Chapter 41 | Infinite Reincarnation, Starting From a Slime

The Month of Sap (February).

All the snow in the Great Hera Forest had melted, and the entire forest seemed to have come back to life.

And in Slime Territory, everything was as thriving and prosperous as ever.

Slime Territory was no longer populated solely by monsters; outside adventurers had begun using it as a staging ground and rest stop to explore the Great Hera Forest.

Evelyn and Flora also used Slime Territory as their base, searching for traces of the Headhunter Cult within the forest and eliminating as many of their numbers as possible.

Meanwhile, the scouts sent out by Zoe were monitoring the movements in the goblin tribe's territory.

Beneath the seemingly peaceful forest, killing intent was already concealed, and undercurrents were surging.

However, none of this concerned Zoe.

Interrogating the two Headhunter Cult members had yielded some information, including a hidden base of the cult within the Great Hera Forest.

There was also other information that corroborated Evelyn's suspicions.

Unsurprisingly, the cult members themselves had no idea who their leader actually was.

The monsters controlled by the Headhunter Cult had greatly enriched Zoe's food stock.

After being frozen by Vera, they would last Zoe a very long time.

Precisely because of this ample food supply, Zoe entered a period of complete seclusion.

Aside from sleeping, his days were entirely filled with training.

In addition to combat practice with Dark Wolf, he also conducted mock battles with Evelyn and Flora respectively.

He defeated Flora but lost to Evelyn.

However, Flora had not used her full strength. After all, a Magic Swordsman without comrades to cover them had almost no opportunity to cast enchantment spells.

And without their enchantments, a Magic Swordsman was not even as good as a regular swordsman.

As for Evelyn...

She was strong—absolutely strong.

Zoe estimated that her magical aura was above level 35, possibly even at level 40.

The legendary profession of Sacred Circle Knight was downright broken.

They simultaneously possessed tankiness, physical attack power, agility, stamina, ranged capabilities, and healing.

A stat monster? What "stat monster"? Evelyn just steamrolled everything in her path, never meeting anyone who could even compete with her stats.

Moreover, with Evelyn's permission, Zoe had learned through Flora that Evelyn also possessed the bloodline power of the legendary Golden Race.

Her stats were already so ridiculous, yet they could still be stacked.

Aside from his daily battles, Zoe was also studying the forbidden dragon technique he had obtained from Vera—Dragon Body Fusion.

According to the description in the Dragon's Heritage, this forbidden technique, Dragon Body Fusion, was developed over a thousand years ago by an adult green dragon of the Quasi-Demon King rank.

Desiring to become a True Demon King-class monster, that adult green dragon had developed this forbidden technique.

It wanted to fuse with the corpses of its powerful kin to acquire their strength and break through to become a True Demon King.

In the end, however, it failed, and the green dragon degraded into a mindless, seven-headed dragon.

Dragon Body Fusion was thereafter classified as a forbidden technique by the dragons.

Furthermore, Dragon Body Fusion was not limited to dragons; it could be used to fuse with any other living organism.

However, it came with severe side effects: one's memories would be eroded, their personality affected, and their sanity compromised.

If the fused individual was stronger than the user, their consciousness might even seize control, making the other's will the dominant one.

It was a forbidden technique that polluted the consciousness.

It was an exceptionally dangerous forbidden technique.

Not only that, the difficulty of learning it was also extremely high.

Even with the talent boosts from [Apprentice (D-grade)] and [Diligence Compensates for Lack of Talent (E-grade)], as well as the talent bonus of his Withered State, Zoe could already be considered a genius.

Even so, he still found Dragon Body Fusion to be incredibly obscure and difficult to comprehend.

“Perhaps it's due to a lack of foundational knowledge; even a genius would find it difficult to master.”

“Chewing through this bit by bit... who knows how long it'll take.”

Judging by its learning difficulty, [Dragon Body Fusion] should have reached C-grade, or maybe even B-grade.

However, Zoe was unsure of how the system panel would grade a skill with such severe flaws.

“Learning the B-grade [Canon of Withered Life] before was truly a stroke of luck.”

Although the [Canon of Withered Life] was high-rank, its learning difficulty was probably only E-grade.

