1 Follow the rock

Earth as we all know it was long gone, centuries ago a bored god made Earth into a game. All people who had lived in the old Earth were long gone after 600 years. All people born since then had only known earth as it is now with : levels ; classes ; monsters and PvP. This was their world and the "normal" world we all know only sounded like fantasy to them, the respected occupations had changed from scientists and doctors to alchemists, mages and magical knights.

Handsome boys and pretty girls with high magical talent were practically celebrities in the new world.

While most people lived in big cities protected by knights and mages, some unique people still lived outside of the walls.

Either because they liked liberty or because they considered life in the city to be too expensive.

A few kilometers to the north of Eclipsia city deep in a forest was a beautiful house made of wood adjacent to a lake. The scene of the long haired young man fishing in the shining blue lake next to the beautifully built house would have made a stunning picture. His face was perfectly shaped with a strong jaw and a straight nose, if you had to guess he probably was mixed between an asian parent because of the shape of his eyes and a white parent because of his deep blues eyes contrasting with his long jet black hair.

The young man's name was Kyle, he was born in this forest and had never been outside. Until last week he lived with his strong grandfather and didn't care about monsters attacking but soon he would have to make a choice, his grandfather had died of old age last week and the barrier he had put around the lake would fade due to mana depletion since nobody was there to maintain it.

Kyle's level was too low to maintain such a big barrier, at most he could change it to a smaller one to protect only the wooden house, his grandpa had taught him how to do it but with his level most monsters in this forest could destroy the barrier he made by sneezing at it, he was after all taught in the way of the magical knight, even though they used mana like mages they didn't have a precise control over it and mostly used it in a berserk way to boost their attacks or defend themselves.

Kyle looked at the sky that had started to darken, he suddenly stood up and took off his crude and old looking clothes to reveal his fit body, with a body like this and his handsome face he would probably make thousand of hearts fall for him if only girls could see him and he wasn't hidden in a forest for all his life.

"Time for a bath."

He said while stretching and jumped straight into the lake, the cold water first was uncomfortable until he got used to it. Since he was a kid he had played in this huge lake countless times and the thought of having to leave it soon made him nostalgic.

While he was floating on his back and looking at the setting sun something grazed his leg, he guessed it must have been a fish, since he couldn't catch a fish with his fishing rod and he knew he had to grab a fish for tonight's dinner if he didn't want to spend a sleepless night because of hunger he dived straight in in the direction he guessed the fish had went, what he didn't expect was that the thing that had touched him was a shining rock that moved freely in the water.

Kyle tried to focus behind the rock and see if a string was pulling it but then he realized it was impossible as the rock did impossible movements such as coming back towards him and "swimming" away before he could catch it. Then his second theory would have been that someone was using magic to control it, who would do such a thing tho ? He and his grandfather never had any guests in their house so why would suddenly come here to play a prank on him ?

Finally he decided that this rock was a special item and that nobody was controlling it, he swam back while looking at its reaction and his hypothesis was right, the rock stopped and slowly followed behind him. He saw how the rock was taunting him earlier and guessed it wanted to play so he swam back to the surface and took a deep breath, the lake was very deep so he had to be ready to follow behind the rock for a long time.

He dived back but didn't try to swim fast, even though he had a trained body as a magical knight he couldn't waste any oxygen by trying to go fast. He kept a steady rhythm to waste no oxygen and see how far the rock would go, he swam slowly towards the depth of the center of the lake.

'I wonder what kind of treasure is that rock, if grandpa was still here maybe he could have told me...it looks like it have a sentient mind ?'

After 3 minutes under water Kyle was starting to feel discomfort in the chest area.

After 5 minutes under water he started to feel his chest compress.

After 7 minutes he knew that if he didn't go up now he would faint before reaching the surface, the allure of a treasure wasn't enough for him to try his luck so he just swap back up to the surface, going down was actually harder than going up, in less than 5 minutes he was already breathing air outside of the lake.

After the level 15 most magical knights were able to stay hours under water but Kyle was only level 2... it was a really bad level for his age but it wasn't a lack of talent or something like that, his grandfather was overprotective and only allowed him to kill slimes when Kyle had repeatedly and forcefully asked. Even then Kyle was still practically a normal human, the difference between a level 1 and level 2 human was only physical, after the level 5 the body becomes strong enough to stock and manipulate mana.

Kyle was 15 this year, most kids his age were around level 10 to 15 while the best of the best were already nearing the level 30, these talents were already engaged in factions such as the military, the 4 magical academies or some secret factions. Of course these people were far ahead of Kyle and even though he loved his grandfather he still resented him for wasting his chances of living as a mage or a magical knight.

He swam back to the shore where he found his clothes, dried himself and got dressed. He turned around to look at the lake and was surprised to see the rock peeking at him outside of the water.

"Can you understand me ?"

He said that without thinking but felt stupid after it left his mouth...

'Did I just talk to a rock ?'

The rock jumped once outside of water and fell back straight in, a second later it peeked out of water again.

"That means yes ?"

The rock did the same thing again and peeked at him.

"I can't believe it, how do you say no then ?"

The rock jumped once again but didn't lose time peeking at him and jumped a second time outside of water, then it peeked at him.

'Woooow this thing really is intelligent, i can ask it only yes / no questions but it should be good enough.'

"Then uhmm... do you want me to grab you ?"

The rock jumped twice.

"No ? Then to play with you ?"

Once again the rock jumped twice.

The last thing that came into his mind was obviously the answer, even though he was convinced he had the right answer he still asked.

"You're guiding me somewhere ? You want me to follow you ?"

Finally the rock jumped only once.

"Can I breath in the place you're taking me to ?"

The rock jumped once.

"Can I reach it with my current level ?"

The rock once again jumped once, he shouldn't believe a rock this easily but he didn't see what use there was to trick a level two weakling, in the back of his mind he still had the hope that he could catch up to the young geniuses before leaving this place and be highly acclaimed, to be a celebrity that was shown on TV and that girls screamed his name when he appeared. Maybe this was his opportunity and he didn't want to miss it.

"I'll follow you, guide the way."

One again Kyle took off his clothes and jumped behind the rock, this time the rock didn't dive but guided him to the center of the lake, there he took a deep breath and dived straight behind the rock while saving his oxygen as much as he could.