1.35 ALL the menus

Waiting was a boring affair. That’s the conclusion Rocky came to after an indiscriminate amount of time. Harold had immediately collapsed after the fight was over, the notifications about the time limit being surpassed overcoming his willpower to stay conscious.

So Rocky waited in abject silence. Had the human members of his party been awake, they might have described the time elapsing as ‘seconds’, ‘minutes’, ‘hours’, or even ‘days’. Though Rocky had no such understanding of time. He only knew that it passed by.

A feeling welled up inside him: Boredom, they had called it. It was a normal experience for humans: the feeling of disliking nothingness.

But not for rocks. It was strange that he was also feeling it at all, this boredom. Rocks were technically meant to wait for all eternity. Even ground to dust and in their most base form, rocks survive to wait once more. So why was it that despite being a rock, he had the capacity to feel bored?

Rocky brushed away another ‘Congratulations!’ notification. It was telling him that he had earned a “+ Error to his Intelligence”. This one was awarding him the unspecified award for something called ‘introspection’, whatever that meant.

The notifications had been getting more frequent now, ever since he had gotten his first evolution, and he now reviewed them along with the resulting experience from the battle.

The rock sifted through them one by one, each one better than the last.

[Original Action: You are the first of your species to perform introspection, + ERROR to Intelligence]

Several more notifications that were about the same as the first passed by his eyes. These were nice, but he couldn’t really feel their results, at least not since his first huge explosion in intelligence. Now that he was past them, he could get to the juicy parts.

[Congratulations, Level Up! Level 37 Count of Cold Iron]

It was his most recent level up notification. He had jumped up an entire fifteen levels over the course of the wave, something that Rocky could barely believe. Luckily, it also seemed as though he would have someone to ask very soon.

With the tribulation over, Alina once again appeared at his side, taking a moment to vault, glide, and otherwise fly around the wooden fort that Rocky’s party still resided in. She whooped and laughed with glee as she did so, but eventually came to a stop in front of the unconscious bodies of Harold and Amber.

“Oof, that’s gotta hurt. Mana exhaustion for the girl and…?” The Sprite looked questioningly at Harold’s downed body.

“Just regular exhaustion.” Rocky responded. “While we’re waiting for them to wake up, I was hoping you could answer my questions.” He paused, remembering something. “And finally get around to fixing me.”

“Okay okay, but we’re gonna do the fixing first, kay’?” Alina gave him a look. “We’ve put this off for far too long. Do you know how much my boss yelled at me when I was recalled for the-” The Sprite cocked her head. “You don’t understand a word of what I’m complaining about, huh?”

Rocky shook his head. They had definitely put this off for a long time, but why was her boss yelling? It seemed perfectly reasonable that they finish fighting first. He shrugged, a question for Amber at a later time. “So what do I have to do to fix myself?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. Just pull up your Status to confirm that what I’m doing is working.” The sprite pulled up a page of her own, and began scrolling through it.

#####

[Rock Hard]

Age: ???

Race: Rock

Class: [Count of Cold Iron, Level 37] II

Constitution: Rock

Skills: [Stone Manipulation], [Summon Stone], [Steel Aura], [Language Interpretation], [Words of Power], [Claim Area], [Eat]

Domain of the Earthen Monarch [Domain Development: 0.0%]

Achievements: [First Light] [Arachnae Slayer] [Town Founder]

Titles: [Progenitor] [Monarch’s Bane]

#####

Rocky stared intently at the Status, determined not to let any change escape his notice.

“See anything?” The sprite asked after several minutes of fiddling. “Your Status should change up any second now.” Rocky whirred a negative. “Huh. Have you tried turning it off and on again? Put it away and bring it back.”

Rocky did so, and saw his new and improved Status flash before his eyes.

#####

[Rock Hard]

Age: ???

Race: Rock Golem [E]

Class: [Count of Cold Iron, Level 37] II

Constitution: Iron

Skills: [Stone Manipulation], [Summon Stone], [Steel Aura], [Language Interpretation], [Words of Power], [Claim Area], [Eat], [???]

Domain of the Earthen Monarch [Domain Development: 0.0%]

Achievements: [First Light] [Arachnae Slayer] [Town Founder]

Titles: [Progenitor] [Monarch’s Bane]

#####

“And the side effects should hit you right aboooooout now.” Alina’s voice rang out, but Rocky’s light had already begun to dim. A few moments later, he dropped to the ground.

#####

Hah. Did the System think that he would go down that easily?

Well, yes, it was true he couldn’t really speak. Or move. Or do much of anything right now, to be honest. But this System had never tried to put a rock to sleep before, and it would fail.

The lights dimmed and nothingness closed up around Rocky. The familiar feeling of, well, a lack of feeling encapsulated him once more. But where he had once felt panic, as his sentience was apparently stripped away from him, Rocky was now calm. He had expected it this time.

He may not understand human customs, or even many of the concepts and laws of the world around him. But what Rocky did understand was that he could not fail, he could not abandon hope while his party needed him.

The not so small rock compiled a list of things to review, to test the new limits of his newfound Status changes.

‘First thing’s first.’ He willed the Status into being, and so it appeared before him, just as it had when he had called for it while awake. It was something of a surprise, too. ‘It didn’t work the last time I was like this, did it? What changed?’

Nope. No. No. He was running off on a tangent again. Time was limited, and on the surface, it seemed that the next fight was almost always nearby.

