Chapter 53: [Weekly Bonus Chapter 1/6] Step 53 to Greatness: Never Kill Something Before Understanding It

"Master, look at that!"

Adrian was so focused on the wilting grass that he didn’t notice what was going on inside the pit itself.

Pieces of the red slime had hit the blue ones, and just like the grass, they began sizzling. Their perfect spherical shapes broke apart as the acid melted away their bodies.

But that wasn’t what Sera was pointing at, it was the reaction of the green slimes. They had been stationary at one position, refusing to move, unlike the rest of the slimes.

However, as soon as the blue slimes got injured, they stretched forward and engulfed the injured blue slimes whole.

For a few seconds, the blue slimes could be seen struggling inside the green one’s translucent body. Then the green slime pulsed once and spat the blue slime back out.

The blue slime was noticeably smaller now, but it wasn’t damaged anymore. Meanwhile, the green slime had absorbed the injured parts of the blue slime and had grown larger.

"What the...?" Adrian muttered, eyes widening in surprise.

He had more or less figured out their properties just by this little incident.

Unlike the blue slimes that fed on corpses and plants, or the red slimes that could even cannibalize their own kind, the green ones fed on the injured parts of the other slimes.

If there were no injured slimes around, the green slimes maintained a state of ’hibernation’ to conserve their strength. Only when they had ’food’ around did they bother to spend energy to move.

Suddenly, Adrian was hit with an idea. After giving the spear back to Mika, and lay flat on top of the pit to fish out a green slime.

He then put it down and fetched the dagger. Instead of attacking the slime with it, he made a small cut on his finger.

[You are bleeding!]

[You will lose 4 HP/sec for 8 seconds.]

[You have been poisoned!]

[You will lose 10 HP/sec for 16 seconds.]

"Male—!" Mika exclaimed, unable to understand what he was doing.

"It’s fine, don’t worry about it," Adrian waved his hand before bringing the injured hand close to the green slime. "I have antivenom and salve to fix it in case I fail."

The green slime twitched the moment it sensed the fresh blood dripping from Adrian’s finger. Without any hesitation, it stretched towards it and swallowed his entire hand.

Adrian stayed still, expecting some pain since slimes secrete acid. Instead, a strange, cool sensation enveloped him. It felt similar to menthol exposure.

Just like it did with the blue slime, the green slime pulsed around his fingers for a few seconds before pushing it out.

[Bleed status effect has been removed.]

[Poisoned status effect has been removed.]

Adrian stared at his hand in disbelief. Not only had the slime healed his wound, but it had also eliminated the status effects on him. Not to mention, the cut on his finger had completely vanished, and there wasn’t even a scar.

"The green ones... they can heal injuries?" Mika asked, tilting her head in confusion.

Sera was the same, and well, so was Adrian to an extent. The slime, uninterested in their reactions, had gone back to being stationary.

"Sera, Mika, get me some big leaves," Adrian instructed with words and text as he lay back down to fish out more green slimes and some even red ones.

He continued, "If we can control these green slimes, we might have actual healers for the tribe. As for the red ones, they are like grenades, so we can use them as such."

He hoped the pen’s functions would work on these slimes as well. Still, to keep the chickens safe from these aggressive slime balls, he would have to dig another ditch inside the pen to keep them separated from the chickens.

"If it doesn’t work, then I can always kill them for exp. As for the green ones, they can find a home next to the pond. They are stationary, so it’s not like they would cause us any harm."

They spent the next several minutes carefully fishing out the green slimes. Adrian used the spear to hook them while Sera and Mika held out large leaves to catch them.

Once done, they would tie the leaves with wild vines that were all over the place.

But taking the green ones was the easy part. After all, the green slimes did not even resist when he picked them up. The red ones, on the other hand, were a completely different story.

"Oh, fuck!" Adrian cursed.

It was the second red slime that exploded on its own, to splash its corrosive jelly onto his arm. He barely pulled back in time.

[Your pull-out game is impressive, boy.]

It’s not the time for strange compliments.

Meanwhile, the exploded slime slowly merged back together after tearing off a few pieces from the blue slimes. It seemed the self-explosion was a defense mechanism of the red slime, and cannibalism was a way to repair the damage, although it was of a much smaller size now.

"These bastards are violent," Adrian grunted, getting back up. "They will attack anything that touches them."

At this rate, he would have no choice but to leave them behind. However, he was unwilling to do it, given their versatile use case. Just then, he remembered something.

"Mika, untie the leaves for a moment."

Mika did as told. Adrian grabbed two green slimes in each hand like gloves and picked up a red slime.

The red slime trembled in his hand like it was about to burst again, but the moment some red droplets appeared on its surface, the green slimes wrapped themselves around it. Instead of exploding, the red slime immediately became docile.

"That’s it," he said, eyes lighting up. "They don’t explode around the green ones."

While he didn’t know the exact reason for such interaction, he could take a guess.

Green slimes healed injured things. If the red ones exploded around them, the green slimes would swallow the red ones as they were ’injured’.

Since not much of the red slime’s body would remain intact, they would need to take parts away from the nearest slimes. However, before they could do that, the green slime would swallow them for repairs.

At first, it sounded beneficial. However, given a slime’s gluttonous nature, the green slimes might not just stop at healing the red ones.

If the red slime exploded too violently and became too weak to resist, the green slimes might absorb more than necessary. They might even end up absorbing the entire thing and kill it.

After all, to the green slime, repairing damaged tissue and feeding were probably the same thing.

Then again, it was all just a theory. Nothing more.

"These things might not be as simple as I thought." 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Just like that, he began pairing them up before tying the leaves back up. By the end, they managed to collect twelve green slimes and eight red ones.

Now only a few red ones and blue ones remained in the pit. The red ones were buried under the blue ones. Adrian didn’t think it was worth the trouble to get them out.

So, they got to farming them for exp instead, not noticing the presence of someone watching them from behind a cluster of thick trees.

"My children..."