Opal was looking at her available skills. Within her mind she could visualize the very small round cave closed off by a weak looking round wooden door. Even smaller than the cave itself.

If Opal was Tiny in size right now that cave was almost in the Small category to her. And within that cave there were two ores at their purest form : brut ores as if they were freshly mined from a mine or a mountain.

 

One of them had a pulsing orange effect around the ore. It was [Geo pule I] : it allow its user to send pulses of mana around themselves and map their surroundings just like a grid with relief.

That same pulse helps its user by detecting ores and mana sources within range and showing it to its user in the form of colors. The brighter they are, the better the quality. The larger the surface covered, the more ore there is in that vein.

 

The second ore had a grayish halo to it. This one was a race exclusive skill [Rock eater I] : allowing a golem to eat Stone, Gravel, Dirt. Accumulating mass, growing stronger and more robust than before. It damages everything on its path while it's “drilling”.

The skill will naturally filter wasteful resources into powders and leave them behind him but will absorb every other mineral strong enough to augment its body. The higher the quality of the ore refined within a golem body the more it will filter until it finds something of equal quality or higher to absorb and increase its mass.

 

Opal toggled on [Rock eater I] and her cute little round stone shaped head shapeshifted into an inverted cone shaped drill. By lowering and steadying herself on the ground, Opal started to push her rotating jaw toward a wall of the rock pocket she was currently trapped in. She started her work moving upward toward the mana lights she could see thanks to her pulses. Most of the stones from the rocky walls were being absorbed, increasing her mass and volume little by little. Her excavation speed was also increasing since even her menacing jaw was doing most of the heavy duty work, leaving behind only powdered dirt just like dust.

 

She started at only 1/10th of her humanoid avatar size. Right now she had grown to 2/10th as she was reaching her goal. She had doubled her size after mining a hundred meter long tunnel leading into another underground cave. Which was much larger than the mini pocket she was stuck in.

Her head reverted back into the cute ball like stone covered with a slight bluish green wine on top.

Opal observed her new surroundings with her pulses. She could see some ore and other minerals on the walls and ceiling but what caught her attention was those core-like gems pulsing weakly with stones and dirt that were scattered all around. 

 

Something was wrong.

 

A continuous and growing rumble could be felt from the ground until something emerged and leaped at her at full speed aiming for her head. Opal dove against the ground and dodged by a pebble width the ambush of her aggressor. She turned her bulky body as fast as she could while lifting an arm to smash the creature with her stone mace arms.

 

Both ended up knocked on their back as it charged at her with less power than before. It was a large stone worm with some sort of dripping acid dripping from its mouth. “Disgusting” she tried to say but only the loud humming of an angry construct could be heard from her. She got up and batted the worm away, which gave him enough distance to spring back at her and bite her left arm, leaving marks and embrittling it with its green saliva.

 

Opal pulled the worm who didn’t want to let go of her left arm and smashed her right arm on its body, squashing a large chunk of it under its weight. The enraged worm let out a loud hissing noise and redoubled its effort to tear her apart until only the core was visible.

 

Opal was struggling and started to panic. She wasn’t strong enough to take that thing by herself. The worm managed to rip her left arms and break half of her rotating jaw while embrittling her right arms and part of her body surrounding her core.

The tenacious worm was shredding her exoskeleton with rage way too real for her but as she was too focused on keeping him away from her core she didn’t hear the loud and heavy thumping running toward her. When the comparatively giant shadow loomed over them within that cave poorly lighted by the scarce bio-luminescent flora.

 

“Look like it’s how I’ll get my first death then…” she hummed as she shut down her pulses to close her eyes.

The next thing she felt is the worm getting yanked from her with a very high pitched shriek and a *splat* sound just after that.

 

“No fear. Rock here.”

“Huh?” she activated her pulses again and looked up at the giant looming construct in front of her. That thing was made of ancient stones covered partly with moss and vegetation but mostly with a menacing dark metal. It was so bright and shiny to her geological pulses that she could absolutely see every nook and crannies of that unknown ancient golem.

 

“Who are you…?” She asked with an hesitating *hum*.

“Rock. I am. And stone insects. I crush. Rock protect!” this elder golem or whatever construct he was.  Was a strange novelty for Opal.

“Your name is… Rock?”

The huge golem slowly nodded. Speaking seemed to be somewhat… taxing him? Or maybe it’s because he’s super old.

 

“What is name of Pretty Stone?”
“Pretty stone? Me?” She looked surprised because to Opal, her appearance was somewhat basic right now. Especially when facing that magnificent golem made of sinister metals and covered in scars or nick on his external armor.

“I’m Opal. Nice to meet you Rock and thank you for saving me." She slightly lowered her ball-like head.

“Opal. Pretty name for Pretty Stone.” he didn’t seem to pay much attention to her being polite “Opal. You seem smart. Pretty stone is interesting.” He paused for a moment “Follow me. You meet others. Me protect.”

 

Opal followed behind Rock with a good distance between them, somewhat out of immediate reach just out of cautiousness. Rock seemed to be satisfied by that. The little golem was smart enough to not trust him immediately. Not like the others who followed or listened to him without asking questions.

