Peter was ready to hunt. Unfortunately, the only other living thing he had seen so far was that Orc he had fought, and he didn’t exactly know where to go to find more elementals. Knowing <> scaled with perception, he put 10 of his Free Points there to allow him to ‘see’ further. His imaging radius suddenly doubled, and he could see not only the surface of the ground, but what lay beneath, the rocks and stones beneath him. It also reminded him that there were a few scraps of metal still on the ground next to him. Using <> through <> he found out it was simple iron scraps.

<>

He picked it up by wrapping it in dirt, and wore it close to his body, almost like armor. The scrap didn’t cover much, but it was better than nothing. With that settled, he headed in the direction the Orc had come from, hoping to find an enemy.

Soon he found one, as his <> picked up some movement ahead of him. He had been traveling over the dry scrubby ground for only about 5 minutes at this point. He moved carefully forward, mapping out the area in his head. The elemental, as that’s what it was, was about 40 meters away from him. It was still moving around semi-aimlessly, so he assumed it hadn’t seen him yet.

Gathering a ball of dirt, he charged a <>. He let it loose, and instantly lost sight of it as he couldn’t see what was in the air. However, he knew it hit the other elemental because it got launched backwards slightly. Focusing with <>, he noticed a few small cracks had formed on the shell of his foe. It had obviously deduced the direction the attack had come from, and began speeding Peter’s way.

Peter backed up a bit and charged another <>. He did this a few times before the other elemental decided to run, and dug itself into the ground. Since the other elemental had never seen what was attacking it, it only went down a few meters before stopping and resting. Unfortunately, Peter still had a clear view of where it went. He reached out and started moving the earth around where the elemental had hidden itself. He slowly lifted it up from the ground before the elemental inside figured out what was happening and started fighting for control of the earth back. Peter completely dominated this fight, however, again relying on his insane Willpower. He revealed a part of the elemental from the earth, and held it in place while shooting his <> at it.

<>

No level up with it, but he had expected that. It was just too weak against him. Levels in the early game could mean almost 1 and ½ times more stats than your opponents. With his strategy seeming to work, he put his other 10 Free Points into Agility, to make sure he could always stay outside the radius of the other Elemental’s <>. He then used the same method he used on the previous Orb to consume the Orb the Elemental dropped, with seemingly no limit placed on this method as opposed to drinking XP potions.

Speeding onwards, he zig-zagged across the rocky ground, and found several more low-level Earth Elementals, which he promptly killed and looted. Every single one of them dropped an Earth Elemental Orb, which he attributed to his Luck stat. He also gained 2 more levels, putting him at level 5. His Dexterity was starting to fall behind, so he added 10 more Free Points to that to catch it up. He continued on for a while, before sensing something with his <>. On the side of a large hill a cave entrance sat, leading down into the earth. He approached it excitedly.

‘Neat, a cave entrance! Home turf for an Earth Elemental like me. I’ll be able to see everything around me much easier than now.’ He entered the cave and began following the downwards path within. It curved left, then right, then doubled back on itself, but always it led down. Soon, he reached the end of the tunnel. Disappointed, he was about to head back out when he felt something on the very edges of his <> skill. There seemed to possibly be an opening a bit beyond the end of this tunnel. He promptly used <> to move through and past the end of the tunnel. As he moved through the earth, he felt the faint opening he had seen open up into a wide space. He reached the other side and pulled himself out into the open, releasing another <> to get a better feel of what was around him.

He saw what seemed like a man-made tunnel, based on the overall size and shape, along with the texture of the walls having pickaxe marks all over. He was busy examining the tunnel when he felt soft vibrations coming from down the tunnel. The source of the vibrations was outside of his mental mapping ability, but he could feel the reverberations reaching him through the tunnel.

Curious, he started moving in that direction to see what was going on. Knowing that it was probably miners, he made himself smaller and partially melded with the ground to hide himself. The vibrations slowly became larger as he wound his way down the tunnel, until he finally sensed what was causing it. Around a bend in the tunnel ahead of him, he felt four small humanoids making strange movements in the middle of the tunnel. Sneaking forward a little bit for a better sense, something large suddenly loomed in his mind. He understood finally what was happening. The humanoids looked to have been ambushed by a large insect, its body about 8 feet long covered in a hard exoskeleton. It had 6 long legs that filled the whole tunnel, and large mandibles on its head that snapped continuously at the humanoids in front of it.

