The thirty stone steps leading from the valley meadow up to the safe hall’s main gate had never felt particularly daunting when Lin Xiao was a two-foot blue sphere.
In his native form, crossing steps was a matter of joyous physics. A light squeeze of internal pressure, a floating bounce off the granite tread, and a pleasant airborne glide that carried him over six steps at a time. The world was smooth, elastic, and entirely devoid of friction.
Now, dressed in cloud-gray scholar robes with cloth traveling boots upon his feet, Lin Xiao stared up at the stairs with deep philosophical skepticism.
“Left foot up,” Lin Xiao instructed himself under his breath, leaning forward. “Shift weight. Plant heel. Lock left knee. Swing right foot past left ankle. Balance on the ball of the foot... And don’t trip over the hem of your own robe.”
Beside him, Xiao Hei trotted with slow, deliberate steps. That kept his broad black shoulder set three inches from Lin Xiao’s hip so the young scholar could steady himself whenever an ankle wobbled. The sky moon-wolf looked remarkably like a dutiful hunting dog escorting a quirky scholar home from the village tavern.
By step fourteen, Lin Xiao stopped to catch his breath.
“Dao Spirit,” Lin Xiao sent silently. He wiped a stray drop of sweat from his youthful forehead with his sleeve. “Whoever designed human bipedal movement was clearly cutting corners on building budget. The balance point is perched five feet in the air on two ridiculously thin bone stilts. If one pebble shifts under your heel, your brain has to fire eighty thousand micro-corrections across sixty different muscle groups just to keep you from face-planting into the gravel.”
“Your body-leverage critique is exactly indisputable, Host,” the Dao Spirit replied, her voice carrying that subtle, cold and exact amusement Lin Xiao had come to know so well. “Humanoid anatomy prioritizes tool manipulation and forward sight scanning at the expense of omnidirectional moving balance. Plus, your current vessel possesses authentic mortal body-energy constraints. You’re experiencing mild muscle burn buildup in your calf tendons.”
“Muscle burn,” Lin Xiao sighed aloud, testing the calf muscle with a thumb. “I haven’t felt muscle burn in nine months. I didn’t miss it.”
Yet he reached the top of the stairs. Then, the gates swung wide, and the complaints vanished beneath a wave of joyous welcome.
The central courtyard beneath the ancient thousand-year spirit willow was filled with warmth, music, and the intoxicating scent of celebratory cooking. Hundreds of beastfolk—fox maidens in festive scarlet ribbons, bear smiths with soot-stained aprons, badger builders clutching wooden tankards. Elder Lu Da’s otters drying their rainbow-bright silver coats in the sun—gathered along the outer edge, cheering with roaring enthusiasm.
Su Ling’er stepped forward from the crowd.
Her five snowy tails swayed in a mesmerizing, graceful arc behind her vermilion scholar robes. She held a round wooden tray bearing a fresh set of glazed celadon dishes, her amber eyes sparkling with a mixture of respectful awe and bashful delight as she looked upon her master’s youthful face.
“Master Lin,” Su Ling’er said, offering an elegant, formal curtsy. “The kitchen elders have prepared a victory feast in your honor. We... We weren’t certain if your new form could partake in mortal dining, but we hoped...”
“Ling’er, you couldn’t have timed this better if you could read my mind,” Lin Xiao said, his warm deep breaking into a wide, genuine grin.
He sat down at the head of the low cedar banquet table. He tucked his gray robes beneath his shins. Beside him, Tie Shan set down a steaming red-clay pot of turnip-and-wild-mushroom soup, the broth clear and shimmering with golden chicken fat. Next to the soup sat a bamboo steamer filled with plump, semi-clear vegetable-and-pork dumplings, a plate of crisp pickled radishes. A bowl of cold sliced cucumbers tossed in toasted sesame oil and wild crushed chili.
Lin Xiao reached out with his right hand.
His fingers curled naturally around a pair of polished dark-bamboo chopsticks.
For the first time since waking up in this training world, Lin Xiao held chopsticks in real, flesh-and-blood human fingers.
He clicked the tips together twice. Tap-tap.
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” Lin Xiao whispered, his sapphire eyes lighting up with childlike excitement. “The balance, the tactile grip, the clockwork leverage! Do you know how hard it’s to pick up a slippery dumpling with an azure slime arm? You either crush it into congee or it shoots across the room like a wet soap bar!”
With practiced, easy grace, Lin Xiao clamped the chopsticks around a steaming dumpling. He dipped the delicate pastry into a saucer of aged black vinegar, brought it to his mouth. Then he took a deliberate, savory bite.
