Flan stared at the 6 tiny slimes with a confused expression. They jumped up and down like excited puppies, slowly bouncing towards him.
He took a step back. "You're... all here?"
He glanced at the white void around him. It looked eerily familiar, like that place where he had met the light beings.
'Wait. Is this supposed to be heaven?' Well, he was certain this wasn't the real deal, but he suspected it was something that acted similar to it.
A tinge of guilt began to creep in. "Did I stop you guys from going to the real heaven?" he asked softly.
The slimes, of course, just kept jiggling happily.
He tilted his head. 'Can things like slimes even go to heaven?' The system had said they had souls... but it was hard to believe that unintelligent beings like this could even experience such a concept.
[New Quest: Merge 2 Soul Entities.]
'The notification again?'
This was the first time the system had ever repeated itself. Almost like it was nudging him.
A new interface flickered into view.
━━━━⊱༒︎ 『Merger』 ༒︎⊰━━━━
Entity 1: [Unselected]
Entity 2: [Unselected]
━━━━⊱༒︎•༒︎⊰━━━━
Flan blinked at the screen, confused on how it worked, before looking up at the slimes.
Each of them had a small box floating over them. They all read the same thing:[Low-Level Slime.]
He walked up to one and narrowed his eyes, trying to see if there were any buttons or hidden UI elements that weren't properly visible.
The moment he focused, his interface updated:
━━━━⊱༒︎ 『Merger』 ༒︎⊰━━━━
Entity 1: [Low-Level Slime]
Entity 2: [Unselected]
━━━━⊱༒︎•༒︎⊰━━━━
He smirked. "Ah, I get it now..."
He shifted his focus to another slime and the Entity 2 on his interface filled as well.
With that, a new glowing button appeared.
[Merge!]
He shrugged and focused on it. "Alright, let's see what this does."
The two slimes floated upward and streams of glowing green energy seeped into the void around them. Slowly, the jelly-like bodies unraveled, turning into long, translucent ribbons before coiling into one another like liquid vines.
Flan stared on in amazement.
Once the process was complete, a colorless slightly large blob plopped to the ground
Flan raised an eyebrow. "Did they—"
But before he could finish, the green energy that had been circulating the white void, seeped into the blob, filling it with color. By the time all the energy had entered, it had a deep emerald green color.
[Congratulations, Merge Complete!]
[You have created a: 'True Slime'.]
[Quest Complete!]
[Skill Attachment: [True form] has been added to Merge Library.]
"Skill attachment?" he muttered, glancing between the new slime and the floating interface.
The remaining slimes seemed interested in it too. They gathered around the True Slime, hopped up and down as if in worship.
Then another message appeared:
[Unnamed Soul Entity wishes to merge.]
He stared at the message. "You're... intelligent?" he asked. How else could a slime have a wish?
But the slime just kept jiggling.
'Right. Not intelligent. It's probably just a feature.'
He frowned. "I guess it looks cool, but I don't really see the point of all this."
[New Quest: Create a Second Evolution Soul Entity.]
[Reward: System Innate Ability 'Creator's Merge'.]
'Another quest already.'
Flan read the notification, though he couldn't say he was all that excited. If the reward skill was just another type of merging, he'd rather leave this place and try to unlock the other skills on the skill tree. He was particularly excited about the 'Sculpting Form' skill. It seemed like the type of ability that would allow him to make weapons and all sorts of fun things out of slime material.
But with a sigh, he decided he would do this anyway. Perhaps it was like those games that had all the boring tutorial missions first before getting to the fun parts.
"Ana always told me never to skip tutorials," he whispered. A wave of sadness washed over him.
Quietly, he focused on two more slimes and selected them for the next merge.
The process repeated. Two slimes, green energy, merge complete. Another True Slime.
But this time... no quest completion.
"Huh?" He glanced around. Then it clicked. "Second evolution" probably meant merging two merged slimes.
He focused on the two emerald blobs and selected both for the new combination.
[Add Skill Attachment: 'True Form'?][Description: Increases odds of producing a "True Evolution."]
He didn't really understand the description, but accepted it anyway.
The slimes floated into the air again. This time, the energy that bled into the void was light blue.
His excitement grew a little. Perhaps this time something interesting would happen.
The slimes unraveled like before, but instead of simply coiling into each other, their jelly-strands wove together in tight spirals, like double helixes.
[Quest Complete!]
[System Innate Ability 'Creator's Merge' has been unlocked.]
As the blue energy zipped into the new form, Flan stepped forward, eyes wide with curiosity.
"Ah, now this is interesting."
[Congratulations, Merge Complete!]
[A variant was detected within one of the parent genomes.]
[You have created a: 'Trapper Slime'.]
[Skill Attachment: [Trapper form] has been added to Merge Library.]
Flan ignored the notification, instead focusing on his new creation. It was much like the others in shape, but everything else about it was different.
Where the others were translucent blobs empty blobs, this one seemed to have blue flowers inside it.
He ran his fingers over its service, and it wobbled slightly.
"Warm," he whispered.
It began jumping up and down excitedly.
"You like head rubs?" he asked. He'd never had a pet before, so this was an interesting experience for him.
However when he tried to pet it again, it jumped on him.
He stumbled back in surprise, trying to pry it off his skin. But it was like super glue, sticking to both hands.
"Off, get off!"
[Creator's Merge has been forcefully activated...]
[Processing...]
Waves of warm melting pain rushed down his spine. As the slime tried to enter his nose and mouth, he was lifted into the air.
"No, stop merge!" he groaned through the pain. But it was too late.
[Merging...]
"No!"