‘An ant, probably. A large ant, though, and not to be underestimated. It looks to be almost a stalemate right now. The humanoids are only wielding pickaxes, and the exoskeleton of the monster is too tough to be broken by them. But also the ant can’t get close enough to them to bite, and they’re too fast for its legs to hit.’ Peter didn’t really want to get involved in the fight, as either group alone could easily kill him. However, it didn’t feel right to not get involved and possibly watch these people die when he could have helped. He knew they were either NPC’s or would just respawn on death, but the realness of the experience made him unsure about hiding and waiting it out. Sighing, he started to make his way forward.

‘This is probably a bad idea, but those people are going to get tired sooner or later, so I should probably help them out.’ He moved forward and melded entirely into the earth around him, and even though it was mostly stone, it still counted as ‘Earth’ for his skills. It was a bit harder to move through, but with his Willpower so high, it didn’t consume enough Mana for him to worry about. He thought about the best place to attack from, and realized popping up in the middle of the group of people was a good way to scare them and get them injured, so he flanked around to the back of the large ant before coming part way out of the ground.

‘Some good rock shots should at least distract it, if not injure it a little,’ he thought. So, he started charging a large <>. The great thing about the charging portion of the skill was that it continuously drained mana, instead of using it all at once, which allowed him to recharge his mana as he was charging. He held it there for about 3 seconds, before shooting it straight and fast at the underside of the large monster’s thorax.

The shot connected, shattering on impact and leaving small cracks on the ants hard exoskeleton. It reacted immediately, scuttling backwards as it tried to feel around for what had attacked it. Peter had already merged back into the earth, and the sweeping legs of the ant never found what they were looking for. The people fighting it, meanwhile, took this as a chance to regroup, as they took a brief respite from the fight. Then, finding nothing, the ant reengaged the group of people, only for another <> to come from above it and shatter on its head.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Peter had found that while in the earth, gravity didn’t matter as much as when he was in the open air. This led him to circle around to the top of the tunnel, where he formed another <> and aimed for the head of the ant.

This shot left a spider web of cracks on the faceplate of the beast, and stunned it momentarily. The humanoids took advantage of this and one of them leapt forward with their pickaxe and brought its spike down right where the <> had hit. It found purchase on the hard shell, and managed to completely shatter the exoskeleton and embed itself in the head of the ant.

The beast immediately started flailing its limbs in all directions, the brain presumably punctured by the pickaxe. The person that had leapt forward managed to get their pickaxe out and retreated hurriedly, not wishing themselves to be made into paste by the flailing limbs. Peter knew that the ant's lifespan was limited now, and it would probably succumb to its wound in a few minutes. Trying to speed up the process, he shot a few more <>, aiming for the same spot on the head. Since the ant was still wildly moving around, only a couple managed to connect, but the 5th one he shot connected hard with the exposed head of the ant, and as it hit, the ant went limp entirely.

<>

<>

<>

The humanoids he had helped had backed off entirely, content to watch and wait as the ant succumbed to its wounds. A couple of them, now, Peter could see wildly gesturing at the ceiling, where he was, and moving their mouths. That’s when Peter realized he couldn’t hear anything they were saying.

He had not really noticed it before, for some reason, but now that he noticed it he couldn’t help but feel a little stifled. While he could sense vibrations and kind of ‘see’ in a way now, he couldn’t hear anything, and it felt so wrong to him. Having spent most of his life being able to hear, and then having it cut off all of a sudden left him feeling claustrophobic, in a way. He desperately thought of a way to get his hearing back, when he realized what hearing actually was.

Hearing was just a way of sensing vibrations. Technically, <> was close to a skill that bats in his previous life had, echolocation. It used sound created by the bat to sense where things around it were, like bugs and walls. In fact, he had even read a few articles about people being born blind that were able to learn this skill, even though it wasn’t nearly as good as a bat’s natural echolocation. But sound was just vibrations, wasn’t it? So if he could sense vibration, why couldn’t he hear too?

‘Maybe it’s just the system’s way of interpreting the signal, as it’s given to me almost as a replacement for sight. But what if I try and also give it to me in another way I’m familiar with, like sound?’ Concentrating hard, he focused on trying to sense the vibrations caused by the humanoid's mouth moving below him. His <> skill could only pick up vibrations in the earth, but the vibrations from the air made their way into the earth at some point, he reasoned. So he focused hard on sensing the small vibration caused by speaking. Something like stepping created a lot of force on the ground and thus caused a large vibration, but if he was able to sense smaller and quicker vibrations, he might just be able to hear what was being said below him.

