Lohan took his time rolling back to the clearing, even though he could have gotten there in half the time it took him to escape originally, since his speed was now twice what it was when he left. He remained calm and just accumulated Biomass.
Being a Slime, his battles were basically biomass attrition; if he ran out of biomass before killing his opponent, he would die, but if his opponent died before his Biomass ran out, it was his victory.
So Lohan just accumulated as much Biomass as he could along the way.
And now that he was bigger, his body could withstand more accumulated biomass before becoming unstable, so size was also an indicator of his advantage.
After two hours, Lohan had a stockpile of 12 Biomass and was confident.
In front of him, unlike the bright green forest he originally saw, traces of dead vegetation were appearing, and the more he rolled, the less living vegetation he saw.
From a green forest full of grass, the path ahead of him consisted of only dry, beaten red earth, indicating that even the nutrients in the soil had been consumed by those little parasites.
But it was nothing Lohan could judge, as he did the same thing wherever he went.
Slap... Slap... Slap...
Suddenly, a familiar sound spread around him.
With his Mana senses, Lohan realized that this was the sound of another Slime!
Excited but cautious, he searched for the source of the sound while slowing his own movements.
To the northeast of his position, diagonally across the path he was following, a Slime larger than himself was rolling awkwardly.
The noise the other Slime was making was the result of this clumsy movement.
With human wisdom, Lohan knew how dangerous a forest was, and he could imagine that a magical forest was even more dangerous, so he consciously avoided making noise and clumsy movements like that as much as possible.
But the other Slime clearly had no idea how dangerous that was for him.
Lohan did not rush.
Observing his target from a distance, Lohan realized that this Slime was surprisingly larger than him, or perhaps not so surprisingly, since most of the slimes he saw in the clearing before fleeing were larger than him.
Since size affected the amount of grass the slimes could cover and absorb, these dudes instinctively prioritized increasing their own size over other upgrades.
And a very large size, with low speed and low body control, made movement slow and clumsy, with the body shape changing from a slightly flattened sphere to a complete deformity that could not assume a solid form.
'He's fighting his own body...'
This was a chance!
Taking advantage of the greater control and speed he had over his own body, Lohan moved slowly around that Slime, getting in the way it was moving, and using the same strategy he used against the ants, Lohan stood still.
Slowly, the larger Slime crawled toward him.
But suddenly, the Slime stopped.
It stood still for 5 seconds, perhaps digesting something, perhaps reasoning something... but when Lohan saw it struggle to turn in the opposite direction, he realized he had been located.
'Damn, the environmental perception of other Slimes is much better than that of ants.'
But Lohan didn't give up. Taking advantage of his superior speed, Lohan solidified his outer layer as much as possible and rolled toward the other Slime.
Seeing Lohan's movement, the other Slime desperately tried to escape faster, only to deform even more, unable to control its own body mass.
The difference in their speeds was too great. While Lohan rolled at 0.50 m/s with ease, the other Slime struggled tremendously to move at 0.22 m/s.
In just a few seconds, Lohan had caught up to it, but Lohan didn't slow down. On the contrary, he tried to accelerate even more, taking advantage of the other Slime's body deformity and how fragile and soft it was, and ran it over!
Lohan's egg-hard body pierced through the other Slime's jelly-like body as if it were a stone in a lake, spreading the Slime's internal liquid around as it opened a crack in the exoskeleton to swallow its core!
[ALERT — Drainage Detected]
[Bio-Mass being consumed by external agent!]
[Loss rate: 0.0001 Units / second]
Looking at that data, if Lohan had a mouth, he would be smiling.
The other Slime was controlling what remained of its jelly to try to corrode Lohan's exoskeleton, which closed after swallowing the core, to open a hole for its core to come out of Lohan.
But if piercing his armor would already be difficult at maximum capacity, with control over the gelatin already weakened by being swallowed by Lohan's body, this task was impossible.
Then after a few seconds, other notifications appeared.
[Organism absorbed.]
[Bio-Mass +2.9 Units]
[Experience: +1]
[New Matter Detected — Instinctive Perception Lv 1]
[Analysis available in the next evolution.]
[Mass Expansion Lv 1 → Lv 2]
As soon as he absorbed the Slime's core, Lohan was bombarded with notifications.
And the sound of these notifications was like music to his ears.
Not only did he receive almost 3 Biomass, but he also received a new Skill equivalent to 2 Bio and an evolution in the Skill he already had, which would cost 3.75 Bio!
In other words, defeating this Slime gave him a profit of 8.15 Bio!!!
To receive this amount, even with his already high bio absorption rate, it would still take almost two hours.
Curious, Lohan read the description of the Skill he received.
[Instinctive Perception Lv 1]
[Detects nearby vibrations and movements.
'I think it's because of this skill that he sensed me, even though I was trying to hide! It's a good skill, it won't speed up my growth, but it could save my life at any moment.
Satisfied, Lohan assimilated this skill.
-- Boom!!!
It was as if a part of his brain had exploded, expanding his already powerful perception to a whole new level.
Now not only could Lohan see 360 degrees around his own body, but he could also perceive every little movement around him as if alarms were sounding with everything he saw moving.
It was a strange feeling, but something he quickly got used to.
Another change was [Mass Expansion], which rose from Lv 1 to Lv 2, and quickly began to suck up some of the biomass he had stored, increasing his size.
'Shit... good thing I had biomass stored.'
Not only was [Mass Expansion] demanding more biomass, but [Reinforced Exoskeleton] was also demanding more biomass to cover and reinforce this larger body with the 'eggshell' level defense he had.
'That's why I was reluctant to put upgrades on multiple skills at the same time...'
Lohan was tempted to buy several cheaper Lv 1 upgrades when he started earning a lot of Biomass per hour, but he was afraid that the skills would start interacting with each other and create problems for him, just as was happening now.
'Fortunately, this is still something within my control. With how much Biomass I'm earning, controlling a few more skills won't overwhelm me that much.'
Not to mention that even though this initial investment is high, once his body finishes adapting, his base absorption will increase by another 30% (not exponentially), rising from 4.72 bio/h to 5.67 bio/h!
Feeling this growth, Lohan got even more excited and didn't stop, rolling faster toward the clearing, while his body grew larger and more resistant, not caring in the least that he had killed and consumed another being of the same race as him in this game.