The taste of victory had seldom been sweeter. After the Laghast stopped moving, Apexus got to finally turn down the superheating of his body. His appetite was considerable, following the fight, but he still left some of the best bits of the Laghast for Reysha to indulge in. At the same time, he cuddled the metal fairy that so thoroughly deserved it.

The degree to which Aclysia had been hurt had them worried for a while. Only after the healing magic started to work, the skin restoring from her torn shoulder downwards, did they start feeling comfortable. As for the room itself, the mist had dispersed and the crystals resumed their light production. The loot awaited them in five chests, four having been revealed inside hidden chambers on the inside for the pillars and the fifth, the bonus chest for going through the dungeon the first time, inside the altar. The stone had simply parted on top and revealed a wooden chest within.

That had to wait though, until they were finished cleaning up.

Layer after layer of deliciousness presented themselves to Apexus. The thick skin of the monster was essentially cooked fat drenched in the spice of magic. Underneath were surprisingly tender muscles that had a similar taste as clam. The internal organs were little to sing home about, but the bones had a specific flavour that the slime couldn’t really share with Reysha.

The redhead devoured the boss with an unbridled appetite. Eating something that had given them so much trouble just felt right and knowing what would follow, she wanted to have all the energy she needed. Wanting less than usual, partly because the meal was so filling, partly because she wanted the slime to restore as much energy as he could, the tiger girl soon recused herself. “Imma go and freshen up,” she purred. “Call me when we get to the lootin’ and the lewdin’.”

“Will do,” Apexus promised and pulled a shard of Aclysia out of himself. Luckily, Aclysia was made out of indigestible materials, so the slime could dissolve everything around her parts. While it was not strictly necessary for the metal fairy to have the metal returned to her, it did speed up the regeneration process immensely. Were they not absorbed back into her body, the pieces of metal would soon become simple iron. The body of an angel wasn’t something that should be left somewhere random.

“Thank you, darling.” Aclysia took the shard of herself and simply swallowed it. To absorb it this way was simpler than to try and reassemble her arm. Much of her bone was still visible, but the steady healing she cast on herself in combination with the return of materials let her fully recover by the time Apexus finished his meal.

For all the difficulty the boss had given them, at least there had been enough energy to its mutated flesh to refill most of what Apexus had expanded. An appropriate reward, as far as the slime was concerned. Of all the boss monster’s they had fought so far, it had definitely been the most difficult. As much as he hated that Aclysia had gotten hurt this much, he also appreciated the challenge. The possible evolution echoing inside him felt every bit earned.

The difficulty rising steadily was, of course, a deliberate design decision by the gods. While the ultimate goal of this design was to cultivate new adventurers into becoming new deities, it would have been foolish to entice people only with the end of the journey. Especially with how few people ended up achieving it. Loot was a way to motivate people into trying, the parts harvested from monsters another, and both were lucrative. Lucrative enough that many adventurers didn’t do their job in search of some faraway divinity, but merely for the money.

For those adventurers, level 25 dungeons were the general stopping point. Average people with coordination could clear dungeons up to level 10. Adventurers with no drive to continuously outdo themselves continued up to 25. Above that, willpower was usually the true divider of how far a person came. Willpower and a fair share of luck. Everyone who had no talent was long filtered out by that point. People who stopped at level 40, 50, 75, or whatever else before divinity, they did so not for a lack of possibility or because they wanted to do a simple job, but because of ever increasing danger.

The Drowned Altar was a level 15-20 dungeon. Just one step below that dividing line where the casual adventurers and those who strived for greatness separated. Because of their unique combination of factors, the dungeon itself had been relatively easy. Not that the group lacked in the will to keep growing anyway.

“Let’s go check out the loot,” Apexus said, him and Aclysia going over to Reysha. The tiger girl was soaking in the healing fountain. Something Aclysia mimicked for a quick dip. She wasn’t dirty, but rubbing the combat off her body and it was a good excuse to change out of the priest robe. With one sleeve completely torn, it wasn’t as fashionable as before.

“Don’t even bother putting something new on,” Reysha laughed, when she saw Aclysia pull her travelling dress out of her bags. “We all know what comes next.” Her blue eyes reflected an entirely different kind of hunger now, as she looked at Apexus. “You can do it, right?”

“Yes,” the slime kept the answer simple, while filling his body with all of the liquid it still needed. “I’ve already acquired the muscles – I just need to properly construct them now.”

“Ohhh, yes,” Reysha gasped and involuntarily reached down to her nether regions. She stopped herself just before she actually started something. ‘There’ll be enough of that in a minute,’ she scolded herself. “Let’s see that loot.”