Crunch. Sizzle.
The thin, pleated dough yielded instantly, releasing a burst of piping-hot, ginger-infused pork broth across his tongue.
Lin Xiao closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the carved cedar bench.
In slime form, he had burned up meals through void absorption—breaking matter down directly into elemental essence, experiencing the chemical composition and spiritual thickness holistically. But eating with a real human tongue, teeth, and palate was an entirely different art form.
The sharp acidity of the aged vinegar cut through the rich, savory fat of the pork. The subtle sweetness of minced mountain water chestnuts provided a delightful, crispy textural contrast. And the fragrant sting of wild ginger warmed his throat as he swallowed.
“Delicious,” Lin Xiao murmured, letting out a hum of pure gastronomic bliss. “Ling’er, Tie Shan... This is total perfection. The pastry is paper-thin, the broth is clear, and the seasoning has soul.”
Su Ling’er’s cheeks flushed a delicate shade of peach blossom. She quickly busied herself pouring fresh Aged Jade-Dew Wine into his celadon cup, her five tails fluttering with quiet pride.
For the next two hours, Lin Xiao fully embraced the social duties of his human form.
He raised his cup in toasts with Tie Shan, laughing as the titan bear described how Han Gu’s skeletal face had turned purple during the cooking pot swallowing. He shook hands with Elder Lu Da, admiring the sleek, water-repellent texture of the otter clan’s silver fur. He patted the heads of excited young wolf pups who tumbled around his cloth boots. He listened attentively as mortal wagon drivers and badger miners told stories of the autumn harvest.
It was joyous, heartwarming, and deeply fulfilling.
It was also, as Lin Xiao quickly discovered, shockingly exhausting.
By the time the afternoon sun began to dip behind the western ridges, Lin Xiao’s shoulders were stiff from maintaining proper scholar stance. His jaw ached from smiling and conversing for two hours straight, his formal silk sash felt tight against his ribs. His feet felt like two bags of warm sand shoved into tight cloth bags.
Taking advantage of a loud drinking song led by Tie Shan and the bear clan, Lin Xiao quietly excused himself, slipping through the bamboo screen into the secluded northern porch behind the spirit willow.
He walked out onto the polished cedar decking. There, the cool mountain wind drifted down from the pine ridges, carrying the clean fragrance of running springwater.
Lin Xiao leaned against the carved wooden railing, looking down at his boots.
“Two legs,” Lin Xiao muttered to the empty porch, rubbing his aching lower back. “Ten toes. Two hip joints. A spine that complains whenever you sit straight for more than thirty minutes. Truly, humanity’s greatest weakness isn’t the lack of flying swords... It’s the total inefficiency of the skeletal frame.”
“Audit conclusive, Host,” the Dao Spirit chimed in his mind. “Bipedal stance consumes about four hundred percent more baseline body-energy than zero-drag jelly-like mid-air. In summary: walking is high-upkeep vanity. Bouncing is peak evolutionary wisdom.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Lin Xiao agreed wholeheartedly.
Lin Xiao stepped over to the corner of the porch. There, a plush, square silk cushion stuffed with dried lavender and wild mountain thistle-down sat in the warm afternoon shade.
He relaxed his concentration.
In a soft, ghostly whisper of azure mist, the slender eighteen-year-old scholar dissolved. The cloth boots, the cloud-gray robes, the raven hair, and the twenty-four spine bones vanished like morning dew on a warm stone.
SHWUUUP.
Reforming with a delightfully elastic bounce, a plump, two-foot-wide sapphire-blue slime landed directly in the center of the lavender cushion.
Lin Xiao melted.
His jelly-like mass flattened outward into a soft, cozy puddle of semi-clear blue jelly, conforming perfectly to every contour of the cushion without a single bone to ache, without a single joint to creak, and without a single shoe to pinch his toes.
Xiao Hei padded quietly around the bamboo screen, his black glass paws clicking softly on the cedar planks. Seeing the familiar blue blob on the cushion, the great wolf gave a low, contented rumble, circled three times. Then he curled his twelve-foot body around the edge of the mat. He rested his massive, warm chin gently against Lin Xiao’s squishy flank.
Lin Xiao let out a tiny, bubbly sigh of supreme contentment. His curved white eyes closed into two happy crescents as he drifted off into the best afternoon nap in the eastern continent.
Being an immortal scholar was fine for dinner. But being a slime was heaven on earth.