Status.

  *****

  Arin

  Race: Slime (Evolved / Sapient )

  Level - 3

  Skill Points - 0

  Abilities:

  Absorption - Tier 2

  Fire Resistance - Tier 1

  Ice Resistance - Tier 1

  Lightning Resistance - Tier 1

  Physical Resistance - Tier 1

  Shadow Resistance - Tier 1

  Magical Resistance - Tier 1

  Skill Absorption ( 0 / 2 Skills Absorbed)

  Acidic - Tier 1

  Slime Control - Tier 1

  *****

  Arin stared at the words before him in awe and wonder.

  I'll need to find out what all that means… for now, I need to get out of here.

  A half moon was at its highest point in the night sky, with a few clouds drifting in front to provide a little more darkness.

  I… I know daytime is coming and I'll need to get out of here quickly.

  Finding himself with no other option, Arin began to make his way down the wall, descending it as fast as he safely could in the darkness of the night.

  Six other large towers like the one Arin was making his way down gave him an idea of how far of a descent it would be.

  The sewers… Levi mentioned them. That's the way out.

  With a small plan, Arin took his first steps in the world, unsure what living would be like or how to handle the emotions that fought against each other.

  All he knew was Levi had given him the gift of life, and he would learn what living meant.

  The stone was cold against Arin's gelatinous body, but he didn't mind. In fact, the sensation was new—something he'd never truly felt before. Every texture, every shift in temperature, every variation in the surface he clung to registered in ways that made the world seem impossibly vast.

  Is this what Levi experienced every day?

  Arin paused about halfway down the tower, his red mass spread thin against the mortared stone. Below, the courtyard stretched out in darkness, punctuated by a few torches near the main gates. Two guards stood at their posts, but their attention was focused outward, toward the city streets beyond.

  They won't see me. Not if I'm careful.

  He resumed his descent, moving slower now, keeping his body pressed flat against the shadowed sections of wall. The rough stone scraped against him—not painfully, but with enough friction that he had to concentrate to maintain his grip.

  A memory surfaced, unbidden. Levi's voice, patient and warm, as he held a piece of moldy bread just out of reach during one of their training sessions.

  "That's it, Arin. Reach for it. Extend yourself. You can do more than you think you can."

  The memory hurt in a way Arin couldn't fully comprehend. It was like the acid he produced, but turned inward, dissolving something inside his core that he hadn't known existed until now.

  Levi.

  The name echoed through his consciousness, and with it came a flood of images. Levi's face, proud and grinning after their first victory. Levi's hands, gentle as they dropped treats into the jar. Levi's eyes, wide with terror and fading as—

  Arin's grip faltered.

  He slid several feet down the wall before catching himself, his mass spreading instinctively to increase friction. For a moment, he clung there, his entire being focused on not falling, on not making noise, on not drawing attention.

  Focus. Levi would want me to focus.

  Slowly, carefully, Arin resumed his descent. The remaining distance passed in a blur of concentration and fear, each foot of progress a small victory against the panic that threatened to overwhelm his newfound awareness.

  Finally, his mass touched the ground.

  The courtyard stones were smooth, worn by countless feet over the years. Arin kept low, moving along the base of the wall toward the shadows cast by a supply shed. His progress was maddeningly slow—slower than he'd ever moved in the arena—but speed would mean discovery, and discovery would mean death.

  The sewers. Levi said they run under the whole city. Said the smell was terrible, but that they connected to the river eventually.

  Arin reached the shed and paused, his form compressed into a ball roughly the size of a melon. From here, he could see a grated opening in the ground near the far wall, about thirty feet away. Steam rose from it in thin wisps, and even from this distance, Arin could sense the warmth.

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  That's it. That has to be it.

  But between him and the grate were two more guards making their rounds, their boots clicking against stone in a steady rhythm.

  Arin waited, counting the seconds between their passes. He'd watched Levi count things before—ingredients, coins, even the number of times the Voltfilament Nematode could attack in a minute. Numbers made sense in a way that feelings didn't.

  Thirty-seven seconds. Then they turn the corner.

  When the guards' backs were turned, Arin moved.

  He'd never traveled so fast before, his entire mass rolling and sliding across the smooth stone. The grate grew larger in his vision, the gaps between the metal bars easily wide enough for him to squeeze through.

  Twenty feet.

  Fifteen.

  Almost there.

  Ten feet.

  "Oi, you see that?" a guard called out.

  Arin froze, his momentum carrying him another few inches before he managed to stop completely. He flattened himself against the ground, his red color seeming too bright, too visible in the torchlight.

  "See what?" the second guard asked.

  "Thought I saw something move. Over by the drainage grate."

  Footsteps. Coming closer.

  Arin's core pulsed with what he now recognized as fear. It was the same feeling from the arena, magnified a hundred times. In the arena, losing meant dissolution. Here, it meant the same thing, but with the added weight of knowing what death truly meant.

  I can't die. Not yet. Not until I've… What am I supposed to do?

  The footsteps stopped a few feet away.

