That time I was reincarnated as a snake (Tensura)

After who knows how long.

Slowly my consciousness became clearer, and my vision returned.

The first thing I saw when I woke up was my body. Thanks to evolution, it became bigger, much bigger. Before, I was only six metres tall, while now I am sure I am more than eight metres tall. That is an increase of one third.

Not only that, my scales, which were once thin, now looked sturdier, ideal for taking attacks better. They also gained a deeper shade of black, closer to that of the storm serpent. My width, which used to be barely enough to swallow a goblin, could now perhaps swallow two of them at the same time.

'It seems like my current evolutionary line is bringing me closer to the Tempest Serpent,' I thought, as I compared my current body to the Tempest Serpent's appearance.

'Which is not to my liking. Although the Tempest Serpent can be considered a powerful monster, it is not a type of dragon, which is far from my goal.'

Trying to search through my memories for some solution to this inconvenience, I remembered how the first dragons in this world were born. Obviously, the fake version, not the true dragons. These were born from the contaminated miasma that was released from the chaos dragon sealed by Milim in the Cannan Mountains. It is her elemental factor that gave birth to the dragon race that, in their later stages of evolution, become elemental dragons, thus returning to their ancestor.

'As I recall, for lesser dragons to evolve into medium dragons, they only need the accumulation of magicules to mature into their adult state. But for medium dragons to evolve further, they require the accumulation of the dragon factor, which they only obtain by staying in the Cannan Mountains.'

'In my opinion, that's the main reason why almost all of that race's individuals are concentrated in that place and don't seek to conquer more lands. Although, regarding that, it could also be because Guy doesn't want them to threaten the human race or that Milim protects them in that place.' I thought of the intimidating Guy and the cute Milim discussing what to do with the dragon race.

But, as absurd as it may sound, this is how this world works: the strong decide the fate of the weak, and the weak have to accept it. Only by having a strong individual to protect you can you live in peace in this world. Just look at the distribution of power in the slime world:

*The Sarion sorcerous dynasty has Elmesia El Ru Sarion and her mother Sylvia El Ru, both awakened beings, equivalent to true Demon Lords.

*Dwargon has Gazel Dwargon, who, although not shown, is an incomplete Saint, an existence that only requires his enlightened body to reach the Saint level.

*The Holy Empire of Lubelius has its goddess and Demon Lord Luminous Valentine.

*The wastelands have Dagruel.

*Fulbrosia has Frey.

*Yuurazania has Carrion .

*Jistav has Clayman.

*Milim has her kingdom.

*Guy rules the frozen continent alongside Velzard. 

*León has "El Dorado", although it is also territory of the primordial yellow.

*And the eastern empire has Rudra (Guy's fucking rival).

The humans of the Western Kingdoms can only live because no one cares to rule them, and Guy and Rudra would not allow others to exterminate them.

Back to what's important...

'If I want to evolve into a dragon, I need the dragon factor, which I could theoretically acquire by staying in Jura Forest, but that could take a long time. Also, the place with the highest concentration of dragon factor is where Veldora lives, and if I go near there, I'm sure to be killed.'

'My best option would be to go to the Cannan Mountains, not only for the environmental magiculas, but because there I can hunt dragons and gain their accumulated dragon factor.'

'But that poses risks to my current self. Goblins may no longer be a problem for me, but in that mountain range, the minimum rank of the existences living there is B+, far away from me, who could barely rank D, maybe C due to my skills and intelligence.'

'I don't think I'm ready to embark on that journey just yet. I should stay here until I reach at least rank B, as well as develop my skills and gain combat experience with the monsters that live in this forest.' With my next plans set, it's time to get started.

And so I moved my sights in the direction of the goblin village. As the first step on my way to rank B, the village had to be eliminated. With that in mind, I prepared to slip in that direction. Because it was daytime, in order to remain hidden I activated invisibility.

