I finished it! And in only a day! The magical nervous-like system is spread throughout my mass. I made multiple points throughout my body, connected together with non-physical connections. Meaning nothing would get tied or knotted up in my body. I also tried to connect or make clusters depending on where the nerves will go. The nerves sit on the membrane where the limb would grow out of.
So when I form my human upper half the nerves fall into their places. Plenty in the hands, and on my lips, moderate amount throughout the rest of the body. Except for my flat chest, which I might have been generous with the nerve density. I had formed the rest of my human lower half, observing the nerve placement. A good amount of nerves on the feet, plenty on my legs, but the density increased when it got to my groin and inner thighs.
I knew why I actually did all this, but I can play it off right? Just say “I wanted to feel like a human does”. I hope grandpa doesn’t notice. Or if he does, he wont notice the idea of erogenous zones. Nah, if he could see the magic in my eyes, he’ll see the density of nerves in the naughty areas. Ill deal with that when the time comes I guess.
The entire time I was forming the nervous system, I had the mana cage going at about one third of its capacity. It didn’t feel like it got in the way, and the extra mana helped with the enchanting of the sensory nodes. But for what comes next, I decide to turn it off.
Once the mana stops flowing into me from the cage, I push a little mana into the invisible sensory networks root, located near the top of my core. With that I began to feel things. I could tell that the lab was surprisingly cool, and the ground was uncomfortable because all the cracks and crevices. I channel a bit more mana into th network, and feel the ground with my hands. I could feel just about every observable and unobservable crack there was. It was odd, to say the least. Now I wanted to pet a cat or a dog. Imagine the heaven of feeling the fluff so intently.
I made it to where I could turn off different sensory nodes in groups. I could turn on or off tactile sensation inputs, temperature inputs, or pleasure inputs. It worked as an all or nothing system and I’m sure my erogenous inputs will be turned off almost all the time.
Satisfied with this for now I morph my lower body back into it blob like mass, and head up stairs. Even though my mass moved as a way of moving me, my nerves stayed in the same place. Odd, I thought they would be embedded into my membrane. Except they almost seem to be…
I get up the stairs and realize that enchants are shaped magic meaning my magical nervous system is located on the magi-plane, but like magi-sight, it takes in input of the physical world. The information is sent to the root and transfered to my core. That’s actually kind of awesome. And so far, without using the cage, I don’t feel much of a drain on my magic.
I check out the kitchen window and see four dead goblins stacked by the garden. Gross. I quickly made my way outside, ate, and then retreated. The less amount of time I spend outside, the less of a chance there is for something stupid to happen. The goblins weren't pleasant. Where I had a scientific fascination with watching other things dissolve within myself, but the goblins where just nasty.
Oh maybe I can add taste buds! I look down at my hands. Taste buds I can turn off. I nod to myself and sit in the kitchen for a moment. I let my mind wonder as I look at the sky through the window.
It was then I remembered my mental note, or rather I almost made it again. I need to fix my eyes. My vision was still a little blurry. With a task at had, I get to work. I focus on my eyes, bringing my attention to my eyes lenses and cornea. These had to be the culprit. The cornea seemed to be fine, clear, and not the reason for my blurry vision, so I work on my lenses.
I played with the shape, and thickness until I had somewhat improved clarity of vision, but something still felt off. Maybe it’s because I was transparent? The back of my eyes had the frosted glass texture making them somewhat opaque, but maybe that wasn’t enough?
I slide my way to the kitchens hearth, and grab a piece of charcoal. I grind it down on the bricks inside of the hearth, and suck up the dust. I distribute it around my eyes, causing the sclera to go black, and while it was cool, it didn’t seem to do much.
I couldn't help myself though and used some of the charcoal powder and embedded it into my membrane, giving myself some permanent eye liner. Heck yea. But that doesn’t fix my eye sight. Maybe it’s the quality of the enchant? I decide to rev my core cage back up to one third of its capacity. Maybe ill call these stages something like gears. Like cars or something, first gear, second gear, and third gear. Yea, that’s kinda neat.
I could feel my temperature rise a bit at the activation of the cage. That’s actually cool, I can feel that now! With that I bring my focus to my eyes. Let me think, is there anything I need to focus on? Or just intent. Last time I was thinking about the hows without enchanting being known to me. So if I focus on my eyes, then I can do so with the intent to enchant the capturing of light, and relay that back to my core. And with the improved lenses, the results should be crystal clear! I think.
I slide my way back into the lab, and fill my dish with water. I leave the filled pan next to my dish as I crawl into it. Now that all the preparation is done, I rev my mana cage up to third gear, and once I get acclimated to it, I begin to refine the enchantment on my eyes.
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It was an interesting process since I could watch from my eyes as they where being worked on. Maybe in the future I could modify the lenses to have increased perception at greater distance, like a bird of prey’s eyes. They had incredible vision. And maybe I could replicate a cats eyes or something for night vision. Maybe it could be as simple as coating the inside of the eyes with a metal dust? I’ll find out at a later date. I do still have magi-sight, so maybe night vision was a little redundant.
Moment by moment, adjustment by adjustment, I had done it. My eyes could see with crystal clear quality. Finally! So I have sight, and touch. I don’t know how I hear things, but maybe I just don’t need to worry about that sense. I adjusted the mana coming in from the cage into my core, as I thought about my next step.