“I am honestly surprised you have the patience to put that first,” Aclysia pointed out, while stuffing her dress back into her bag. The tiger girl was entirely right, she would just have to remove it again in five minutes. Three naked people, two gorgeous women of delicious curves and one gorgeous man with the body of a malnourished hermit, they returned to the boss room.

“Got a lick of reason right now because the fight was so gruesome,” Reysha reported. “Don’t get me wrong, my body is absolutely ready for whatever is going to happen, but my mind wants a bit of a transition.”

Aclysia, as someone who recently had her arm restored, could only agree with that. Although not as outspoken about it, she could feel the lust swirling inside her. The hasty sex they had during the travel wasn’t the same, not with the quickness of it and not without the tiger girl in the mix. ‘And darling will be fully perfected soon,’ she thought, a little bit of thigh-rubbing sneaking itself into her step. It wasn’t just the bath that made her wet down there.

For his part, Apexus noticed all of this and hardly held back his own excitement. The mood that permeated the gazes of his companions made it easy to forget that he acquired the liquid muscles for the sake of his personal strength. Even Apexus felt that priority cede ground to the overt desire of his lovers. What man wouldn’t be swayed by his women having such a clearly manifested wish?

The chimera slime kept his core clear as best he could, while approaching the chests. ‘One thing after the other,’ he thought.

They started with the chests inside the pillars. Traditionally, the first kill bonus loot was of a higher calibre than the rest and the best was saved for last. The mantle of the nut would be inspected before the delicious inside became unveiled. The first chest they approached was the leftmost one.

In the decrepit stone structure they inhabited, the wooden, completely intact, chest seemed incredibly out of place. Apexus didn’t mind that much, simply lifting the lid and reaching into the darkness. Often containing items larger than themselves, dungeon chests were divinely enchanted to accommodate and a side effect of this was a mysterious shroud keeping the suspense going for a little bit longer.

From the depths of the chest, the chimera slime produced a robe. It was of dark blue colour, invoking the feeling of the ocean, and covered in black embroidery that roughly resembled the sea. It shimmered, being woven from fine silk, and parted into two segments on the lower half through slits that started below the waist segment.

Apexus turned it around and found two holes at the back that were sewn shut. A person who didn’t have wings would leave that untouched. For this robe to work for Aclysia, they just had to cut the string. A fair design adjustment, all things considered.

Aclysia looked at the robe with a mixed expression. “I somewhat dislike the thought of wearing the robe of another god,” she confessed. “Particularly Sloan, after I was so disgustingly maimed by what I assume is one of his creations.” The god of the depth and darkness was the third winter and 11th of the 33 original gods. He was generally regarded as the closest approximation of an evil god in the generally benevolent pantheon. A more accurate description of him would be demanding.

“That’s your issue?” Reysha asked, “not the absolutely SCANDALOUS amount of leg that’ll show?”

“My divine garb revealed about as much. You know, the black dress I was created with?”

“That your daddy took away and left you naked, flying through an entire village?” Reysha giggled, “Yeah, I won’t ever forget that. Shit was hilarious.”

“Don’t call my father ‘daddy’ and do not remind me of that incident.”

“No,” Reysha denied the request, quickly undoing the seams and then tossing the robe at Aclysia. “Either way, ya need a new robe, so ya might as well use it.”

Aclysia let out a resigned grumble and put the robe on. As magical dungeon loot, it would change its shape once to fit the party member it was given to. The very act of putting it on diminished its value, which was about the same as Aclysia accepting the tiger girl’s statement. “I must admit that the silk is rather pleasant on my skin,” she said and tied the two dangling cords around her waist. Both were so long that she had to wrap them once around herself before she could properly bind them. Once she was done, the robe sat so tightly on her figure, it looked more like a dress.

“Dark colours suit you,” Apexus said, looking at his beloved angel. Because her skin and hair were so pale, the deep-sea coloured robe created a nice contrast. The way her legs were partly revealed when she moved around, smooth and thick, white thighs emerging from the skirt, only reinforced the slime’s opinion.

“Thank you, darling,” the metal fairy smiled, her wings doing a happy little flutter. She posed a bit more than she needed to really feel the comfort, but stopped when she started to get daring. Something about showcasing herself like that, even for her loved ones, just made her feel embarrassed. ‘I’ll need something to cover my legs,’ she thought. She was fine with showing them, but perhaps not in their complete nakedness. Panties were a must, but her divine garb had also come with gloves and stockings. The former were unnecessary thanks to the long sleeves, but the latter was an idea.

Reysha would have poked fun at that fact, but instead went to the second chest. ‘Quicker the loot gets done, the quicker he fills me up… or do I mean feels me up? Ah, who cares, both are good!’ she reached into the darkness and gripped the handle of something. When she saw what the chest contained, she whistled. “Now that’s an interesting thing.”

