Spring in Zeyarila coaxed everything awake in a gentle warmth.

When the first morning rays fell over the Swamp Forest, a moss monster roused from its slumber, lazily draping itself across a tree root and starting another day of life.

Actually, it had not slept well last night.

The Swamp Forest at the start of spring was always restless; even at night the suppressed howls of monsters echoed without end and would rouse it from sleep.

There was also the ever-present, unbearable hunger that plagued it.

So it continued to focus on the rotten wood before it, gnawing away as if it would never finish, intent only on filling its rumbling belly.

It moved slowly, its mossy hide rubbing against the damp tree root, glands secreting acid to corrode the wood chips.

How many days and nights had this humble, grueling labor repeated? The moss monster had lost track.

But as a bottom-dweller of the Swamp Forest, this was one of the few means it had to survive.

Still, something comforting gave the moss monster a sense of superiority: even here, amid this cruel yet bountiful marsh, there existed creatures it looked down upon.

— Slimes.

A weak monster that even the moss monster dared to try and catch.

In the moss monster’s ancestral memory they carried a special title—“the shame of monsters.”

These little green, semi-transparent blobs quietly rested on the swamp or on mossy roots, absorbing moisture and light to grow.

They had no hard shell, no sharp claws; they moved as sluggishly as frozen dew, posing almost no threat—so weak that predators could swallow them whole as a snack.

They were also its favorite food.

Without exception.

Just thinking about how easily it could hunt a slime and lap up that sweet, viscous delicacy made the moss monster swell with pride; even its gnawing at rotten wood grew more vigorous.

Now, sunlight brought some warmth and distracted it slightly, and it suddenly sensed something intruding into its field of view.

The faint photoreceptive dots on the moss monster’s forehead strained in the dim light to catch a blurry, slowly wriggling green shape ahead.

That familiar, tempting outline…

A slime!

A prey that idiotically offered itself on a silver platter!

A sharp surge of desire gripped it; its pudgy body tensed just perceptibly, and acid flooded the depths of its mouthparts by reflex.

“Hissss!”

The fantasy of a full meal made its simple nervous system tremble with excitement.

Facing a weak slime, it didn’t even bother to guard itself. Eagerly it opened its grotesque mouth to spit its acid.

Whoosh!

A faint slicing sound.

“Hiss—!”

But the first thing to splash out was not the moss monster’s acid. A small wooden arrow shot from the slime’s direction and pierced straight through its body.

Dumbfounded, the moss monster’s head flickered with confusion; it couldn’t figure out what the wooden arrow was, and its photoreceptive dots dimmed.

It was dead.

Killed by its prey.

This was the last ending it had expected.

Plop, plop…

On the other side, a harmless-looking transparent jelly hopped over.

Chen Yu swallowed the moss monster’s corpse and the homemade “flying sword” into his gel mass, then with a “plop” sank into the swamp mud to hide, leaving only a pair of eyes blinking in the darkness.

If his jelly-like head remembered correctly, today should be the fifteenth day since he was born in the Swamp Forest.

That unlucky moss monster had the honor of being the eighth monster he’d eaten.

These worms, looking like land sea cucumbers, were rich in gelatin and protein—crispy to chew, tasting like chicken, with a springy texture even better than sea cucumber, though a bit… muddy?

In this culinary desert, they counted as a rare delicacy, enough to provide a day’s nutrition for the slime and bring a satisfying feeling.

Of course, if he could improve the dining conditions here—set up a cozy little tent in the Swamp Forest, make a steaming hot pot… blanch the moss monster so its skin curled, dip it in sauce and eat…

Unrealistic daydreams blossomed in Chen Yu’s jelly-brained head, and a warm, satisfying feeling bubbled up, gradually wrapping him in comfort so soothing the slime almost wanted to sleep.

As consciousness blurred, a light screen quietly appeared.

[Devour Digestion Lv.1 triggered — Moss Monster traits recorded, talent gestation in progress (8/10)]

——

Race: Slime

Level: Black Iron Lv.1 [EXP: 9/10]

Cultivation: Qi Refinement Lv.2 [Spiritual Energy: 18/20]

Life Status: Healthy [HP: 50/50]

Racial Talent: Devour Digestion Lv.1

Other Talents: None (obtainable by devouring monsters)

Skill List: Open Yuan Treasure Scroll Lv.4, Object Manipulation Lv.2

Reputation Title: None (the unremarkable slime)

——

“……”

Chen Yu stared at the panel with the calm of someone who had seen stranger things.

