Slime Evolution

Chapter 446 - I Want More!

It was only after finishing the whole series that Isabella finally checked the results through the interface projected by the ocular device.

Seeing the data in front of her, her eyes widened instantly.

"Halon," she called out, her voice coming out in a mix of shock and excitement. "Two percent. I gained two percent overall improvement, even without coming close to feeling that pain that usually marks the limit."

"Wait, seriously?" Lohan asked, moving closer to check the screen along with her. "That’s even more than the average gain you usually get in Elysium."

Since the screen was projected right in front of Isabella’s face, to see it Lohan had to get quite close to her, to the point where Isabella could even feel his breathing, leaving the girl, whose mind was already scrambled, even more lost.

Fortunately she quickly recovered and replied. "Exactly," Isabella confirmed, still not quite believing the number herself. "How is this possible? The amount of biomass you used here was way less than any test we’ve done inside the game."

Lohan stayed thoughtful for a moment, carefully processing that information.

"I think maybe I have a hypothesis..." he said, slowly. "In Elysium, your body in there is already being constantly optimized to the max with every level you gain, so the room for improvement through this technique gets more and more competitive, needing more biomass to squeeze out every extra percentage point. But here in the real world, even though you have a Legendary Race and a Rare Class, your physical body only receives a fraction of all that power, not the full package like it gets inside the game."

Isabella followed his reasoning with growing attention.

"So that means there’s a lot more free room for improvement out here than in there," she concluded, her eyes shining with that discovery.

"Exactly," Lohan confirmed. "Even with everything you already are, you’re still far from a Legendary Double, let alone a Mythic Double like the maximum conversion potential we know from the game. Every time my Slime body levels up inside Elysium, I get a huge return here in the real world too. That must mean there’s still a massive amount of room for growth waiting for you out here."

Isabella’s excitement grew so fast she almost completely forgot about her own ears still showing, or her embarrassment from minutes earlier.

"We need to do this every single day," she declared, decided. "If the gain out here is that much bigger, imagine how much I could develop just from daily sessions of this."

But as soon as that idea fully took shape, an obvious problem arose in her mind, making her enthusiasm abruptly run into a heavy reality.

’Wait,’ she thought, furrowing her brow. ’If he’s already nearly completely drained today, where’s he going to get enough biomass to repeat this every day? In Elysium he has dozens of clones and entire teams hunting monsters for him to digest nonstop. Here, he’s just... a normal person.’

Isabella stood still, absorbed in that thought, her eyes fixed on empty space while her mind worked frantically on that question.

Seeing her so distracted, completely lost in that silent train of thought, Lohan decided to take the opportunity to finally take care of the commitment he had promised, weeks ago, to fulfill without fail.

He discreetly stepped away from the gym, walking over to the small balcony where the grill was, and started the process of lighting the fire with an obvious satisfaction stamped on his every movement.

The smell of charcoal catching fire began spreading through the air, mixing with the night air, while Lohan arranged the cuts of meat, the seasoned chicken, and the sausages he had bought, all lined up ready to hit the grill as soon as the fire was at the right point.

It was only when he was already placing the first pieces of meat on the grill that Isabella’s voice sounded again, still carrying that thoughtful tone from before.

"Halon," she called, walking toward the balcony. "How exactly does your digestion work out here, in the real world?"

"It’s practically the same as in Elysium," he replied, adjusting the position of a piece of meat with tongs. "I can digest pretty much any kind of matter and convert it into Biomass. Even the air around me, if I want, can technically become a source, even if a minimal one."

"And how does that compare to the monsters you digest in there?" Isabella asked, crossing her arms as she leaned against the balcony railing.

Lohan gave a crooked, almost sheepish smile.

"The difference is too big to even compare properly," he admitted. "A Level 1 monster in Elysium probably already has more biomass than an entire sheep out here. A whole cow probably doesn’t even come close to the biomass of a small Level 2 monster. And that’s without even considering monsters above Level 11, which are in a completely different category."

Hearing that, Isabella’s face began to show growing concern.

"So... what you’ve been eating out here is generating practically no biomass compared to what you get in there?" she asked, a bit alarmed.

"Basically," Lohan confirmed, turning a piece of sausage on the grill. "Except there’s one thing that helps more than I expected. That Grade SS nutrient solution you got for me, so far, is the food that generates the most biomass I’ve ever tried out here."

"Really?" Isabella asked, her eyes regaining a spark of curiosity.

"Yeah, each vial generates around 0.1 Biomass," he explained. "Which, on the scale from before my Level 11, would be equivalent to about 100 of the old biomass. It’s not really close to what I get from monsters at my current level, but it’s way better than anything else I’ve tried eating around here."

"And how much of it have you been consuming?" Isabella asked, genuinely curious now.

"Two vials a day," Lohan replied, simply, turning another piece of meat on the grill. "And honestly, this has been the most satisfied I’ve felt in the real world since I started playing Elysium. Before, I lived in a constant state of hunger, but with these two daily doses, I can finally feel at ease."

Isabella’s eyes lit up for a moment at that information, pleased she had managed to help him so much with that gift, but the glow lasted only a second before turning completely into shock.

"Wait," she said, slowly, processing the number. "Two vials of Grade SS a day?"

"Yeah, why?" Lohan asked, not immediately understanding the reason for that reaction.

"Halon, that solution was developed so normal people could go almost an entire week without needing to eat anything else," Isabella said, her voice coming out in a mix of astonishment and genuine concern. "You’re consuming, on your own, the equivalent of what should last almost two weeks for an average person, every single day."