Tsundere Dragon Veldora

Dark, so dark—pitch-black. He couldn't see a thing, not even his own hand in front of his face.

Huh? Where were his hands?

Answer: A Slime's body is entirely an aggregate of identical cells. Every cell functions as a brain cell, a nerve, and a muscle. There is no structure known as a "hand."

Hearing the voice in his mind, Xia Qiu was immediately overjoyed. He asked inwardly, "Are you Great Sage?"

Yes.

Oh my god, Great Sage was Slime King's god-tier skill!

"Great Sage, please report your abilities."

Understood. Great Sage has five effects—

Thought Acceleration: Increases perceptual speed by a thousandfold.

Analysis Appraisal: Analyzes and appraises target objects.

Parallel Calculation: Separates matters to be analyzed from one's thoughts and performs calculations independently.

Chant Disruption: Eliminates the need for chanting procedures such as incantations when using magic and other skills.

All Creation: Encompasses all unshielded phenomena in this world.

It really was the Great Sage possessed by Slime King—the same familiar formula, the same familiar flavor. This was just too awesome.

"Great Sage? Where am I right now?"

Answer: This is the Sealed Cave in the Jura Great Forest.

Upon hearing Great Sage's answer, Xia Qiu had only one thought—this was in the bag!

He had definitely transmigrated into the anime and replaced Mikami Satoru as the protagonist.

As long as he followed the anime's "history," contacted the Storm Dragon, named each other, left the great forest, recruited Goblins, Dwarves, and Ogres along the way, then he would definitely become the King of the Tempest Kingdom.

This was simply too damn good!

The legend of the overpowered Slime would be written by him!

However, his top priority now was eating grass. That was right—eating grass.

This wasn't ordinary grass. It was Hipokute Herb—a miraculous medicinal herb that could only grow in places rich in Magicules. It was the core ingredient in healing medicine and Recovery Potions.

The higher the purity of a Recovery Potion, the better its effects. In the anime, Slime King could refine Recovery Potions with a purity as high as 99%. Even if a limb was severed, using one could restore it instantly.

Xia Qiu shifted his body, and then his eyes turned into "slanted-line eyes"—if he had eyes, that was.

Sliiide~~~

Accustomed to walking with legs, Xia Qiu had never imagined that one day he would move in such a "unique" manner.

It was like crawling, yet also like wriggling. It was very slow, but somehow, it felt pretty good.

Apparently, Slime King's most iconic means of movement in the anime wasn't wriggling, but bouncing.

Xia Qiu tried applying pressure to his body, and in an instant, he felt the difference.

Aaaaah, his body was incredibly soft and absurdly elastic!

So bouncy, so squishy!

Whether he was simply too bored or because this bouncing way of moving suited him perfectly, Xia Qiu played with it tirelessly.

Bounce, bounce, bounce!

Jump, jump, jump!

Hahaha, this was so much fun!

Joy turned to sorrow. With a smack, Xia Qiu rammed headfirst into a sharp, pointed rock.

Like jelly scooped out by a spoon, a chunk of his body was instantly gouged away.

Xia Qiu was scared out of his wits. Oh my god!

Perhaps because he had gotten a kidney strike from a sharp rock before transmigrating, Xia Qiu now had a bit of psychological trauma around sharp stones.

Still, it didn't seem to hurt at all. Come to think of it, this body was really great in that regard.

Answer: Due to the skills [Physical Attack Resistance] and [Pain Nullification], the host will not perceive pain. Current bodily damage: 3%. Inherent skill [Self-Regeneration] activated.

A few seconds later, his body, which had sported a huge hole, was completely restored. Xia Qiu was dumbfounded.

As expected of the same model as the overpowered Slime. This physique was downright godlike!

Come to think of it, a Slime's inherent skills were seriously amazing! ([Self-Regeneration] was a Slime's racial talent. Just as humans gradually heal and stop bleeding after being injured, a Slime's body rapidly recovered after sustaining damage.)

A precious Magic Ore has been detected. Use the Unique Skill [Predator]? Yes/No?

"Precious Magic Ore?"

Xia Qiu immediately recalled the scene from the original work where Slime King used Magic Ore to replicate Magic Swords.

Slime King might casually duplicate twenty swords without caring in the slightest about Magic Ore, but in the Dwarf kingdom, Dwarves repeatedly had to battle monsters to obtain precious Magic Ore, paying for it in blood.

This was a priceless treasure!

Without any hesitation, he chose "Yes."

In an instant, the Magic Ore was broken down, digested, and absorbed.

"Great Sage, please report Predator's abilities."

Understood. Predator can draw target objects into the body. However, if the target still retains consciousness, the success rate will be greatly reduced. The targets are not limited to organic or inorganic matter; skills and magic may also be targeted. Predator has five specific effects—

Analysis: Can analyze and study absorbed targets, producing items that can be created. If the material requirements are met, replication may also be performed. Upon successfully analyzing a spell formula, there is a chance of learning the target's skills and magic.

