In scientific research, academic skill was certainly important, but many times, it also took a bit of "coincidence" to deliver the final kick through the door.
If Spencer had not happened to have a piece of chocolate in his pocket while conducting an experiment, the microwave oven might have been invented much later.
Jia Xiu's research into this strange plane had likewise happened to include a slime among the experimental creatures, and it just happened to become a rare breakthrough.
In truth, he had put no careful thought into what creatures to use. He had simply followed the distinction between creatures with no magic power and those composed purely of magic power, taking whatever was available.
Some rarer creatures had to be ordered in advance. They were not always available whenever he wanted them.
Slimes, meanwhile, were the textbook definition of a Demonic Beast found everywhere. Their overabundance was only one tier below goblins and kobolds.
Jia Xiu walked over to the slime he had mistakenly judged dead. Though it had completely rotted into a puddle, it was still stubbornly eating, laboriously swallowing chunks of bread. It was nothing like the ferocious swamp monsters in illustrated books that hunted careless adventurers. It looked more like a fungal mat—half-dead no matter how one looked at it.
What had caused it to end up like this?
For now, Jia Xiu assumed it was a phenomenon caused by the special nature of magic power in the other plane. If he did not, the research could not continue. If it turned out in the end that the slime had become like this for some unrelated reason, his mentality would truly explode.
Compared to the other creatures containing magic power, which were either dead or active, only the slime was in this near-death state.
Then