Signs of civilization?

The closer I got to that giant pillar, the more details started to appear. Firstly, I realized that the buildings were completely encased in the crystals, and secondly, that these buildings were all charred and destroyed in places.

What happened to that place? Why did it burn like that? I want to find out more about it, maybe I could even find something valuable there.

I kept on sensing energies to try and find if anything was around me, I kept on trying to avoid them as I went towards that pillar, which was pretty easy to be honest. Most of these monsters here can only fight opponents on the ground, not the ceiling.

This trip is pretty easy, a walk in the park you could say, it's more of a walk on the ceiling of a cave though, but who cares about the details. Wait, I feel like I'm just testing fate by saying that.

Luckily though nothing actually came, and I managed to make it to the pillar safely.

Wow, that thing was big, it's way bigger in person than seeing it from far away, and inside it, yep, those buildings were, in fact, completely burnt and destroyed, but some of the metal plating was half way through melting, wonder how that happened? How did anything here happen?

The buildings were made out of metal, most were completely scorched, but I could see some parts that were still fine looking, they had a plain white look to them, almost sterile looking.

This place is giving me some major bad vibes, I don't like it here, what kind of place will have buildings just randomly get crystallized like that? Yeah, I should definitely leave quickly.

Wait, what is that thing there? It's paper, and some things are written on it, I can't read what is written there, but there definitely is writing there.

Kind of crazy to believe that people wrote and built all of that, what happened to them? Did they die along with the crystallization here? Man, so complicated, but I want to get that paper, I might not be able to read it, but any knowledge would be super useful, especially here. And I'm sure appraisal, my best buddy, would help with deciphering the message.

Yep, that means I'm going to look for a reading skill, sounds like it'll be useful only once here in the underground, and if that paper happens to be someones grocery list, I'm gonna riot.

Alright, I'm gonna open the skill menu again, and this time, I'm gonna look for any language skill.

Owowowowow my head! Reduce it to just language skills please!

Haah, that's more like it, well, there are a few language skills around here, like a really small amount, wasn't there like 5000 languages though? Why would there be such a small amount of them? And all of them cost quite a low amount, except for languages like [Draconic] which cost 3 points. But the most interesting one, was definitely the one called "Omni-linguality."

This one definitely needs an appraisal.

[Omni-linguality]

[The ability to speak to all lingual creatures, a mixture of all of the language skills, users of this skill have generally poor performance in language until they reach very high skills]

Oof, that's a pretty bad side effect, but I have no idea what language is on the paper, and everytime I appraise the paper it just shows me what a paper is, I don't care about the paper you bloody idiot! But at least it isn't appraising the crystal. Which I did verify wasn't an Apoikia, thank god.

But most importantly, Omni-linguality only cost 7 points, exactly how much I have, and cheaper than if I got every language. Alright, give me Omni-linguality.

[Would you like to obtain skill "Omni-linguality" for 7 skill points?]

Yep.

[Conditions fulfilled. Skill "Omni-linguality" lv. 1 was added]

Awesome, now I can read that message right? Ugh, looking at it from far away was really hard from me to read, and the words still didn't make too much sense, if I was closer I bet I can understand more words, and the handwriting of whoever wrote this was kind of terrible, but the only word I could actually read from this far away was "dragon".

Now I'm really intrigued, I need to know more, maybe if I could find a thinner spot somewhere I could dig towards that message, I'm sure I wouldn't be able read it all, but anything would be good, plus I can read it later or something.

As I walked around the crystal to find a thinner place, I could see more things, metal forks and knives, chains, and even a flintlock pistol.

Now this is super strange, a flintlock pistol? I thought this was supposed to be a fantasy world? And what use would it make against any of the monsters in here? Kinda silly that they would have these in my opinion, maybe they had a reason for them?

When I went around far enough, I could now start sensing more enemies around here, a ton of energies started popping up on the floor.

When I would look there, I saw more crystal people, except that these ones looked nearly dead, their bodies were a dull color, they had parts of them breaking off and were barely maintaining humanoid shape.

That is... really sad actually, they look almost human, what happened to them? Why are they in this state? I'll appraise them to find out.

[Crystal] lv. 1

Species: Deteriorating Crystalline Apoikia.

Status: Waning (severe)

Stats:

Hp: 31/31

Ep: 0/0

Strength: 1

Defense: 2

Energy strength: 1

Energy defense: 1

Speed: 1

That is seriously depressing. It's just so pitiful, I wonder how it got there, or what happened to it for this to happen? And I'll need to appraise that species, because why would it evolve into a deteriorating species?

[Deteriorating Crystalline Apoikia]

[A species that reached the end of its lifespan, forced to evolve into this once waning reaches irreversible levels, they are often ignored and die alone. As they do not give exp]

That's just so depressing. I- I'm just gonna move past them, I'm sorry crystals, but there really isn't anything I can do.

After that depressing sight, I finally found the thinnest part towards the piece of paper there, and then I started digging, the crystals were easier to break than I thought, I thought they would be like diamonds or something.

But then suddenly, something I couldn't expect happened, the cave had started shaking, and the crystals started shining brightly, and a high pitched ringing sound started to emanate from around me.

What the hell is going on?! I guaranteed that this thing wasn't alive!

But then I felt myself getting pushed upwards, this thing was actually getting up!

I need to appraise this thing, Now!

[Crystal] lv. 1

Species: Crystalline Vasileio

Status: normal

Stats:

Hp: 3189/3210

Ep: 4301/4301

Strength: 1001

Defense: 1890

Energy strength: 510

Energy defense: 1510

Speed: 270

What the hell! This thing is freaking titan! It hadn't noticed me yet though, but look like I'll have to give up on my plans of reaching those documents!

I run out of the tunnel that I dug and start climbing on the body of this thing, its head was now piercing through the ceiling and began dropping rocks to the floor, oh god damn it! Even the crystal itself started rapidly changing, the crystal stated to change its body severely, what was a spike is now rapidly changing into the form of a person!

I was climbing up, avoiding all the awkward pieces of crystal that would it out and such, until I finally reached the roof, where I finally jumped off of the crystal person and climbed on the roof where I finally found stability on it.

This thing is terrifying! But, I don't feel that despair that I had felt with the dragon, is it because it isn't focusing on me?

Suddenly, the giant crystal starts swinging its arms, destroying dozens of crystals around the place, and nearly throwing me off the roof with just the air pressure.

This thing is seriously insane! I'll have to retreat somewhere safe! Damn, I really want to get stronger, I want to get stronger so bad! No more trying to get by, now, I'll really become the strongest in here.

I started running somewhere far from the giant crystal person, further into the cave, I could see the giant crystal crab and crystal person follow towards there.

I kept running until the destruction of the giant crystal person went out of sight.

Haah haah, I got away from there, thank god. One day, I promise you, one day, I'll get those documents and I'll know what they said, but for now, I think I know what I can do with these two that followed me here.

My power leveling will seriously begin now.