Within a minute I reached the edge of the plain where the village was. Luckily for me, although I was large, the trees in this forest were very large compared to those on Earth, so hiding in their branches was not a problem.

But something puzzled me when I used my thermal vision: there were a lot of goblins missing. Compared to the day before, many goblins may have left the village to hunt, but the number of goblins staying to do other things in the village didn't change much. From eighty I saw yesterday, there were only about thirty today.

'Maybe the leader wanted more prey, so he sent out more hunting parties. Not that I cared,' I shrugged.

Using my previous experience in tracking, it didn't take me long to find the tracks of a group, which I followed. Within half an hour I found them; they were in a fight with a pack of velociraptors, which unlike the ones in the movies, did not have scales, but smooth, pink skin. A very strange breed of monsters in my opinion.

As an ambush predator, I didn't get involved in their fight. As I watched their fight, I noticed something odd: the goblins were acting more aggressive than usual, their eyes were filled with fury for some reason, as if those velociraptors had killed their loved ones.

They recklessly attacked the velociraptors. The latter, not expecting such a battle, quickly found themselves at a disadvantage. After they fell one by one, the battle had ended with the goblins easily winning.

When they saw the last of the velociraptors fall, they dropped to the ground on their backs to rest after that fierce fight.

My time had come.

To test out my new body, I charged straight at them this time. I knew I might get hurt, but it was impossible for them to kill me. They would make the perfect punching bags.

I slid towards them at full speed. One of them noticed me and alerted the rest. They quickly all took a fighting stance, with knives and stone axes in hand.

Ignoring this, I continued to charge. Some goblins threw their knives at me. I didn't even bother to dodge; when they landed on my scales, only the sound of sparks could be heard.

Seeing that their weapons failed to damage my scales, they began to panic. Some turned around and ran, while others fearlessly charged towards me.

The fastest of them leapt up, trying to stab my left eye with his spear, something I wouldn't allow. Turning my head to the side, the goblin missed his target, leaving him vulnerable. Something I wouldn't waste. I swallowed him in one bite.

That action served to scare the rest, who lost their motivation to continue attacking me. But that didn't matter to me. I continued on to my next target.

To prevent them from fleeing, I began to surround them, showing them that they had no way out. They, seeing that they had no other option, abandoned their attempts to flee and focused on fighting with all their might.

"Only when a mouse is cornered by a cat will it dare to bite the cat."

Seeing that they would not escape, I began to fight. The fearless goblins pounced on me, trying to immobilize me. Not caring much, I let them succeed, after which they stuck their weapons into the junction of my scales.

This, although annoying, did not cause me much harm. In addition to my scales, my flesh had also become tougher with evolution.

Small wounds like that would heal quickly with my regeneration. Wanting to test my physical strength, I wrapped my body around two goblins and began squeezing them. Within seconds, the sound of their bones breaking could be heard.

Comparing the difficulty of this action with my previous assassinations, I can say that my strength, although greater than before, did not even double. I will keep that fact to myself.

As the goblins continued to besiege me from all directions, I continued to kill them mercilessly. One poisonous bite or a simple squeeze and they would be dead. Unable to do much damage to me and seeing the few injuries they caused heal in plain sight, it made the goblins lose all faith in being able to defeat me.

But with no options they could only continue to attack me desperately.

One of them, who seemed more intelligent, was slowly moving away from the center of the fight, probably thinking of escaping. Even though I saw his plan, I didn't stop him. I wanted him to tell my news to their leader. My time of hiding from them was over; they no longer represented a great threat.

After seeing that I wasn't paying attention to him, the goblin quickly turned around and ran away. Not daring to look back, he ran with all his might, praying that it wasn't because of him. Which I didn't do, and I continued my battle with the rest of the goblins who hadn't noticed that one of their companions had escaped.

It seems that in all races beings with greater wisdom are born.

In front of me I could see the bodies of more than twenty goblins, some killed entirely by my poison, others with their torsos crushed by me.

