As soon as Justin’s claws retracted from the bleeding cavities, scar tissue began to grow and fill in. Along with the blood, any pain was quickly silenced before flakes of dead skin fell from his face to reveal two burning yellow orbs in place of his eyes.

  Justin blinked. A flesh layer of moisture applied to his newly-born eyes.

  ‘I was right.’

  Justin’s laugh reverberated through the cave that was no longer so dark.

  ‘Besides giving me the worst sleep-eye I’ve ever experienced–’

  Justin quickly rubbed the waste out of his healthy eyes.

  ‘--the potential of this talent is tremendous. No target limit, organ restriction, and it draws from something as imprecise as memory? Perhaps with a good helping of the user’s intention, but still.’

  Justin supposed it would have been much harder to use such a talent if his mind was always churning and changing, like that of a regular human. In such a case, a random thought entering his head in that critical moment of growth might cripple the process completely. But his mind wasn’t that of a human, not anymore.

  His control over the talent was complete and he realized what had been the exact purpose of it to begin with.

  ‘No wonder it had mentioned the ‘Origin’ in its description, a word that could only apply to the scourge race. I had thought my body’s transformation was impressive, but this adaptability? Creating new organs on the fly? One might wonder if I even need the system anymore.’

  But of course he still did. Leveling offered benefits he couldn’t compete with in a strict arms race. Evolving, a process that was only possible thanks to it, would also bring changes that he couldn’t develop with his efforts alone. Besides, there had to be limits to this talent, as it was still in the E-Grade.

  For instance, he knew it couldn’t change everything in his body to a superior or imagined version. Trying it out on his brain or heart, for example, would only result in a creative suicide. The talent still required him to injure himself, so he had to hold off on his vital organs for now.

  But with thermal vision, he could now find his hiding adversary. Justin’s body tensed. Looking around the cave he finally got a sense of scale for how large it was. Crystal growths ranging from the width of his torso to one of his fingers lined the walls and the ceilings everywhere, now illuminated even further thanks to his enhanced eyesight.

  It was curious that the crystals themselves gave off heat, but more importantly he was now able to find a line of discoloration running through the underground lake that he hadn’t noticed before.

  ‘A heat trail. That one is mine, so that one over there must be…hm. Quite faded, but if it were from our fight, then it would have already vanished. It moved through this cave recently, then.’

  Justin followed the trail through the water, diving into the next cave, before the trail came up against the wall of crystals.

  ‘The path stops here? No, it must go through!’

  Justin pressed his hand against the wall to confirm it. The crystal slab there shook with his touch. Just a bit, but it was enough.

  ‘This fuc-!’

  Justin felt incensed and a bit impressed at the same time.

  So this was how it had stayed hidden during his search! Justin could hardly believe it. When had it learned the concept of subterfuge while living in the caves?

  Justin lashed across the crystal seal with a tentacle. The split chunks fell to the cave floor and revealed a darkness expanding deep into the crystal growths..

  A tunnel. Bored through the rock not with precision equipment, but high temperature.

  ‘The slime made this, and if these trails are anything to go by, it's still in there!’

  Justin cracked his neck before pulling himself inside.

  The tunnel was barely wide enough to fit Justin as he moved further into it. His vision remained focused on the heat trail the slime had left behind, but his surroundings were illuminated all the same by the crystals.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  ‘Even this far out, crystals still line the walls. Is their source really the wreckage of the space craft?’

  Justin wondered to himself as the tunnel started to get wider. Finally, when his large frame was no longer grinding against the walls and getting dust everywhere, did the heat trail suddenly rise in intensity.

  ‘There you are!’

  Alone in the corner of a hollowed out room, his fated nemesis stirred.

  But, it didn’t appear as it once had. The red slime’s exterior had dimmed, thickened, and congealed. It looked sickly, if that were possible for a slime.

  ‘It’s cooled down? Why? How?’

  There was so much Justin didn’t know about these creatures' biology, he couldn’t be sure that this wasn’t an intended next step for it to take. As far as he knew, none of them had been alive for as long as this one had, but certainly none had been given the freedom it had experienced.

  Justin raised a tentacle to strike. But the shivering cerise mass made its move first.

  His tentacle ripped through the water, striking the place it had been, yet with feverish abandon it got around him before he could hit it.

  ‘No god damn it! I won’t let you!’

  Justin shot back from his stance, using what little space the hollow provided to dodge away, but the slime was just too fast.

  Its cooled and partially-stiffened body still boasted far more speed than Justin had arrogantly thought he held, and latched onto his shoulder within an instant.

  Justin gritted his teeth, preparing for the durability of his new flesh to be tested.

  He timorously hoped that his faith in its heat resistance would be better served than it had in its speed.

  …But no pain arrived.

  Had the talent served him that well? Justin’s eyes flared.

  No, it was the slime! It wasn’t heating up!

  Justin watched in shock as instead of melting right through him, the fibrous amalgamation wormed through the cracks between his scale-like chitin.

  He lit up in recognition. That was right! In the narrow of the tunnel, his hard body had been grinding across the salt crystals. No doubt their particles would be all over him now.

  Justin watched for a timid moment while the slime continued to clean away the particles from between his grooves. He had purposefully taken away much of his sensations on the outer layer to prevent shock in battle, so he couldn’t really compare it to a massage. But it sure looked like that's what the slime was doing.

  ‘Is it sated?’

  Justin raised a finger after a moment of observation.

  He experimented by prodding the mass over his shoulder. Like he thought, his finger easily went into it, but it didn’t seem to mind. After regaining some of its color it had become less viscous, but Justin had noticed the distinct lack of communication efforts.

  ‘Unlike the others, it seems to not have much stake in disguising itself? Is it capable?’

  Justin looked around the interior of the hollow, before snapping a crystal shard off the wall.

  ‘You want?’

  He wagged the crystal in the slime's proximity as if goading a dog to take a bite.

  ‘Hmm. I guess not.’

  Minimal interest. It seemed more focused on the powdered version.

  What if he crushed it up then? The shard in Justin’s hand should account for far more than the total particles across his body. Would it be interested in it then?

  BOOM!

  Justin clasped his hand on the shard, pulverizing it with a small shockwave through the water. Raising that to the slime got much more of its attention this time.

  Justin hypothesized while he watched it eat from his hand.

  ‘I could kill it now, but where would that leave me? I feel so close to understanding these things, I just need one more push.’

  Collecting all the facts…let’s see.

  He already knew that the slimes’ colors grouped them by their intrinsic abilities. There may be some outliers, but for now he could assume that the red group were all thermic-controllers like this one.

  ‘Perhaps that's the clue. Whatever it needs, it's within these crystals, not the crystals themselves. In a lab setting, whatever nutrients they needed could be injected, but perhaps it's too fragile to exist in a non-controlled environment. That would be why it's only found in the crystals, a kind of natural static repository, and why the red slime is unable to access it by itself.’

  Justin looked at the powder in his hand but was unable to differentiate the particles from each other. Yet there had to be a secondary group within the powder. Something the slimes were seeking out.

  It would be why the red slime had been unable to absorb its food. Melting the crystals also melted whatever was inside, and by the gaunt appearance it had worn when he first arrived, it was probably unable to absorb it after that.

  Despite coming with the intention to kill, upon seeing its placated appearance, new thoughts were suddenly churning in Justin’s head.

  Reaching a finger back against the slime’s body, he made one more attempt to communicate.

  “You need me, I need you. What do you say we work together?”

  “...”