Chapter 61: An "exchange"
It was probably not a good idea to cover her whole body in that slime, I have seen what it did to those ants and the thought is kinda scary. An image of an angry green mass of muscle appeared in my brain. Yeah, I do not need something like this running around rampant. Secondly, I do not have enough time to produce enough of it.
I have spent quite some time experimenting and I do not doubt that If I were to act carelessly it would end up backfiring. I am currently situated in a very distant place around 20 minutes by foot away from the previous battle spot.
I hardly doubt that the previous mob would give up after everything I put them through, especially after I defeated both groups. In their wrath, they would not stop before they found me.
This means that I will sadly not have enough time to stick around and actually see the change with my own eyes. But after observing the strong responses after the stimulation of certain areas. Those areas were mainly here head, her heart and strangely both her feet and hands. I had anticipated a stronger response in other areas, but the context of that statement is left ambiguous for obvious reasons.
I did not want to spend any more time, then necessary so I planned on recycling the hairs I already have used. Though I had to remove all that pointy hair, that was embedded into her flesh. Laura the hedgehog, became more and more human again after all the hair left her body.
Though her countenance was human only in name, her whole body was covered in tiny holes. Not much blood has been drawn out after the hairs were removed because I had made sure not to put them into too deep. But I would not look at her if I had trypophobia.
Although it may superficially look like she has suffered horrendous torture I made sure to minimize the pain. Disregarding the little stunt I had pulled with her eyes, but that had a totally different aim. It was supposed to look like I overreacted and inflict unimaginable pain on her, but I tested how her system would react if it came into contact with that slimy substance.
The story I made up was just a tool to see how long it took and if she would notice the changes that were occurring in her eyes. But I would not expect that it would end up with her losing her consciousness. If she is just simulating her current state, then she deserves to listen to my thoughts. After all her breathing and pulse and heartbeat had changed after her supposed "coma".
The true purpose of this experiment was to test what kind of relationship your mind has with the body of this world. I know for certain that you can feel pain, that is why I tried to poke several spots of your body, to see how you would react. The sensitivity and the strength of your response would give much information about the connection.
Of course, everyone is different and pain for one is an itch for another, but after stimulating your nerves it was quite interesting to see that your brain adapts its pain tolerance if you copy another person. After removing that option, your brain was forced to endure it and could not cope with it by changing its neural path.
I had not expected that it would increase your sensitivity by a lot, but that change was visible in certain areas on your body. If I am not wrong those are the areas, you previously cast magic through.
I still can not deduce what lead to this kind of change, but I will keep it in mind for future experiments. I am planning on injecting a bit of slime into those places, to support your endeavour in getting stronger. But I refuse to strengthen your body in any other place. I am not certain what would happen if it came into contact with your body and flesh alone.
I will not risk anything when you are guarded by your Gods, the payoff is just not worth it. That is why some poor soul will have to be the unlucky test subject for that. But do not worry, I am not going to treat you badly. From the shallow knowledge I have of this world, you are something like an outlier and I am curious what kind of change will you bring to this world. I am not here to lecture you about morals and such. I could not care less about the moral compass in a world that knows nothing but fighting against monsters.
I myself am not destined for greatness, so I just want to help those who are and give them a little help. The best part is, even if they fail to shape the world, they will still try their hardest to take revenge for all the stuff I put them through. So regardless of what I do, it is a win-win situation.
For your sake, I just hope, that the substance changes this body and has no negative impact on the body in your real world. But after injecting some of it into your eyes, I am not that worried anymore. Even though I still can not determine what the result was, but since the reaction was not violent or in an instant some sort of assimilation process must have taken place.
But all the previous experiments I have conducted on these substances were showing some kind of inclination to changing the inherent substance by improving their related physical attributes. Now I am not an expert on this matter, but If I had to take a guess, once it comes into contact with mana, its effect should be limited by it. So instead of improving the squishiness of your eyes, I think that it might improve your neural network if its effect only takes place in a very small place of your eye.
The test run with your right eye was showing no change in the squishiness, so at least I could confirm the first part of my theory. Another possibility is that something entirely new arises out of this combination, but that's something for only you to discover. Do not disappoint me. I am looking quite forward to what kind of monster you can become. But of course the role for brute strength is not for the taking, that is mine.
The entire process will not take much time and is done once I have filled a little amount of substance into the spots I mentioned previously. While the process itself will not take much time, I am still not sure how much substance I should use.
I do not know the scope of the change that is happening. This procedure should strengthen her not weaken her by using too few or too much of it. It is not likely I will get a second chance to experiment on her that is why I have to be absolutely sure.
