It was quite sudden really.
One moment I was enjoying my slow evening walk and the other I was plummeting into the earth.
The fact that I had somehow missed a giant sinkhole and literally stepped into it didn't help much. It only made sure that once I inevitably hit the bottom, the wet squelch of my bones and flesh breaking was the last thing I heard before dying.
And now I was here.
A white room and a giant queue of souls like mine, all waiting for our turn on the giant wheel of reincarnation.
It was quite morbid to be honest, all of us just mindlessly droning forward in silence.
...
It was finally my turn.
A humanoid-shaped construct of pure whiteness gave me a general rundown of all possibilities and then I turned the wheel.
It spun, and spun, and then spun some more.
The maybe-god-explanator grew more nervous with each full loop.
When I asked him why, he replied that each spin meant I would keep more of my memories and could be reborn as a rarer species. This wasn't a problem by itself, but too many memories could sometimes have disastrous consequences. Death by insanity was the most common one. The rough conversion rate was 100 days per loop and each added about 10 new species.
Oh well, I was 25 when I died, Sad thing that, since as a healthy human I had almost 3/4 of my life left to live.
The wheel continued spinning and I made myself comfortable.
...
It was still spinning.
The MGE (maybe-god-explanator) was visibly sweating now. I mean, how can whiteness sweat? Strange.
He pushed some kind of a button. I think he is calling his supervisor.
Meh.
...
A new whiteness thing has arrived!
After some back and forth with my MGE, he turned to me.
"My apologies, lost one. It would seem our system has malfunctioned. Another wheel will be assigned to your queue soon. Since you have been held here through no fault of your own, you may request a gift."
"Can you make sure I keep my memories and sanity no matter what the new wheel selects?"
"Certainly."
The guy gave me some kind of stamp and went on his way, leaving a brand new wheel behind.
Anyway, I spun the wheel again.
This time, not even a full loop was made before it stopped and the squiggly lines untangled themselves to show the words "Rock" on them.
>I guess I'm a rock then.<
I lost consciousness.
...
Dark.
It's pretty comfy, to be honest.
I can think, which is nice.
I have no idea how, I guess some magical godly shenanigans can make even a rock have a brain.
I can also touch, which is doubly nice.
Whatever. I remember all those reincarnation stories having some kind of system or something. I should try that.
>Status?<
Time: 0/0/1 Name: none Race: [Common Rock] Level: 1 Titles: [Otherworldler]; [Living Rock] Skills: [Accumulation]; [Autopilot]; [Compression];
Huh.
Well, I am a rock, so I should have expected this. I guess [Accumulation] is what makes me grow. [Compression] probably makes me harden the sand I accumulate and [Autopilot] is there to make sure I don't go insane with time. Pretty nifty.
I activated [Autopilot] and knocked myself out.
...
Notifications interrupted my sleep.
[The Demon King Baalaga was defeated. As a survivor, you have been awarded a minuscule increase in experience gain.]
I quickly summoned my status.
Time: 01/02/3 Name: none Race: [Common Rock] Level: 1 Titles: [Otherworldler]; [Living Rock]; [Survivor I] Skills: [Accumulation]; [Autopilot]; [Compression];
A new title!
A quick inspection was in order. I mentally prodded the words.
|[Suvivor I]-you gain a 0.01% boost in experience gain. Each new Demon King survived will increase the bonus by another 0.01%.|
This was quickly replaced by another notification.
|You have gained a new skill; [Inspect]|
Useful, but probably only once I reach the surface.
I went back to sleep.
Years passed.
...
|Level up.|
|You have acquired a title; [Centurion]|
Wonderfull. A level for 100 years.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The demon king shenanigans had continued during the century. Roughly every 15 years a new King would descend and then be defeated after a year or two.
My survivor title was now like this.
|[Suvivor VII]-you gain a 0.01% boost in experience gain. Each new Demon King survived will increase the bonus by another 0.01%. The current bonus is 0.07%.|
Luckily I am a rock. And rock is immortal.
I went back to sleep.
...
Surface!
I felt it. The wind caressing my hard body, or at least the hard protrusion that finally went above ground.
The clock currently showed the date 02/12/317, meaning I should have managed to gain 2 more levels. The reality was, however, even better. It seems that when creatures die on top of me I could absorb their experience a little, which pushed me into level 4. A whole extra level on top of my centuries.
Otherwise, little has changed.
The Demon Kings still continue their 15-year long cycle. One of them had even managed to spawn near me.
Throughout the year, tremors constantly assaulted me. It was the only thing that could make me feel something akin to pain.
I did gain a skill out of it though.
|[Earthquake resistance-minor]-you can slightly resist earthquakes, regardless of their nature.|
Otherwise, I felt that level 5 was some kind of benchmark.
Back to sleep.
...
|You have been named "The thinking rock"|
Wut?
I quickly scrambled through the years of logs made by [Autopilot].
It would seem a small village of some kind had sprung up near me. From the various snippets of conversations that had been held near me, it seems the current chief has deemed me his "thinking spot" and the name stuck. This led to the local populace referring to me as "The thinking rock" which was then transferred into my actual name.
As for the "how" of my hearing, well, sound is vibration, and I excel at feeling it so I managed to interpret words and whatnot.
All this people talk had made me really miss being human. Loneliness is a bitch.I can't wait for level 5.
...
A string of notifications came, and it was a big one too.
|Level up.|
|You have acquired the skill; [Self-awareness]|
|You have acquired [Mana]|
|Since you possess mana and now actual visual organs, you have acquired the skill; [Mana vision]|
|The skill [Mana vision] has been combined with your vibration senses into [Mavibro vision].|
|You can now control your growth.|
|You can currently produce various sedimentary rocks.|
|You can use mana to boost your growth.|
[As a [monster] type being, you can now evolve. Your evolution will commence upon reaching level 10.]