At first glance it looked like a bizarre stitched-together panel someone might hallucinate after accidentally eating the colorful fungi of the swamp and being poisoned.

But it wasn’t an illusion: the abrupt [Cultivation] entry really existed.

It was a long story.

He had a stranger experience than most transmigrators—like a farce. When he traveled, his soul had been carelessly torn in two by some being.

Plop! Half fell into this fantastical world called Zeyarila.

The other half… uh…

Got stuck in a cultivation realm called Xu Xuan Heaven.

The Three Origins Sect.

Morning mist had not yet dispersed; damp, chilly air carried the scent of mountain flora and seeped into an ordinary grass-thatched outer-door hut.

Chen Yu woke up on a bed.

The switch between senses didn’t make him feel uncomfortable; he seemed already used to living with two different bodies. Compared to that, the burning sensation in his stomach bothered him more.

“Gurgle…”

He was starving.

Time to eat.

Thinking of the moss monster’s tasty flesh, Chen Yu quickly got up, fetched rice from the rice bin, washed it, put it in an earthen pot with water, lit the fire, and boiled…

Then he took out a scroll and read it on his knees.

The scroll read “Guide to Practicing Object Manipulation”; opening it showed dense lines of text that would make most people dizzy with just a few glances.

But perhaps from habit or for other reasons, the more he read the more alert he felt.

As his fingers moved following the scroll’s instructions, he inexplicably recalled the moss monster that the flying sword, driven by Object Manipulation, had just pierced through.

A pitiful death, but delicious.

Object Manipulation’s effective range was basically as far as one could reach by stretching an arm and then leaning forward—and it had to be something touched by hand.

It could only bully moss monsters; more dangerous hunters would be beyond its reach.

The advantage: it was down-to-earth and low-threshold. He’d practiced to Lv.2 in half a month.

When the rice porridge was ready, Chen Yu looked up from the scroll.

He set the porridge on the table to cool a bit, then gulped down both porridge and rice greedily; the burning in his stomach eased somewhat.

Even Chen Yu found it odd—Slime and this body shared the same panel.

It was already strange that the slime could cultivate and use Object Manipulation, and even stranger that this human body possessed a slime’s monster talent.

That “Devour Digestion” talent was wildly useful back in the slime’s homeland—devour a monster, crispy crunch, analyze the talent’s origin, and nurture a new talent.

But in Xu Xuan Heaven it seemed ineffective on local beasts; it could only absorb the essences from grains and meat to help his cultivation.

Still, that had allowed him to brush the threshold of Qi Refinement Level Three in just half a month.

“The cost…”

The cost was that his stomach became a bottomless black hole, relentlessly emptying his purse.

If he didn’t go out to find work soon, tomorrow he’d be drinking the northwest wind.

“Earn a living with expeditions outside, or keep hunting moss monsters?”

Controlling two bodies at once felt like playing a game to him; even dual-line operation for both training and hunting was doable.

But the slime always reacted a bit slower than normal. In the perilous Swamp Forest, a careless moment could have a predator turning him into a snack.

Plus, if he could meet the trigger conditions for Devour Digestion Lv.1, maybe today he might gestate a new talent.

Of course, he was absolutely not craving the moss monster’s sea-cucumber-like crispness or its chicken-like sweet juiciness steamed by water…

The more he thought about it, the hungrier he grew.

Chen Yu casually wiped drool from the corner of his mouth.

He made a quick decision.

Today he would continue dealing with moss monsters.

Rubbing his warm belly, Chen Yu found a comfortable position on the creaking wooden bed and let his consciousness sink fully into the slime body.

Under the swamp mud, he blinked his round eyes.

These little eyes offered nearly a 360-degree view; he could see the sluggishly writhing mire ahead and clearly the interior of his transparent gel body.

Inside the gel, the moss monster had been fully digested; only the flying sword lay quietly within.

After confirming there was no movement on it, he planned to wriggle out of the mud, but the muck below stirred unexpectedly. A giant slime pushed aside the mire and swallowed him whole.

Chen Yu watched himself, wrapped in luminous gel, slowly sink. He didn’t struggle.

He merely burbled bubbles—like sighs.