Grandpa did say I should work on my voice, and I am getting tired of acting out everything I’m trying to say. Hmm, vocal cords. Another thing I could enchant my body for? But I still want to be able to walk around like a person. It’s a blow to my ego that I still have to move around like a snail. Could I make bones? Maybe grandpa could forge up a metal frame? Or would I even need that?
I feel as if I had come to a fork in the road of progression. Do I keep being more of a slime, and keep the benefits, or do I adapt and pursue a more unique physiology? I mean, even with how thick my membrane is, my leg still ruptured from the weight of my mass. I look at my hands and ponder what to do.
I’m clearly going away from the path of being a normal slime, and truth be told, I’m not sure I make a good slime. There are probably a bunch of things I can do that just don’t come to mind. Like with my density, how far can I condense my slime? Since I’m sitting in my dish, mana forging at third gear, I decide to test that. I decide to do so in my stomach area, and condense a membrane like blob.
I push it a little further, making something with the consistency of thick rubber. Now I really had to strain as I pushed even further. If it wasn’t for the fact I could feel something happening, I wouldn’t think I would be able to go past this point.
My thoughts where interrupted as I realized I had no more water in my dish. I plop my arm over the edge and slurped the water into my membrane from the filled pan. How long was I at it? My core doesn’t feel much different. And then theres… a second core? No, no. It’s… crystallized slime? It took a lot of mass to make, and is a rough oblong sphere the size of what my core use to be. I cant tell if I can move the crystal, being a single object and all, but it feels like a part of me all the same. I mean, can a human get their bones to bend?
Wait, is this the solution I needed? But how durable is it? I stop my mana cage and hop out of the dish towards grandpa’s work bench. I find a nice little hammer, and pull the crystallized slime pearl out of me and put it on the ground. I start with simple little taps, and work my way up. I eventually get to swinging full blows with what my body allows me to do. I realized that the hammer bounced back the harder I hit it. That was odd. Eventually I put the hammer back.
I hold it in my hand and look it all over. No signs of damage anywhere on it. I raise my hand above my head with the crystal, and throw it to the ground as hard as I could manage. The result was a rock hard bouncy ball whizzing around the lab, breaking some glass vials, and containers. Luckily none of them had anything inside of them, but I got the feeling that I was going to be in trouble.
Maybe grandpa would understand, the pursuit of knowledge and all that! I could even give him the crystal! Surely that would save me from a scolding! He hasn’t been mad at me yet, and I plan to keep it that way. That being said, hiding these sort of things usually makes the resulting confrontation worse. I gather the glass inside my body, picking up each and every piece I could find, before pouring them out in a single place on a counter top. Thankfully my slime is able to recognize any foreign material really easily, and I was left without a single splinter or shard inside my slime.
I place the crystal on the counter top next to the glass and go to refill my dish with water. Back to mana forging. I can worry about the broken glass later.
After a bit a while, I felt something happening. I don’t know how long exactly I had been mana forging at third gear, but it felt like I was coming up to some sort of threshold. It got closer and closer, until it became harder to push mana into my core, then, everything went dark.
For the first time since becoming a slime, I lost consciousness. I only realized that’s what happened because I had regained it. My sight and nervous system I had just made weren’t working, so I looked for the sleeping enchants and powered them on, as well as used my omni-directional magi-sight. Nothing was different, at least I didn’t think so.
My sight and sense of feeling came back all the same. I realized I wasn’t in my semi-human shape, so I did something that gave me a slight case of vertigo. I moved my eyes into my mass and looked at my core through the cage. It was more clear, looking more like a refined gem rather than a rough and raw gemstone.
Does this happen instantaneously? I felt a snap, and that’s when I blacked out. I bring my eyes back to where they belong, and thats when I realized how silly I must look. Before my eyes would just float here in my circular form, but the charcoal eyeliner just reserved the spot where my eyes would sit. I get out of the dish, and realized there was a outer membrane that was the cause of me moving, so my eyes and “eye sockets” remained in the same place. Neat.
After I was done looking over something I should have honestly noticed sooner, I stretch into my semi-human state. Though it was a bit different than before. I look down at my hands and see that my fingers aren’t melding together. I form my lower half, and realized how tight my membrane was. No longer was everything melting together.
Immediately crawled on all fours to the counter. I lifted myself up using the counter top. My limbs still bent in an unsightly fashion, and I was able to stand for a second. Then I felt a rupture forming on my leg again. I drop down to my but and heard a crisp wet *smack* as I landed on my rear end. The resulting shock waves caused my body to ripple.
Then the intrusive thoughts came in. The rippling of my membrane in this shape was enough to capture my mind, and I couldn’t deny my curiosity any longer. I still have to celebrate the gaining of nerves right? Make sure it all works as intended? Could a slime even orgasm? I’m going to find out! For science! Totally for science!
I decide to crawl on all fours up the stairs, heading towards the bathroom. I remember seeing a large mirror there. With improved eyes, ill be able to enjoy- I mean study very closely. I felt a needy smile grow on my face. I make it to the bathroom and close the door, and lock it. Time to design the naughty bits. It’s a good thing I made extra nerves for such an occasion… he heheh…