He crashed into the ground with a thunderous shockwave, sending uprooted trees, rocks, and debris into the air. Once the dust had settled, he lay nestled within a large crater, like a massive lake emptied of all its waters.
Oddly, nothing hurt; he didn't feel any pain at all.
'The sky. I didn't think I'd ever see it again,' he thought. He was currently facing up at a violet-pruple sky, with a massive blue sun at its centre. 'But this isn't the same sky I've always known, is it?'
He lay still for a moment, trying to process what had happened. He'd died, that was for certain, and he had spent what felt like an eternity in a dark place. The only explanation for him being alive again was... rebirth. However, before anything else, Raddan was a scientist, and something like rebirth wasn't a notion he would so easily accept.
[Your system principle has been chosen based on soul characteristics.]
'That voice again? Who is that? Are you telling me god is supposed to sound like some crappy robot's I could've made as a kid?'
[Growth principle: Scientific Evaluation has been chosen.]
[New Quest: Evaluate a new mineral!]
'Now you're just spouting random nonsense,' he thought, trying to pick himself up.
However, as he got to his feet, he noticed several things were off. First of all, his line of sight was much too close to the ground. And secondly... he couldn't feel anything. Not pain, not the roughness of the rocks beneath him, not the air in his lungs. Nothing.
He looked down at his body.
'Interesting...'
Two thin lines of translucent purple crystal stood where his legs should've been. His glance moved further up. A spherical purple rock was where his stomach once was, pulsing a brilliant purple colour. And his arms floated beside him, like magnetised rocks.
'I'm some sort of rock?' He thought blankly.
This was ridiculous. To begin with, rocks couldn't have sentience; they weren't living things. Any idiot kid who had just started learning about life science could tell you that.
He blinked, slapping his face with his hands as if trying to wake himself from this dream. However, that didn't work; after all, rocks couldn't feel now, could they?
He broke out into a fit of mad laughter. "No, I'm not dreaming," he said in between chuckles. "I really am a rock," he added, looking around. "And when something as implausible as that is the case, then it wouldn't be too far-fetched for me to have been reborn as well."
For a good moment, he just stood there in the centre of his crater, laughing at the impossibility of his situation.
[New Quest: Evaluate a new mineral!]
"That voice again," he whispered, his laughter dying down. "Quest? What quest? Why have I been brought to this world?" he asked.
However, even after waiting for several seconds, there was no response.
"A preprogrammed voice? Pathetic. It seems the thinkers of this world are of lower calibre than my old."
He looked towards the top of the crater. It was hard to discern exactly how deep it was since he was now just a fraction of the size he once was. Though from the looks of it, he was small enough to fit on a human palm, so the crater wasn't too deep, even though the climb up seemed like a large hill for him.
"If this useless robot won't give me answers, I'll just have to find them myself," he whispered, beginning his journey up.
However, after only a few steps, he rolled back down to the centre of the crater. He tried again, but the result was the same.
"Right, I have no feet. These stumps of crystal barely give enough friction for me to fight against gravity," he surmised, now looking around him for something to use. However, the only things there were piles of dirt and odd-looking black minerals.
"Obsidian?" he whispered, moving to pick one of them up.
For a moment, he just stood there, silently waiting for his arms to do what he wanted. It took him another moment to realise that the lines of small rocks that floated at his sides were nothing like human hands.
"Right, these things don't even look like they were meant for grabbing things," he whispered. Instead, he decided to sit down next to the black mineral to inspect it.
"Slightly translucent, with jagged glass-like edges. They even glinted slightly under the light. This is definitely obsidian."
Just then, a loud chime rang in his ears.
[Quest complete!]
[Scientific evaluation of new mineral has been completed.]
[Processing rewards....]
"That blasted voice! Can you not shout in my ear, you mechanical harlot!"
Still, he paid attention to it this time. Its words were starting to sound less like complete nonsense and more like a way out of here. This talk of rewards interested him.
So he waited patiently.
[20% progress has been achieved towards next evolution.]
[Skill: Evaluated Absorption has been unlocked.]
[Invoke skill name to learn more.]
'Huh? 20% progress towards next evolution? What evolution? Who is evolving? Me? Can rocks evolve?'
His interest was beyond peaked. Perhaps it was because everything had happened so suddenly, but he only now realised the implications that arose from him being a talking rock. That meant that the creatures of this world held a vastly different biology from what he was used to.
And as a scientist, that meant he had a blank slate to experiment with.
If rocks could smile, a large grin would've been plastered onto his face right now.
"My lab, I need to head there right..."
"Oh, right. New world, I don't have a lab here," he quickly realized. "Well, that just means I have to build one. I need to start documenting everything as soon as possible. Including the strange robot that keeps talking to me."
However, before all that, he still had to escape this crater.
'The robot had mentioned a skill. Evaluated Absorption, I think it said.'
[Skill name invoked! Evaluated Absorption!]
"Not so loud you robotic wench!" he shouted. It seemed the only things he could feel in this rock body were his non existent ear drums being ruptured, and a seething new hatred for robotic voices.
[Loading information screen....]