Kaian threw the puppet on the floor again, he had done it at least five times now. Despite his claims of winning being fun when he started, it wasn't such fun anymore. Deep exhaustion started seeping in on the third round, tiredness on the fourth and sleepiness on the fifth.

The only thing he wanted at this moment was a nap. Before that, though, he would have to get away from the puppet. Kaian stretched, jumped a few times and started running in this endless corridor.

Meanwhile, the puppet woke up, "looked" around and realized there was nobody around. It then did a motion like sighing and went back into the place it fell out from - the ceiling.

Kaian already stopped running because of his exhaustion.

Wheeze

He leaned on the wall while supporting himself with his hands, he was more out of energy than he thought.

"I guess I can rest for a while"

"Vexi, snail"

A black dot appeared in front of him, expanding until it filled the whole building, his entire vision. This wasn't how the transformation went. Kaian started panicking.

"It's a trap!"

Phew, it wasn't. Instead Kaian saw a black background with an image of a snail on the vexastone - an octagon. There were many more octagons, like stars in the night sky, countless. But they didn't have an image on them nor did they shine. Kaian tried focusing on one of them that was on the very top.

Sting

He felt like his eyes got stabbed. Kaian closed them and groaned in pain. Together with pain a large number appeared in his mind. How many zeros was that? 10? 50? 100? Kaian couldn't tell and the number disappeared before he could count it. Not intending on trying to find glasses in some fantasy world, he instead focused on the ones closer to the snail.

His eyes got pricked and a number appeared in his mind; a small one.

10

Kaian tried focusing on it, blinking, touching it. Nothing worked.

[So I don't have 10 of whatever the currency is.]

It could also be that he hadn't unlocked the ones connecting it to the snail, no matter, there's not just this one.

One of the octagons very close to the snail said 5 and started glowing after Kaian concentrated on it further.

The black space broke and Kaian started shrinking yet again, no elephant for him today. After his reverse growth finished, Kaian noticed the world didn't change as much. Unexpectedly, it actually had pretty similar eyes to humans, again. The second thing he noticed was him laying on the floor.

He couldn't move or do anything except flap around and move his eyes.

[Oh no.....]

[Fish], the cruel, merciless voice announced, tearing through Kaian's thoughts.

[COME ONNN! Can i actually get something good already?!] he roared in his mind.

[Fuuuck, calm down, deep breaths. This is no time to be mad, what did I expect from 5... vexapoints? A dragon? Pssh]

Even though Kaian said that dismissively, he couldn't stop his mind from thinking about it. Could he transform into a dragon later on? Or maybe a Star devourer or something cool like that.

Kaian had made this Star devourer up, but this is a fantasy world, who said that it doesn't exist!?

...

Thinking about it, why did he only get a snail and fish instead of some magical creature? Eh, they're probably too expensive.

At this point Kaian realized that he's still a fish. Surprising, he didn't know that fish could last that long outside water.

[Vexi, Human]

Kaian headed out on his way again, having forgotten about his fatigue.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

...

After a few more minutes of walking through this endless corridor, he felt that something was off. There were two traps at the beginning and nothing here? Suspicious.

As if this place was listening to his thoughts, an arrow so fast it didn't even look like an arrow emerged and pierced through Kaian's upper right chest. It was like someone took a brush and drew a straight blue line in this corridor.

Hack

PAIN! Kaian never felt so much pain, even when his body decomposed and he was slowly dying when he first got here.

He stumbled and fell on the ground, coughing up blood in the process. He tried to take a deep breath to calm himself, like he always did. Alas, his lungs got pierced and the only thing coming out or in was blood.

As he laid on the ground, life escaping him, he didn't think anything. He couldn't! The pain completely overwhelmed him. He couldn't even muster up a 'Vexi, Snail'. Thankfully, his mind cleared when he felt more arrows appearing from thin air. This was no time to be squirming in pain!

[V-vexi, Snail]

SWISH

The arrows flew like falling stars in the night sky. Unfortunately, Kaian was really unlucky and despite his small size, an arrow hit him directly through his body, stopping only at the shell. Due to its fast size it didn't actually stop and took Kaian flying instead.

Even more pain..... Hm? It wasn't that bad. The arrow pierced like half of his body but it didn't hurt nearly as much as when he was a human. Still the pain wasn't nothing to scoff at and Kaian had quite enough for today, fainting to protect his mind.

....

Kaian opened- .... extended his eyes. The arrow was no longer in his body. The same couldn't be said about the wounds. They were quite bad. His foot was nearly torn in half and he was bleeding slightly. If it weren't for a snail's regeneration he would've died. The regeneration is far from omnipotent, though, so Kaian tried transforming into his human form.

[Vexi, Human] he thought.

Vexastone replied with a cooldown of 37 minutes, dashing his plans.

[Oh fuck...]

Kaian didn't start panicking this time, he could survive 30 minutes, right? He fainted for however long so this much will be easy. Suddenly, Kaian felt like slapping himself. He completely forgot about his new form.

[Vexi, fish]

His transformation worked this time. Spending time as a fish on dry land wouldn't be comfortable but better than dying as a snail. Kaian checked the cooldown for his snail transformation and it was 30 minutes. The same time as when he went for a swim after entering, quite significant.

...

The time passed pretty quickly and Kaian was back as a human. He decided to explore further, going back would be equally as dangerous and perseverance would reward him.

...

After another 30 minutes spent walking, the long gray corridor finally ended, leading into a dark blue square room. It was built from the same bricks as the rest of the building. There was a hole the same size of the entrance on the other side and he could see a library behind it.

