Having gone through a series of Q & A with my newfound slime savior, I had an abrupt crash course on what it was doing in my head though still not 100% okay with the idea of it being in my head. I couldn’t really undo what had been done.

Slime savior had briefly explained the process as well as to why I got shocked which was actually my fault to begin with as I supercharged the ball with electricity which when nearer to the main body had shocked me due to my close proximity to the ball. Then the slime got scared I was dying so initiated symbiotic attachment as it thought that was why I even opened it. So the damage was done.

‘A little unexpected for myself to be gifted by the slime gods with such a caring slime’ Though I still thought it could all be a giant ruse to gain my trust before takeover but I temporarily quelled my paranoia as I couldn’t do much else.

“So slime how are we going to evolve as you say?” I asked with a little excitement in my eyes as evolution sounds fucking pragmatic considering my life has been boring as an empty desert.

“We’ll gather materials of course! Though you should begin with showing me to what your planet has available as resources we could potentially use while I try and get a better understanding of your body.” The voice was still a hard debate between male and female in my head as it was too soft and comforting to distinguish.

Nonetheless, I jump over to my laptop before the questions of how the hell would it see pops into my mind. Does it see through my eyes? Creepy. Does this mean I no longer have privacy? Shit!

“Hey, out of curiosity how will you see what I show you on my laptop anyways?” I ask with some reluctance to its potential answers.

“It’s quite simple. I will simply send one of my optical receivers out onto your face so that I can view what you see. We don’t need to try direct access just yet as I believe you haven’t grown enough to handle the experience based off what I gathered from accessing your language center.” It said a little dispiritedly.

‘Feels like you think I am useless when you say it in such a way! Hmpf. But that’s better than you invading my eyes I guess.’ A sigh of relief silently escapes me.

“Oh yeah, are you a male or female slime and do you have a name?” Considering my impending doom has been neutralized or at least stalled I figure I should get to know the slime living in me a bit better as weird as that sounds.

“Slime infants do not have sexes and when we evolve later on we can choose whether to be male or female. I also do have a name but it is unfortunately untranslatable as it is in my language which also doesn’t use sound…” It seemed a little sad at that fact. Don’t really know why though.

The weird feelings I catch from its speech make me realize I can kind of understand how it feels towards certain things. Probably due to our connection more so than anything else.

I don’t really plan on having a depressed slime in my head so we should probably fix that. “In that case, why don’t you try and find a word in English that you really like and we could consider it your name between us at least?” I gave a tentative solution to try and cheer it up a little.

“Oh that might be nice.” It worked!

‘Ha! Genius Jupiter can even alleviate slime depression!’ I smugly grin at my great achievement at improving potential slime overlords mood and my standing with it.

The slime seems to ponder a name while I start typing in different keywords into my laptop such as resources, minerals, plants, chemicals and animals. I really didn’t know what to look for so I figure as long as it isn’t human it could be a resource.

A couple hundred Wikipedia tabs later, the slime finally blurts out “Phoenix!”

“Huh? Phoenix?” I stumble at the sudden declaration of a mythical creature.

“Yes. I will be called Phoenix!” A slightly higher octave came from its voice than I was used to.

“Oh? Why did you choose that name?”

“Because! I read over the meaning you had of phoenix and it said it was a legendary creature that can be reborn from its ashes and is immortal. What a great being!”

‘Well that explains that. What a lofty slime I have.’ I smile at its explanation but nonetheless it was a great name.

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“Well, Phoenix that is a great name indeed!”

Noticing I had already switched my calling of it from slime to Phoenix. It seemed to wriggle a little in my head which made it seem happy? I am still unclear as to its emotions but could vaguely get the sense of its state from its little action.

With a smile I continue searching different things that have been known to be beneficial in humans and after an hour or so with Phoenix looking over what I had found. I had discovered a very depressing fact.

“Phoenix, it can’t all be like that. Are you certain of this?”

“Yes, I am mostly certain from what you have shown me so far.”

I was upset within two hours of my great new situation of evolving…

It turns out that the materials on Earth and the planet itself has been condemned by Phoenix. Its own words were something along the lines of useless materials, useless natural environment, useless energies and I think Phoenix even condemned the solar system a subtle bit.

All in all. Earth was fucking useless due its lack of certain qualitative properties which mainly equaled to extremely slow evolution and even though evolution is possible it was dauntingly slow apparently compared to Phoenixes’ standards.