Both Apexus and Aclysia, who was already stripping out of the robe again, looked at what she was holding. It was a small axe, optimal to be wielded with one hand, with a crimson red head. It had a bearded shape, the blade elongating downwards and creating something like a hook. Where metal and wooden shaft met, the materials seemed to meld together in an impossible fashion, the red bleeding into the texture of the light brown wood.

“Dibs,” Reysha said.

“Have you ever used an axe before?” Apexus asked.

“Nope,” the tiger girl announced, giving the weapon a few testing swings. “I can learn though. Might as well, since I’m the only one in this group who even uses weapons.” She grinned ear to ear, “I’m a multi-purpose tiger. Feast for the eyes, feast for the ears, and hoarder of weapons.”

“I wasn’t aware we have a kobold in our group,” Aclysia drily remarked, while stuffing the robe into her adventurer’s bag.

“You’re going to have,” Reysha grinned. “A kobold and a tiger. If ya give me long ears, I may even pass as a dark elf.”

“You don’t need even more ears,” Apexus said, while he touched the axe for her. “Hmmm, doesn’t seem to be enchanted.”

“Prolly just high-grade material then,” the redhead hummed. “It’s very light, I can tell ya that much. Wouldn’t be a good thing for normal fighters, but works for me.” Since lighter equipment also meant that the force behind a swing was generally lesser, people that had the strength to wield them generally preferred heavier weapons. For someone who relied on her speed to deliver precision cuts, Reysha was fine with adding another light piece of equipment to her slowly growing arsenal. “Now I have daggers, throwing knives, a pickaxe and an actual axe.”

“Correction, you have a dagger, a throwing knife and an axe,” Aclysia reminded her of the bag incident.

“…yeah… yeah…” Reysha’s ears deflated in shame. Apexus wrapped his arms around her in an appreciative cuddle. Within moments, the redhead purred and Aclysia took it upon herself to wander to the rightmost chest.

“The goddess of future and fortune smiles on us today,” the metal fairy remarked, as she revealed the item. Fashioned from strips of snakeskin, the dark grey top was both flexible and decently protective. Reysha got to find that out by putting it on immediately and having it adjust to her form. “A replacement for a third of your armour,” she pointed out.

“More fashionable too,” the tiger girl purred, the leather stretching around her chest until it was a snug but not uncomfortable fit around her decently sized bosom. “Just need new pants and a new belt.”

“And a new bag,” Apexus added.

“…yeah…” Reysha mumbled and was right back in the slime’s embrace, after she gave him the top for safekeeping. The slime had hoped for that outcome and started feeling her in all the ways the tiger girl desired. Heavy, the desire still hung in the air and it became more difficult to hold back.

Aclysia wrestled down her envy and concentrated on the task at hand. For all the cuddliness the two displayed, they were still paying attention to the loot. Quickly, the metal fairy approached the fourth chest. “And here we have… an eyepatch?” she wondered and looked at the black thing. It looked like what pirates were supposed to wear in stereotypical representation.

“You should try-aahhh- it oonnnn,” Reysha suggested between gasps. The slime was only brushing over her skin, but even that was enough to get her panting. ‘If only he activated his pheromones now…’ she thought, lustfully shuddering from the fantasy alone.

Then she started laughing when Aclysia actually followed the suggestion. Amusement and horniness swirled inside the tiger girl, for the ultimate cocktail of Reysha’s favourite emotions. “You said I should!” Aclysia pouted, a naked, moth-winged angel, with a red face and her right eye covered.

“Does it do anything?” Apexus asked.

“I cannot spot anything,” the metal fairy reported and took it back off. She handed it to the slime for magic inspection.

“There is magic in it,” Apexus said. They didn’t know what, of course, Apexus could only read the presence and rough strength of the magic imbued in an item, not what that magic did. They would never find this out, but the eyepatch was enchanted to prevent people from getting seasick. With that remaining a mystery, Aclysia pocketed it for later selling.

Then there was the final chest. Reysha was still immobilized and Apexus had his hands full with Reysha, so Aclysia went to the altar and bowed over. At the sight of her perfect, round ass stretching, the remaining self-control became very thin. The sight of the item did fix this somewhat.

It was a pair of shoes made from a material that was polished like glass, but wasn’t translucent and lined with soft fabric on the inside. Like the axe’s blade, the pair was crimson red. “You require new shoes as well, correct?” Aclysia asked the flush-faced tiger girl, who only nodded. With the last bit of discipline, Reysha managed to sit down, while still being cuddled by Apexus, and put on the shoes.

