The cavern had a yellow hue by the giant colored crystal that lay above. There was moss covering the ground and in some walls, small opaque mushrooms in small groups around all the cavern, vines with different gradients of yellow, and many golemite cores broken all around the floor, seeming to come from a giant hole in the top of the cave.

This scene would be considered beautiful, be it not for the one looking at the aftermath of a battle to the death was non-other than Basil. He didn't understand what all this meant, nor would he care because his problems were others. Basil looked all around him for a way to keep going upwards. But something else got his attention.

The crystals meant an opportunity to recuperate his broken bones. By now, Basil's bones were a strange material that needed vital minerals to keep working, and what could be better than Mineral life cores? He munched the crystals and found they were hard, more than the water ones; why are they different?

Each crystal in this world is a physical manifestation of Asther in one of its many variants, be it Elemental, Esoteric, or Auric. You can find Asther crystals in pure zones; they're transparent like glass and filled with power any creature can beneficiate.

Their elemental variants belong to four different groups: Nature, Aqua, Ember, and Gas. The Nature tree, the one Basil is focusing on, has three sub-elements: Minerals, Plants, and Toxic. Each can be discerned by a color, Gray, Light green, and Dark green, in that respective order. The Mineral Crystals have other tones, but their color in energy is gray.

The ones Basil was trying to munch looked like smoky quartz and had a hardness similar to those. The water Crystals he ate before were Ice cubes in hardness in comparison to these. That's why Basil could eat something of that type and not these in front of him. He needed more solid teeth.

Basil thought, "Gray rock too harsh, need something to smash it before eating." The gecko needed to destroy the thing into smaller pieces before eating it. "What if he picked it in the same manner he escalated the waterfall?" Thought Basil, he was creating the pickaxe spike in his paw and striking it against the dead core.

It was a mild success because the bone broke and only picked a small piece of the thing. This setback didn't deter Basil as he chose to eat what he got. After a few hours of repeating the process, Basil's bones became more resilient and didn't break after a strike.

Basil's bones were becoming something akin to iron because of the energy seeping from the two cores he had in his body. Because he didn't know how to manifest energy, his energy-cores created a solution in the best way possible. Basil's bones became a conduit for the excess of energy circulating inside of him.

He didn't know the new gains from each energy he obtained, but his new stomach helped him anyway. As the name suggests, his rooted stomach helps get more nutrients or powers from whatever he eats and digests. The Mineral Asther made him harder each time he ate the crystals or at least each time he managed to swallow.

Hours passed in this place, and Basil was eating his fifteen core by now. One of them called his attention, it had a Dark rose tone, and dust was trying to levitate around it as some little moss pieces. Basil, Intrigued by this, got near to analyze the new core; it didn't smell like something terrible.

He tried to lick the Rose crystal, and before he could touch it with the tongue, dust and pieces of moss got launched at his face. Basil was exalted by this, remembering the first time he encountered the big turquoise golemite. Angry, Basil tried to attack the crystal with his claws, only to be stopped by a sound inside his head.

"ᛞᛟᚾ'ᛏ"

It was one word, but it made Basil look all around him to see what made that strange noise. There was nothing alive that could make a sound around him. Seeing there was nothing, Basil tried to destroy the crystal again, and when he almost touched it, a slight resistance was found, along with another one of those sounds.

"ᛞᛟᚾ'ᛏ"

Basil was panicking and looking at who could be the culprit when he heard another sound inside his head, making him run around.

"ᚲᚱᛖᚨᛏᚢᚱᛖ"

Basil focused his attention on the only thing in this place with the capacity to defend itself.

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"ᚤᛟᚢ, ᚢᚾᛞᛖᚱᛋᛏᚨᚾᛞ?"

The gecko didn't know what the sounds meant. Basil could only sit and look intently at the rose rock while tilting its head.

"ᛟᚺ, ᚤᛟᚢ ᚲᚨᚾ'ᛏ?"

Basil still didn't get what the crystal tried to do with all those weird sounds.

"ᚲᛟᛗᛖ, ᚲᛚᛟᛋᛖᚱ."

Attentive of the actions of the core, Basil began to step closer again.

