I'm Trapped in the Block

Cixing was a dissident.

A dissident who didn’t believe in the gods.

When his people went to perform their sacrifices, he would stay behind on the stone pillars of the Thorn Stone Forest, watching the various creatures fly by.

"Cixing, you will pay a price for disrespecting the Father God." Some of his clansmen would warn him. Cixing had heard these words many times.

"I’m not being disrespectful. I just don’t get it. Why must we sacrifice to him? He never responds to us," Cixing said, confused.

"Nonsense!" The clansman walked away in a huff.

The Father God hadn’t appeared in a very long time. The older members of the Mineral Race said that the Father God used to have them enter a battlefield to train them.

But whenever Cixing asked what the battlefield was like, these old-timers would suddenly falter and claim they had forgotten.

’Probably just more rumors.’ Cixing looked at the carvings of the Father God on the buildings, and even began to suspect that his entire race had been deceived.

He had never even seen the Father God. He just heard his people talk day in and day out about the Father God’s greatness.

’What’s so great about him?’

His people followed the Father God’s will, constantly strengthening and training themselves. At regular intervals, they would even leave the Thorn Stone Forest to seek out and battle powerful creatures.

But this had led to the loss of many of their kind.

Cixing just couldn’t understand. Wasn’t it good enough to stay in the Thorn Stone Forest? Why did they have to go out?

The Mineral Race was already powerful enough. And with the advantage of the Thorn Stone Forest’s terrain, there were hardly any creatures that could truly threaten the clan.

They were just asking for trouble.

Every time Cixing couldn’t help but ask, the elders would always answer him: the Father God wanted the Mineral Race to pursue strength and wisdom. Now that the battlefield was gone, fighting creatures outside was the only way.

"This is the price—the price of power. It is something we must face." An elder advised him patiently, "This is the Abyss."

Growing tired of their lectures, Cixing ran off into the ore veins to look at the newborns being nurtured there.

’If this keeps up, they’re all going to die.’

It took a very long time for the ore veins to produce newborns, and due to years of constant battle, the population of the Mineral Race had already dropped significantly.

’What does this have to do with me? They brought it all on themselves.’ Cixing shook his head, casting his worries aside.

Just then, Cixing heard a commotion in the distance. His clansmen were all running toward the altar.

"The Father God has descended!"

Hearing this, Cixing immediately rushed back to the altar, pushing his way desperately through the crowd.

When he finally squeezed to the very front, what he saw was not the mighty, seven-colored giant he expected.

It was a frail-looking member of the Gray Ore Race.

"Take these relics. Leave the Thorn Stone Forest for now. I may be about to face a calamity, and it will affect you."

Many relics floated around this unremarkable-looking Gray Ore Race member, and he passed them out to the Mineral Race one by one.

He also told them about the price and power of each relic.

When it was Cixing’s turn, the Gray Ore Race member gave him a red bandana. "Its ability is to change material properties," he explained. "If used on a member of the Mineral Race, it can enhance emotions, but this effect will spread, so be careful."

"Each person can only use it once. The price is to recognize your true self."

"Recognize my true self?" Cixing was confused.

"Correct. No matter what you become, this bandana will make you recognize your original identity and then lock in that self-perception. Nothing will be able to change it."

Cixing was surprised. ’Isn’t that a good thing?’

The Gray Ore Race member was about to hand out relics to the others, but he suddenly turned back to Cixing. "As soon as you put this relic on, the price will be temporarily triggered. You can make use of that."

Cixing understood now. As long as he wore the bandana, his self-perception would be locked, but if he didn’t use its ability, the price wouldn’t be permanent.

He could just take it off when he didn’t need it.

’It’s quite useful, but there don’t seem to be many situations where I could apply it,’ Cixing thought.

Then, Cixing was pushed out of the crowd, holding the bandana, at a loss.

"Where’s the Father God? Didn’t they say the Father God had descended? Where is he?"

It wasn’t until the Gray Ore Race member had left that Cixing learned from his people that he was, in fact, the Father God.

’He looked so ordinary.’

The Father God’s stature in Cixing’s mind fell even further. He then began to pack his things, preparing to leave the Thorn Stone Forest.

But to his surprise, the rest of his people refused to leave.

"How can you all trust the Father God so much, yet disobey him now?" Cixing couldn’t believe it.

"We will fight alongside the Father God. We cannot flee like cowards," his clansmen told him calmly.

"The Father God is facing a calamity. Clinging to life and fearing death is not the way of the strong."

At that moment, Cixing found his people completely unreasonable.

"Knowing when to retreat is the way of the wise!"

Leaving them with that one sentence, Cixing angrily departed from the Thorn Stone Forest. He thought his people were so ignorant they had gone mad.

"A bunch of fools! Incredibly stupid!"

Though he cursed them aloud, Cixing was deeply worried.

He didn’t know what kind of calamity the Father God was talking about. He only knew that for the Father God to personally descend after such a long absence, it had to be something serious.

Because of this, he cherished his own life all the more.

After leaving the Thorn Stone Forest, Cixing began to wander. He could finally observe all the interesting creatures to his heart’s content.

’The outside world really is better than the Thorn Stone Forest.’

The diverse environments and the vast variety of creatures made life far more interesting than the tedious existence back in the Thorn Stone Forest.

He began his journey, venturing into the Abyss, and the relic the Father God had given him proved to be very useful.

The price of locking his self-perception allowed him to escape many dangers.

During this time, he came to feel the importance of strength that his people had spoken of and experienced for himself what it was like to be honed through battle.

’Maybe they were right all along.’

So, after traveling for some time, Cixing finally decided to return to the Thorn Stone Forest. He planned to face the calamity alongside his people.

However, when he arrived back at the Thorn Stone Forest, he found only a field of ruins.

He rushed to their former gathering place and discovered that everything had been destroyed.

It was as if the entire Thorn Stone Forest had been turned upside down, with no trace of its former self.

’What on earth happened?’

It wasn’t until Cixing saw the toppled stone pillars and the cracks in the rock walls that he began to faintly guess what had occurred.

He dug desperately downward at the site of their old settlement. He dug for a long, long time, even carving out a huge cavern, but found no trace of his people.

Cixing lost track of time. Then one day, he finally dug up something familiar: the spire of a seashell-shaped building.

As he continued to dig, the ruins of an entire civilization appeared before him.

Toppled buildings.

Shattered ore veins.

Ruined carvings.

The remains of his people.

...

In that instant, the words his clansmen had spoken before began to thunder in Cixing’s mind.

"Cixing, you will pay a price for disrespecting the Father God!"