She felt that little mental click that occurred when one equipped magical items that could be commanded by thought alone. Instinctively, she grasped what she could do and the sole of the shoes started to change shape in response to her desires. “That’ll be useful,” she hummed. Then she moaned, as one of the slime’s hands travelled down her midriff. “Done with the loot, let’s get to touching me – more!”

Apexus so gladly indulged her. Once those shoes were put away as well, there was nothing holding him back anymore. All over her body, his hands glided, slowly driving the tiger girl absolutely crazy with the need for more. For all of the enjoyment he drew from touching her, the true intent remained to understand the humanoid physique optimally. Biting her lower lip, Aclysia watched and lightly touched herself.

Reysha’s body served as a nice reminder for where things were supposed to be, albeit that she wasn’t the perfect guide. The female physique, beautiful as it was to look at, was inferior to the male he wanted to emulate, when it came to physical prowess. The muscles he inspected were different in several key areas, due to being attached to a skeleton that had to take into account the burden of childbirth. The gap in his pelvis didn’t need to be nearly as wide, his shoulders and chest could be broader because he didn’t have to accommodate mammary glands.

These fundamental differences were bridged by magic, in their case, but there was no need to Apexus to carbon copy these disadvantages. None of them were flaws, the design compromises were ingeniously small given the gift of making life they were granted in return. The slime had decided to be a male and his body had followed suit at that time. There was no need not to walk that road to its end now.

Even if he ignored the sex-specific changes, inspecting Reysha closely served as a fantastic template for all of the things he was only vaguely aware about from the time he had eaten a human. The placement and connection between abs, the many different strings of muscle that were in the upper arm alone, what truly made a thigh, where sinews attached to ligaments and so much more.

The tiger girl kept panting, doing her best to lay still while she was being felt up with intense curiosity and a fair bit of perversion. For someone that did not wish to acquire breasts, the slime was squeezing hers more than the zero times he needed to. Behind her back, she felt Apexus’ form change. The smooth and mostly flat surface of his chest became broader, broke up into segments that rose and fell, and developed that specific firm but soft feeling of relaxed muscle tissue.

After thirty minutes of that almost torturous inspection, Reysha finally heard the words, “I have the basics done,” and hurriedly backed off. Although Aclysia had followed the transformation, it was only now that Reysha crawled away that both of them got the full view. In perfect unity and with feverish gazes, they gulped at the sight of the chimera slime. He rose to his feet to present the full view.

Apexus was taller than before, standing at about 1,90 metres, and had a balanced figure. Indulging too much in bulk would have impeded his flexibility and he remembered the time before he learned to condense his membrane. It had its advantages to be narrower, but being broader meant more room for muscle mass, and so he had struck a decent middle. A middle by the slime’s personal standards, it should be said.

By regular human standards, he was noticeably above average both in terms of the impressiveness of his figure and the definition of his form. The former was shaped such that he would have been a natural favourite in a weightlifting contest. The latter, more aesthetically important, was something that caused both of the women to swoon.

With no body fat, hair or veins that could have tainted the display of his crafted body, the humanoid slime’s figure was without any blemish. Light brown skin stretched smoothly and evenly over each muscle segment. Combined with the long dark hair framing his equally carefully crafted face, the once monstrous slime was now one of the most attractive beings in the infinity of the Omniverse. The addition of jaw muscles had only made him more handsome.

“Anything to fix?” Apexus asked, the deep voice he had possessed for so long now coming from a body that so perfectly fit it. The lips still didn’t move, but that was a work in progress. When he didn’t receive an answer, he raised one of his eyebrows. That many little muscles in his face definitely helped with that. “Aclysia, Reysha?”

The tiger girl remained silent, her mind drowning in a large amount of indecent phrases, none of which managed to dominate long enough to be spoken.

“U-uhm,” Aclysia’s reasonable faculties managed to spot a few bothersome differences. “You… should simulate nipples, I think… chest looks a bit barren without.”

Apexus nodded and made the tiny change. The Skinwalker Hide coloured the circles and small protrusions that appeared a shade darker than the rest of the skin. Since it evolved with him, slowly as such things happened, such a small feature beyond the initial range of capabilities of the Growth was now easily implemented. “Anything else?”

“M-m-m-maybe add a bit of artificial bodyfat?” Aclysia kept stammering, her eyes gliding over his curving biceps. “You’re a tad too defined right now, for my liking.”

Adding a bit more slime between the muscles had the desired effect, the trenches between the different segments becoming less deep and giving Apexus a more natural look. Only the smoothness of his crotch showed that he wasn’t just an exceedingly gorgeous male specimen of some fox humanoid.

“SPANK ME!” Reysha finally shouted the two words that made it to the forefront of her mind.

And the humanoid road entered its final stop.