It Started with Slime - Part 1

Chapter 55 - The Third Eye

So it found Aarav flying over the forest, trying to figure out what type of creatures he wanted to hunt. The target would need to be exceptional enough to have some features that Aarav wanted and weak enough to be easily beaten. He was not up for taking chances right now. He needed to get used to this way of fighting on a more conscious level instead of instinctually.

Apart from some mind-reading capabilities, he had also been granted a faster working brain. The usual gain came with higher Intellect and Acuity. Aarav's mental abilities were his highest of the lot, so it seemed prudent to play to those strengths for now.

Aarav was thinking that better eyesight would be highly beneficial for this type of endeavour. So with some concentration and focus, the Slime did the same as he had with hearing to gain the Talent Dedicated Hearing. Focused attention had resulted in far superior experiential gains in the past. It had not made his hearing more powerful but just doubled the experience he would gain from each fight. Also, if he could use the Talent enough, it might grow and become more powerful in its own right.

Aarav began focusing on his eyeballs, analysing and feeling the energy flow to and from the organ. By sensing how the eye saw and felt, he could understand the way the organ worked. He had an advantage because he knew what this organ did from his life as a human. More importantly, it could be improved with time and effort, eye exercises and glasses and other correcting processes. All these things could make the organs see further in greater detail and gain even better range.

As he calmed and observed the process, more and more elements became clear, showing a flow of energy to and from the organ that would help it work. Neural pathways had also been connected to it from the brain. Those pathways would form and break as he moved the eye around in his body. He could pop them out anywhere he wanted. That was an advantage to being made of Slime instead of muscle and bone and sinew. He also was not limited to two eyes, but the last time he tried more had resulted in a splitting headache. Maybe now that intellect was over a hundred, there would be a different result? It might be worth a try.

Popping out a third eye on his back looking up towards the sky was as easy as a thought. The visual information he was receiving was a "blue" atmosphere, even if colours were not in his repertoire. Since he was not sure how to get his colour vision back, he had no choice but to accept black and white for now. Working on seeing further and in greater detail would be the immediate goal. After all, the rods in the eye were more accurate at resolution than the cones that showed colour. He wasn't sure if Slime eyeballs worked the same way. Assuming that they were an amalgamation of many different eyes from many other creatures, perhaps he would eventually gain a more remarkable ability. Next, he tried squinting and forcing what he was seeing to become sharper. Trying to pierce the haze that stopped him from being able to see clearly after the twenty-three-metre mark. At Level 23 of Watery Sight, that was his current limit.

Squinting and forcing his three eyeballs to conform worked a little in piercing that fog of war, but unfortunately, not much. Aarav continued to push, forcing more energy into his eyes, all three of them for now. The haze gradually resolved to greater detail. While gliding over the forest's canopy gave an excellent canvas to focus on. He made sure to always remain twenty metres above the ceiling allowed a superb range to focus on the treetops the leaves at the top of each tree. It took another ten minutes for it to snap into place, by which point his wing muscles had grown tired, and he had to land. But it was a success!

You have gained the Talent Piercing Eyes. Evolve this Talent to get more significant bonuses. Each minute you focus on your eyes, you will gain an additional +1% Exp up to a maximum of 100%. You will also gain more extraordinary sight for each minute by +1% up to a maximum of 100%. No other Active Skills can be employed while using this talent. All your attention must be focused on your Eyes and sense of Sight.

While sitting on the top branch of an exceptionally high tree that pushed above the rest of the canopy a little, he created a fourth eye. It was just experimentation to test his limits. Even with three eyes, the angle of view was large enough that a full panoramic view was not a problem. You have to push your limits to know your limits!

Even on Earth, it had always been that way, pushing until he went too far. That philosophy had gotten him into some trouble and resulted in some of his greatest successes. He was a gambler at heart; some would have said he gambled too much. That had come out in the more primal Resh as well.

Perhaps that was something that he would need to reign in a little so he didn't immediately die...Nah! Life's short! I don't even know if life is short. What's a Slime's lifespan? It is probably something to do with stats, though, that would make the most sense: mental age, biological age, etc. Some testing might be required....a lot of testing is needed...I'll get to it eventually. Let's go absorb some stuff!

Something else occurred to Aarav at that moment. It was something that every other creature needed to do regularly. Somehow, it had never occurred to Aarav to question. Hey, I haven't pooped this whole time, and it has been months! No waste, I like it! It wasn't the type of thing that most stories mentioned, but that was the difference between reality and a story, right?

Why was I able to improve my eyesight capability, but hearing it was just more experience? Isn't that inconsistent? Oh, wait...was it to do with my goal while visualising? My objective had been to level up that skill faster, not to improve the sense. Does that mean that the universe responds to my requests? Oh! Oh! That's why the name of the spell almost changed! That makes so much sense. This opens up a world of possibilities! So thought can manifest? "The Secret" on a whole different level. Okay, okay, I have to experiment with this right now. I need to get my hearing to also improve while giving me more experience.

When Aarav concentrated on his ears, he did a deep dive, feeling the detailed aspects of the ear, the drum, the various bones and parts that made it up. He didn't understand animal ear configurations or the names of the bones that made it up. Still, they seemed not so different to human ears. Digging deeper into the ear, he forced more energy into the organ to make it work harder. As with all of these things, nothing happened at first. He gradually felt his ears open up, and the sound he had been unable to hear before came pouring in. More and more as time passed, a few seconds turned into a few minutes and then a few hours. Before he knew it, the whole day had passed. Somehow he had managed to lose himself in the calming and relaxing sounds of the forest. Tears fell from his eyes, and he remembered those singular relaxing moments when he went to a quiet part of the park or wood near where he lived and just took in the sounds. Enjoying the way everything else fell away, and it was just him and nature.

You have gained the Talent Dedicated Hearing has grown to Dedicated Hearing +1. Each minute you focus on your hearing, you will gain an additional +2% Exp up to a maximum of 300%. In addition, you will gain a 2% hearing range per minute up to a maximum of 300%. Evolve this Talent to get more significant bonuses. No other Active Skills can be employed while using this talent. All your attention must be focused on your Ears or Hearing Skill.

He slowly opened his eyes, feeling a profound sense of relaxation and awareness and appreciation for the world he was now in. A world in which pollution had not destroyed so much of the world's greenery. That's presumptuous of me, this might be like the Amazon of this world, and the rest is a barren wasteland! Regardless, this was the first time since the craziness began that he did not feel like he wanted to scream, cry, break everything in sight and die all at the same time. With this newfound calm, some level of acceptance had come as well. For the first time, he felt things would be okay. He could become a human again if he so wished. It would take a while, and he would need to consume some humans to get there, but it could be done.