'Counting the ones I ate during the battle and the one that escaped, this group numbered more than thirty, a number I wouldn't have dared to attack a few days ago. This number is equivalent to Rimuru's first village.'

"And I killed her in just a few minutes, hahahaha!" I laugh out loud.

'I see why they are the weakest monsters, only one evolution and they are not even my opponents in groups. Maybe I should go straight to their village and kill them all,' I thought.

"NO, what the hell am I thinking?"

'I'm not a reckless guy, why did I think of facing all the goblins?' A cold sweat ran down my back.

'I gained a bit of power and it went to my head. Now I understand why when someone reaches the Demon Lord seed level they puff themselves up and proclaim themselves Demon Lord,' I thought of the many who proclaimed themselves Demon Lord only to be exterminated a few days later.

'I must remind myself that even though I may be stronger than my opponent, I must not let my guard down. In a world like this, where there are so many crazy skills, rare magics, and cursed artifacts, I am still vulnerable,' I promised myself.

Having warned myself, I continued to eat the bodies of my victims. With my stronger body, the process of swallowing and digesting was completed faster. In just ten minutes, everything was over. But unlike before, I didn't feel much improvement this time.

'As I had predicted, consuming lower-ranked monsters does not provide much of a boost to higher-ranked monsters. This can only be made up for by large numbers.'

'Before, less than thirty goblins allowed me to evolve. Now, after eating so many goblins and velociraptors, my improvement is less than ten percent,' I thought regretfully.

Wondering how I calculated it? It's simple. I used the goblins' bodies when I squeezed them as a reference. If the strength is doubled, the time will naturally be shortened by half. Not noticing any drastic changes in the time it took, I came to that conclusion.

If you do not agree with this explanation, then explain to me how you would calculate the strength of a snake without precision instruments and in a wild forest.

After breaking the fourth wall.

I went in search of the goblin that escaped during the battle. Which didn't take me long. While one would expect such a large snake to be incredibly slow, one must remember.

I'm a monster!

Thanks to magic, living beings in this world can do things that would be impossible on Earth. In this case, a snake over eight metres long can reach speeds of close to thirty km/h.

Returning to my hiding place in the trees, I could see the goblin I let escape telling his companions about me. Although I couldn't understand his language, the actions he made with his arms seemed to say that he saw a big monster. I don't know if he would tell them how he abandoned the rest of his group during the fight.

This time, unlike previous times, it didn't create as much chaos as he expected. They just told the news to their leader and he only chased them out after giving them instructions.

Wanting to see what they would do to stop me from hunting them any further, I didn't look for other hunting parties. Instead, I looked for a comfortable spot in the branches to rest and prepared to wait.

Over the course of several hours, I could see hunting parties returning, only to be put to work chopping down trees. One after another, the trees fell. At some point, the goblins approached the tree I was standing in. To avoid disturbing their work, without them noticing me, I moved to a tree further away.

Time passed, and a large group of goblins continued to cut down trees. They cut them down and created sharp wooden stakes, which they stuck into the outskirts of the village, pointing towards the forest. Apparently they wanted to create a spiked defense.

Although a simple idea, it would be very effective against stupid beasts. This defense would stop the enemy long enough for them to take action against it. For me, it would make it difficult to sneak in without making noise.

Apparently, seeing that they had no chance against their enemy, they decided to act on the defensive and since they did not continue hunting, they planned to stay that way for a while.

Something strange I noticed was that all the goblins should have returned, but I could only see about a hundred and fifty goblins in total. Dozens were missing compared to the night before.

'They must have encountered many strong monsters on the hunt,' I nodded at that conclusion.

Seeing that my prey had no plans to come out of their shells, I had to plan my options.

'I can rush in and fight them to the death. While it may be reckless, it's the quickest option. They might not even be able to seriously injure me as I am now.'

