That time I was reincarnated as a snake (Tensura)

It's time to finish my business with the goblins; after this, I'll explore this forest. With my new strength and skills, I have some confidence that I won't die trying.

I sneak out of the leader's house with stealth activated. While it would be fun to create chaos in the village, it is a very inefficient idea, and in the chaos a large number of goblins could escape.

Wanting to avoid wasting too much time, I first focused on finishing off small groups, which wouldn't draw much attention if they disappeared. Slowly but surely, I continued to kill goblins; even if my victims called out for help, it was useless. The rest never listened to their pleas; by the time most of the remaining ones noticed that a large number had disappeared, it was too late.

Seeing that I had lost the element of surprise, I deactivated stealth, ready for a final battle. Them with their numbers or me with my strength, one side would live, the other would die. After a few minutes, the winner was clear.

I found myself surrounded by the corpses of those who died from my poison and those who lost their lives to blunt blows from my tail. Corpses that I proceeded to eat. After which I didn't feel much different; as I had already noticed, consuming lower-ranked monsters was no longer worth my effort.

If they appeared in front of me, I would eat them; if not, I wouldn't bother looking for them.

I had to look for monsters equal to or stronger than me, only then could I continue my path of evolution.

It was finally time to look for new targets. And being the spiteful bastard that I am, I knew who would be next.

Taking the same route I followed to find this village, after several minutes I came across my first hiding place, where I spent my first night in this world. It may be just a hole, but it means more than that to me; it was the first place that made me feel safe.

Although I didn't show it, I was afraid when I came to this world. I may be familiar with the history of this world, but it's because of this that I was scared; I knew I was insignificant, hell, I still am, but I know that if I don't continue to grow and become stronger, I'll only die a miserable death.

So being able to give myself some security to rest is something I treasure.

'I will always remember this place, the place where the path of one of the strongest beings in this world began, reminding me of where I came from' I took one last look and continued on my way.

Emotions aside, it's time to find that bastard who stole my prey.

Yes, I mean the damn direwolf!

Did you think I would forget?

No! I'm a spiteful guy; when someone offends me, they have to pay the price.

I tried to look around for clues that would tell me where they went; unfortunately, a lot of time had passed. Not caring about anything, I continued my search.

Along the way I encountered various types of monsters, from blood boars to sword tigers, bears of various kinds, I even saw a group of giant ants, among many other monsters.

Only now that I dared to move outside my comfort zone could I see the rich diversity in this forest, where one moment you could enjoy your prey and the next you could be the prey. Although to some it might seem like hell, it had a certain charm, the charm of strength; with it you could do whatever you wanted.

After several hours of searching, I didn't find my target. Bored, I decided to take a break. I looked for a leafy tree, where I enjoyed the shade.

'How do I find those guys in such a big forest?' Out of ideas, I decided to think of something else.

'I think it's time to solve my problem: not being able to eat large monsters because I can't swallow them in one go, and since the higher the rank of the monster, the larger its size, it's urgent.'

'And I think I have the easiest solution to implement:

'the water blade!'

Yes, the same one you're thinking of.

Although it may seem like I'm copying Rimuru, there is nothing simpler than a blade.

And why a water sword and not an air one? Good question, it has to do with my mental image; I find it difficult to imagine a blade-shaped air construct that flies and doesn't disperse in the air around it.

Also, it has to do with me not wanting to be like Veldora.

How Veldora?

Yes, if you know about him, you know that his title is the Storm Dragon. While it actually has to do with him being the personification of the concept of chaos, and storms are considered a chaotic system, in addition to having an affinity for the element of wind, water, and space, elements associated with a storm, he primarily uses the element of fire and lightning (advanced version of wind), discarding water and space.

If he was good with space, he could have easily escaped from the infinite prison.

So I plan to take the hydraulic route to the top of this world.

That being said, it's time to get back to working on a skill.

And for that we must ask ourselves a question: What is magic?

Regardless of which magical world you find yourself in, magic can be summed up as using mysterious energy to create phenomena in the physical world.

In this world there are three types of magic:

Aspectual: consists of using external or personal magic to bend the laws of nature, with its created phenomena not affected by physical factors.

Example: A magic flame cannot be extinguished with ordinary water.

Elemental: Borrows the power of elementals, using a small amount of magicules as a catalyst. Being the power of an existence that relies on natural phenomena, this magic obeys the laws of physics. It is required to form a contract with an elemental in order to use it.

Holy Magic: Magic that manipulates holy power and purifies magicules through the power of faith, requires a pact with a spirit that is one's god. With enough faith, one can use spiritrons, the building blocks of spirit matter.

As you can see, I cannot use two of the three above.

Obviously because I don't know how to sign a contract with an elemental, and since I'm a monster, I can't use holy magic that targets monsters.

That only leaves aspectual magic, which is apparently the main force of the Sarion Sorcerer Dynasty. If I get a chance in the future, I'll sneak in and steal some of their research; maybe I'll find some interesting stuff.

