Infinite Adaptation: Starting As A Level 1 Slime-Chapter 6: Burning Mass

His thoughts began to stretch. It was hard to put into words, but it felt like... time was slowing down. Or rather, his perception was speeding up while everything else remained the same.

It was disorienting. Without any physical markers for the passage of time - no heartbeat, no breathing, no visual movement - he had nothing to anchor himself to. His accelerated thoughts just spiraled faster and faster with no reference point.

He was beginning to feel nauseous. Even in this slime body, the sensation was overwhelming.

He quickly turned off the skill.

His thoughts settled back to their normal pace.

That was... difficult.

The skill was hard to control. Using it actually made him worse off than his normal self. The disorientation was too severe to be useful in its current state.

He wondered if he could use Parallel Processing to help with this.

According to the information, Parallel Processing allowed him to spin up a separate thread of consciousness and run it concurrently while maintaining his main thread’s independence. Maybe he could use this to get accustomed to Thought Acceleration without subjecting himself to the discomfort directly.

Yes. This was the right approach.

He understood that if he continued using Thought Acceleration, he would probably get used to it eventually thanks to Infinite Adaptation. But the sensation was simply too unbearable to endure repeatedly.

Since that was the case, why not delegate this difficult task to another version of himself?

Hehe. He was quite the genius, if he said so himself.

He calmed down and prepared to activate Parallel Processing. He hoped his other self would forgive him for what he was about to do.

He activated the skill...

And immediately, he was back to square one.

Ehh?

Ehh?

Two thoughts came at the exact same time, layered over each other in his mind.

Hmmm.

Well, this is awkward.

There were now two voices in his head. Two streams of consciousness run in perfect sync inside him, reacting and feeding back into one another.

His head was starting to hurt.

Quick, turn it off. How do I turn it off?

Don’t ask me. How would I know?

He finally remembered the method and released the skill. The other consciousness collapsed back into him, merging seamlessly as if it had never existed.

Phew.

That was a strange feeling. Different from Thought Acceleration, but equally disorienting in its own way.

Still, he wasn’t going to give up.

He already had another idea.

Parallel Processing had the same core issue as Thought Acceleration - he simply wasn’t used to it. But the solution could be the same. He could use Parallel Processing to get used to Parallel Processing.

That’s right. He would spin up another instance, but do it properly this time.

He activated Parallel Processing again.

But this time, he was careful.

Instead of spinning up the new thread in sync with his main consciousness, he created it separately. He shut off any direct data transfer between them. The new thread wasn’t lost - he could still communicate with it by sending discrete messages - but they wouldn’t be constantly sharing every thought in real-time.

That was what had caused the overload before.

The way it functioned now was like an API endpoint. He could send commands and receive responses, but they operated independently otherwise.

He designated himself as the Main Thread. The new consciousness became Thread B. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

After a few test messages to confirm everything was working properly, he sent his first real command.

Thread B was to spin up a child thread - Thread C.

He, as the Main Thread, wouldn’t be directly connected to Thread C. Just like with Thread B, he could only communicate through messages. But he configured it so that Thread B and Thread C would be connected to each other.

This would allow the two of them to adapt through Infinite Adaptation independently of him. Once they developed tolerance to the skills, he would inherit those traits intrinsically when they eventually merged back.

But that wasn’t all.

Thread B was also instructed to use Thought Acceleration continuously, so it could get accustomed to the skill.

He sent the commands to both threads with the full plan.

They complied.

He was glad the threads seemed to be obedient. Otherwise, he really didn’t know what he would have done. It occurred to him that the threads weren’t entirely identical to him - after all, he had shoved this unpleasant responsibility onto them, yet they had listened and agreed to do it without complaint.

He would think about that later.

For now, he sent another command to the two threads.

He wanted both of them to start counting seconds.

Thread B would count while using Thought Acceleration.

Thread C would count without it.

This would help him understand exactly how much Thought Acceleration affected perception. By comparing the two counts over the same period of real time, he could measure the skill’s effectiveness.

With everything set up, he settled back and waited.

...

He sat still, waiting.

It had only been a few minutes, but he was already anxious.

He wasn’t sending the threads any new messages. He was afraid he might interfere with the experiment if he did. They needed to focus on adapting, and any unnecessary communication could disrupt the process.

So he waited.

As he sat there, lost in thought, he noticed something strange.

Hmm. Why do I feel a little... little?

He focused inward on his own body.

Then he realized.

His mass had decreased by more than half.

What was happening?

Then it clicked.

He relied on his mass not only to move but also to sustain himself. That included running his consciousness. Thinking. Processing. Every thought burned through his limited reserves, just like a brain burning calories.

And right now, he wasn’t running one consciousness.

He was running three.

And one of them was operating at who-knows-how-many times faster than normal.

He was burning through himself at an alarming rate.

He was lucky he noticed in time. A little longer and he would have been toast.

He immediately activated Absorption and began dissolving the rock beneath him.

The stone broke down slowly, merging into his mass. He felt himself grow slightly larger.

Good. This is working.