 

“Rock, I'm curious about something.”

“Ask. You can.”

“Who are you and what is your role here?”

“Rock old but strong. Rock is guarding Asteria’s Crater.”

“Asteria’s Crater? And guarding it from what?”

“Main task is to protect Crater site. But Rock also protects young golems. Helpful they are, when growing big.” He turned around to look at Opal with his only non cracked gem-like eye “Grow strong, Pretty Stone. Crater becomes more dangerous as time goes by. Can’t say more… Just know.” the ancient golem didn’t want to elaborate more than that.

 

Opal didn’t know how to interpret his ominous words but nodded along. Rock started walking again to a larger opening. A massive cave system with a vast bio luminescent flora covering most of the walls, dropping plants, and Mana crystals of all colors and sizes. Ore veins could be seen around the ceiling but more importantly : a lot of other very small golems like her or slightly taller were gathered near the ruins beside the underground lake.

 

This area looked like a small hidden paradise, cut from the exterior world. As Rock approached, the little golems, they all became more active. They seemed happy to see him again and Opal understood why he thought she was smart. He was comparing her with golems that seemed to behave just like kids.

 

When she reactivated her player interface to learn more about her surroundings and the other golems around her. She saw that Rock had a special border around his health bar. It was mostly black and gold and his level was ‘unknown’. Opal thought that he was perhaps a unique Elite monster in this region. But she noticed something else, a new icon appeared next to his name : a book that wasn’t there before.

 

“Rock?”
He turned his head to focus his attention on her but stayed still since he had a bunch of mini golems dangling from his hand and playing around him.

“Can you train me please? I want to become stronger!”

He became a little more serious and observed her more carefully “Why stronger?”

“I don’t want to stay here indefinitely. I want to explore this world. And to do so freely, I’ll need to become stronger than I am right now. But I know nothing about what’s out there. You seem to know. I want to be able to fend for myself while I explore the world and discover old or new things.”

 

He was pondering about what she said. It’s true that she was too weak right now. Even a stone worm almost took her out earlier.

“Alright. Rock will help you. Everyone, return to ruins. Me busy with Pretty Stone.”

“...” Opal was wondering what happened for him to get his speech broken like that. But when she looks at him and sees how worn out he looked. The moss and rampant plants clinging on his body could be an indicator to his real age or at least since when he's here in those caves. Only the pulsing blue energy when he start moving seemed to be full of life. 

 

Rock stopped and plunged two fingers in the ground and sent massive sound-waves within. Shortly after that multiple rumbling could be felt. Opal felt like a deja vu of that situation, especially when multiple worms tried to ambush her but were all pinned against the ground by Rock.

 

“Opal.” he asked in a serious tone “What can you do?” 

What could she do? She looked at him before changing her head into the inverted drill.

“I can eat rock, gravel, dirt and probably other ores right now and send pulses to see my surroundings. It’s my main sensing skill.”

Rock nodded, pointed his arm toward a wall and his hand was rocketed as if it was shot by a massive canon. The next moment after the impact and a loud explosion chunk of ores were falling to the ground. The worms were shrieking in terror and trying to wriggle out of there as soon as possible.

 

“Step one : Eat. Copper good for starting.” Opal didn’t need to be told a second time and went to eat all the ores that fell on the ground.

Opal asked mentally if she could see a list of basic metals. A new window appeared above the other one showing a list of possible metals for refining.

Rock : “Step two : Now. Refine them.”

Opal concentrated herself to find a way to activate her skill and her body ballooned. She was now chonky and the area that was supposed to be her tummy was now a furnace heated by her core by concentrating all her magical power there. She couldn’t move at all.

“Let’s not refine in a hostile area” she took a mental note.

 

One minute later 4 *Klangs!* could be heard and 4 copper ingots fell from the furnace’s opening at the front and Opal shape returned to her normal mini golem form.

 

“Okay… Now what?” she thought. Just by curiosity she touched one of the ingots that she produced and *sloop* it was absorbed by her core inside her body. She could now see the equivalent of an inventory with two spaces. One for unrefined resources and one with refined resources into ingots.

 

“Good.” Rock said “Now. Watch me.” Opal looked at him or more precisely at his arm. His arm was restructuring itself into a gigantic war blade that was as long as Rock was tall on the front side and half that size behind his elbow.

 

“Wow…” Opal and all the little golems were watching with interest.

“This. You all will be capable. Of making and using. It take time.” he paused again “and dedication. Blade is unique, all weapons. Unique to each of us. We golems are strong. Because we, last line of defense when things, go wrong.” Rock became a little more lively, even his body was glowing with most of his mana lines. Before they all became dormant again.

 

“Opal. Let me, help.” He stretched out his arm and hand toward her. Opal trusted him a lot more now, he seemed to be like the grand-father that she never had. She approached and he put a finger on top of her head.

A large list of basic weapons type appeared in the form of a scrolling window just in front of Opal.

Julie's eyes behind her headset were shining so brightly that she could blind someone.
“All the possibilities… There’s a ton of weapon names and types I’ve never heard about before… Let's see what I will make for my first weapon.”

Rock was simply observing her contently. He was definitely curious to see what weapon she will make.