"Bear with me, it might be slightly painful," Wyman warned and plunged his hand into Cori's gelatinous body and grabbed his core. Cori's body reacted and attempted to propel Wyman's hand out with great force.
Cori, in his vulnerable state, started to hear whispers and voices. "Finally! We got you!" a wicked voice cackled, laughing menacingly. Thousands of whispers echoed, "We got him! We got him!"
"Ignore the voices!" Wyman's voice came through calm and stern.
"Who are you?" Cori asked, his soul trembling and fluctuating in pain.
"We are Division."
"We are one."
"We are the fallen."
"War!" one of the voices yelled.
"There shall be no freedom."
"Cori! Focus! Come back to me!" Wyman yelled as he extracted a thorny black stone from Cori's insides.
The voices screamed in unison as sharp sudden pain coursed through Mei Mei, Shanson, and Sky. The golem Alice solemnly mumbled, "The inevitable eventually happened."
Coincidentally, the salamander tattoo dissipated.
"This troublesome core is attempting to disrupt your evolution," Wyman said with beads of perspiration on his baby face. "It's amazing how you have 3 cores in your body - a soul core, a god core, and this monstrosity!"
Exhausted, Wyman sat on the ground to recuperate. "You, have a chance at god-hood," he said with huffs between his breath. He tapped the ground and projected Cori's evolutionary trees.
Cori scanned the area worriedly.
"Don't worry, only we can see this," Wyman assured him. "You have 3 soul cores but one of them is corrupted. Usually, slimes only have 1 slime core and 1 soul core. But instead, you have a soul core, a god core, and a corrupted core. I am unable to decipher the corrupted core. I'm not entirely sure how you maintain your slime body without a slime core, but maybe it was sustained by your god core."
"What are all these cores?" Cori asked, speculating on his own.
"Cores are the fundamental seeds to your evolution tree. The God core supports your initial beastkin evolution but your soul core showed a different path, it seemed otherworldly and had a rare heroic grade. But both intertwine in some way, even supporting each other's growth. So you might be able to swap your evolutionary somehow."
"Can I swap now?" Cori asked, he was deeply concerned about how inconvenient his slime body was.
"I have no idea what toddler form is, but I advise against surprises," Wyman said. "But! Before that, you have to learn an innate slime skill - shell."
"Shell?" Cori tilted his body and scratched his head.
"All slimes are born with this skill, it disabled others corrupting your core or even adding a core," Wyman explained.
"What happens to slimes without a core?" Cori asked.
"Only royalties are born without core and remain to their truest self," Wyman answered.
"So extracting the slime core will make them royalty?" Cori questioned.
"No, the slime with extracted core will cease to live," he replied solemnly.