Chapter 1: A Waiting Game

I woke up to a void of nothingness. Instead of being in a white room like the reincarnation room, I was surrounded by a black void; looking down, it took me several moments to process my body or lack thereof.

Strangely, I could still ‘feel’ myself moving my hands, but they didn’t show up physically.

Pushing back my panic from not having a corporal body and considering the last screen was red that said it was ‘attempting’ to fix the error, I nervously looked around and muttered, “I can’t see anything."

Once I spoke aloud, a ‘ding!’ reverberated throughout the room, and the robotic voice from before spoke out loud; fortunately, it sounded normal and not like the previous error messages sent.

[ You currently do not possess a way to see your surroundings ]

It's good to see the system is still hanging out; maybe it managed to fix whatever problem it ran into.

After some time of just… staring off into the void, I see a small prompt arrow at the bottom of my mind, similar to a tab, perhaps?

I tried various ways to open it, but the thing that worked was just concentrating on the arrow for a few moments.

A blue screen with several tabs opens in front of me.

| Status |

| Skills |

| Locked |

"Ah, so it's like the video games I liked to play! Open 'status’”

| Year 0 Month 0 |

| Name - ??? |

| Race - %ep@ired Sou! |

| Form - Pebble |

| Level - (1) |

Pretty much everything made sense; the only thing that made me pause momentarily was the | Form |. I was hoping to start as one of the choices the system gave me. I would have even been fine with the labyrinth after that fiasco, but I guess all the standard options went out the door when the error ‘occurred,’ and I imagine the same for the Race, which, after a few seconds, I could make out as | Repaired Soul |.

Next, I open up | Skills |

Dormant

Go to sleep for a random amount of time. You may occasionally fade in and out of awareness.

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While I felt worried about the detail that it did not have a time limit, as it was my only option, I just mentally crossed my fingers and mentally selected the skill.

It was | Year 1 Month 8 | when I woke up for a moment, but I still felt groggy and assumed I would not be awake for long.

Looking at the date, I was concerned with how long it took for me to be aware momentarily. Still, since the skill was already activated and already starting to make me sleepier, I did my best imitation of a mental shrug.

Sleepily, I slur a few words and say aloud, “This might just take a while.”

As the pull of my skill became irresistible, I quickly returned to my dormant state, and my mind went blank again.

| Year 3 Month 1 |

I woke up just long enough to check the time but nothing else.

More time passed

| Year 6 Month 0 |

This time, it took me a bit longer to awaken again, but on the bright side, I could see the tab in the corner of my view with a couple new notifications; unfortunately, | Dormant | made me unable to open them.

| Year 9 Month 8 |

Looking at the time a gnawing pit began to grow, using | Dormant | had eaten up nearly a decade of my new life. I paused, realising that according to the system I am a rock, and this is not my old world, so I do not have any of the attachments to people that would age. Comforted a bit by this I just close my eyes and let | Dormant | activate once more.

| Year 11 Month 1 |

Finally, the last bit of sleepness wore off, and the system sent a prompt

[ | Dormant | skill inactivated ]

Feeling relieved, I pull back the notifications that are now taken up a majority of the screen. It seems that because it took me nearly 11 years to open them the system starting putting arrows in my vision pointing at the glowing tap.

Chuckling at the system’s antics, I pull up the notifications.

Congratulations user, you have spent a decade in a mana dense region. Due to the long term exposure, you have gained a skill.

| Mana Sight | has been obtained.

You have one other notification.

Before opening the last notification, I grew hopeful of what | Mana Sight | would do and quickly activated it. Quick enough to flashbang me, the world around me lit up in a spectrum of colors.

Overwhelmed by the visual information, I took a minute and tried to sort through the new information; it was a bit strange because I no longer saw things from a 165° point of view, rather a full 360° view.

Taking several minutes, I started to differentiate between shapes, and as far as I could tell I was in a large cavern. I suspect | Mana Sight | does not provide distinct details but pulling on my fantasy book knowledge I could assume it provided exactly what was in its name, the mana around me. I assumed I was underground in a large cave, as the main ‘color’ of mana around me was a grey-ish brown, which I just assumed was the way ‘earth’ mana looked liked.

While I am a presumably non-mobile rock, I could move my sight around the area a little but had to stay within 5 feet of myself. Speaking of the rock I enhabit, When I focused on it, I noticed that… I looked like, which feels a bit to think about, but moving past that I was made of a cluster of bright white mana, I tried to get closer to the white mana and begun to make out a particular pattern made of it.

I had to quickly look away though as it was straining my skill and the mana around me became blurry.

Satisfied with the new skill, I brought up the two other notifications that were still blinking away in the corner.

Several [3] non-sentient creatures have died in your influence.

[1] sentient creature have died in your influence.

Do you want to absorb the essence?

A sentient creature? Hopefully that means I am near some sort of civilization… although I am not very hopeful that I would be able to communication with them, I am a ‘pebble’ after all.

“...yes?”

As I confirmed, the blue screens blinked out and | Mana Sight | began to pick up a large amount of pure white mana gathering around me. Once a large amount of the particles built up, it surged into me, making me feel like I took several cups of cappuccinos with a healthy dose of sugar.

You have leveled up [1] time.

As I got over the feeling leveling up gave me, I thought about how the essence I absorbed must be the ‘xp’ of this world. I quickly brought up my level status.

| Level - 2 |

Dang that sucks, I was hoping there was going to be an xp bar or something of the sort but alas, you cannot always get what you want.

Before I could do much else though, which would likely just be me turning back on | Dormant | a disorienting feeling hit me, “wait what?” quickly refocusing I could see a moving blob of various types of mana, suddenly my point of view was being dragged towards the creature. Quickly looking for the reason, I see a bright blob of white mana in presumably its hand.

It was my rock. “Ah shucks.”