Joy Ride

The blob fish, It gained prominence in the public eye for being an utterly hideous creature not too long ago.

This fish normally lives at high depths under immense pressure, when the pressure it was made for, the pressure it lived it's whole life under suddently radically changes it morphs into something unrecognizable.

Humans too under immensely stressful situations react radically and unpredictably different, so did I apparently, Now that I had a few breaths to gather my thoughts the weight of the bizarre situation i was in finally settled in.

My relatively peaceful and mundane life got upturned by an unpredictable event that came out of nowhere, it's crazy to think how fast things can go from normal to disaster.

Yet more surprising of all was my euphorically joyfull frenzy, i accepted that i was gonna die once my brain deluded itself into believing in the insane possibility that some higher being was calling me through trucks of all things.

With death being certain a pressure was lifted off my chest, i was free, all the plans, all the worries all the dreams, i no longer had to worry about them, it felt liberating, I felt alive,I felt unshackled, I no longer had to worry about any consequences as I was about to die anyway, it was fun, that pressure brought fourth something within me i never knew i had.

Pressure can truly change your life be it for better or worse, and currently a whole different type of pressure was roughlessly doing the latter, I could feel myself getting lethargic as my vision blurred slightly from the dizziness that altitude sickness was most likely causing.

These symptoms first appeared around the time Jiggly air dropped in and it slowly got worse ever since, and to make my conundrum worse the fire was slowly dying out after just a few minutes.

The fire didn't burn hot enough to eat through the branch, It only consumed the bark and fabric strands, I improvised by burning the pieces of intact cloth i still had, but not before putting a small hole on the top of the igloo for the smoke to escape, after all I'm not into that kind of asphyxiation.

I used my time before realizing the worsening symptoms of my altitude sickness to comb through every question mark the system would allow me to click, meanwhile slowly petting jiggly who was asleep on my lap.

During the course of the last 5 minutes or so, it had slowly inched closer to the fire, and when the fire didn't give it enough warmth it slowly inched towards me, a nice and convenient 36° celsius ultra sized pocket warmer.

Not that i minded, this lil guy was still so cute despite having such a simple appearance, i discovered it had a circular slightly iredescent object in the center of it's body, most likely a core of sorts, that is pretty common in these types of settings.

The slime also seemed to be made of two gelatinous layers, the one closer to the center was thicker and more opaque, I also noticed that jiggly boy can only move that specific part of his body, the outer layer is simply clinging onto the inner one and is more translucent and viscous.

Well anyway I'm digressing, I found out that this pesky god of war system seems to be a sort of 1 milion strong person country building battle royale, would be a pretty fun pre-Hell event if i didn't get fucked over so badly.

Turns out FFF is the lowest talent rank you can get and it's a special extra crappy version of F, SSS is the exact opposite ... it will be a humourous day if i ever meet someone with a talent rank between S and SSS.

[<New subordinate acquired, Infant baby slime (lvl 0) x1>]

That checks out, the stingy system didn't tell me how to get subordinates even tho it's the most straight forward solution one can think of, earn their trust.

From context clues and what not I've been able to piece together that the skills from your title apply to your subordinates and you're also able to level them up and spec them to your chosing.

Unfortunately the system is a stingy bastard and only allows me to have direct subordinates that are exclusively slime class, i can still get other kinds of subordinates and see their stats and level but the system won't allow me to spec them and they also do not level up from killing monsters unless they gain actual real life non system experience during the battle.

The system didn't tell me this explicitly but yet again piecing together context clues from every single Answer prompt I think I should be able to evolve the slimes into different variants or something.

Well might as well take a looksy at what we're dealing with.

[<Status Infant Slime>]

I thought about opening the stats menu while looking at Jiggly boy, the untamed part of it's system name seems to have been removed.

______________________________

<Status>

Name: N/A

Race: Plevian blue slime

HP: 0.1/10

Rank: Copper

Level 0: 0/100xp

Talent: D

Skills: {Corrode}

<Skill points>

Health: 1

Agility: 1

Damage: 0

Physique: 1

Intelligence: 1

Mana: 0

Stamina: 2

__[< Further info restricted >}__

I read every new Answer prompt this window opened to me and learned that it's basically your basic run of the mill system stuff, tho what may slightly differ is that apparently subordinates can obtain skill points if they train in something.

Let's say you train your muscles for a while, then Damage can go up by 1, evolution also increases stat points but with every level up you get to choose what you wish to aid your subordinates in and when they evolve whatever build you pointed them towards with your skill picks will be their evolution path.

Well enough exposition dumps, my brain hurts just having to think this much and the dizziness does not help.

