with him. And the best part - there was no waste. Everything was fully absorbed, directly contributing to his mass.
Considering that his mass held everything about himself, including his consciousness, it was best to ensure it never dropped below a certain point. Who knows - if he became too small, he might lose the capacity for rational thought.
But too big was also a problem. A larger body meant slower movement and more visibility. He would become an easier target for predators.
So he had decided that a good size to maintain was about the size of a human head. Small enough to hide, large enough to think.
At that moment, information suddenly appeared in his mind.
[ Analysis Complete ]
Subject: Cave Weed
Classification: Plant (Non-toxic)
Details: A common weed found in dark, damp environments. Grows in thin soil or rock crevices with minimal nutrients. No notable properties. Provides trace amounts of organic matter when consumed.
Nutritional Value: Low
This was another ability he had discovered.
Whenever he ate something, he could completely analyze its contents. Breaking it down into digestible information that appeared in his mind like this. No pun intended.
The analysis took some time, and honestly, it didn't seem all that useful.
His first thought had been that he could use it to identify whether something was poisonous before eating it. Then he realized by the time the analysis completed, he would have already devoured the thing.
After all, it only worked on things he ate.
Besides, he had encountered poisonous substances since then, and they didn't seem to have any effect on him. He supposed his slime body was immune to poison - or at least, it could neutralize toxins by absorbing them into his mass harmlessly.
So the analysis felt somewhat pointless.
But as he thought about it further, something occurred to him.
Wait.
The moment he ate something, it was instantly absorbed into his mass. Yet he could still analyze it afterward. That meant the analysis wasn't happening before absorption - it was happening while the material was already integrated inside him.
He was analyzing things that had become part of his own body.
What if he didn't draw a border?
What if he let the analysis examine everything that made up his body - including himself?
Maybe he could finally get some real information about his current situation. What he was. What he was capable of. Why he had become this way.
His form stilled as determination settled over him.
Yeah. He would do this.
With that, he activated the analysis on his entire self.
…
Boing. Boing. Boing.
A small slime hopped through the cave, bouncing from stone to stone.
Boing.
It landed atop a flat rock and came to a stop.
How long had it been now?
A few days? A week? A month?
He really couldn't tell anymore. Without any way to track the passage of time, the days had all blurred together into one continuous stretch of existence.
During that time, he had learned something new. By readjusting the Slime Smash technique - reducing the compression and limiting the output - he could turn the explosive launch into a controlled hop.
It wasn't as powerful, but it gave him far better mobility than crawling along the ground like an amoeba.
He had also established a perimeter. A safe zone extending a few meters in every direction from where he usually rested. He had memorized every rock, every crevice, every surface within that area through repeated exploration.
Since this part of the cave didn't seem to have any predators, he had decided to stay here. At least until he could figure out a solution to his sight problem.
Apart from that, there was something else he had noticed.
A strange sensation.
It was all around him, constantly. Like dust, almost. Tiny particles drifting through the air, brushing against his membrane. He could feel them colliding with him, passing through him, swirling in invisible currents.
He didn't understand what it was.
At that moment…
[ Analysis Complete ]
His form jolted.
No way.
It was finally done.
He jumped in joy…
SLAM.
…a little too hard.
His body crashed into the ceiling, then plummeted back down, smacking against the ground and rolling several times before coming to a stop.
...Ahem.
Maybe he got a little too excited.
Then again, could anyone blame him? He had been waiting for so long. In fact, the time since he began the analysis felt even longer than the entire period from when he first appeared here until he activated the ability.
Though, thinking about it rationally, it made sense. Analyzing a simple weed had taken a while. Analyzing his entire self - every bit of mass, every aspect of his existence - would naturally take far longer.
He steadied himself and focused on the information now flowing into his mind.