Chapter 18

[Lifeforce: 5.3 / 115]

Stone repeated the number.

"GOD FUCKIN DAAAA..!"

"Loud! Too loud!" Stone was in distress, not from the falling but from the yelling in his mind.

Stone saw with his sphere the three falling dwarfs that were loudly screaming too, but he successfully ignored them. Loud voices were truly annoying. The only thing that unnerved him was the broken stones falling alongside them. That was not nice.

"AAAAAAAA!" Eriv and Breadbeard screamed in horror, hugging each other, fully sobered.

On the other hand, Dafur's instincts kicked in and he recovered quickly, thanks to his harsh training.

He cast a watery rune this time. The atmospheric water concentrated around it and with a pulse of mana, it grew larger, creating a water shield under the four (five, if you count Parther) of them.

"Splash!" The shield was shredded apart when it hit the ground, but it was strong enough to save all of their asses and whatever equivalent Stone had.

The dwarfs rolled on the ground and fell unconscious. Their typical hard dwarven constitution saved them from broken bones. Still, the fall through an area filled with radiation from attuned mana crystals, the stress and alcohol were too much, even for them.

"You are the luckiest piece of rock in the whole universe," Partner shakily stated and if he could, he would collapse on the ground. Sometimes he hated being ethereal. "Thank you, gods. But I still hate you," he added inwardly.

[Hehe]

"Fuck..."

Rats were exploding as they rained on the ground, but the remaining ants were fine. They ran around in confusion as they could not feel their Queen.

"ANTS!" Stone yelled and all of them turned to him. He was not the Queen, but as the Guardian, he had a certain level of authority too. "Gather!" Stone ordered and ants listened.

"Stone, order them to find some food," the Partner proposed, happy he was not dead, realizing that these ants were their only option to move. "What about those dwarfs? They are unconscious. Seems they won't wake up any moment soon, at least from what I can see from their snoring," he thought to himself, elated that at least something was going well.

"Collect some food and gather it here," Stone commanded and added, remembering something important, "oh, and gather as much of talc as you can."

"Good idea," the Partner praised Stone. He would feel elated if not for the constant risk of death. Partner could already see a tiny, translucent figure, wearing a black robe, holding a sharp scythe.

Soon, around two hundred ants gathered a nice pile of talc gravel around Stone. He ground it into dust and activated the spell [Healing Bath for stones] with freshly refined mana and talc dust. A bubble materialized around him and he began savouring the good feeling as he rapidly regrew.

☁☁☁☁☁☁

A few hours went by in a flash. Ants gathered enough food from the chunks of exploded rats around; enough for them to survive for days. Dwarfs were still happily napping on the ground, as if nothing happened.

[Your spell Stone Healing Bath gained level two times]

[Your technique Ambient Mana Refinement gained a level]

[You are completely healed]

[Your spell Healing Bath for stones gained a level 3 times]

Meanwhile, while Stone regrew his missing parts, Partner patiently explained to him more about dwarfs and flickering mana crystals around.

Still, something was bothering the Partner the whole time. He ignored it and concentrated on the lecture. When he was done, he still ignored the feeling of something wrong and kept quiet, watching Stone regrow.

[Your intelligence had risen by 0.9]

"Partner, can I use those crystals?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to explode. Again," Partner flatly replied while thinking what the hell he did so horrible to end like this. "Well… he told me that there are mana crystals. I should have told him that they are reacting with refined mana. If I knew about their existence, I would forbid him to use it from the start... What is wrong with this pebble?" He internally sighed.

"Partner, I have healed way faster and my hardness improved too."

"Yeah, your proficiency rises, you freaking stone."

"What now?" Stone asked as he was getting used to the rapid changes.

"Hmm, hard to say… Where are we anyway?" Partner scanned the surroundings. While Stone was regrowing, Partner was mulling over his newly gained not-so-freedom. He did not know his source, but now that he was completely cut off, he felt…

"We fell, so somewhere down," yet again, his thoughts were interrupted by Stone stating the obvious.

"… Sometimes, I really wish I could…" Partner got a little taken aback; these thoughts were not typical for Partners.

"What?"

"… nothing…" he muttered and pondered over his growing feeling that something was wrong. "Something changed… I…" Lucifer lost consciousness in the middle of realization of what he had done.

"Partner?"

☁☁☁☁☁☁

The rousing dwarfs

"Uaaargh," Dafur yawned, slowly sat up and stretched. His head was banging like a pack of Karna-Kuls. "Where am I?" He asked in the hangover haze. With his blurred vision, he saw many fully grown mana crystals attuned to two elements: lightning and fire.

The cavern was approximately four metres in diameter, the ground covered in chunks of rats and hundreds of swarming ants.

His eyes rapidly opened and the dwarven greed, amplified by the lack of resources as a runemaster apprentice, got the better of him. His hand slowly rose towards the crystals. Unfortunately, or fortunately, he was interrupted.

"Dornus dammit! Mae head! And ass!" Breadbeard woke up. "Holy Dornus! We're rich!" A strange glint appeared on his eyes. It was the same as you could find in Dafur's eyes a moment ago.

"Keep it down, will ya boys?" Eriv, still resting on the ground with closed eyes, reprimanded them.

"Eriv! Wake up! We're in the middle of a freakin mana crystal deposit!" Breadbeard excitedly jumped towards her and fervently shook her.

The sound of knuckles hitting bone echoed around the cavern as Eriv punched Breadbeard right on his jaw.

"Ahhh! Dornus dammit, woman!" Breadbeard staggered back, falling on his ass.

"Breadbeard, never wake me like that, ever," Eriv hissed. "Daaamn, mae head hurts so much, I'm hallucinatin. I see a ton of mana attuned crystals."

"Nae dream, Eriv," Dafur said with a greedy glint in his eyes.

☁☁☁☁☁☁

"Partner!" Stone attempted to wake him up, but there he did not answer.

A new feeling swelled in him. It was so strong he could not even properly think. Different from the wrath he felt when Queen Ant betrayed him, but maybe even more powerful. His still-young mind was not able to cope with it.

However, he was a stone. A mineral. He began to ignore the new feelings he did not like. He did not care much about where he was.

Before long, without Partner constantly pushing him around, he began to slip into an un-alive, normal-stone-like state.

He felt strange again. Sleepy. Nothing mattered to him.

A few hours went like that, balancing on the edge between sapience and the eternal darkness.

His raised intelligence, growing mind, soul, and emotions he gained over these few months fought against this drowsiness. The battle was fast and brutal.

Still, in the end, his memories and emotions won.

"Partner?"

Still no answer. Stone was disoriented as never before. Even more than when he was nothing but a little pebble, barely able to speak or perceive.

He grasped something important; he was alive! With emotions, memories, and personality. He liked that feeling. He wanted more of it, more than those good feelings when he levelled up.

Something broke in him. It was like a curtain of fog cleared from his mind.

[Your Talent: Sapient fully unlocked! Congratulations! A sapient rock… Who did that again?] (*Author innocently whistling in the background*)

"Partner?!" He wanted to ask so many questions, but he could not.

The movement of a dwarf he could sense waking up gained his attention. He was saying something, but he could not understand.

The dwarfs were just standing there, looking around the glowing cavern.

Stone sensed with his perception sphere as mana with streaks of red and blue flowed around. He wanted to connect it with his technique, but it did not work.

"PARTNER!" He impatiently yelled impatiently—still nothing. It was worth it to be loud for his friend.