Original Sin: Gluttony

Who am I?

Where am I?

What happened?

At that moment, Lu Minghao had just awakened from his advancement, and his mind was filled with these three questions. Only seconds earlier, he had opened his eyes to find that he was neither in the Underground Water Vein nor in a crystal-clear stream, but in some bizarre place.

Walls of flesh-colored meat surrounded him, constantly secreting a grass-green, viscous fluid. He could even see those fleshy walls writhing nonstop, while Lu Minghao's body drifted and bobbed with the mass of liquid beneath him.

"So what happened while I was asleep?"

Lu Minghao examined the strange scene around him. Those constantly writhing walls looked unmistakably like real flesh, and the fluid endlessly secreted from them gave him an inexplicably familiar feeling.

Smack!

Suddenly, a purple serpent with most of its body mangled dropped not far from Lu Minghao. In just a few seconds, the long snake dissolved completely before his eyes, leaving behind only a skeleton.

"I was wondering why this felt so familiar. Turns out I'm in a stomach."

At that moment, Lu Minghao finally understood where he had ended up. There was a very good chance that he had been swallowed by a passing monster while he slept, beginning a grand adventure through its stomach.

"But why am I fine?"

The next second, a new question appeared in Lu Minghao's mind. He had just witnessed how powerful the stomach acid was—the snake had turned into a pile of bones in mere seconds. So why hadn't anything happened to him?

Lu Minghao lowered his head and examined his body. Compared with before his advancement, its size had not changed much. However, his sky-blue body had become strangely translucent, like a huge blue gemstone.

"I'm gorgeous!"

Looking at his brand-new body, Lu Minghao sighed sincerely. It was a dreamy sky blue, as clear as the heavens, while tiny points of crystalline starlight flickered within him like stars adorning the sky.

After confirming the changes to his body, a brand-new talent panel appeared before Lu Minghao's eyes.

Name: Lu Minghao

Rank: Middle Demon

Race: Slime

Talents: [Encounter from Another World] (Red): As someone from another world, you possess truly limitless potential.

Ability One: Plunder the world's origin. Once you have accumulated enough, consume the world's origin as the price to travel to another world.

Ability Two: After traveling to a New World, randomly obtain a brand-new purple talent.

[Gluttony] (Purple): You possess a bottomless stomach and digestive ability. Thanks to your racial traits, you can devour both living beings and inorganic matter, completely absorb the nutrients of whatever you consume to accelerate your growth, and possibly obtain part of its abilities.

Ability One: Bestow Gluttony's endless hunger upon an enemy.

Ability Two: Active: Transform a subordinate and grant them the Power of Gluttony. You possess absolute control over your subordinates.

Passive: Automatically transform every life-form around you, granting them the Original Sin of Gluttony. Their eternally unsatisfied hunger will drive them to devour everything before them. You possess absolute control over those you transform.

[Slime Physique] (Blue-White): As a slime, you naturally possess a liquid-like body and can freely manipulate it to change shape. You do not need to breathe or sleep and can eat with any part of your body. You are immune to some weak physical attacks and possess the ability of Asexual Reproduction.

Branch Skill: [Acid Resistance]

[Magic Essence] (Blue-White): This is the symbol of a monster's power. The qualitative transformation of your magic essence has allowed you to enter an entirely new realm.

Branch Skill: [Shadow Escape]: Use magic essence to transform your body's properties and gain the ability to freely manipulate shadows.

[Illusory Dream Lure]: Emit an irresistible alluring scent to those weaker than you and drive them into a frenzy.

[Water Manipulation]: A unified collection of skills including water propulsion, Water Blade, water movement, water mist, and water bubbles. Grants the ability to manipulate water.

After advancing to Middle Demon, Lu Minghao's magic essence and physical strength had undergone fundamental changes. Even his abilities had been completely transformed. Gluttony had once again developed a new ability: it could actively transform monsters, humans, and even plants into his subordinates, granting them the Power of Gluttony—in other words, a weakened version of Gluttony, weakened by who knew how many levels.

The Power of Gluttony allowed his subordinates to digest food rapidly after swallowing it, absorbing it to increase their growth speed. Moreover, while devouring food, they had a certain chance of obtaining the other party's traits. This ability was somewhat similar to the Orc Lord's Unique Skill, except that becoming Lu Minghao's subordinate would not deprive them of their reason or fear.

However, once someone became Lu Minghao's subordinate, their soul and body would be completely controlled by him.

The other derived ability centered on Lu Minghao himself. It passively transformed everything around his body, granting living beings the Original Sin of Gluttony. Driven by endless hunger, they would lose their minds and devour everything, while still remaining under Lu Minghao's absolute control.

This ability felt somewhat like those indescribable monsters. However, Lu Minghao could freely choose whether to activate or deactivate it. He guessed that the ability had been derived from Gluttony instinctively because he had suddenly advanced and fallen asleep without any preparation, preventing the same thing from happening again if he encountered danger.

Monsters granted the Original Sin of Gluttony would frantically devour and kill everything around Lu Minghao. In other words, aside from Lu Minghao, anything or anyone that came close would be killed and devoured until nothing remained.

"So the monster that ate me was passively transformed by Gluttony's newly derived ability, becoming a mindless monster ruled by hunger. And the newly acquired skill, Water Manipulation, should be an ability I obtained from devouring the food I ate during this period."

Lu Minghao looked at the new abilities on the talent panel. He had thought that the greatest changes brought by advancing to Middle Demon would be his strengthened magic essence and physical body. He had never expected Gluttony to develop such an ability.

Now, Lu Minghao only needed to stay in one place. With Gluttony's new effect, everything living around him would be passively transformed. Before long, everything near him would become monsters ruled by hunger, crazily devouring everything before them.

Moreover, as Lu Minghao looked at Gluttony's newly derived ability, a bold idea surfaced in his mind.

"Forget it. I'd better not court death. My current strength still isn't enough."

The next second, Lu Minghao shook his head and tossed the reckless idea aside. Indeed, after seeing Gluttony's new ability, Lu Minghao—who always believed in taking revenge immediately—had considered sneaking into a town in the Eastern Empire and using Gluttony's new passive ability to transform everything within it into monsters.

But if he did that, the higher-ups of the Eastern Empire might notice. Once they discovered that Lu Minghao was responsible, they would very likely send experts to either capture him and use him for experiments or kill him on the spot.