Holy shit!
More has happened during those 20-ish seconds of text than during my 370 years on this new home of mine.
Quickly I summoned my status once again.
Time: 04/05/370 Name: The Thinking Rock Race: [Common Rock] Level: 5 Mana: 10/10 Titles: [Otherworldler]; [Living Rock]; [Survivor XXV]; [Centurion] Skills: [Accumulation]; [Autopilot]; [Compression]; [Inspect]; [Earthquake resistance-minor]; [Self-awareness]; [Mana vision]; [Mavibro vision]
So many skills.
First I checked the [Self-awareness].
It let me see how big I was and what shape, which was very much appreciated.
Currently, my size was around that of a big house. Most of me was underground with only a small table like protrusion surfaced. In terms of shape, I looked like a ball with a small pillar that was my aboveground part.
Neat.
Next on the menu was the [Mavibro vision].
Immediately, a whole world opened itself around me. I could "see" about 10 other "me's" in distance, 360° style.
There was another thing I could see.
It was the sun. A tremendous ball of Mana that blasted everything.
All of this combined revealed to me quite a bit of info.
1. I was in either the southern or the northern hemisphere, since the sun was never really directly above me.
2. To what I named my east, I was near some kind of sea. I could see the waves constantly eroding the ground there.
3. What I had formerly known as a village, had now grown into a town. It laid to my west.
4. Both my north and south were empty plains that also bordered the sea and narrowed the closer they got to the town, to the point that only around a half of me in size connected the small peninsula to the mainland.
I could finally plan for the future. I had been blind to the world for soo long. I am no longer just a random rock! Woohoo!
First and foremost, I could no longer just grow like a random sphere.
The water around me was going to become an enemy I'd have to face eventually and I needed to obtain some kind of water corrosion resistance. I also had to leave pathways for rainwater to slide off me.
There was also the question of what kind of rock to grow.
My core was something similar to granite and pretty much all of my body was sandstone with some pebbles mixed into it here and there.
Oh well, my geology knowledge was pretty shite, but even I knew sedimentary rock sucked at resisting the elements. If only I had more granite or something.
Eventually, I decided on a kind of compromise. I would gather all the pebbles in my sandstone layers and use them as a kind of shell for my soft sedimentary self.
I also decided to make a pillar directly to the coast to try and acquire the resistance as soon as possible.
The [Autopilot] will take care of the rest.
...
I awoke to a drill.
Another 200 years had passed.
I was now the whole of the peninsula, with only a thin layer of dirt on top. My pebble defence and resistance acquiring tactic had worked so flawlessly that the [Autopilot] hadn't even woken me up.
A castle was being built on me. Somehow, it hurt less than the earthquakes.
Since a lot of time had passed, I first decided to check my status.
Time: 18/09/574 Name: Cliff of Camber Race: [Common Rock] Level: 8 Mana: 40/40 Titles: [Otherworldler]; [Living Rock]; [Survivor
XXXIX]; [Centurion]; [Minor Landmark]
Skills: [Accumulation]; [Autopilot]; [Compression]; [Inspect]; [Earthquake resistance-minor]; [Self-awareness]; [Mana vision]; [Mavibro vision]; [Sea-corrosion resistance]; [Rainfall pathways]; [Shellrock]
A new name!
Yay!
I also got new skills. Sea and rain ones were pretty "selbstverständlich", but the last one required some inspection.
|[Shellrock]-by injecting mana into your outer shell, you can significantly harden it for a period of time.|
Neat.
I was still getting drilled though, which is bad.
At least my core had sunk. Where before it was some 5 or so meters underneath the surface, it is now almost 50 meters deeper. No matter how deep the foundations for castles go, I highly doubt they would reach those depths.
Still, better safe than sorry.
I pushed my core deeper.
...
Almost two centuries passed.
The castle had been built and the local town expanded into a metropolis. A nation's capital. Kings and Queens were buried in my rock. Secret passageways were dug through. Even a small cave had been carved out to facilitate a small harbour.
I was big now.
A small mountain in size, going almost half a kilometre deep.
And then, one fine day, it happened. I reached level 10.
And evolved.
...
It was a very slow process actually.
I could feel my core getting hotter and hotter as more pressure was added onto it.
|Congratulations!|
|You have evolved into a [Magical Mound].|
Lightning struck from the sky.
My core transformed into a diamond, my sandstone into marble.
Small crystals emerged like a web weaving through it. Mana filled them as they grew into place. Golden veins connected them through my marble.
The tremors from my transformation almost destroyed the castle.
My world had expanded once more as the massive influx of mana could now support my [Mana vision] much better.
Things were no longer simple shapes and blobs, but defined constructs.
It was beautiful.
...
Unfortunately, beauty only went so far.
Not even a decade had passed, barely a minute in my time, yet a demon king had spawned directly above me.
He wrecked the castle and the town, with only some lucky servants having found refuge in the tunnels that perforated my rock.
I tried to shield them, I really did.
But rock is slow.
Immobile.
It can only watch as the world around it changes.
For the first time, I felt my core crack.
Never had so much fresh blood been spilt on my cliffs. Not even when pirates had attacked.
The Demon King rampaged on top of me. kicking and flailing as he summoned his horde of demons. And then he went, seeking some other place to turn into ruins.
|Congratulations! You have survived a direct attack from the Demon King Gatus!|
And with that, I lost consciousness.