Reading Rize's first few words, Lowen became intrigued.

[The gods laughed when they created goblins, I'm sure of it..... but now I have a chance.....no we have a chance. With this purple stone, will it be my fortune or my downfall?]

Lowen continued reading.

[I didn't discover this glowing purple rock, it discovered me. When I was deep down in the heart of the mountain, mining for some ore, I had accidentally fallen into a dark black crevice, tumbling down and rolling and hitting anything in my path until I lost consciousness. When I finally awoke, I was in a chamber lit with the glow of magical crystals. Before I knew what was what, it was already there, as though it had always been. It tried to escape my awareness, burying itself deep within my subconscious but the purple fragment could not hide completely. Its surface glowed with 10,s if not 100's of thousands of inscriptions. Each one intermingling and overlapping, connected and yet somehow linked like a chain. Perfection was the first thought that came to me.]

As Lowen read this, his mind thought back to when he first saw the stone and he instantly became confused.

(100's of thousands of inscriptions, what the hell is he talking about? When I inspected it, it only had thousands not 100's of thousands.)

Lowen's mind reeled in thought and his curiosity grew along with his impatience. Sitting in the meditative position, Lowen slammed his eyes shut and began to search his mind. Lowen had discovered that if he concentrated hard enough he could detect this stone using his aura sensing ability, which surprised him, seeing as how his aura sensing should only be able to detect living things.

(Could this purple chunk actually be alive?)

As Lowen sensed this fragmented rock, he still only discovered a few thousand inscriptions. No matter how hard or close he inspected, it was nothing like what Rize said.

(Am I doing something wrong or was Rize just incorrect?)

Lowen opened his eyes and read some more.

[As I watched this stone, my surroundings were increasingly beginning to dim. It seemed that I fell into a huge chamber filled with crystals that naturally glowed with magical energy. Several of the crystals were breaking and turning to dust all around me, causing the chamber around me to grow darker and darker but that wasn't the most surprising thing. The stone within me began glowing brighter and brighter, it was absorbing all the energy from the crystals. After only a few more seconds, the rest of the crystals cracked and fell apart, crumbling to dust on the ground. The chamber became pitch black and the stone, it had stopped. After but a moment, one of the inscriptions upon the fragment began to glow a bright white and purple drops of liquid began to form overtop of it. The inscription then began to fade until it eventually dulled, becoming a faint grey. After that one inscription greyed, the purple drop fell from it and disappeared within my mind. At first, all was quiet but then I felt a feeling of extremely hot and extremely cold and then for a moment nothing. *BOOM*... It felt like I could hear an explosion going off in my mind followed by a stream of information. That single purple drop carried with it all the information of that one inscription. It was a power, an inheritance of some sort. Left by some unknown and delivered unto me, why? I didn't know and as I felt this new power inside of me, I couldn't be bothered to feel upset at this invading fragment. The information that came with this power told me what it was and exactly how to use it and so I did. At first, I could only control small insects but after months of practice, soon small animals were bending to my whim and after half a year, I could even command my own brethren. Every day my power grew and every day, so too did my ambitions.]

Lowen couldn't believe what he was reading, it was just too incredible.

(So that's how he gained his abilities, it was all from this purple fragment. Though to unlock said abilities, seems to require an extraordinary power source. He got his power source from a cave full of magic crystals but my power source comes from my ki and earth energy. Is this why I can only see a few thousand inscriptions instead of said 100's of thousands, I simply lack the necessary amount of energy the stone requires.)

Lowen continued to wonder if this were the case then that made sense to him. Rize inherited a power because he lucked out being in close vicinity to a large enough source of energy for the stone, while Lowen could only use his own energy. Did this not mean if Lowen had enough energy then he too would unlock an ability. With these thoughts swirling inside his head Lowen continued reading Rize's notes.

[The next time I received a gift from this stone, I had already taken control of hundreds of my brethren and they had been expanding our new base when they accidentally discovered a huge chamber of magic-infused crystals. When the stone absorbed the energy there, it once more glowed and revealed 100's of thousands of inscriptions. As I witnessed an inscription glow bright white, again, a purple liquid formed overtop of it and dulled its brightness, until it was a faded grey. It was only now that I noticed the first inscription I had received was still there, however, after all of this time it still remained faded and dulled. Whatever information it once had, had been stripped away, never to be inherited again. Seeing this, I couldn't comprehend why. Once an ability is inherited from the stone, it can never be inherited again, did this not break the very laws of magic. I had all the information on my power within me and with it, I should have been able to teach it to others but no matter how much I tried, none of them could learn it. I wanted to go further and learn more. I needed an expert, I needed a human inscription master but then an incident occurred.]

After that, Rize went on to talk about his incident involving Benjamin and how Benjamin had killed his friends and tried to turn him into a slave. The hate that he discovered he had for humans suddenly erupted within him. Along with his growing ambition and power, a plan began to form. Rize went from curious and naive little goblin to a powerful hate-filled entity. With that incident, Rize's personality took on a bit of a twisted edge and his writings began to grow darker and crueler. He began kidnapping a few people here and there until he got his hands on a merchant then he started getting female human slaves and when mercenaries or soldiers escorted them to him, Rize would take control of them before sending them back home with no memory of what happened as though nothing transpired at all.

