Slime Evolution

Chapter 399 - Curious Fox II

The sight of that male body so close up made the air vanish from Isabella’s lungs.

Unlike their in person interactions in the real world, where Lohan usually wore baggy sweatshirts, black hoodies, and his overcoat to completely hide his physical build under layers of fabric, now there was no barrier between her golden eyes and the young man’s real anatomy. With Elysium’s level sixteen integration operating on his metabolism, the biological transformation of Lohan’s body had reached a frightening level.

Isabella was left breathless watching the muscular lines of Lohan’s chest.

His musculature was perfectly developed, proportional, and extremely dense, resembling the marble sculpture of an ancient warrior, without a single gram of body fat.

His broad chest rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm with his calm breathing, which showed off the perfect definition of an eight pack abdomen that looked hand carved.

His skin, which used to look pale and sickly from the Low Zone’s malnutrition, now showed a healthy glow, smooth and incredibly firm.

Isabella took an involuntary step forward, slowly approaching the side of the bed while her rational mind screamed at her to look away immediately and respect her friend’s privacy, but the curiosity and attraction she had been quietly building up over the past few weeks were stronger than her family’s doctrines of etiquette.

She couldn’t resist and let her eyes trace the impeccable symmetry of his torso once more, subtly lowering the focus of her gaze toward the young man’s waist.

When Isabella’s gaze reached the line of Lohan’s hips, she felt a mix of overwhelming relief and a pang of disappointment upon realizing that he was, at least, wearing comfortable gray sweatpant shorts at the moment.

The soft fabric rested low on his hips, revealing the marked lines of his pelvic muscles that disappeared beneath the shorts.

Realizing the dangerous nature of the thoughts she was entertaining while standing there in the young man’s dark room, Isabella widened her golden eyes in shock and shook her head side to side, trying to push away that fog of shame and return to reality.

’What are you thinking, Isabella Vance?!’ she scolded herself mentally, feeling her own face burn with shame while her ears seemed to boil beneath her red hair. ’He’s your guild partner! Your good friend! Stop looking at the guy like he’s some lab specimen... or something else!’

She forced her gaze back up to the Elysium virtual reality helmet wrapped around Lohan’s head.

Studying the device, which despite its futuristic, luxurious design still looked like nothing more than cheap equipment to her, made Isabella’s expression turn serious and thoughtful.

She remembered the state of the art immersion pod she used at her mansion, a medical prototype developed jointly with the Vance Group that not only provided a perfect neural connection but also injected nutrient solutions directly into her bloodstream to continuously nourish her body during long sessions.

Lohan was using an ordinary helmet, lying on an ordinary bed, with no active biological support.

In situations like today’s, which involved uninterrupted monitoring of clones for hours or possibly days, the lack of a pod with nutrient infusion posed a severe risk to his health and muscle development.

"This is unacceptable," Isabella murmured to herself, her gaze fixed on the blinking lights of Lohan’s helmet.

Then she made an immediate decision.

Through her family’s connections and political weight within the Federation, she would request the manufacture and delivery of a state of the art medical immersion pod for that penthouse.

Even if it meant asking private sector engineers for a few favors or talking to her mother, Evelyn, to authorize the delivery of an advanced prototype, Isabella would make it happen.

In a future where the power struggles in Elysium would grow longer and longer, ensuring Lohan had the best real world infrastructure to sustain the power of his Mythic Slime was essential.

Trying to focus on the practical task that had brought her there, Isabella opened her designer bag with fingers slightly trembling from the nervousness still gripping her.

She pulled out a discreet thermal pouch from the compact space, opening it to reveal several metallic vials containing Grade SS nutrient solutions.

Those were the richest, most advanced biological formulas the Vance Group’s central laboratory had managed to synthesize so far, made of purified amino acids and high fidelity vitamin complexes that weren’t even available to the general public yet.

Isabella sat delicately on the edge of Lohan’s mattress, feeling the closeness of his warm body send waves of heat toward her chest.

She held one of the Grade SS vials in her left hand and, using two thin, extremely delicate fingers of her right hand, she leaned toward Lohan’s face and, with extreme gentleness meant to avoid causing any physical discomfort to the sleeping young man, she touched Lohan’s lips, carefully parting them to create a small opening.

The contact of her soft fingertip skin against Lohan’s lips made Isabella’s face grow even hotter, her heart pounding so hard she feared he might hear the pulse from inside the game.

She brought the metal vial close and poured the dense, translucent liquid into Lohan’s mouth slowly and in a controlled manner.

While carrying out the procedure, Isabella tried her hardest to look away from the rest of his body, but the short distance made it impossible not to see, even in her peripheral vision, the line of Lohan’s defined jaw and the steady rise and fall of his broad chest breathing right before her eyes.

That intimate closeness and the subtle, clean scent Lohan’s skin gave off seemed to amplify Isabella’s embarrassment to almost unbearable levels.

Fortunately, the nutrient solution liquid went down easily through his mouth and throat, without him choking or anything like that, which relieved Isabella greatly, since she had no idea what she would do if he choked on the viscosity of the compound.

The young man merely let out a soft, unconscious nasal sigh and relaxed his head even further against the helmet, absorbing the elite nutrition that was beginning to circulate through his blood.

Isabella collected the empty vial and let out an audible sigh of absolute relief, wiping an invisible drop of sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.

She really wouldn’t have known what to do if the young man had shown any sign of choking under her care, but the success of the procedure left her immensely satisfied.

With Lohan properly fed and safe from any immediate biological strain, Isabella put the vial away in her bag and looked around the master suite with renewed curiosity.

The room, like the living room, showed the same lack of personal decoration, but she wanted to see if she could find at least a trace of human disorganization or mess in that impeccably neat environment.

She stood up quietly and began scanning the corners of Lohan’s room with her golden eyes, looking for some piece of clothing thrown on the floor or some object out of place that would let her tease the shameless young man the next time they talked in Elysium.