The skill was sophisticated yet easy to understand—it simply required burning one's lifespan.

As long as you were willing to burn your lifespan, it was easy to reach the Beginner and Mastered tiers, and your proficiency would soar.

Zoe also wanted to pluck some more good stuff from Vera's Dragon's Heritage.

However, the Dragon's Heritage was not that convenient of a tool.

It was a repository of infinite knowledge; without a clear target, trying to precisely locate specific knowledge within it was extremely difficult.

Comparing knowledge to an ocean, Vera searching for knowledge in the Dragon's Heritage was like diving to the seafloor, searching bit by bit.

Moreover, Vera was only seven years old, making it even more challenging for her to convey the knowledge without any errors.

Otherwise, she would have chewed through the Dragon's Heritage long ago to learn all kinds of dragon magic, rather than still relying on the breath techniques she had learned from Zoe to scrape by.

Furthermore, most of the inherited knowledge and abilities in the Dragon's Heritage were dragon-related, meaning only actual dragons could learn and master them.

Those that could be mastered by other races were not only scarce but were also buried deep in the recesses of her consciousness.

“If only I could reincarnate as a dragon in the future.”

Zoe let out a sigh. A dragon's Dragon's Heritage was just too enticing; he wanted it so badly.

Near the end of the Month of Sap.

Atop Slime Mountain.

[Skill Corrode Level 4 (E-grade) proficiency +1. Corrode Level 4 (E-grade) proficiency maxed. Upgraded to Corrode Level 5 (E-grade).]

[Skill Corrode Level 5 (E-grade) has affected your body. Constitution +1.]

While chewing on his frozen emergency rations, Zoe's deep purple body bubbled incessantly.

Overflowing corrosive gases continuously seeped from his body, etching dense clusters of tiny holes into the surrounding rock walls.

Meanwhile, the monster corpses digesting inside Zoe's body accelerated as if fast-forwarded.

And during this accelerated digestion process, Zoe's body underwent another change.

[Skill Digest Level 4 (D-grade) has been influenced by skill Corrode Level 5 (E-grade). Proficiency +200.]

[Digest Level 4 (D-grade) proficiency maxed. Upgraded to Digest Level 5 (D-grade).]

[Skill Digest Level 5 (D-grade) has affected your body. Constitution +2, Max Mana +200.]

“Maximizing a skill can actually influence the proficiency of another skill?”

Feeling his maxed-out proficiency in [Digest Level 5], Zoe was pleasantly surprised.

The max-level [Corrode] significantly enhanced his body's corrosiveness, which in turn boosted the power of his Corrosive Gas Slash.

The increase in physical corrosiveness also accelerated the accumulation of corrosive gas inside him, thereby shortening the cooldown of Corrosive Gas Slash.

And as for the maxed [Digest Level 5]...

As Zoe rapidly digested the monster beneath him, he watched his consumed mana rapidly recover, ticking upward by +5, +5, and +5.

This unprecedented digestion speed meant Zoe could quickly recover mana in battle by digesting corpses.

Furthermore, the increase in Max Mana was even more pronounced; digesting a set amount of monsters would raise his Max Mana by 7 points at a time.

By now, Zoe's total mana had reached 4,252.

Zoe checked his skill list.

[Spray Level 5 (F-grade)], [Acid Level 5 (E-grade)], [Corrode Level 5 (E-grade)], and [Digest Level 5 (D-grade)].

Zoe had completely maxed out the proficiency for these four skills, meaning they would not disappear upon reincarnation.

As for his remaining skills, except for [Devour] and [High-speed Regeneration] which Zoe grinded relentlessly day and night, they were all far from being fully maxed.

[Devour Level 4 (D-grade)] Proficiency: 4,831/5,000 (Expert)

[High-speed Regeneration Level 4 (C-grade)] Proficiency: 4,931/5,000 (Expert)

As for his other D-grade skill, [Corrosive Gas Slash]...

Zoe had not spent much time on it.

[Corrosive Gas Slash] was a D-grade skill of his own creation, synthesized from a lifetime of experience in his previous life.

As long as he still possessed the three skills [Acid], [Corrode], and [Spray], even if this specific skill vanished, he could recreate it in his next life.