The slimes trapped in the narrow passage did not share Lupa's relaxed state of mind.
The first slime to taste the power of the caustic potash and quicklime simply could not bear the agony. It rolled backward, slamming into its companions.
This collision triggered a chain reaction among the slimes.
The clay pots swallowed inside their bodies shattered one after another.
The slimes writhed and struggled desperately, but the more they moved, the more thoroughly the powders mixed within them, accelerating the chemical reaction.
Their once-plump bodies quickly shriveled and blackened, and large chunks of gelatinous flesh were scorched and peeled away.
Before long, the slimes' thrashing grew weaker and weaker until they collapsed completely onto the ground, turning into puddles of steaming, blackish-gray sludge, entirely devoid of life.
Finally, a notification popped up in Lynn's 《Monster Identification Manual》—
“Killed 1 slime. Obtained Bloodline Point (slime) x1.”
“Killed 1 slime. Obtained Bloodline Point (slime) x1.”
...
The notifications chimed four times in succession.
Yet, right in front of Lynn, two slimes had actually managed to survive.
They had been the slowest to charge, giving them the most time to react when the clay pots were crushed.
Consequently, they had the chance to spit out the caustic solution before being scalded to death.
Even so, the surviving slimes were on the brink of death, reduced to mere puddles of mucus on the ground.
Their cores lay completely exposed, yet they lacked even the strength to pull their mucus back together to protect them.
Lupa was about to charge forward and finish off the remaining two slimes with a shield bash each, but Lynn stopped her.
The girl in the beret turned around, tilting her head as she looked at Lynn with utter confusion, looking very much like a puzzled puppy.
Hmm...
Lynn turned his head away.
He hadn't noticed it before, but this girl was actually quite cute.
But no matter how cute she was, he could not let Lupa steal his kills!
Lynn drew and loaded his crossbow, taking the lives of the remaining two slimes with a pair of bolts.
Another two Bloodline Points were credited to his account.
Ignoring Lupa's strange look, Lynn stood in place and opened his 《Monster Identification Manual》.
The first and second pages of the manual remained unchanged, displaying Lynn's status panel and system log respectively.
Lynn flipped forward two pages.
Past the Goblin bloodline tree, a brand-new page had finally unlocked.
It was exactly what Lynn had been hoping for—the slime bloodline tree.
He let out a sigh of relief. It seemed the 《Monster Identification Manual》 could indeed unlock the bloodlines of other monsters. That was a relief.
Before this, he had been slightly worried that the manual might only unlock Goblin bloodlines.
If that were the case, his identity as a "Goblin" would have been set in stone.
His only slight disappointment was that the slime bloodline tree seemed even simpler than the Goblin one.
Goblins had at least five or six tiers of bloodlines, whereas slimes only had three.
This fell somewhat short of Lynn's expectations.
After all, in the works of fiction he had read in his past life, slimes acting as protagonists were highly versatile monsters capable of devouring dragons and taking human form.
Yet in Lynn's case, the slime truly was a weakling.
Of course, while there were fewer tiers, it did not necessarily mean the slime bloodline was weak...
Lynn focused his mind on the bottom of the slime bloodline tree.
【Would you like to activate the "Slime" bloodline? Consumes Bloodline Point (slime) x5.】
Unlike the Goblin Minion bloodline, the slime bloodline actually required five Bloodline Points to activate.
But Lynn did not hesitate. He immediately invested five Bloodline Points, lighting up the slime's avatar.
Squelch, squelch—
The slime doll on the avatar bounced twice, and a cool sensation flowed through Lynn's body from head to toe.
However, as Lynn felt the changes in his body after activating the bloodline, there didn't seem to be any obvious increase in his attributes...
Lynn looked down at himself.
If he had to name a change...
He felt as though his skin had become fairer and softer, even giving him the illusion that it would yield water if pinched.
Startled, Lynn quickly tapped open the bloodline's description—
【Slime: Mimicry Lv.1 (Passive), Rapid Digestion Lv.1 (Passive), Charisma +1 (Under current attributes)】
Sniff, sniff—
Beside him, Lupa suddenly twitched her nose like a puppy, leaning so close to Lynn that she was almost pressed against him.
Startled by her, Lynn quickly dodged to the side.
“What are you doing?”
Only then did Lupa realize what she had done. She smiled sheepishly. “Hehe, I don't know why, but there's a sweet scent on you. It smells like the pudding I used to see in restaurants.”
“Pudding?”
Lynn suspiciously lifted his sleeve and sniffed.
Whether it was a psychological effect of Lupa's words or not, Lynn actually felt a faint fragrance wafting from his body. However, it could only be detected up close; otherwise, one would only smell the stench of the sewer.
Was this the effect of the slime bloodline?
Making him more delicious?!
What kind of ridiculous effect was that?
Lynn shook his head.
He would have to study the bloodline further when he was alone.
He also needed to investigate and develop that Mimicry skill.
Meanwhile, the next tier of the slime bloodline tree had turned from an unclickable black avatar to a gray one, waiting to be activated.
The two branches were 【Pink Slime】 and 【Dungeon Slime】.
The former's avatar was a small, cute-looking slime.
The latter was a massive, ugly-looking lump of mucus.
Both required a significant number of Bloodline Points to activate.
The Pink Slime required eighty points, while the Dungeon Slime required a whopping one hundred!
The points required for the next tier had actually multiplied by twenty!
This was the first time Lynn had seen such a massive discrepancy in required points between adjacent tiers.
On the Goblin bloodline tree, the points required for adjacent tiers typically only multiplied by three to five times.
A new bloodline seemed far out of reach for now. He had better finish the commission first.
Lynn wrapped his hands in cloth and reached into the still-sizzling puddle of mucus to extract the concentrated slime cores left behind.
Unlike the green cores inside living slimes, these concentrated cores were products of the slime's bodily fluids condensing after death.
They looked like fist-sized, non-Newtonian fluids of blue mixed with a bit of cyan.
According to Betty, the stronger the slime, the lower the proportion of cyan in the concentrated core it left behind.
A concentrated core dropped by a Slime King would be a crystal-clear sky blue.
She had mentioned that these were common alchemical materials used by mages. If processed with a magic curing machine, they could be used as linings for high-end magic armor, and they were also one of the raw ingredients for disguise magic cream.
For valuable drops like these, the guild would buy them back at market price after verifying the quantity.
Concentrated cores generally sold for around one silver coin each, meaning these six cores would bring Lynn an extra income of six silver coins.
Lynn did not collect the remaining gel and mucus scattered on the ground.
Although these gels had many uses—such as making torches, potions, or even asphalt binders—
carrying them all back would only yield a few dozen copper coins.
With his earnings from this quest already reaching over a dozen silver coins, Lynn no longer cared for such pocket change and had no desire to endure the foul stench just to collect the gel.
Still, he would have to split the quest reward with Lupa...
Even though she hadn't done much, she was the party's vanguard after all and had saved Lynn quite a bit of trouble.
Lynn disliked having conflicts with others over money. It was just a small amount, so splitting it was fine.
Fortunately, Lupa was also very reasonable.
She took the initiative to bring up the distribution of the reward.
“I feel like I barely did anything for this quest. Lynn, you should take the larger share of the reward!”
Rate on N.U.