“So I can see my Status while like this.” Rocky thought aloud. Not as if anyone could hear him here. He pulled up the notifications, dozens more had appeared in the short time Alina had spent fixing his Status page.

[Error ameliorated, termination aborted]

[Race Evolution Completed: Rock [F] → Rock Golem [E]]

That was good, it looked as though that dual nature stuff that Alina had been talking about was true. ‘Though actually, I don’t feel any different than before.’ Rocky looked down at where his body usually was, only to be presented with an eyeful of lovely nothingness. So no checking whether the physical changes had taken effect. Fine then.

‘What else is there?’ Rocky scrolled to the next group of notifications, each one seemed to be similar to all the other ones in the group, and all served one function. That is, except for the first line of text his consciousness landed on.

[Class Rank Up Confirmed. Tier II, Count of Cold Iron]

[The below abilities meet the requirements for a Tier upgrade. Please note that Tier upgrades present a considerable increase in a skill’s power, but can come at the cost of some of the skill’s functionality]

[Stone Manipulation] → [Stone Molding]

[Summon Stone] → [Greater Summon Stone (Inanimate)] or [Summon Stone Golem (Animate)]

[Claim Area] → [Develop Infrastructure] or [Greater Claim Area]

[You may choose to disregard skill upgrades at your discretion, but please be advised that the current options may not be available upon your next rank up]

Okay, this was promising. “Is there any way to view what the possible upgrades do?” He noted that the drop down menus he had seen on his Status page were also here now. He poked at them with his will until one of the upgrades came up with a description.

[Stone Molding: Gain greater control over the stone you work with, allowing for malleability, precision, and colouring]

‘It doesn’t really take away from the skill it’s upgrading from, right? Isn’t that the only possible downside?’ The System had been vague, but Rocky had noted the part about losing skill functionality. “Amber probably won’t be mad if I take this… right?” The thought of pissing of the red-top human worried him, but this choice was Rocky’s choice to make.

“Upgrade [Stone Manipulation] to [Stone Molding].”

[Choice confirmed]

That was all the System gave him. Rocky waited for several more moments. When no retribution from the System, nor punishment from an angry Amber came, he turned his attention back to the remaining upgrades.

[Summon Stone] → [Greater Summon Stone (Inanimate)] or [Summon Stone Golem (Animate)]

[Claim Area] → [Develop Infrastructure] or [Greater Claim Area]

Summon stone was incredibly helpful right now, especially because his golems were basically the only reason his party had survived the wave. Rocky leaned towards getting the [Summon Stone Golem] skill because of his previous utilization of its base skill, but he poked the dropdown menus anyway. Better safe than sorry, that’s what Amber always says.

[Summon Greater Stone: Upon casting, the user is able to conjure large chunks of stone and other minerals depending upon their affinity and magical power. Summoned materials can be used for crafting, building, and in the creation of weapons]

So it was useful after all. That did make the choice a bit harder, as Rocky’s dreams of a great stone fortress flashed before him. ‘This might be my chance!’ A great castle, like the one they had seen the goblins hold. But with bigger towers, a huge keep, enormous buildings that could blot out the sky!

Then Rocky remembered the pitiful amount of stone he could summon with the base skill. And his enthusiasm wavered. The rock looked for another drop down menu, and found it in an unlikely place. Within another drop down menu.

‘Who designed this system anyway? Why is it so confusing?’ He tapped at the drop-down menu, whose icon had been at the bottom of [Summon Greater Stone]’s description.

[The limits of this ability are based upon weight. Weight of summoned stone cannot exceed limit]

That didn’t really explain why he was only able to summon pebbles, unless his limit was the weight of those small rocks.

Wait. Unless golems and stone were counted together? Oh! That made sense. He brushed off another notification about original actions, and looked at his options with renewed vigor. They would be useful no matter what he chose.

But the golems were so useful, weren’t they? His brethren in stony sentience. He tapped the drop down menu with his will. The description of the ability would guide his decision.

[Summon Stone Golem (Animate): Increases quantity of possible constructs, also based upon weight. User’s golems will gain a greater range of functions]

‘WWAD? WWAD? WWAD? What would Amber do? The golems have been useful so far, and we have stone in that mountain…’ Oh! The proverbial bell went off in his head. If he took the golem skill, they could just move to the goblin’s castle! It was the perfect ploy.

“Upgrade [Summon Stone] to [Summon Stone Golem (Animate)]."

[Choice Confirmed]

One more choice to be made. One more potentially life-changing option presented to him. Rocky scrolled back up to his possible upgrades.

[Claim Area] → [Develop Infrastructure] or [Greater Claim Area]

He poked the dropdows as a reflex this time.

[Develop Infrastructure: When used, upgrade one building within claimed territory without build time, but with materials. Works so long as the building is able to upgraded within the parameters of the town level. Cannot claim new land]

[Greater Claim Area: When claiming an area, the caster partially restores any ruined infrastructure within the claimed land. Can claim wider areas, expands existing land limits]

It took Rocky all of two seconds to make his choice. If his party was moving to that goblin castle, then he had to claim it.

“Please upgrade [Claim Area] to [Greater Claim Area].”

[Choice Confirmed]

Rocky let himself drift off into the familiar void, representing sensory deprivation in the extreme. He had fought this void, and he had won. Now was the time to rest.