Stomach: Stores devoured targets. It can also preserve matter produced through Analysis. Anything stored in the Stomach will be unaffected by time.

Mimicry: Can reproduce absorbed targets and wield equivalent abilities. However, this is limited to targets whose information has been successfully analyzed.

Isolation: Stores harmful effects that cannot be analyzed, purifies them, and converts them back into magicules.

Another absurdly overpowered ability. The Stomach was practically a spatial storage bag.

Mimicry was ridiculously powerful too. After devouring a monster, it would automatically be analyzed. As long as the analysis succeeded, he could gain the target's abilities and mimic it.

In the original story, Slime King had gained the [Transmuter] ability by devouring Shizue Izawa's body, and had thus obtained a human body.

As for analysis failing?

Heh, had they forgotten about Slime King's Great Sage skill?

Slime King's Great Sage and Predator could be linked together. The effect produced by those two skills working in tandem was far more than a simple one plus one being greater than two.

In the anime, Slime King devouring all those medicinal herbs and ores only took a few shots, but Xia Qiu had spent more than half a month eating and still had not finished them all.

Seriously, this Sealed Cave was huge!

By the end, he was sick of eating. If he had not known that those herbs and ores were treasures, he would have been too lazy to keep eating them.

What left Xia Qiu speechless was that, despite a Slime's abilities clearly all being related to eating, he could not taste a thing. It made him incredibly depressed.

Losing his sense of taste was practically like losing two-thirds of the world!

Because he had been so bored, over the past half month Xia Qiu had devoured more than half the water in a lake, successfully learning the skills [Water Manipulation] and [Magic Sense].

[Magic Sense] in particular made the entire world look completely different to Xia Qiu.

Since he was not seeing with his "eyes," the 360-degree view without any blind spots was simply amazing.

"I've eaten almost all the herbs and ores. It's time to go meet that Tsundere Dragon!"

In Slime King's world, monsters were divided into six ranks, from A to F. If further subdivided, there were + and - modifiers, making eighteen ranks in total.

However, those eighteen ranks could only distinguish Ordinary Monsters. Above them were the S-rank Demon Lords, each of whom could destroy a country alone.

Above the Demon Lords were even more powerful monsters, beings that could potentially destroy an entire continent if they went berserk. This level was known as Special S-rank, or Catastrophe Class.

In the original story, when Slime King had just been born, he had roughly been a B-rank monster. After receiving a name and becoming a Named Monster, he evolved into A-rank.

Fortunately, Slime King possessed the two bug-like skills Great Sage and Predator. He did not need to chant when casting magic, and he could grow stronger the more he ate.

Thus, by the time he left the Sealed Cave, he had fought monsters and leveled up all the way through it, reaching roughly A+-rank strength by the time he emerged.

As for the so-called Tsundere Dragon, he was actually a Storm Dragon named Veldora, a Catastrophe Class monster standing at the pinnacle of all monsters.

Three hundred years ago, he had been defeated by a Hero after setting fire to and destroying towns in a human nation, then sealed away with Infinite Prison.

Even while sealed, his dragon aura alone kept every monster from daring to trespass. The numerous weak races of the Jura Great Forest regarded him as a guardian deity, which showed just how powerful he was.

To be honest, Xia Qiu felt a little awkward about meeting the Tsundere Dragon.

After all, it was the Storm Dragon—a real dragon! Especially after learning Magic Sense, the crushing pressure arising from the difference in their life forms truly left Xia Qiu feeling stifled and frightened.

It could be said that the stronger a creature was, the more clearly it could sense the Storm Dragon's terror.

Xia Qiu was extremely cautious as he carefully tested the waters.

However, just as he approached the sealing barrier, a deep, arrogant voice rang through Xia Qiu's mind.

"Greedy little runt, you ate every precious herb and ore in the cave in just half a month. Have you finally dared to face me?"

A powerful, vast voice rang directly inside Xia Qiu's mind.

The voice had come far too abruptly. Even though Xia Qiu had been prepared, it still startled him.

Yet Xia Qiu could not help but smile. Just like in the original story—the voice was loud and sounded furious, but there was not the slightest trace of malice in it.

Tsundere, huh... Since ancient times, black-bellied types had always been the natural enemies of tsunderes!

"Sorry for disturbing you. I'll leave right away."

The Tsundere Dragon immediately panicked. "Ahem, ahem. It's not like you can't take the herbs... It's rare for me to have a visitor. Consider these herbs and ores a gift for our first meeting. I am willing to lower myself and meet you... Wait, don't go! Stay and talk to me, okay? I haven't spoken to anyone in three hundred years!"

Watching it in the anime was completely different from experiencing it in person. Seeing the Storm Dragon—this skyscraper in his "vision"—begging him so humbly to stay and chat had an impact that was simply overwhelming.

That sense of loneliness and desolation was practically about to condense into something tangible!

Xia Qiu smiled. "Since you're asking so sincerely, then I'll stay."

"Really?"

The Tsundere Dragon was overwhelmed with gratitude. "Thank you so much!"