Impatiently, Kaian stepped inside the room. The chance of finally learning something was near! Sadly, a chance to die was also near. Both of the ways out of this room got filled with the blue liquid. Kaian started to hate it at this point.

"Vexi snail!" he growled.

He immediately hid under his shell hoping to get as little damage as possible.

"Hello, my name is Bloodcoral." a voice announced.

Kaian's eye peeked out from his shell and spotted a blueish ghost floating in front of the library.

[Hm, I can understand?] Kaian asked himself, moving towards a wall. Once he reached it he went on the ceiling. As far away from the extremely weird man as he could. He wore a gray robe tied with a piece of a rope on his stomach. His beard and hair was gray as well, signaling his old age. He was also translucent together with looking like he got painted by a slight blue.

This wasn't the meeting with a fellow human Kaian imagined. Nonetheless, the man kept on speaking, ignoring Kaian's movement.

"Congratulations for getting this far. You're worthy of getting my inheritance.. NOT!" Suddenly, the same arrows that hurt Kaian appeared from all sides, mainly aiming directly before the ghost. Kaian could only see the room being filled with blue lines one second and the next there were black scorch marks across every part of the room.

Thankfully, Kaian was in the corner and on the ceiling as a snail so all arrows except for one missed him. Even the one hit the shell which cracked slightly. Other than that, Kaian was completely fine.

"Pfft, hahahHahHhahHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAH" the old man bent over and started laughing maniacally while pointing at the empty floor in front of him. Kaian looked over there. It was empty except for the above average amount of scorch marks.

[Is this a recording this crazy bastard did just to make fun of those who die here?] Kaian turned speechless. His first encounter with a human was an interesting one.

After a while the man stopped laughing and finished his monologue.

"If you survived, the laugh wasn't aimed at you. Now go and take my stuff, whatever."

The man shook his hand and disappeared. Kaian didn't trust him and instead moved on the ceiling. He could swear he heard a faint "Tsk" when he was in the middle of the ceiling, reinforcing his decision that he couldn't trust this man.

The entrances got cleared together with the man going away so Kaian entered the library. It wasn't nearly as big as he thought. No matter, information is information. Kaian changed into a human and decided to take one of the books about the history of the world.

Poof

It disintegrated into dust. "Bruh," Kaian said. He went out to check some other books, but they all got dusted away. At last, he noticed a special one. It laid on a pedestal and was in the middle. That had to be special. And also a trap. Kaian climbed on one of the nearby wooden structures that held the books and jumped on the special one, turning into his snail form mid-fall.

Snail-an hit the book, which fell on the ground and he got sent the other way. He also hit the ground and nothing happened. No trap, suspicious.

[Vexi, Human]

Kaian approached the book and quickly snatched it, looking all around him for anything unnatural. Nothing. Kaian mumbled in surprise and went to another room behind the library. This one was way smaller with no exit. A blue coffin laid in the middle. Nearly everything here was blue, weird.

With the book in hand, he kicked the upper part, transforming back into a snail just to be sure. Nothing happened again. Kaian transformed back into a human. The book was gone.

"Huh?"

Kaian looked all around but it was nowhere, the only thing on the ground was the lid of the coffin. Speaking of which, he looked inside. A skeleton with a blue tint laid inside. It had a gray robe with many holes. Kaian looked at the skull. It looked like it was laughing at him. Kaian's eyes widened as he changed into a snail.

BOOOOOOOM

The coffin exploded, blasting Kaian into the library which also got consumed by the detonation. Parts that didn't burn got hit by the shock wave, transforming into loads of dust. Suddenly, the ceiling started collapsing. Big chunks of blue bricks fell everywhere. The room with the coffin was nearly completely gone, replaced with a spherical cut in earth. Water started splashing inside together with dirt, sand and rocks.

Kaian quickly shook off the explosion, thankfully, he had no ears so he didn't get disoriented. After changing into a human he ran towards the water, his only chance to survive, while dodging the falling parts. His heart was beating fast.

SMASH

A brick fell close to Kaian's head, it cracked on the floor. Kaian imagined that being his skull and got a temporary speed boost called adrenaline. After he reached the spot where the water was flowing he threw himself in it, hoping it's not poisonous. He hadn't felt the need to drink so far, the stone gave him enough nutrients, so he didn't know much about the water here.

The place collapsed behind him, cutting the route he came here and Kaian realized this wasn't Minecraft. He couldn't just swim up in flowing water. He gritted his teeth and waited until the room filled up, there was no other choice. He got hit by multiple rocks and was bleeding from some places. But he had to survive, he had to persevere! Finally the water reached a level where he couldn't touch the ground. The debris blocking the water in the room showed signs of giving way so he had to hurry.

Kaian swimmed up as high as he could, even touching some roots. Water was splashing on his head so he couldn't open his eyes. He grabbed the root by both of his hands and lifted himself as far as he could and threw his body towards stable water.

"Haaaa, Vexi, FISH!" he roared.

His body changed into a fish and managed to counteract the water pulling him down by the movement of his fins.

[AAAAAAAAAAAAAH]

His fins started moving as fast as they could and Kaian started moving away from the vortex. His effort paid off and he moved outside the sphere of its influence.

As he swam up a massive fish emerged in front of him. No, it couldn't even be called a fish, it was a heap of flesh with teeth and eyes. It had roughly the shape of a cone and Kaian could see three sets of teeth randomly spread out on its body. The eyes were also seemingly in random places. This was no fish. This was a lovecraftian monster. And it had just approached Kaian.

[...]