On second thought I only have to be careful in the areas that are directly connected to her consciousness. If her perception of this world can be altered by the change in her brain, then it must be possible that my biggest objective is her brain itself. All the other parts are connected to her brain as well, but its the brain itself is responsible for the corresponding to these signals.
That itself raises the question of what this projection offers to her mind. Without a doubt, it can transfer signals to her brain letting her know that the targeted spot has been stimulated, if the change targets this projection, then it should have next to no effect on her real body.
Her real brain would feel like something has changed in her body, but the truth is that the change happened to that projection of hers. The only connection this projection has with her real body that her mind is somehow connected to it.
Does that not mean, that the only thing that matters is that I do not inject this kind of substance directly into her brain? Unfortunately, this also directly limits the amount of impact I can have on a person in their "real" world.
Regardless that means, that I should have no qualms about influencing this kind of body. So why am I still hesitating to actually do it? Is there some glaring oversight that I have failed to realize?
It must be nothing more than a mere suspicion because after reflecting everything I had learned about this world, I am left with no doubt that this substance only has a localized effect. Otherwise, my mind would have changed as well and nothing had changed about my perception of this world.
So is this supposed to be a bad omen? Is this the moment in time I will always look back to, regretting the action that I am about to take?
Why am I still hesitating? This is not my first rodeo with life, everything that happens in this one is just a bonus and if its a path of no return, then I am sure as hell going to walk it right till the end.
So why should I bother with assessing every little outcome and not take any risks, when I put myself in those battles full of uncertainties, all that does not add up. The opportunity to shape the world is right in front of me and I am currently thinking about such trivial things. But alas I would not be standing here right now if I jumped headfirst into every battle.
I now knew why politics were such a pain in the ass if I struggle to find the middle ground on this occasion, I can not grasp how much thought the average politician must think about their politics. I do not mean those who vote with their wallet of course.
In the end, I settled on minimizing the substance as much as possible, while I would spread it across the areas I had chosen. Starting with her eyes, I just poked several small holes in with the hair tips covered in slime, I chose to switch the hair after each use to prevent that the hairs become contaminated. To minimize this kind of chance, I began to only use the hair I just had ripped out of my arm.
At first, she was just unresponsive and did not react no matter what I did. But after more substance had entered her eyes, she started to shiver all over her body. Even though I would have liked to stop and watch how her body would handle this strain, I had to no time to spare. Any potential delay brings me one step closer to the angry mob. After I had finished my job with her eyes, the shivering had increased yet another time in its intensity. Only 20 pokes per eye, I had thought I could poke more holes into them, but with her shivering, I doubt that her body can endure it.
The heart would have to wait, especially if the condition of her body seems to be worsening. Starting with the hands I had to find another solution because the hand was still currently nailed to the ground by an icicle.
The first thing I had to do was remove the icicle to further analyze what kind of injury she had suffered. Without out any suspense, the icicle was lifted by me and removed from her hand.
The injury on her hand was laid bare and I noticed that I did not have the surface to work with. I would go as far as to say that the surface area was much less than the hole. I could reach the fingers with a problem, but the palm of her hand was mostly destroyed.
The thought about covering it with the slime was quickly overthrown especially after thinking about what might happen if it were to mutate in this mutilated state. While I was filling her fingers with the substance I thought about my options on how to treat it.
The first thing that came to my mind was that I will cover the surrounding tissue and nerves with a bit more of the substance, that might fix the remaining skin. Seems like a feasible option, but it is not going to work out that way. Ideally, I would have to use something to connect the nerves but that is not going to work. I do not have the tools to produce something like that.
Maybe I can do the same stuff that they do if they are treating victims with heavy burn wounds. You can replace skin from other sources of your body. But that's not an alternative either, her hands would never be the same and the feeling towards them would totally be foreign. Though the idea of transplanting some skin from her behind to her hands has a very unique charm to it.
Still I am not an asshole so I will not use it. Seems like I am left with no other choice, then to only cover her fingers with the substance, if I do not want to destroy the feeling to her hand.
After I had finished injecting the slime into her fingers, it was quite interesting to see, that there was no visual change that had occurred in her eyes. Her bodily constitution was still the same and her shivering had subsided by a margin.
The treatment of her feet did pose any kind of challenge and took its course without any problems arising. The only difference is that her feet had different layers that I decided to treat. At first, I decided to treat the nerves and decided to add the tendons after thinking about the general necessity of improving her foot.