"ᚲᛚᛟᛋᛖᚱ"

Basil touched the crystal with his nozzle and felt electricity coursing through his body. Flashes of memories ran wild in his mind while his body was convulsing from all the information he received. He could understand the meaning of the sounds now; sigils and runes were getting in his head, knowledge of the materials he only thought of as rocks too.

The knowledge the Asther teaches a Golemite, when materialized, was getting transferred to Basil via psychic link. They were connected and could understand the other, but Basil's brain was overcharging with that amount of knowledge, and the quartz was presenting cracks in its surface.

Both were there for hours, inert and silent, each recuperating from the strenuous process of sharing information without a correct linking. Basil was the first to get up, his eyes trying to recalibrate in their proper positions as his ideas. He looked around and saw the world with new eyes, ones filled with understanding, but in the end, he is just a lizard, not an astrophysicist.

Basil took a look at the Rose core, now without any dust revolving around, and began to eat the broken ones again. He needed to know what that thing wanted; hours later, the Rose core was awake, and Basil was in front, looking at it.

"You understand me?" — The core asked.

"Yes. I understand." — Basil replied with a cold tone.

"What did you do?" — Continued Basil.

"I gave you knowledge. Capacity to understand me" — Informed the crystals now collecting dust again.

"Why?" — asked Basil.

"I want to survive. Like you."

Basil stared without sending anything to the crystal.

"You are the only creature. That survived such a long journey. I had seen part of your memories. And what you had done to survive." — Continued the Crystal.

"I want to learn from you. How to survive."

"You. are powerful." — send Basil to the Crystal.

"I am not." — corrected the crystal.

"I used all my energy. To stop being shattered by you."

"If you are not powerful. Then what are you?"

"I am an Astheric Golemite."

"How do you know. What you are?"

"The Asther imparted it. To me."

"What is the Asther?"

"I don't know."

"How do you know its name?"

"I only know."

"Then. What are you called?"

"... Auriz. That's my name."

"Then. What am I called?"

"... I ... Your name ..." — Auriz was getting dust and moss to levitate with force.

"You're... You are ..." — Auriz was getting even more cracks around its surface. Something was exerting pressure on it from all sides. But after a while, the force stopped, and it began to talk again.

"Your name is Basil." — Basil could only look, as he was confused at the term.

"Basil?"

"Yes. Basil, it's your name."

"How do you know?"

"The Asther said it."

"You can talk to the Asther?"

"No"

"I don't understand."

"I don't understand either."

"Am I male or female?" — asked Basil.

"You are male."

"What are you?"

"I ... don't have a gender. I am not a living creature."

"Do you want one?"

"What could be the purpose?"

"To know how to identify you."

"I suppose that's a valid reason."

"Then you are Female."

"Why female?"

"Because I want you to be one."

"That's not a good argument."

"Well. Is because you feel like one."

"That too is not a strong argument. I can sound more grave. If I want to"

"I am a Golemite's core. I don't even have a body yet." —continued Auriz.

"Create one."

"I don't know how."

"What if you put rocks around you. Or this moss. I see you can make it float."

"That's not a real body."

"Then what is?"

"I don't know yet. But that's not it."

"Well. Do something. And you are female."

"Why do you want me. To be female?"

"I need mate when older."

"But I am not ... It doesn't matter to you. Right?"

"No."

"I see."

"Can you create legs?"

"Mmm. I suppose?"

Auriz began to collect with her telepathy rocks while trying to get unstuck from the ground. It didn't work.

"Can you help me?" — supplicated Auriz.

"I think so." — Basil got by her side and started pushing her out of the ground. She got unstuck and knocked over the floor.

"Now what?" — asked Basil.

"Are there more of the broken cores?"

"Yes. There are more. I was trying to eat some."

"Can you bring me some pieces? Maybe I can create some legs for myself."

"Sure." — Basil helped Auriz collect some of the pieces he was mining before to help her. With rocks, moss, some vines Basil managed to catch, and broken fragments of the Mineral-cores. Auriz managed to compact them with telepathy and create two stocky framed legs where she put herself on.

With help from her energy, infusing everything, she claimed those pieces as part of her, and she managed to walk-crawl while Basil was picking and eating more fragmented cores. Both were not ready for the planet's challenges, and neither of its inhabitants for them.