1: The Unearthing

Thunk, Thunk, Thunk.

A steady pounding noise woke me. At first, I struggled to understand what it was. Having just woken from my sleep, I had no idea how long I had been unconscious, but by the drowsiness dulling my thoughts, it had been a while.

“Hey, I found something!” a gruff voice shouted.

The sound immediately shook off whatever sleepiness I still felt. After what felt like both eternity and an instant, the words caught me off guard.

Suddenly, I felt a faint presence, and I saw an inky blob appear in the inky void that was my world. Curiously, it looked to be standing on a flat surface, despite nothing underfoot.

Unlike my previous sight that relied on light, whatever I was using to ‘see’ didn’t do a good job. The creature appeared like a fuzzy outline, with most of the smaller details left out.

Either way, I was thrilled to hear a voice after the long silence. There was only so long that I could stand myself.

Slowly, the voice drew closer, and so did the steady thunks. I could only assume they were slowly digging; it had already been several days, as it appeared they were taking their time, but I wasn’t worried about it; rocks had a long lifespan.

Aren’t most rocks like four billion years old or something?

Unlike me, these people likely didn’t have the same life expectancy, and they didn’t seem as patient, having found a few friends to help dig the rest of me out.

According to the voices, I was pretty much all the way out of the ground, but they had to find some way to transport me.

Apparently, I was a large chunk of rock… Yep, imagine that for reincarnation, could have been a human or a bird or whatever else lingered in the cosmos, but nope. Rock it was. A pretty rock, but let’s be real, a rock is a rock.

Having talked to each other while digging, my rescuers unwittingly shared a lot of information. Apparently, we were on a peninsula next to “Helen’s Tears,” a small sea that separated several kingdoms.

Then I learned the most important detail: this world had magic, and not just any magic, but videogame magic.

Wait, that’s actually so cool. I always loved those types of books. Back on Earth, I had read plenty of fantasy and even branched out into LitRPG.

Fortunately, I also caught the name of what I had been reincarnated as. I am a Blessing Stone. I could interact with creatures and grant special ‘abilities’ or a myriad of other things, but the rescuers didn’t talk a lot about specifics. From what they had said, Blessing Stones were incredibly rare, and their abilities seemed to be dependent on the type of symbols that were inscribed on the surfaces. According to them, Blessing Stones were a natural occurrence, and when enough ambient mana had accumulated, they could appear. I doubted it was common for sentient rocks to exist, so that made me even more unique.

Considering my reincarnation, I made a good guess that the symbols I saw on the dice were the same inscribed on my surface.

Eventually, even the novelty of new voices grew tiring, the constant suppression wearing away at my mind. Before I could completely go back to sleep, however, I was interrupted by a very surprising but just as exciting notification.

You heard me, notification.

Like the books back on Earth, (I think it’s safe to say I am no longer on the same planet, now that I think of it, maybe not even the universe.) up popped a computer-like screen, with small notifications and everything.

Having been triggered when one of the workers set their palm on one of the inscribed symbols, it seemed to have jump-started the system some of the creatures had mentioned.

[Congratulations! You are a Level 1 Warding Stone.]

[Skills Granted]

[Dormant, Blessing of Warding, Ambient Detection, Internal Clock]

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like I could turn off dormancy, so the lethargic narcolepsy was permanent for now. After showing my “Skills,” the system followed up with another prompt.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

[An unknown humanoid has requested a blessing. Choose a blessing and grant a blessing?]

At first, I tried to press it with a finger, but after remembering that I no longer had appendages, I focused mentally to indicate yes and focused on the Blessing of Warding.

Apparently, that was enough of an indication, and the system closed the notifications as abruptly as they had appeared.