The tendons and muscles have to bare a lot of weight and are a necessity if you want to survive in this kind of world. It is for the best to increase the odds of her survival like that. I doubt that she would ever fight a monster in melee range, so supporting her ability to flee or run away from monsters in the right direction to take.
A sigh left my lips after coming closer to the end of my little experiment. I was just lucky that everything worked out fine for me. My stature enabled me to easily access the slime without cutting open my flesh. I caught a big fish in my previous fight and was able to "convince" her to work as a test subject for me. I got to know several things about the physiology of their body and the similarity to the human race.
Last but not least I could confirm that a body full of mana does not reject a sample of the slime. It is just a shame that I will not be there to see what result is about to happen. I am sure that even if I will not see it in the near future, our paths are going to cross again.
Now to the engine of the human body, the heart. I will have to be very careful and observe any kind of change that might occur. I do not want to know what might happen if it were to come into contact with the bloodstream directly.
I took a deep breath and began to feel her heartbeat to make sure that there was no irregularity. Furthermore, It helped me to pinpoint the place of her heart. There was no need to cut open her skin. I do not want to know how her autoimmune system reacts to this stuff. Does something like this even exist if it is just a projection?
I put the absolute minimum on the hair and with precision, I embedded it into her heart. Time passed slowly and I waited what kind of result was about to happen. Surprisingly nothing happened, which was even more suspicious when the shivering. The shivering could at least be explained by my knowledge, the current situation was not something that I had expected.
The only ideas that came up, after thinking about it were, that the change was so abysmal that it had next to no effect, that is why the body did not show any kind of response or that I had missed the heart altogether, otherwise I could not explain how something like this could happen or rather would not happen.
Gritting my teeth I decided to test out whether I had missed or not. I repeated the process several times and switched the spot for each try. Still, nothing changed even after I had tested my hypothesis.
That means, that I will either have to go even deeper with the hair, but that is not something I want to risk especially if I do not know the risks that are involved. So I had to raise the dose of the slime and hope that it would show some kind of response on her body, otherwise, I would be left speechless and would have no clue how to continue onwards.
But this process should not be done in haste instead it should be done step by step to not suddenly cross something that should not have been crossed at all cost. Yet even after taking this measure and repeating the process several times, nothing changed. I was quite baffled because the result continued to defy my expectations and all the knowledge I had about it became more and more obsolete. I decided to raise the dose once more and wait what would happen.
That just means that her heart, can still endure a lot more, but I have to stop as soon as her health seems to deteriorate. Despite my concern, nothing happened. I should be glad, that I am able to strengthen her heart that much, still the lingering doubt inside of me never disappears. Some things seem a bit too good to be true.
As I was just busy contemplating my life, her whole body began to violently convulse and her heart began to beat increasingly fast. I could not even fathom what had currently happened as her whole body was currently threatening to shut down any second now. My mind was currently going haywire thinking about all the options I had left to treat her.
Can I slow her heartbeat if I inject the same poison that I used for her eyes? Could I help her if I douse her brain directly with the slime in order to combat the current symptoms? A cardiac arrest is something I want to avoid at all costs. She will just respawn, while I have to suffer the ire of her God if he does exist. A trade like that does not seem worth to me.
The heart paid no heed to my inner struggle and continued to beat madly. Judging from an outside perspective it felt like her heart was about to explode. In the meantime the convulsions had not stopped either, they got increasingly stronger over time.
After checking her forehead, I noticed that the temperature inside of her started to resemble the temperature I feel on my head. Great is there any symptom I might have missed, that indicates that everything is going downhill? Maybe her teeth start clicking or she starts to spit out blood?
Not even 10 seconds later she started to spit out blood. Which totally caught me by surprise, as I did not foresee something like that, especially after what happened previously. Who could have seen something like that coming? There were absolutely no signs.
I bet that I will not be teleported back to my old world in the next seconds. Unsurprisingly it did not happen. Seems like I used up all my luck up on predicting the previous results.
All I could do was stare helplessly at her. I do not have the knowledge or the tools to stop it. The only thing I could do is to directly inject the slime into her brain, but that is just the last resort if her body continues to fail horribly.
Staring at her frail body, I was left unsure what the future may bring. Her shallow breath and her whole presence were feeling more and more like a leaf in the wind. Her pained expression was underlining the amount of stress, that her body was currently facing. The war raging inside of her body was looking a bit onesided as her whole presence was visibly suffering under it.
I felt oddly calm considering that everything was currently going downhill, normally I should have panicked and worried about the outcome of the situation, but I am not worried now that I can not influence it at all. Quite particular that I showing more concern about the results of my experiments, than the potential vengeance of a god.
