After a night of fishing and sampling freshly grilled catch, I napped. For the first time since my death, I had a dream. A vivid dream of frolicking about in a fantasyland, living vicariously as a Chad harem protagonist.

Now I don’t know whether it came from Eithuriel, or some cursed part of my subconscious. It did, however, give me a massive scare in the morning, when the rock I’d used as a pillow came to life.

Bits of Eithuriel’s memories solidified enough for me to have a vague grasp of what had happened. Apparently, all deities could warp their environment whilst dreaming.

Kinda neat. But dangerous if I slept near others. Long term, it could spell doom for my aspirations of peaceful living. If my island was singing and dancing, it wouldn’t take long until the D*sney princess excuse wore off, and people started drawing conclusions about my real identity. Not exactly ideal, since my whole point of coming here was to lie low and pretend I’m a mortal.

The rock rolled behind me lazily. If not for the vague and blocky shape of a face on its surface, it might’ve been cute. I named him rock Chad Thunderock for the uncanny resemblance.

Luckily, Eithuriel’s memories had some clues for how to counteract these ‘Dream Manifestations’. Reality anchors were what deities use. Buuut, since I wasn’t going to stumble upon them here in the periphery of reality, I picked the next best option.

Carefully, while keeping my mind empty, I imbued divine energy into my sleeping bag, furniture, and cavern. This method essentially blessed them into low-grade divine artifacts.

It didn’t give them magical powers. It didn’t give them special properties. It just made them slightly better at being what they were. My wonky wooden spoon was now better at being a wonky wooden spoon. My sleeping bag was marginally more comfortable, and no longer smelled of old socks. Okay, that one might’ve as well been a magical effect.

One issue was that blessed objects had this over-saturated appearance. I hesitate to call my crappily crafted cutlery supernaturally beautiful, but that’s essentially what they had become. Its colors were brighter. Its surface shined. Since they might raise some eyebrows, I blocked my cavern with a boulder.

The second issue was that I would still have to avoid napping in nature. Bummer. The moss in my spruce forest was super comfy. Like a double duvet level comfy.

Sigh.

I’d keep an eye out for reality anchors. But now, I had foraging to do. Hopefully, my island and the ones nearby had things I could trade with locals to get some much needed cash.

***

First, there was nothing. A black void. White emptiness.

Then, consciousness.

Chad Thunderock woke in the body of a [Least Rock Elemental]. Memories of his previous life were obscured, yet Chad Thunderock knew with absolute certainty that he had, in fact, been reincarnated.

Upon reincarnation, Chad’s deity blessed him with [Charismatic Chin], a devastating offensive skill, and [Earthly Endurance], which increased his physical vigor. Fitting boons for a rock as ruggedly masculine as Chad Thunderock.

What intrigued Chad was that the deity had followed him to this new world and seemed to be suppressing his powers. Chad attempted to communicate his confusion by rolling over the deity’s toes, to no avail.

Truth behind the deity’s mysterious behaviour and his own mission dawned upon him on the second day, when he took Chad to visit the center of the island.

Chad’s expression froze in shock of revelation. Three islands had been tied together with gigantic black roots of an immeasurably ancient spruce, a sky towering titan. Beyond the island’s border spread a shattered land of floating islands and land masses, lonely splintered stones, the ghost of a continent.

“I think I’ll make this my visitor area.” The deity gestured at a shrine.

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Chad understood. Every deity needed a place of worship.

The deity gestured at the horizon. “I was thinking of roping in some more islets, if I find cool ones. Some ancient ruins might be nice.”

And there it was. Verbal affirmation of Chad’s deduction.

Just as he suspected, the deity intended to repair this shattered realm. Chad Thunderock had been summoned to this world to aid the deity in this noble quest. An excellent choice, for who else but Chad Thunderock was rock enough to assist in such a monumental task? None. No single rock on this island had even a quarter of his rough hewn looks or earthy charms.

However, even a rock like Chad had to prepare. He needed to grow in strength… to evolve, gather skills, and faithful companions.

Suddenly, an arresting visage rolled Chad upside down with shock.

Hot damn! A sexy slender redhead sun-bathed by the lakeside. Freckles coated her every naked curve, adding a dash of countryside innocence to a ferocious noble beauty. Was she a wolf-raised princess? An heiress of a primitive tribe? What she was a primal enigma of sex appeal. Such an individual would undoubtedly be of great aid in his quest.