'I can improve my stealth, sneak in and kill their leader. After that, they would just be loose sand. Even if they want to avenge their leader, I could just run and then hunt them down bit by bit.'

'I can just wait for them to relax and go back to hunting, and I'll continue hunting them.'

Waiting is out of the question. From what I could see, they have accumulated a lot of prey these days. I don't know if it's because of the winter or something else. If they ration their food, it can last them at least months, months that I am not willing to wait for.

While I can charge in to kill them, I'm not sure if they'll have a hidden card that can threaten me. I mean, the Hobgoblin leader wouldn't set up shop in a place like this without having something to rely on.

That leaves me with the second option, improving my stealth.

Now, how should I do it? With my previous experience in developing invisibility, I can say that the most important thing is to create the image and a firm belief of achieving what you set out to do.

'To be more undetectable to others, I must cover several aspects'

'1. Vision, something I already have covered'

'2. The smell, I must be able to cover my scent so as not to be detected by sensitive noses like those of wolves'

'3. The sound, I must prevent the sound from revealing my position, so that not even a bat detects me'

'4. Heat, I must be able to be invisible to heat detection'

'5. Magiculas, I must be able to prevent the leakage of my magiculas, since they can be perceived, especially by beings sensitive to them'

'6. Presence, I must be able to hide my presence, some beings can detect them'

While I have no idea how to do number 6, I do have an idea for the rest. Taking Invisibility as a base, I just need to make the cloak that only redirects visible light also isolate scent, heat, and magiculas.

As for sound, because of the way it works, I not only have to isolate the place where my body makes direct contact, but also the area around me to prevent sound from spreading through the air or the ground.

My solution is to create a second layer that isolates the vibrations, which will be a sphere. This is to prevent the vibrations from spreading through the ground or onto whatever is on top.

Why two layers?

Why not just create an area around you that isolates everything?

Very simple, although it may work with the propagation of magicules, sound and smell, it does not work for heat and sight.

If a rock in front of you suddenly disappears, you will obviously be on alert, which is why sight doesn't work. By covering more than just your body, you make things in your path invisible and they become visible after you leave. Someone who pays attention will be able to see it.

The same goes for heat. How heat concealment works is by isolating it so that it cannot be perceived, but isolating heat from a large area in itself gives away that something is there. Not to mention that maintaining an area with effects would bring with it increased consumption.

With everything necessary defined, it's time to get to work.

'First step, create a layer of magiculas on my body, it's easy with my experience.'

'Now the tricky part, adding additional effects'

'To make my job easier, I'll first practice adding just one type of isolation, and when I'm proficient in each, I'll try to put them all together.'

Starting with scent, I imagined the magiculas preventing foreign molecules from flowing into the air—simple, but requiring continual adjustments later. I didn't consider that, in preventing the flow of scents, I would also lose my sense of smell. One solution was to avoid my nostrils by covering my body with my cloak, but that proved more complicated due to the precise control of magiculas it required.

It was only solved hours later when I stopped thinking scientifically about everything. I'm in a world of magic, I don't have to think about everything, the magiculas will help me.

Stopping my thoughts, I focused on wishing with all my will that the cloak would prevent my scent from escaping my body, but that I could continue to smell. Although it took a while, I succeeded.

With that accomplished, I moved on to heat. A relatively easy thing to do, since heat actually spreads as infrared radiation similar to visible light, but in a spectrum that cannot normally be seen. It was enough to simply imagine the magiculas preventing the infrared rays from leaving my body. I didn't hold them back, but instead imagined them disappearing.

The magiculas were a bigger challenge. Even though I could try to get used to containing them inside my body, there would always be leaks, no matter how small. So I had to make the cloak act as a barrier.

To keep it stable, I imagined the cape absorbing the magicules it gave off and using them to strengthen itself. This took much longer than anything before. Although I lost track of time, I remember seeing the sun rise and set at least twice.

Now all that was missing was the sound.

