This was the Slime Mom.
She probably mistook him for a naughty child who had run away from home and was now taking him back to the nest.
Chen Yu floated in the Gel. His vision followed the Slime Mom as she dove down, burrowing into the soft soil, where he saw a type of chubby little white bug squirming in the dirt.
They looked tasty, but they were actually good companions to Slimes.
These were the larvae of mire worms. Like Slimes, they were among the lowest-level monsters in this Swamp Forest.
In their larval stage, they hid deep underground for safety, silently absorbing nutrients from the soil to survive.
Only when they matured would they risk crawling to the surface to feed on the more nutritious layer of decaying leaves and humus, fulfilling their duty to mate and reproduce.
Mire worms were probably the friendliest monsters in this forest. Some even fed on Slime excrement and would voluntarily help clean out Slime Nests.
They could be called the good nannies of the Demon Realm.
What Chen Yu found slightly regrettable was that, like ordinary Slimes, these low-level monsters had no racial talents, and their texture was like snot.
Otherwise, he wouldn't mind eating a few tasty friends.
Speaking of racial talents, most Slimes were only the size of a dewdrop in their youth and only grew to the size of a human head as adults. They were magical monsters that could thrive by simply absorbing sunlight and swamp water.
The difference with his Slime body was that it possessed the "Devouring and Digesting" talent—allowing him to eat like a predatory monster.
SQUISH...
As Chen Yu watched, the Slime Mom burrowed into an underground nest, not forgetting to secrete Gel from her body to seal the entrance and prevent mud from pouring in.
The inside of the Slime Nest was supported by tree roots and mucus. The space wasn't large, less than a cubic meter, but as his cozy little home in this dangerous world, it was reassuring enough.
With a POP, he was squeezed out of her body, tumbling a few times before landing in a nest of fluorescent grass.
Looking closer, these little things emitting a soft fluorescent glow were none other than baby Slimes. Sensing Chen Yu's return, they immediately swarmed over joyfully, enthusiastically sticking to his body and bouncing.
Slimes had no vocal organs, but the pheromones they exchanged were their most primitive language.
To Chen Yu's senses, it was as if a group of cheering little ones had surrounded him, chirping, "Big brother, big brother..."
'So noisy,' Chen Yu thought.
In fact, his Slime body had been born in the same batch as these little ones. He just grew faster. When the other Slimes were only the size of a thumb, he was already nearly the size of an adult's fist.
'Maybe it's because I'm a meat-eating Slime?'
'But I was planning to go out hunting.'
Chen Yu tried to push past the little ones and bounce toward the nest's exit.
A few of the little ones got squashed and squeezed into his Gel body, still blinking their innocent, pea-like eyes.
The surrounding little ones thought Chen Yu was playing with them and bounced even more happily.
His actions were noticed by the Slime Mom, who always had a way of dealing with naughty children.
The Slime Mom bounced into the grass nest, pressing all the little ones, including Chen Yu, under her and squeezing them into her Gel body.
Floating in the Gel, unable to move, Chen Yu blinked his eyes and saw a rather viscous green liquid flowing within it.
This Slime liquid was rich in nutrients, similar to mammalian milk, allowing baby Slimes to absorb it and grow quickly.
He had grown up by suckling on this Slime liquid right after he was born.
However, as the baby Slimes suckled, the Slime Mom visibly shrank quite a bit. She only stayed in the nest for a short while before heading out again to find food.
Chen Yu seized the opportunity, hopping out of the grass nest to leave the Slime Nest.
A few mischievous baby Slimes tried to follow, but their jumps weren't even high enough to clear the grass nest.
'Hmm...' Chen Yu's jelly-like brain thought silently, 'the outside world is much more dangerous than I imagined. I wonder how many of these little guys will survive to adulthood.'
The Magic World, in the human imagination, is always veiled in magnificent wonder—the awe of a dragon spreading its wings and soaring past, the miracle of Magic's radiance tearing through the night, and the heroic epics sung repeatedly around village campfires.
However, for a weak Slime crawling in the mire, the truth of this world was nothing but cold and piercing, like sun-deprived, rotting mud.
Every trip outside could mean ending up as food for a Moss Monster, or silently vanishing under the gaze of an even more terrifying monster.
The fate of these Slimes was like the carpets of moss and fungi in the Swamp Forest: they strove to grow, yet couldn't survive a single winter, born only to become food for other monsters.
...
His thoughts drifted further and further away. By the time Chen Yu came back to his senses, he was starting to feel a bit hungry and once again craved the delicious taste of the Moss Monster from that morning.
He was a Slime, that was true.