The more Lowen read, the more and more he became shocked. It seemed Rize's plans were far more reaching and far more consequential then Lowen had initially believed.

(Damn, if Rize wasn't stopped when he was, then I have no doubt he could have taken this entire country in less then 5 years. It seems the catalyst to these events was Benjamin.)

Even though Lowen knew Benjamin was the reason Rize started this, he didn't blame him. Rize was growing more and more in both power and ambition and goblins and humans have always been enemies. So even if Benjamin didn't run into Rize, it seemed Rize's path would have crossed with humanitys at some point in time.

As Lowen looked through the rest of Rize's notes, there was one more thing that really stood out to him. Reading through this paragraph though, left Lowen with more questions than answers.

[The more I learned about this stone, the more curious I became about its origins, its creator. The clues, however, were basically nonexistent. Whoever made this object had to be incredibly powerful but if the said being was indeed so powerful then why would he/she/it need to make this purple rock capable of passing on power. Did they not have enough power on their own already? The more I thought of these things, the more confounded I became but the biggest question I had, was, where is the rest of this fragment and what was it when it was whole?]

Reading this, Lowen let out a long breath.

*Phew*

(Knowing how Rize had gotten his power, I kind of hoped that I too could have inherited the same ability but it seems that isn't possible. Even if I want an ability, I'll first need a huge power source and whatever ability I get it seems it will be some random one. To get a big enough power source, I could potentially spend a fortune gathering magic infused crystals only to get a completely useless ability. Damn, what should I do?)

Lowen had never been rich in his previous world and he certainly wasn't rich right now. For him to gain a fortune, Lowen honestly didn't know where to start but if he were to gain a fortune and then use it all up in hopes of inheriting a powerful ability, only to receive something that was utter junk. Spitting blood would be the least of what Lowen would do.

Lowen suddenly had a thought and pulled out his Divine Blacksmith book. Flipping through it, he came upon the inscription's page and thoroughly went over it. With Lowen's memory, he could easily remember 1000's of these inscription's at once and as his ki and magic circles advance, his recall would only become greater. There were around ten thousand inscriptions in the Divine Blacksmith but right now Lowen couldn't memorize them all and at the moment he didn't need to.

Lowen once more shut his eyes and focused on his mind. Using his aura sense, he soon located that purple rock. Relaxing his body, he circulated his earth energy and using a feeler of his energy, his earth energy connected to the stone. A powerful suction forced emerged from the purple fragment and it began glowing and pulsating. Lowen's ki energy was quickly being drained and Lowen could see 10's of thousands of inscriptions and that purple liquid started to condense on it. As the inscriptions seemed to constantly move and interchange, Lowen had to concentrate and focus with everything he had and sure enough, he spotted it. Lowen had memorized more than a thousand inscriptions and if this stone really did contain 100's of thousands of them then there was a small percent chance that Lowen would recognize at least one of them. If he could recognize the inscription and then somehow pick that specific one then he could potentially choose exactly which ability he gained. The inscription Lowen had spotted stood for, funny enough, hair hardening. As Lowen's earth energy was almost gone, he had to move quickly. Extending his ki, Lowen wrapped his ki around that purple drop and pulled it over top that specific inscription. Lowen had little hopes this would actually work but surprisingly it actually did. That inscription began to glow a bright white and the liquid condensed even more. Just as it looked like the inscription would fade to gray, Lowen's energy ran dry and he was forced to cut his connection.

That single drop of purple energy disappeared into Lowen's mind and an extreme feeling of hot and cold attacked at him seemingly numbing and burning him all at once before a strange comforting calm enveloped him completely.

*BOOM*

An explosion sounded within Lowen's mind and a stream of information began to flood in. The first thought that came to mind were two words, hair hardening. After only a few seconds the flooding thoughts stopped and Lowen opened his eyes and stood up. A feeling as though ants were crawling all over his head took over and an unbearable itch took hold of him. Lowen immediately scratched and scratched and scratched every inch of his head and finally after a few moments the feeling faded. Lowen gently pat his head, feeling it all over before he suddenly pulled a single strand from his head and with a thought it hardened. As he examined it closely, nothing seemed different or out of place whatsoever but Lowen knew for a fact that it wasn't the same. With a flick of his wrist, Lowen threw the hair toward a tree.

*Schit*

The hair penetrated the tree an inch before it could go no further. Lowen couldn't help but smile widely at this scene before his smile quickly became one of slight disappointment. The hair suddenly went limp going back to the way it was before. Thinking of the inscription Lowen wasn't too surprised when he found that the information in his mind was incomplete.

(It seems without enough power I can only receive incomplete information but this is also a good thing. This means that if I memorize more inscriptions and use a big enough power source then I can basically pick any inscription I wish. Hehe, what ability, what ability should I choose?)

Lowen once more grinned from ear to ear with thoughts of powerful abilities that would soon be his. Just as he was lost in thought, he heard Benjamin's disgusted voice.

"Boy, you sure do act creepy sometimes."