'There's no denying it at this point'

I said as i stood up, the symptoms did not go away, what at first I hoped to be just a physical reaction from overwhelming stress was now causing me a great deal of mental confusion, my breathing was eradic and my heart was beating so fast i thought it would burst out of my chest.

I struggled to pick up jiggly boy, my peripheral vision had all but dissapeared and my hand-eye cordination was abysmal, it took me a while to groggily move through the confusion and pick up the slime.

I knew what i wanted my arms to do but somewhere between my brain and the arms the meaning seamed to be lost as they struggled to remember how to do the most basic of movements.

"Sigh"

I watched the pathetic fire that barely managed to return any feeling into my fingers die out, I didn't have many courses of action left at my disposal, it would seem that this transmigration was about to come to a close.

The wind and harsh temperature roughlessly attacked, making thousands of needles inserted into your skin seem like child play, my skin resembled that of a chicken as my hairs were standing up.

I didn't know for sure if altitude sickness was deadly, but given that every person trying to climb everest has to climb up, stay there for a while, then retreat to lower altitudes to recover probably means there are at best some permanent effect they are avoiding and at worst lethal consequences, I had no intention of finding out.

I had to get to lower altitudes and I had to do it fast, It was my only option really since i couldn't start another fire before likely loosing consciousness, not that i had materials for one anyways, I also had to find a source of warmth as soon as possible before ice crystals develop inside the cells of my fingers because by then frost bite would have done permanent damage.

'Welp, this world was fun.'

That strange feeling of relief washed over me again, my death was all but guaranteed, again, the only plans i had that even had a chance of survival were all a long shot, but might as well try.

I grabbed a piece of the wet cloth that I left outside as it wasn't usable for the fire, It was roughly a 20×30cm rectangle, I then stumbled forward, my feet barely cooperating with me, But that was ok i didn't need them, i just needed them to provide enough momentum so that i could do this.

"plop"

"swishhhhhh"

I left my feet slip forward and placed the frozen rag under my bare ass cheeks, even tho voluminous, they did not make for the best sliding material, nor did I know if sliding on snow butt naked could cause any sort of friction burns and i didn't want to find out.

I could feel the cloth furiously vibrating underneath, If I was a middle aged mom and this was a washing machine i wouldn't mind, but these vibrations were causing me to almost slip off of the improvised sled.

I quickly placed the slime between my legs and stomach, no worries, I won't be placed on any lists for smearing my genitalia on an infant, I still left the bare minimum cloth needed for my privates to be covered before I ripped the rest off, sure I could have used it to prolongue the fire but that would have only caused me to die slightly later and significantly less dignifiedly.

"Wooooooo"

The rush of joy was the same as when i was a child sliding on a normal snowy hill, it just so happened that the circumstances were just a tad bit more dire, no matter, my joyous scream served two purposes, remind me that i become utterly insane during times of grave pressure and secondly, it waked me the fuck up since my eyelids were groggy and worryingly close to shutting for good.

I used my ankles to steer the improvised sled down a path i have noticed earlier while building the igloo and checked it again before my leap of faith.

What was my plan you may ask? I had no clue! I just wanted to get to lower altitudes and not pass out due to altitude sickness, that would have guaranteed me a slow frosty death, becoming the human equivalent of a Ben & Jerrys ice cream did not sound too appetizing to me.

But once i got to lower altitude what was I gonna do to get warm? it was practically impossible to get low enough to reach warmer temperatures in time, at first I was hoping to find some vegetation hidden away in some crevices and start another fire but by the time i got to a more stable altitude my hands would have most likely been number than your mother after one of your COD matches as observed by your teammates.

Honestly i had a few ideas but those were impossible to execute so essentially I'm just hoping the entity that got me here would not let my torture end so easily and throw me a bone or two.

I just wooshed past the previously visually confirmed safe areas, due to the obstruction of some cliffs and my viewing angle i could not see past this point, the path seemed safe for at least a while more but if an obstruction came up i have no faith in my inhibited reaction time and uncoordinated limbs to doge it.

And sure enough, I noticed the path narrowing, flanked on both sides by cliffs and up ahead i saw... other rocks? wait no, those are mountains and they're far far away ... which means that the path ....

"Swoosh"

By the time i implanted my ankles into the snow it was too late, I flew straight off the edge i failed to notice earlier, luckily the drop was only 5 meters or so, as such i impacted the snow with a thud, the soft layer from above somewhat broke my fall, tho the impact still sent a shockwave through my entire body and rattled my brain a bit.

Unluckily the reason i saw mountains beyond the edge and not the continuation of the path was because-

"THAT'S TOO FAST!!!"

The slope was significantly more inclined, before it was at about 60°, where as now it was at a solid 75° if I try to stop the sled now, the steepness will just send me tumbling forward anyway.

Now my future is truly in the hands of fate