But a Slime that could cultivate was destined for a different fate.
At the very least, he would never let his stomach suffer when it came to eating.
Go hungry? Not a chance.
He squeezed out of the Gel-sealed entrance, slowly crawled up from the rotting mud, and returned to the surface world once more.
A pair of round eyes cautiously poked out of the mire, surveying the surroundings.
The world in his eyes was one of towering trees and dense miasma. The forest was filled with the heavy scent of decaying wood and humus, and the light, blocked by layer upon layer of giant leaves and vines, was incredibly dim.
The Slime Nest was hidden deep beneath the roots of the colossal, mountain-like, brownish-green tree right in front of him, which was covered in moss.
But compared to underground, the surface was clearly more full of life.
Steam rose from the slick, muddy ground, where some much larger mire worms crawled slowly, gnawing on soaked, blackened fallen leaves.
The thick layer of moss covering the tree roots and rocks was like a sticky blanket. The Moss Monsters hid within it, their perfect camouflage making them difficult to spot.
Chen Yu wasn't in a hurry to leave the mire. His gaze remained on the continuous stretches of moss as he stealthily tried to find traces of Moss Monsters.
The only threatening thing about a Moss Monster was the acid secreted from its maw.
Chen Yu had personally seen this acid drip onto the ground and corrode a large hole in a rock.
Its corrosiveness was terrifying!
A monster was a monster. Even a decomposer had the ability to kill.
Of course, harmless monsters like Slimes were an exception.
If one had to assign Slimes an ecological niche, they weren't decomposers, but simply the lowest level of food—like the humus layer or a patch of grass.
These creatures might even pop up batch after batch when there was enough moisture in the air. No monster knew how they were actually born.
Just like how fresh, juicy green grass would cover the ground after a rain.
The Moss Monster's acid was fearsome. A rash move could easily get him ambushed by one, and his small body couldn't take that kind of abuse.
Besides, Moss Monsters were still just low-level monsters in this Swamp Forest.
If a Slime dared to openly leave its nest to forage, he figured that predators flying in the sky and running on the ground wouldn't mind having a full meal.
'And in the eyes of these monsters, Slimes seem to be delicious?'
At least, judging from the Moss Monsters' fierce desire to attack Slimes, their tastiness was unquestionable—to Moss Monsters, at least.
'But they probably never imagined that this little Swamp Forest would, with a one-in-a-hundred-billion probability, welcome a Slime transmigrator.'
Thinking this, Chen Yu silently squeezed out the toothpick Flying Sword and lay in wait for the right moment.
The sun's shadow gradually shifted, and noon arrived. From time to time, Moss Monsters were active on the mossy ground—secreting acid to gnaw on wood and soil, or fighting over mates, then copulating and reproducing.
Chen Yu, from his place in the mire, could clearly see the puffs of green smoke emitted by the acid.
When he felt he had pinpointed the locations of all the Moss Monsters, he quietly swam toward the tree root closest to the mire.
There were three lone Moss Monsters on it. As long as he was fast enough, taking out one or two wouldn't be a problem.
Chen Yu swam very slowly. The Moss Monsters on the tree root didn't notice his approach.
When he was less than half a meter away from the nearest Moss Monster, the toothpick Flying Sword lodged in his Gel vibrated and shot out.
[Artifact Manipulation Skill]
WHOOSH!
The toothpick Flying Sword hit the nearest Moss Monster square in the head. The creature's arched back immediately went limp.
HISS!!
This startled the other two Moss Monsters. As they retreated in alarm, their maws sprayed acid that landed on the ground, sizzling and smoking, warning the enemy not to approach.
Chen Yu knew it took a Moss Monster two seconds to spray acid again. Seizing this window, he immediately bounced out of the mire, squelching over to swallow the Moss Monster's corpse and the Flying Sword into his body, then dashed back into the mire.
He had chosen his position cleverly. By the time the Moss Monsters reacted, he was already out of the acid's splash range.
Gazing at the two furious and panicked Moss Monsters, Chen Yu felt quite smug.
After half a month of trial and error, he had long since figured out the interval and range of the Moss Monsters' acid spray... Combined with his Artifact Manipulation Skill, these Moss Monsters were completely helpless against him.
Chen Yu lay back in the rotting mud, his eyes vigilantly scanning the surroundings, observing the movements on the mossy ground while patiently waiting for the Moss Monster inside him to be completely digested.
[Devouring and Digesting Level 1 triggered—Moss Monster characteristics recorded. Talent incubating (9/10)]
'Almost there. Just one more to go.'
Chen Yu set his sights on the two Moss Monsters on the tree root.