Chad Thunderock knew she would not be able to resist his charms. He righted himself, and, with casual slow motions, rolled over to introduce himself.

‘Hi sexy red,’ Chad said, his voice a husky rumble. ‘I’m Chad Thunderock, pleasure to meet you.’

She stared at him with a cold, hard face. Playing hard to get. I like that.

‘Never heard of me? Aight. No biggie.’ Chad rolled around her, displaying his masculine edges from every angle.

Somehow, she remained unaffected. Wait! Was that a hint of a deeper blush on her? Did she just ‘hmph’ at him? Oh, yes it was. Yes she did. The girl tried to look aloof, but was smitten. That expression of disapproval was a facade. Classic tsundere hiding her true affections.

Chad paused in a smug angle, his lips an inch from the redhead’s. ‘I know what you want, baby. Come with me, and I’ll show you a life of adventure.’

Redhead continued with her tsundere act, but Chad wasn’t fooled. When he grabbed her to roll alongside, she didn’t put so much as a smidge of effort into resisting him.

He would have to be careful or risk collecting a harem if he kept charming ladies at this rate. Chad laughed. As if a perfect specimen like him deserves anything less than a harem.

Thus began the legend of Chad Thunderock.

***

Chad rolled around, displaying a spotty red pebble to me. No clue what went on in his head. I don’t speak rock.

“Nice pebble,” I said and returned to foraging. Nuts, mushrooms, and smoked ghostfish would be my staple food and trading goods.

Days breezed by. I crouched from bush to bush, turning branches, thinking of nothing in particular besides the color and shape of edible mushrooms. Another hooray for divine physiology. My sense of taste was good at spotting poison. Over the days, I got familiar with the nooks and slopes of my island. I found anthills, rabbit-holes, and slowly learned the types of plants found around my island.

Call me insane, but browsing the woods and picking stuff up gave me immense satisfaction.

One handful at a time, my backpack filled up with colorful treats.

One backpack at a time, the pile of nature’s treasures in my cave grew.

Each night, I cleaned and sorted out my findings. Then laid mushrooms to sun-dry on the rocky side of the island. Nuts I kept in one enormous pile. Around midnight, I spent a few hours catching ghostfish.

My baits were pieces of what I’d foraged, blessed with a drop of divinity. Sometimes floating jelly-fishes got caught on my hook and I had to throw them away. Once, I even had to untangle a huge manta-ray from it. Mostly, I caught these little perch-like fishies. Well, I say perch, but they all had variations in number of fins, fin-shape, and coloration. Only the bodies were roughly uniform. Although there were a few ghostly eels and pikes in the mix.

To preserve them, I built a little bark tipi over my campfire, set the fish up on racks, and added wet leaves to the coals. Yeah, that’s right. This deity knows how to smoke fish and isn’t a completely incompetent survivalist! Thank you, father, for passing on the basics of dadmanship.

The end result was dry as jerky fish-strips. Tasted kinda nice, though it was missing salt. Hmm...

“Hey, Chad.” I glanced at the rock sitting next to his red pebble.

Chad rotated to face me.

“You seem to be an expert in… colorful rocks. Mind keeping an eye out for salt for me?”

Chad rocked back and forth, nodding. He was a smart rock.

I grinned. “Great. Thanks. No pressure though. I can always buy some later.”

Ten-day streak of perfect weather ended when the sky broke out in waterfalls. I carved myself extra sets of mugs and cutlery on the first day. When rain continued the second day, I decided to continue fishing.

God, I love divine physiology. I felt the cold. My clothes were clammy. But none of it could harm my health.

And wow. Just wow the fishes that I caught during the rain! Huge! Magnificent! Ended up doing catch and release though. My campfire wasn’t waterproof.

Two weeks after my arrival, my backpack was bursting with dried mushrooms and nuts. In a tarp, I had roughly two fifty kilos of smoked fish. Hopefully, they were worth something. Eithuriel, curse his soul, had taken most of the memories pertaining to economy. All I had were semi-uneducated extrapolations based on the old Earth economy and what little I’d glimpsed during my travels to Voidwilds.

Originally, I had hoped that Hu Ha would return to help me understand local common sense. Nine days had passed since his visit with no signs of Hu Ha. I wasn’t worried whether he had made it home. More than likely, he was simply too busy to come visit some random hermit. However, neither I nor my smoked ghostfish could wait forever either.

So I picked up my foragings, bid Chad goodbye, and headed for the village near the center of the Crystal Archipelago.