I was eating leftover pizza on the couch while dejectedly chewing as I thought ‘Was Earth really that useless on a galactic level? I mean did we have such huge egos that we always considered if aliens were to invade they would claim and use our resources but from Phoenixes’ description, we would just be turned into a slave colony of manual laborers and shitty ones at that.

“Ah the woes of a rank 1 civilization…” I smile bitterly.

Another new found fact, my beautiful little blue planet hosted a rather young rank 1 civilization with technology as its only becoming trait that allowed us to squeeze into the category of rank 1.

The explanation was something like:

Rank 1- 1000 to 3000 years of society with one advanced field of civilization.

Rank 2- 3000 to 6000 years with 3 or more planets

Rank 3 – 6000 to 9000 years with 30 or more planets with advanced space travel.

Rank 4 – 50’000 to 100’000 years with 1000+ solar systems…

Yeah, the qualitative leap in a rank 4 civilization was amazing and rank 3 to rank 4 was practically as long and difficult as climbing to heaven, defeating its inhabitants and taking rulership of its domain!

I felt a twitch on my forehead after a few bites into my pizza only to notice waving in front of my eyes was a long thin green tentacle waving back and forth like a pendulum.

“What are you doing Phoenix?” My tone was still depressing.

“Oh, I was testing how far I can stretch my optical receptor.” Still waving it back and forth.

If I hadn’t known better, I would of guessed it was trying to hypnotize me. ‘Ha, hypno-slime.’

I giggle. It was the only funny thing I saw all day and it did make me feel a little better even though it may not have been phoenixes’ plan.

I wanted to go for a walk honestly, being stuffed in my apartment while hearing I may not be able to evolve that much was very depressing when you had just the slime for the job attached to you.

“Phoenix, could you put away the tentacle? I want to go for a walk to clear my head and I wouldn’t be so well received with a green member sticking out of my forehead.”

“Sure thing Jupiter. Where we going?”

“The park, I just want some fresh air.” I replied as I watch the membrane sticking out slowly retract into my forehead which still gives me the weirdest sensation but not uncomfortable. Guess it’s just another thing I should get used to.

I notice while I look in the mirror that Phoenix kept its so called “ optical receiver” out on my forehead but it just look like a little tiny pimple in between my brows which was a funny realization actually. ‘I have mastered the mystical art of slime third eye! haha.’ My shit sense of humor was still alive and kicking it seems.

Can’t always be too depressed and I never was one to let my circumstances affect me too much so with some energy I walk out of my little home and head for the park. Which luckily, I lived closed to. I dreaded long walks.

I walk slowly across the park with my head facing the blue sky, the gentle breeze on my face with some kids playing on the side of the park. I was never one for going out much but a walk like this on such a nice day is pretty refreshing. I walk up to one of the only willow trees in the park which was secluded off to the side. I sat down near its trunk and its shade. Just laying my head back onto it while contemplating what to do.

Phoenix was watching everything and taking the sites in but eventually popped a tentacle out the back of my neck which I noticed but didn’t bother too much with as we were pretty off to the side.

Phoenix was in its own world of sorts as it was examining the tree Jupiter laid on for a while seemingly very interested in it.

‘I could always evolve at a slow pace and gain something like evolved intelligence I guess? Maybe use it to promote Earth into a rank 2 civilization a little earlier? Though that sounds so disappointing… I have with me immortal phoenix slime yet I can amount to a slightly more impressive human which also would disappoint phoenix as the whole independent thing would take it ages.’

“Jupiter! Jupiter!” Phoenix cried out.

I look over only to realize that Phoenix is inside me before I ask what it seemed excited about.

“I found something really great about this tree!”

“Oh and what might that be?” Getting a little curious at what could make such a high level slime interested.

“It has growth strengthening properties! If we absorb this material we could increase our growth rate by a good 0.29%! This is by far one of the best things I have seen on this useless planet especially considering growth rate is really difficult to enhance without proper materials!”

Those last words stung a little as this place was still my home but I understood what the former words signified.

“How do we absorb the tree?” ‘It’s fucking huge Phoenix… were tiny compared to it and you even more so!’ I thought as the willow was quite old and close to 6 meters in height alone.

All I got back though was.

“Simple, you shouldn’t underestimate my species!” Tone indicating something resembling smugness?

‘Guess it really does have an ego’ I mused.