Training as a Slime (31)

"This was not what I was expecting!" Cori shrieked as he free fall onto the stork, subsequently eliminating a few of his probable schoolmates. He had never killed any animals in his life nor any fellow beings and now all he could think was, "Oh my god, I killed so many slimes. I'm a murderer! I can't go to school with people hating me." But on the other hand, when he saw how it was like in the museum, he had an inkling that this world operated on a different set of rule. At least that was what he hoped. He tried to rationalise that whatever had happened was not any fault of his. 

As luck would have it, due to the gigantic size of the comatose stork, no one was paying attention to him. So Cori was able to stealthily distanced himself from the growing number of angry baby slimes. He bounced to the edge of the cliff and readied himself to jump onto the floating lotus pads. But before he could make the jump, a tree branch almost whacked him into the chasm.

Cori found this scenario very familiar. The attack patterns were almost identical to the one in the simulation, just without the leaves. With some [Qing Gong] he managed to land on the first floating lily pad. "This is so annoying." Cori squeaked as he kept jumping to avoid been hit by the tree. "Hmm, why was the distance from one lily pad to another almost the same as the length of the corridor?" Cori muttered, recalling the familiar sensation. He felt he was in some video game using some cheat combo- dodging left, left, up, up, up, right, left again and another right, then activate [Qing Gong], rinse and repeat. If Melon Musk appeared before him and said this world was a simulation, he would believe him in a heartbeat.

As he landed on the second last lily pad, he realised a problem. The last lily pad was floating from left to right, right to left at an erratic speed. If he missed his footing, he might fall to his death. Cori focused on the moving lily pad while dodging the whips, trying his best to not have any missteps. "Now!" he squeaked and used [Qing Gong] confidently. But like a guy who seldom play games, he did not expect the lily pad to dodge him instead. In a panic, he did an air-bounce using [Qing Gong] and succeeded in landing on the other side of the cliff. "That was close!" Cori mumbled in cold sweat. He turned around and looked at the other slimes behind him. Several of them had already fallen into the deep abyss but most of them had successfully cleared the obstacle course.

Thankful that he was lucky enough to overcome the test, he finally made it into the monster training school. "Ding! Slightly Golden Baby Slime has successfully levelled up to Slightly Golden Slime Level 1!" A faint glow surrounded him, like the numerous baby slimes who entered the training school's compound. They were no longer babies and were now considered full fledge slimes! Several slimes grew larger in size signifying the end of babyhood. 

The school system announced to each of them echoing throughout the whole area,"Speech restrictions lifted. User able to progress the world with different language settings. Baby language uninstalled." Cori felt stifled, the language barrier which had caused so much issue was easily overcome by a system update. What about his effort in trying to speak? He felt he should be compensated for all those troubles and efforts. Cori felt a sense of bond and camaraderie as he observed slimes around him breathing sighs of relief with some shouting that they made it, and some singing to confirm they were no longer speaking gibberish.

Cori felt someone was looking at him intently, but he shrugged off the feeling thinking he was just paranoid. "Wow we have a golden slime..." some groups of slimes whispered amongst themselves. "Is he royalty?" some wondered. Another group was admiring his backpack, "Isn't that brand super expensive?" Cori felt nonchalant because he saw slimes of different colours and patterns and was such that there was probably another similar slime like him. And since his colour was blue initially, which was the most common colour, he was certain some slimes obtained their colours or patterns through some fruitful encounter too. Thus he was unbothered by it. However, he did not know his backpack was branded.

"Welcome Juniors! Please follow your Seniors! Follow our flags! Nya!" An orange cat standing on her hind legs in school uniform shouted. There were a couple of minotaurs amongst the seniors and even some dragonoids. The swarm of slimes gathered around them.

"Please follow us to test your aptitude! Form a line behind us!" A white tiger in a school uniform roared. It was an orderly chaos, thought Cori who randomly followed the crowd. "What is that!?" some slimes discussed amongst themselves. "Isn't that Queen Slime?" some commented. Cori looked at where they were looking, sure enough he saw a sparkling pink slime as big as the school. He could not see the face because she was hiding behind the school building, just the sides and her small golden bejewelled crown. Cori felt stares from the crowd... "No, it's not me. I'm not from the royal family!" He could use his skill to identify who was from the royal family but it would be too inefficient to use on such a large crowd.

The Queen Slime eventually left as quietly as she came. Everyone had a scare, because protocols usually had to be followed whenever royalties visited. But it seemed that it was unannounced and impromptu. Even more intriguing was the fact that she visited without any bodyguards. A few slimes theorised that it could be a prank or an illusion. Others guessed that a prince or princess or some nobles were amongst the crowd. "It's really not me." thought to himself as a group of slimes stared hard at him, and a few slimes giggled in his presence.