Slowly we walked through the room towards the throne. We all spun our heads looking at each statue, as all of them seemed so defined and detailed. I think I know why now, where the fortune of this man went.
By the time we took our first step we had bypassed 16 statues. By the sixth one I had already stopped looking as they had the same shit eating grin plastered across each and every one of them. It makes me kinda want to destroy them and the fact that they all give off a vibe of condescendence doesn't help their case.
When we reached the throne with the skeleton two paths split from the chair. One to the left and one to the right both guided with the same red carpet.
The skeleton that sat on the throne was adored with a small crown of silver along with a robe that was lined with a silver embellishing. The decoration was just of a vine that extended to from the center to the arms and circling the bottom of the robe.
At least that's probably what it looked like. The robe seemed quite worn down and a number of holes were seen around the linen.
Chen Huang casually went in front of the throne and kneeled down to inspect the body.
'How much could you possible get from this guy? He's just a skeleton and probably wouldn't be able to leave behind any kind of remnant soul if he wanted too. Maybe it's just protagonist things.'
After a few moments of silence he still didn't move, studying the body.
"I'm going to explore this pathway." Qiao An said breaking the silence and turning toward the pathway on her left.
"Ah! Wait for me, my lady!" The remaining Spirited Sun disciple quickly followed along with her.
"I guess I'll go this way then. See you in a bit Chen Huang." I pointed in the general direction of the right path while saying a short goodbye to Chen Huang.
"I'll come too!" Yao Ya said before she leaned the rest of her body on my arm.
The path wasn't long and soon the insides of the room revealed itself to me. It was like a little section of the forest above. The area was quite large which it used fully by incorporating the forest. The room was split into three little sections: the forested area, a plains section, and finally a pond.
"*Gasp* Look at those flowers over there! Aren't they pretty?" She spoke excitedly as she looked towards a few different sections. Each mini biome had different flowers placed within them.
'Heh cute, look at her reaction.'
She released my arm as she went over to a set of flowers with the plains. As I was walking over towards her something else caught my eye.
A small purple blob of slime which wiggled around on the ground. It probably only had a diameter of 20 centimeters and a height of 10 centimeters. It reminded me of a few things and without even thinking about it I reached my hand out towards it. When my hand came within 10 centimeters of it, I saw as it began to jiggle and shift it's body at my hand.
Crouching down I began touching the purple slime a bit and pat it's... head? Changing it up I began to rub it a little. It hasn't tried to attack me yet so I don't think it minds what I'm doing. Finally I rest my hand atop it, nothing happens for a second before suddenly yet slowly it begins to engulf my hand. It starts clinging to it and spreading itself over my hand.
Raising my hand the purple slime stretches' itself up with me. Looking pass my hand I see another smaller slime in a green variation.
'It has friends! How do they interact with each other?'
Lowering my hand and bringing the other over as well I scoop up the purple slime in my hands and take a couple steps over to the green slime. Placing it down it released it's grasp on my hand and fingers, instead beginning to move over to the green slime.
The green one is around half of the purple one's size. The green one just stays still for a moment until it seems to notice the purple one and starts to move away. They seems to be having some kind of little chase as they move in sliding motions. They weren't particularly fast though, in fact they were pretty slow at about a meter every 5 seconds.
After 10 seconds another slime appears nearby and seems to sense these two as it makes it's way over. When the two take notice of their new friend they both flee away from the blue one, yet it seems the purple one is still trying to get the green one .
"Hey, come over here! I want to show you something!" The distance voice of Yao Ya interrupts my time with the little slimes.
Walking over to a section where the plains changed to forest Yao Ya huddle near something. As I reached her side as she held two different kinds of flower, one in each hand.
"Ah! You're here, help me pick which flower I should wear? This one? Or this one?" Standing back up she held two contrasting flowers. One of them had a light red hue as it seemed to be in the late stages of budding. The other had a vibrant yellow color and it's shape was different as it was already fully bloomed.
Frankly neither would really look good with the outfit we're wearing. But either one would definitely look good on her no matter what.
'I should probably just pick one. The red one looks nice and it would probably fit in her hair so that one it is!'
"How about this one?" Stepping forward I take the red flower out of her hand before trying to insert it into her hair. It took me a second, but I neatly placed it atop her left ear under her hair.
Adjusting my view to her face there was a warm smile and eyes that focused entirely on my own.
"How do I look?" Soft words were spoken from her as she gradually began to lean herself on me.
"Beautiful." I think I've gotten a little used to this now.
"Hehe of course! So what have you been doing over there?" She glanced at where I was earlier.
"Oh! Let me show you something! I found some living slimes! They're so cute!" I grabbed her hand and for once I was the one dragging her somewhere.
Soon we reached upon where the little slimes were playing tag or something. They were nowhere to be found though, at least not the green and blue slime. The purple slime was still here yet it grew by more than double, so was it really the same purple slime?
Crouching down I reached for the slime with one of my hands.
"Be careful."
"Don't worry I did this earlier and nothing happened."
As my hand touched the top of the slime the same thing from before happened. Parts of the slime partially wrapped around my hand and a ticklish feeling arouse from it. And just like before as well as I was patting the slime in the distance another slime could be seen.
It was a yellow colored one which didn't seem to be moving much.
'Ah I could show her what them playing together looks like.'
"Here watch this!" I began picking up the slime and surprisingly it didn't seem to seep through the cracks of my grasp nor was it heavy in weight. I gently lifted it up from below and walked over to the yellow slime. It was around the size of what the purple slime had been originally.
As gently as I lifted it up I placed it down just a little bit away from the yellow and stood back with Yao Ya. Not long after the purple slime moved toward the yellow with a speed definitely faster then it had previously. The yellow slime didn't have much of a chance and after only 5 seconds it had caught up to it.
But soon my eyes widened as the slime did something unexpected to me. Well in hindsight I suppose it makes sense, after all those previous slimes couldn't of possibly just disappeared and the purple magically gain size.
The purple slime began to engulf a part of the yellow slime, covering the part with itself. Slowly the parts it covered increased steadily, all the while the yellow slime struggled to flutily escape it's encroaching assimilation.
"So this is what you wanted to show me? Wow, I didn't know there was this side to you." Yao Ya spoke in a teasing voice clearly already noticing the shock that crossed my face.
"N-No I-I didn't know that this was what it did to others. I'm sorry you had to see this." I spoke thinking she might look down on me for showing her this.
"So, this is cute to you? Then how about this?" As she finished she pushed me down onto the grass and got on top of me. Her hands just above my shoulders as her previous warm smile was replaced by a mischievous one.
Suddenly, the purple slime appeared near my right hand and it proceeded to partially wrap itself around my hand again.
"Aww, it came back for you! Come on get up it was just a joke, ok?" She got up and stood looking at me as the slime wiggled itself in my hand. I just sat laid there for a moment before sitting up right and began petting the slime with my other hand. It had gotten bigger once again from absorbing the yellow slime.