Back to the water sword: In fact, what Rimuru used cannot be considered a water sword, but a high-pressure water gun.

Recreating it is not that complex: you just have to create water, add pressure and shoot it.

Simple right?

Not quite.

I started by trying to create water, something not too complex, knowing its composition and the magicules helping me with the fine details. Things got complicated later.

In order to contain the water, direct the direction and increase the pressure, the ideal would be to create a container that would facilitate the above.

Since I don't have the ability to create magic items, it was impossible for me.

I should be able to do everything with magicules. You'd think it would be easy with my experience in other skills, but no.

Everything was going well until pressure was added to the magic container. You can imagine it being like a balloon you try to fill with water and it explodes in your face.

That's what happened to me. The biggest difficulty is maintaining the form long enough to build up pressure and release it towards a target.

I refrained from using my mouth as a container, as if it were some sort of water breath, because of the possible consequences. I don't want to imagine if enough pressure to cut through a storm snake exploded on my head.

The only solution was to practice and practice to maintain form as the pressure increased.

Knowing this would take a lot of time, I decided to practice while continuing to move in search of the direwolves.

So my days continued.

During the day, I would hunt for tracks and practice with the water gun, hunting some small prey like rabbits, squirrels or wild boars. The latter were better in terms of the ability to replenish my magicules.

At night he rested and continued training.

Over time, I began to lose hope of ever finding the direwolf pack.

After all, there was no guarantee that a stronger monster wouldn't have eaten them. But my stubborn nature wouldn't let me give up.

One of those days.

As I continued to practice, after gathering a large amount of water in the shape of a sphere in front of my mouth, I began to compress the sphere with my will. Little by little, the sphere shrank. With each centimeter it became smaller, the difficulty in maintaining it grew. By the time the sphere was the size of a pingpong ball, it was at its limit.

It seemed about to explode, but before that could happen, I quickly created a small, one-millimeter hole in it, facing forward.

Looking ahead, I could see the consequences: the water gun not only pierced the tree it was targeting, but went through a dozen trees.

Still in disbelief at its power, I heard an announcement:

Common Skill: Successful acquisition of Water gun.

I was filled with pride at a job well done.

Now I could not only kill monsters in melee combat, but I also had a ranged attack, allowing me to not only pierce into my target's weak points, but also use the water jet to cut them into parts that I could swallow.

Now that he had the ability, acting as a circuit that he only had to provide energy to, he could fire the water gun in just five seconds, fast compared to doing it without the ability, but very slow compared to the reaction of a monster.

I'll have to continue practicing with her to reduce the time.

Wanting to test its effects on monsters, I decided to find a worthy target.

At my speed it didn't take me long to find him. Ten meters away from me, a giant bear more than four meters tall was resting in the shade of a tree, with a half-finished prey at his side; apparently he had just eaten.

Using stealth, it wasn't hard to avoid being spotted at such close range. Since the water gun still takes a long time to charge, I decided I would use it to open the fight.

If it was enough to kill him, that would be great; if not, I would reposition myself and ambush him with my poison.

To prevent the water gun from being discovered by the bear, I expanded the stealth concealment area, preventing the magicules from leaking in. After the five seconds of charging, I was ready to fire.

Although a shot to the side, straight into his chest, would surely do a lot of damage, I wanted to test the water gun's penetration capabilities, so I aimed at his skull.

* Swoosh *

With a whoosh of air, in less than a second he had reached his target.

* Plop *

I saw the bear's head fall limply to the ground. Apparently, one shot was enough.

'I thought a guy that big would be tougher,' I shrugged.

I went closer to see the condition of the corpse. When I reached it, I could see its wound better. Although I managed to pierce its skull at the entrance, it did not have the strength to get out, so the water completely destroyed its brain.

For comparison, I prepared another water gun this time aimed at my tail. Since this is magic that has nothing to do with physical laws, my resistance to physical damage should not intervene.

Without fear of success, I shot myself with a water gun.

'Damn!' I was shocked by the result.

Like a hot knife through butter, my tail offered no resistance. The jet of water flew and pierced several trees along the way.

This bear's skull is as hard as steel?!

On one hand, I was happy that my new ability was so strong. On the other hand, I felt too fragile.

You know, I used to think I had good defense, which is true if you add my resistances.

But this test showed me that, in terms of magic, I was extremely weak in defense. I'm lucky I found that out before fighting monsters that have magic attacks.

'Although water gun is useful for killing normal C-rank monsters, I'm sure it wouldn't cause any damage to defensive C-rank monsters or higher ranks, at least not as it is now.'

"Hypothetically, as long as the opponent doesn't have the magic nullification, with enough water and pressure it could cut through anything." I was left thinking about how waterjet cutting machines could even cut through tungsten carbide, one of the metals closest to diamond in hardness. At the prospect, I got excited.

When others use adamantite swords to kill S-rank monsters, I would just use a water slash and leave them like Frieza on Namek.

I was preparing to return to my temporary residence, when I remembered the corpse at my side.