I first tried creating a separate layer of magiculas about a meter away from my body and expanding it into a sphere, which wasn't so easy. Apparently, keeping magiculas so far away from my body made me lose control over them if my concentration faltered even a little.

By the time I managed to stabilize her, I was sure another day had passed. Feeling my magicula reserves at rock bottom, I decided to find some prey to replenish them.

Since I couldn't swallow giant prey, I refrained from attacking monsters I knew I couldn't swallow, so I had to limit my options to small monsters. Luckily for me, this forest is full of them; you just have to know where to look, and with my enhanced thermal vision, that was an easy task.

It didn't take me long to find a pack of six velociraptors. A couple of minutes later, I finished killing and swallowing them. After finishing my snack, I returned to my practice.

Now I had to make the outer barrier prevent the vibrations from propagating outwards but still allow them to propagate inwards. This would allow the sound it makes to be isolated but still allow me to hear external sounds.

Although it took a while, I got it done in just a few hours. All that was left was the final step: putting everything together.

It might sound easy, but it was quite the opposite.

Because of the increased demand for concentration to maintain it, I was collapsing at every turn. But that wouldn't let me give up; I continued again and again and again. With each failure I got closer to my goal.

Minutes turned into hours, hours into days. Several times I had to hunt for prey to replenish my magiculas. After a few hours, I had to hunt again, repeating the cycle over and over again.

It was no longer just about attacking the goblin village.

No, it was more than that!

It was my obsession to achieve what had cost me so much time and effort.

I didn't give a shit if the goblins were still in their village or if they had fled; I only had in mind to achieve the stealth skill I so desired.

And in response to my obsession and hard work, after who knows how long, it happened.

Common Skill: Successful acquisition of stealth.

The invisibility skill has been integrated into the stealth skill.

"¡Yesssssss ! " I screamed in snake language at the top of my lungs.

"Damn you, Rimuru, you who don't have to suffer this torture to gain or improve skills!" I said through tears.

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Author's notes:

A moment of silence for the difficulties of our protagonist.

This is the process to get skills, not just ask a convenient AI that does it all in a few seconds.

"That's just spitting on the effort others have put into becoming strong."

Leaving aside the above, what did you think of the episode?

Our protagonist has finally evolved and, after suffering a lot, he has improved his Stealth skill. Now not only will his next action against the goblins be easier, but he has also improved his survival skills.

If you're wondering why it doesn't gain a ton of abilities when it evolves, the answer is simple:

For monsters to develop skills during evolution, a large amount of magiculas are required.

When a monster wants to evolve, it must saturate its body with magiculas. Only when its vessel can hold no more will it be forced to evolve into a stronger vessel to hold the excess magiculas. What happens is that the excess magiculas are used to strengthen the vessel, so there aren't many left to create skills.

If you're wondering why those named by Rimuru gain a bunch of abilities upon being named and continue to evolve, the answer is: Rimuru is a cheater.

Thanks to Great Sage, he can precisely control the magiculas he gives them by naming them, pushing them to the limit before exploding, giving them enough magiculas to develop abilities.

Not to mention that later, upon acquiring the Food Chain skill, he can grant degraded skills of his own to his subordinates, at the same time, if his subordinates develop any skills, he can use them and then distribute them to his subordinates.

As for a strong monster naming a weaker one, which isn't Rimuru, yes, by being named they get a lot of magiculas that can allow them to get skills, but not reaching the unique skills. You have to think of the skills like this:

Common Skill < Extra Skill < Unique Skill < Ultimate Skill

Each skill rank jump exponentially scales the amount of magicules required to awaken them.

The fact that our protagonist has a unique ability is a result of his soul being filled with magiculas when he crossed the barrier of the Cardinal world. That was a one-time thing.

Talking about the protagonist's unique ability:

Has anyone noticed what he's been doing to benefit him without the protagonist realizing it? If you know, leave it in the comments.

I'll tell you about it in the next chapter.