Chapter 1: The Slime King

“Good heavens! There’s a child over there!”

“Quick, save him! Someone go catch him!”

In his daze, Isaiah felt himself swept up by a fierce wind and then dropped, his head spinning.

What happened? He only remembered that while he was out collecting debts, he had accidentally stumbled into those nobles’ so-called ritual to summon a hero from another world.

And then the beam of light that was supposed to teleport the hero out had enveloped him instead, and after that, Isaiah lost consciousness.

With a strong sensation of weightlessness, Isaiah felt his body land on warm animal fur. He slightly opened his eyes—a wolf?

The sounds around him gradually became clearer; it seemed many people were gathered.

“So much blood—where’s the healer? Go find one!”

“He must be here for the awakening ceremony.”

“I caught him! What! All the healers are at the awakening ceremony?” Wang Zong, the owner of the wind wolf, shouted anxiously. Without time to think, he flipped onto the wind wolf’s back and, carrying the badly injured Isaiah, rushed toward the awakening ceremony site.

After coming to, Isaiah didn’t act rashly. He kept his eyes tightly shut and swept the area with his spiritual sense. Plain clothes, rough hands—all commoners.

Feeling the coarse fur of the wind wolf beneath him, Isaiah thought hazily, how could a wolf be with people? Wasn’t he in the imperial palace? How had he suddenly ended up outside—teleportation magic?

He had only released his spiritual sense for a moment before he ran out of strength. Isaiah was shocked to discover that the foundation he had accumulated over so many years had been swept clean, and even his remaining power was flowing out through the wounds on his body.

Aside from his body barely maintaining the appearance of a human child, he was so weak that he had only half his original strength left, and the tearing pain in his head almost made him want to pass out again.

Isaiah instantly sobered up quite a bit, feeling as though the sky had fallen. As a weak (?) slime, he was well versed in the way of lying low. Before becoming the Slime King, he had always hidden in the shadows, secretly eating to boost his strength.

But now, he had actually appeared before humans in such a weak state—if he was discovered, he would absolutely be caught and made into slime pudding!!

Isaiah lay peacefully on the big man’s back, no longer wanting to open his eyes. The wind wolf was just as its name suggested—a beast dominated by the wind attribute, among the fastest of its rank. With its help, they would arrive in just a few minutes.

“Miss Lin Yao!” Seeing the woman in a white robe holding a rabbit, Wang Zong’s eyes lit up and he hurriedly called out.

“This little one got caught in a sandstorm—he’s badly hurt!”

Seeing this, Lin Yao had Wang Zong lay Isaiah flat on the ground. A glistening white light radiated from her hands as she examined Isaiah’s body from head to toe.

“The situation isn’t great. Let me treat him first. Moon Rabbit, Recovery.” Lin Yao’s expression turned serious. The moon rabbit in her arms jumped down, its ears standing tall, and crouched on the ground to release its skill.

The one in charge of talent awakening was the fifth-rank Beast Tamer Yu Tian. Today was the last day of the awakening ceremony, and having sat for several hours, he was feeling bored, so he strolled over.

Lin Yao looked up at him nervously. By all rights, she was not permitted to leave her post at the awakening ceremony without authorization.

But Green Lake Town was a small place, and even the few healing beasts there were not of high rank. With injuries like Isaiah’s, she was the only one who could treat him.

Fortunately, Yu Tian didn’t say much, only remarking that it was truly pitiful.

Just as he was about to turn around, he suddenly pulled the crystal ball from his pocket. The crystal ball was trembling violently.

Yu Tian joyfully scanned his surroundings. With the crystal ball reacting so strongly, there had to be someone nearby with an A-rank or above talent about to awaken.

But at the scene, aside from the four of them, there were only guards.

Yu Tian hesitantly glanced at Isaiah, whose injuries were rapidly healing. “This child—is he here for the talent awakening? Let me take a look for him; it won’t hurt.”

Isaiah was still planning to play dead, but the next second the crystal ball before him blazed with brilliant light, displaying many words.

[Talent Name: Slime King]

[Rank: SSS]

[Effect: Slimes revere you as king. You lead all slimes in this world, and you understand everything about slimes. All slimes under your command gain +1000% to all attributes, recovery speed within a hundred li +200%, the rate at which unintelligent slimes gain intelligence increases, the probability of slime beasts advancing on their own increases, and damage received can be shared with nearby slimes. You may temporarily fuse with slimes that fully trust you and obtain their power.]

[Talent Name: Devour Heaven]

[Rank: ???]

[Effect: Matter you consume is absorbed with high efficiency to strengthen yourself, and you may strip the traits of living beings. You possess a Devour Heaven Pouch to store matter not yet absorbed.]

[Talent Name: Disguise]

[Rank: SSS]

[Effect: Others see only what you want them to see.]

Isaiah’s pupils trembled violently. As expected of a world where even humans have innate talents—he’d barely arrived and his whole hand was already exposed?

Isaiah subconsciously concealed his talent abilities.

[Talent Name: Slime King]

[Rank: S]

[Effect: Slimes are extremely convinced by you. You understand slimes. All slimes under your command gain +200% to all attributes, recovery speed within a hundred li +50%, the probability of slime beasts advancing on their own increases, and damage received is shared with nearby slimes.]

Isaiah wasn’t sure whether his disguise could evade the probing, and using it made his face even paler, as though he were about to faint.

“Can you see my talent?” Isaiah asked tentatively.