< Advanced Vibration Sense>>

<>

He was met with a system notification, as suddenly he could barely make out what was being said by the humanoids. It was still very faint, and skimming the new skill description, he instantly threw 10 Free Points into Perception to help him hear better.

“I said it afore, that thing may nae be here nae more. But by the stones we shou’ be thankful it ‘elped when it did.” Peter heard from the humanoid standing farthest from him, up the tunnel where he had come from. From the dialect and phraseology, he assumed them to be dwarves.

“Aye, but I dinna want to mine wit that aroon. What if it decides to ‘ake a shot at us next, eh?” the dwarf directly beneath Peter said, brandishing his pickaxe at the wall.

“Why wou’ it kill that ant, if it wanted us gon’? It cou’a killed us off easy by ‘elping it.” The other dwarf replied.

Having an idea, Peter quickly used <> on the side of the tunnel. He focused hard and slowly carved out a pattern on the rocky face. This did not go unnoticed by the dwarves, who stopped talking and jumped back from the tunnel wall, their improvised weapons held in front of them. Once Peter was done, the dwarves went slack-jawed as they looked at what he had done.

“By the great bearded face of Baelgor ‘imslef,” one of the dwarves muttered, and the other dwarves nodded in agreement.

On the wall, Peter had used his skill to write, “Friend.” He didn’t want to be pursued or attacked by these dwarves if he stuck around here, so he decided to try and make contact with them as best he could.

“Kin tha’ thing ‘ear us?’ The dwarf that had been standing beneath Peter said.

“If it ken, ye be’’er be careful with ye words,” the first dwarf Peter had heard replied. Stepping forward, that dwarf scanned the wall in front of it with his eyes. “If ye truly be a friend,” he said, “come out and show us yer form. Ye have notin’ to worry abou’ from us, ye ken jus’ hide in the ground again if we make any moves.”

Seeing the reasonability in the request, Peter slowly emerged from the wall and floated there as a lump of earth in front of the dwarf. He also began to change his form to resemble the dwarves, though he still couldn’t make features, fingers, or toes.

The dwarves in front of him stared, their pickaxes now on the ground, their mouths slightly open from shock. Peter turned slightly and motioned to the wall behind him, which still bore the word, “Friend” on it.

The dwarf directly in front of him seemed to start slightly, as his mouth snapped shut as he stood up straight. “By the great bearded face of Baelgor indeed!” He said. “An Earth Elemental, capable of understandin’ Common. We live in strange times indeed. I be nae sure if you be familiar with Enlightened culture, but we be havin’ names for ourselves. I be Durgon.”

Peter motioned again to the wall behind him, where he had gotten rid of “Friend” and written instead, “Peter.”

Durgon whistled, then spoke, “Peter, aye? Pleasure to make yer acquaintance. If I be not mistaken, that’s an Elven name, no?

Peter shrugged, having no clue as to the origin of names in Eternal Realms.

“And ye even act like an Enlightened. Curiouser and curiouser. Anyway, I do believe it comes from the Elven word for “rock,” so it be a fitting name for an Earth Elemental like you.”

Peter did a double take, and something in his memories stirred. He thought he did remember something about the origin of his name. He had gotten curious one time about what his name had meant, and evidently it came from some ancient language and meant “rock”. Ironic, now that he was a being made of rocks and stones.

“Anyway, we be owing you thanks, for ‘elping with that there ant. If it weren’t for ye, we migh’ nae have won.” Durgon bowed slightly, and the dwarves behind him followed suit. “Now we know ye be a friend, we’ll let the other’s know nae to harm ye.”

Peter bowed back, mimicking their brief formality. He didn’t really know what to write from here, as he didn’t go into this with a game plan of what he wanted. After an awkward silence, Durgon spoke up again.

“I dinnae know what ye be here for, Elemental Peter. But if ye wish to ‘elp us, we wou’ be glad to have tha protection. Ye be far stronger than any one of us. We arr miners, nae fighters.”

Peter thought for a moment, pondering whether to accept them on the offer. It seemed beneficial to continue the relationship with these dwarves, as they were the first creatures he had encountered that were not hostile towards him. Nodding his head, he gestured to the wall, where he wrote “I accept.”

Durgon grinned and held his hand forward, and Peter responded by extending his arm. Durgon grabbed his forearm and gripped it, shaking his ‘hand’.

“We be glad to have ye, Elemental.”