Now, with the ability to cut things, my days of wasting food were over. With a few vertical and horizontal water guns, I had before me a pile of cubes of bear meat, rich in magicules.

'Itadakimasu', as the Japanese would say.

In no time, the bear was gone and with that a new change for me.

Yes, the feeling I had when I ate the three goblin guards had returned.

Without wasting any time, I climbed up and hid in the branches of the trees. Thus, the evolution began and I fell asleep.

...

I don't know how long it took, but when I woke up it was nighttime and, to my surprise, I was no longer in the branches, but lying on the ground.

As always, I went on to see what changes my body had undergone. As always, my length grew, from the original eight meters when I first evolved to the astonishing fourteen meters now; that's as long as a bus.

In addition to a considerable thickness, if my body expands to swallow, it may reach a diameter of one and a half meters. I would only need to cut the previous giant bear in two to swallow it.

But this new evolution left me with new problems.

Now I need to consume a lot of low-rank prey or several of my rank, just to be able to sustain such a large body. When I was an E-rank, a couple of E-rank goblins a day were enough for me, if I didn't practice skills.

When I evolved to D rank, I needed dozens of E rank monsters just to survive, not to mention the magicules reserves I accumulated to evolve.

Now that I'm a C-rank, I'll need several C-rank monsters or dozens of D-rank monsters to survive each day, not counting what I consume to practice skills and the reserves to evolve.

It's like Pay to Win games, where you need to spend more and more to become stronger, only here the "money" is magicules.

You should know that the higher the rank of the monster, the more difficult it becomes to hunt it. It's not just because they are physically stronger, but because they have acquired skills in attack, defense, stealth, as well as greater wisdom and countless combat experience. Not just any old idiot can rise in rank; unless you were born from another strong being, reaching rank B is a fierce struggle, your kill record is sky high.

Plus another problem:

B-Rank is where most Majin (monsters with human-like intelligence) are found, i.e. humanoid monsters. Being that type, they are sociable; messing with one is messing with dozens, if not hundreds, of them.

I don't know what the world is like right now, but you should know that Eurazania, the country of Carrion, has a population of over three hundred million B-rank lycanthropes at least. Even a remote country in the mountains like Fulbrosia has over a million B-rank harpies.

I'm sure that if I give it my all, I can kill a lycanthropes or a harpy, but not a dozen of them. The lycanthropes might detect my concealment with their senses, and the harpies might interfere with my use of skills and magic.

Leaving aside the issue of the increased consumption of this new body, I continued to examine myself.

My scales again seemed to thicken and darken in color. As for my vision, I could notice changes.

I could see further and the range of my thermal vision also increased. Wanting to test my scales, I bit down with all my might, without using a poisonous bite.

As expected, only sparks were heard; obviously the resistance to drilling played a role in this.

It seems that with each evolution my body, along with the skills that affect it, get stronger. Following the tests, I used water gun on myself again.

Similar to last time, the power of the water gun remained the same; as for my body, although it resisted a little more than butter, it was still damaged by the water gun.

My theory was confirmed:

Only the skills that affect my body directly are enhanced with each evolution. This may be inherent to all monsters or due to my Adaptive skill; all of the magicules used in the evolution are going towards strengthening my entire body. After two evolutions, it is not normal for me to not gain a single skill, not even one intrinsic to the race.

This is a game changer for me, something I kept putting off because I didn't want to do, but now it was of utmost importance.

I must take all kinds of beatings!

Exactly, I must increase the number of my resistances, so that perhaps in the future, with the help of my evolutions, they can improve and become cancellations without spending centuries developing them. The sooner I get the resistances, the greater the possibility.

Play me the music from Fifty Shades of Grey!

"This is not going to be pretty."

___________________________

Author's notes:

It is finally revealed what Adaptable has been doing all this time. Not only has it allowed the protagonist to continue consuming as many magicules without exploding in the process, but it also helps passively improve his abilities that affect his body, with further improvement occurring at the time of evolution.

It may not seem like it does much, but without it, the protagonist should take much longer to reach evolution, as magicules work like radiation. Even monsters born from magicules must develop their tolerance to the concentration of them in order not to die.

The normal process for a monster to evolve is to acquire magicules in tolerable concentrations and gradually become accustomed to more magicules, to the point where its body can no longer withstand it, which triggers the evolution.

If a monster were to absorb all the magicules at once to evolve, its body would not tolerate it and it would die.

That's what Adaptable has been avoiding, diverting excess magicules to strengthen the body. It's because of this that the protagonist grows between evolutions, allowing him to skip the times to develop tolerance to magicules, something that hadn't been seen in the original work, where characters only experience changes after an evolution.

Hey, but when they name someone they give them a lot of magicules

Why is it not life-threatening?

Because naming is not only about passing on magicules, but also about creating a bond.

A bond that keeps the weakest safe and promotes their evolution to be able to withstand this new energy, plus Rimuru has a Great Sage who can precisely control the process and avoid accidents.