  "Probably just a rat," the second guard said. "You know how big they get down in the sewers. Sometimes they come up through the grates."

  "Yeah, maybe,” the tall man holding the torch said. “Still, thought it looked red or something."

  "Red rat? You been drinking?"

  A chuckle. "Might've had a bit. Long shift."

  "Come on, then. Let's finish the round and I'll join you."

  The footsteps retreated.

  Arin didn't move for a full minute, counting each second to make sure they were truly gone. Then, with careful deliberation, he flowed toward the grate.

  The metal bars were spaced about four inches apart—more than enough room. Arin compressed his mass and slid through, dropping into darkness.

  The fall was longer than expected, and Arin hit water with a splash that echoed through the tunnel.

  Water!

  Panic surged through him as he felt his mass beginning to dilute. The liquid that surrounded him wasn't pure—it was thick with waste and runoff—but it was still water, still dangerous. Arin flailed, if a slime could be said to flail, and managed to grab hold of a ledge just above the flowing channel.

  He pulled himself up onto the stone walkway, feeling parts of his mass dripping away, dissolving into the water below.

  [ -2 Mass ]

  The words appeared in his vision, and Arin felt smaller, diminished. He'd lost perhaps five percent of his total size in those few seconds.

  Water. I need to avoid water. Levi mentioned that. I should have remembered.

  The sewer tunnel stretched in both directions, lit by occasional patches of bioluminescent moss that clung to the damp walls. The smell that Levi had warned about was overwhelming—not that Arin had a nose to smell with, but he could sense the decay, the rot, the concentrated essence of waste from thousands of people.

  A skittering sound came from the darkness to his left.

  Arin turned, his vision adjusting to pick out details in the gloom. There, perhaps twenty feet away, a pair of red eyes reflected the faint moss-light.

  A rat, easily his size, emerged from a side passage. Its fur was matted and dark, its teeth yellow and sharp. It chittered, the sound bouncing off the tunnel walls, and took a step toward Arin.

  Then another rat appeared. And another.

  Arin counted five in total, all of them watching him with an intelligence that suggested they weren't ordinary vermin.

  The largest one, a beast that probably weighed as much as Arin's current mass, took another step forward. Its lips pulled back in what might have been a snarl, revealing incisors that could easily tear through flesh.

  They think I'm food.

  The rat charged.

  Arin's instincts took over—the same instincts that had carried him through the tournament. He formed a shield, a flat appendage that caught the rat's initial bite. Teeth sank into the gelatinous barrier and the rat immediately began to squeal, its mouth burning from the acid.

  [ Acidic Trait Activated ]

  But the other rats weren't waiting. They rushed forward as a pack, sensing weakness or perhaps just reacting to their companion's distress.

  Arin dissolved the shield and rolled backward, narrowly avoiding snapping jaws. His mass compressed, then extended, forming a pointed wedge similar to what he'd used against the Aether Rotifer.

  I'm not prey. I'm a predator now.

  The wedge came down on the nearest rat's head, crushing through skull and brain with a sickening crunch. The creature went limp instantly, and Arin's mass flowed over it, beginning the process of absorption.

  [ +12 Mass ]

  [ +8 Essence ]

  The other rats hesitated, their pack mentality warring with their survival instincts. The largest one chittered again, a sound that might have been a command, and the remaining three spread out, trying to flank him.

  They're coordinating. They're smarter than they look.

  Arin didn't give them the chance to execute their strategy. He launched himself at the one on his left, his entire body transforming into a wave of red slime that crashed over the rat before it could react. Within seconds, the creature was dissolving, its squeals cut short as Arin's acidic nature took effect.

  [ +10 Mass ]

  [ +6 Essence ]

  The two smaller rats broke and ran, disappearing back into the side passages they'd emerged from.

  The largest rat remained, its red eyes fixed on Arin. For a moment, neither moved. Then the rat bared its teeth one final time and charged, not in attack, but in a desperate bid to escape past him.

  Arin let it go.

  He wasn't sure why. The logical part of his mind—the part that was learning to think like Levi might have thought—knew that more mass meant more power, more essence meant more ability to survive. But something else, something deeper, told him that letting this one live was the right choice.

  Is this mercy? Is this what it means to have a soul? Levi and that girl… Liora had once talked about mercy.

  He had overheard dozens of conversations, being carried everywhere in the jar Levi kept him in until the space under the bed had been made. Arin flowed back to where the two dead rats had been, collecting the last traces of his absorption. His mass had grown noticeably, and he felt stronger, more substantial.

  [ Current Mass: 142% of base ]

  [ Current Essence: 32/100 ]

  The numbers meant something, though Arin wasn't entirely sure what. He'd have to learn, have to figure out this "system" that now governed his existence.

  But first, he needed to keep moving. The sewers were vast, and somewhere ahead was the river, was freedom, was the forest where he could hide and grow stronger.

  Where he could learn what it meant to truly live.

  Arin moved forward into the darkness, leaving the Flux Tower and everything he'd known behind.