I think the reason is quite simple, it is because I know that the substance works and that it exists. But what do I know about the Gods? So far I have seen none, felt none and even sensed one. All I know is that those people claim it exists and that they gained their power after worshipping their specific god. It might as well just be a figment, those people use to explain the inexplicable nature of magic.
The Roman or Greek mythology all based on this approach to explain the world, because they lacked the knowledge to explain it fundamentally, that is why the idea of an all mighty entity giving them their power does not seem too far off. Of course, I do have to admit, that despite the idea of those Gods ruling their lives, many people did not stop thinking about the origin of this world. That is why we have names like " atom" that are still relevant today.
If the people got wind of my opinion on their religion, a lynch mob would be my smallest problem. Heresy and zealots is a combination that does not mix too well. Their strong belief is something that should be treated with care. In their eyes, the individual is only as worthy as strong as he or she is. They would pay a lot of attention to someone like Laura here. On the future battlefields, she will be a real cause of concern for any kind of enemy that encounters her.
In comparison, I do not care about her, without the protection of her "god" I would have cut her open the minute I could lay my hands on her. While I try to minimize the pain that she has to face, because I find it unnecessary to cause such horrendous pain out of jealousy or spite, I do not care that she currently suffers from them.
This is an exchange I deliver the strength she seeks and she provides me with her body to conduct experiments on. There are no hard feelings involved and even if she were to die she still would respawn again. So why should I bother about the fact that she feels pain temporarily? In the end, she will downplay it and state that it is just a game either way. In her eyes, I am currently nothing more than an NPC or a player acting like the bad guy. This is prone to change, especially if she notices the change that occurs in her body. Whether the result is good or bad, my reputation and her outlook on me will definitely change.
This whole process was not fair and just to begin with. There was no aspect of choice on her side, so I am not going to bother and try to morally justify my act. I had valid reasons for choosing this kind of experiment and I am not feeling remorseful just because I inflicted some temporary pain on her.
I wonder if I start to sound like those proclaimed heroes and main characters. Self-centred idiots who claim to be on the right side of history, while being horrible persons judging by today's standards. Some might say that the world they are in is an unforgiving place where you need to be an asshole to be successful but there you have it.
Just because the world itself requires you to be an asshole does not deter from the fact that you act like one. That in itself is not shameful, but taking the moral high ground and claiming all his acts to be just in nature does not feel right to me.
As I passed my time thinking, nothing had changed for the better and by now it felt like she was knocking on death's door. Seems like I will have to intervene and inject the slime directly into her brain. I have no clue what might happen or what could go wrong, but it seems like the only feasible option left that I still can do.
Without wasting any more time I ripped out a new hair and embedded it into my body to cover the tip with slime. After pulling it out I began to aim at a random spot in her brain and began to push it downwards.
But instead of feeling the hair going through her skin, I felt nothing at all. I just heard the hair hitting the ground. From all the possibilities that were one outcome, I had not seen coming. Why has she suddenly disappeared? Did she just die and respawn in a village? Or did she just log out? Or was she forcefully logged out?
Regardless out of sight out of mind. After she logged out, I was freed from my responsibility for her wellbeing. After a quick search, I was able to find the two gloves that I had thrown away during the prior fight.
The first thing I did, was getting away from this place as soon and as fast as possible. The possibility of angry lynch mob was still at an all-time high and one encounter was enough for the time being.
As I was covering more and more ground I started to think about the results of my test.
It can not be denied that the slime is quite detrimental for the health of my test subject. Though I wonder what the reason for the delay in the response of her body was. Did I go too deep with the hair and put some of the substance into the bloodstream?
I have no clue what would happen if it came into contact with it. But it will be easy to test this If I am not constrained by pesky gods. But even after finding several answers more questions emerged. Why are they so similar to the human physiology but my human part seems to be the counterpart to magic? If magic can be copied by others by mimicking their bearing, does that mean that magic is just a result of the state of the mind? What interaction does magic have with my wonderous slime?
The answers to these questions would take a lot of research and a lot more test subjects to be solved. The future seems to become more and more interesting.
As I was running away I did not know what chain of events, I would have started by conducting these experiments.
End of Volume 1
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CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Fearmongering
Fearmongering This marks the end of my first volume.
My aim was to introduce several key characters for the story and set the general tone of this story as early as possible. I am quite happy the way it turned out, but I am quite sure that I will have to revisit some earlier chapters and hone them a bit.
If you have any questions or feedback feel free to mention them.
WIth best regards.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
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