But he found that none of the three could understand what he was saying. Isaiah’s heart sank, and he tried hard to recall the voices he had vaguely heard earlier.

After all, as a slime who had lived for several thousand years and had been idle most of the time, Isaiah’s store of knowledge was extensive. Aside from special languages like Draconic and Elvish, he had basically learned them all—but the language these humans were using, he had no impression of whatsoever.

Thinking of that summoning ritual, Isaiah’s expression turned grim. That ritual opened spatial rifts, and no one had fully researched matters related to space-time; even a tiny variable could trigger a butterfly effect.

On the kingdom’s side, over so many years, only this one stable space-time magic had been passed down.

It was possible that something had gone wrong midway, causing him to pass through the spatial rift and fall into another world.

Faced with the different language, the others didn’t react much. Yu Tian hurriedly pulled out a necklace strung with pearls and hung it around Isaiah’s neck. After that, Isaiah amazingly found that he could actually speak this world’s language.

Yu Tian said in surprise, “It’s actually an S-rank talent!” Yu Tian was secretly delighted. The desert where Green Lake Town was located was vast but sparsely populated; the other two academies had given up on recruiting students, and only Yuxiao Academy insisted on making the trip once every five years.

Wang Zong and Lin Yao, who had just finished treating Isaiah, also looked proud. Wang Zong looked it over again and again, exclaiming, “It’s even a tribe talent? I heard these talents are very rare—uh… Slime?”

“What is a slime?” Yu Tian, who came from a major academy, asked in equal confusion.

Talents that appear in humans are, more accurately, the individual’s attributes—for example, elemental affinities like water, fire, and earth; regional affinities like earth and ocean; racial affinities like those of the leopard or fox tribes. Those outside the attribute system are collectively called mutation talents, and mutation talents come in all sorts of strange varieties.

Generally speaking, a Beast Tamer with high corresponding affinity will coordinate more默契ly and powerfully with that environment or beast.

Tribe talents are a deeper manifestation of racial affinity. They generally appear in children who have lived with that tribe and been acknowledged by it. They are regarded more as a blessing and a mark. If the original talent is relatively low-rank, the tribe talent will show during testing. This blessing belongs only to very powerful individuals within that race.

On the premise that the race is powerful, tribe talents are stronger than talents of the same rank. Therefore, many families specially support or cultivate a type of beast in order to make tribe talents appear in their descendants.

So tribe talents were not unusual, but what puzzled Yu Tian was that even if a beast cultivated a new variant, one could generally tell something from the name—for example, Thorn Rose, Giant-Horned Sheep, and so on.

A name like “Slime,” which seemed to have no meaning and from which no beast’s appearance could be imagined, was something Yu Tian was seeing for the first time.

Isaiah thought for a moment, then rummaged in his trouser pocket—in reality, he split off a small slime on the spot and stingily gave it a thread of origin power to spark its spirituality.

Slimes reproduce by splitting, and Isaiah’s body was large enough to split off enough slimes to submerge this entire town.

He calmly held up that soft, jelly-like blob of slime. “This is it!”

The newborn slime was rather restless. It rolled off Isaiah’s hand and bounced along the ground, even bouncing onto Yu Tian’s leg.

Feeling the soft touch on his leg, Yu Tian felt something in his heart shatter. This was a slime? What kind of destructive power could something like this possibly have?

The enthusiasm in his eyes faded somewhat, but he still extended an invitation to Isaiah. “Do you want to join Yuxiao Academy?”

Even if slimes looked very weak, an S-rank tribe talent was enough for him to value Isaiah. No matter what the talent was, the reward for recruiting an S-rank was very real. You should know that this year’s recruitment was almost over, and their Yuxiao Academy had only recruited four S-rank talents.

The Nine Dragons Academy, representing the royal family, had seven. The Xuanshan Academy, dominated by the great families, had eight.

Only Yuxiao Academy refused the interference of the royal family and the great families, and neither side was willing to let the other swallow Yuxiao Academy, allowing it to stand between the two. In recent years, with the rise of possession-style Beast Tamers, Yuxiao Academy—which only recognized natural-style Beast Tamers—found itself in an increasingly awkward position.

Isaiah was just about to refuse when he saw Yu Tian take out some flowers, plants, and ores, saying they were enrollment benefits for new S-rank students. They included the clam pearl from a Speech Clam that he had previously given Isaiah—Isaiah’s ability to use this world’s language was thanks to it, and such clam pearls sold for no small price outside.

Every item in Yu Tian’s hands gave off a tantalizing aura, and Isaiah stared so hard his eyes went wide.

These spirit items weren’t of high rank, and Isaiah had often eaten them in his original world, but he could only eat five or six a month, and they didn’t have as much energy as the spirit items Yu Tian was bringing out. This human was actually so wealthy?

Isaiah’s mind spun, but in the end he couldn’t resist the lure of food and agreed.

“I need some time to deal with a few things…”

“No problem. Shall I wait for you here at this time tomorrow?” Yu Tian agreed readily.

Of course Isaiah had nothing else to do here, but he needed to take some safeguard measures—he couldn’t just dive headfirst into a crowd of humans, could he?

Fortunately, the teleportation scroll he had placed in his Devour Heaven Pouch was still usable. Isaiah divided 80% of his origin power into five portions and buried them in the ground a hundred li away.

Isaiah thought, at worst he would hide in the mountains and cultivate for a few thousand years like before, and once they couldn’t beat him anymore, he’d just rob them of all their food.