I'm Trapped in the Block

"I think that’s fine, but... who is the Fire Thief?" Mo Ling asked, not quite following.

At this question, the Ancient Mine Race’s gaze sharpened, and he slowly withdrew the hand resting on Mo Ling’s shoulder.

"Oh, a former companion. I mistook you for someone else," the Ancient Mine Race said, sounding a little forlorn. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Mo Ling nodded and grunted softly in acknowledgment.

The two of them sat on the rock, gazing up at the sky in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

"I’m not doing so well... I’m getting a little tired," the Ancient Mine Race suddenly said to Mo Ling, his words heavy with meaning.

"Alright. Then... goodbye."

"Goodbye."

With that farewell, the entire battlefield began to disintegrate. Countless stone pillars toppled, the earth fractured and collapsed, and dust filled the air.

But the rock they sat on remained unshaken, untouched by the chaos around them, until all that was left was pitch-black nothingness.

The rock drifted alone in the black void.

"The stimulus signal has fulfilled its purpose," the Ancient Mine Race said flatly.

He looked at Mo Ling, a thoughtful expression on his face.

Finally, as if he could hold back no longer, he pulled Mo Ling into a tight embrace.

"When you leave the Thorn Stone Forest, I’ll come see you off myself."

The words had barely faded when the Ancient Mine Race’s gray form and the last remaining rock began to crumble and turn to dust, just like the battlefield before them.

Inside the Block, Mo Ling reached out in a hug, but his arms closed on empty air.

A red bandana lay silently on the metal floor, as if nothing had ever happened.

Mo Ling slowly floated out of the Stone Ball to find Li Luo waiting for him at the entrance.

"Cixing said you flew over here. Find anything?" she asked, glancing past him into the Stone Ball.

"No issues." Mo Ling typed out the two words on his electronic screen, projecting them onto the surface of the Block. Once Li Luo had read them, he retracted the message.

Back on the ground, Mo Ling saw that the villagers were still busy with repairs, but everyone was buzzing with excitement.

Cixing was there as well, with Iron Fish trailing right behind him, peppering him with a non-stop stream of strange questions as they worked:

"If you made a tunnel out of magnets and put a box in the middle, could I sit in the box and ride it from one end to the other?"

"If you launched a magnetic Mineral Race member into the air and then used Heterogeneity Sickness to turn them into one of the Natural Gas Race mid-flight, would they speed up or slow down?"

"When my house is rebuilt, can you add a magnetic base to it so it floats? Then it would be earthquake-proof, right?"

"And I could add a Ruby launcher! If it kept firing Rubies out the back, it would push the house forward. We could make it move! Wanna try?"

"Guess what I’m thinking right now?"

"..."

The questions were so bizarre that Cixing could only offer sporadic answers, his train of thought getting completely derailed. He would even pause his work occasionally, lost in contemplation of Iron Fish’s words.

"I think the magnetic base idea is feasible," Cixing replied earnestly.

"Yay!"

Iron Fish pumped his fist in the air and immediately started hashing out the technical details with Cixing.

’The way these two get along is pretty funny,’ Mo Ling thought to himself.

In the distance, Shibeng was encircled by a group of villagers excitedly pestering him for information. However, the petite Mineral Race girl at his side didn’t seem pleased. She stood protectively in front of him, angrily holding back the crowd.

"You’ll frighten him!" the petite Mineral Race girl shouted. She huffily pushed the surrounding villagers away, all while stealing concerned glances at Shibeng.

Shibeng, however, didn’t seem frightened at all. He simply held out his arm, continuously changing its material composition. The stone armor covering his body began to ripple with multicolored patterns.

Apparently, he felt this wasn’t enough, that the changes were too slow, so two more arms sprouted from his rib cage.

These new arms rapidly shifted into two different materials. Shibeng brought them together with a touch, producing a resonant chime of metal against stone.

He then opened his palms and began to conjure various minerals out of thin air.

Next, he looked at the ground. A light flowed across his stone armor, and a thin, rainbow-colored beam shot from his face, searing a deep gouge into the earth.

The petite Mineral Race girl saw this too. "You learned how to do it?" she asked in astonishment.

Shibeng lifted his arm, examining its new texture. "I learned," he replied earnestly. "Material transformation. It’s simple."

But that wasn’t what the petite Mineral Race girl was focused on.

"The bracelet I made for you is gone! Where did it go?" she asked, looking at Shibeng’s wrist in confusion.

"It got shattered," Shibeng said nonchalantly, not seeming to care in the slightest.

Hearing this, the girl grew even more anxious. Her eyes widened, and her words came out in a stammer.

"Y-You have to be more careful next time!" she finally managed to say, clenching her jaw.

However, Shibeng placed a hand on his chest, and a section of his thick stone armor slid open to reveal a small compartment within.

He reached inside and pulled something out.

It was a few shards of broken jade, but the shape of the bracelet was still faintly discernible.

Shibeng held the jade shards in his palm and began to mend them, reassembling the bracelet before the petite Mineral Race girl’s astonished eyes.

When only the last two halves were left, he clicked them together. With a final wave of his hand, the bracelet was once again perfectly intact on his wrist.

There wasn’t a single crack to be seen; it looked brand new.

"See? All better," Shibeng said, raising his wrist for the petite Mineral Race girl to see.

"You didn’t have to do that... I could have just made you another one." The petite girl’s gaze darted between Shibeng’s chest and his hand before she lowered her head, her face flushing with bashfulness.

She started chattering again, telling Shibeng everything that had just happened. The towering Shibeng stood beside her, and it was hard to tell if he was even listening.

...

Outside the Thorn Stone Forest, on a small, distant hill, Li Luo waved goodbye to Shibeng.

She then asked curiously, "So, what are your plans?"

Shibeng thought for a moment before answering. "I’m going to stay in Neon Village and continue to seek out fear."

"Are you still afraid of the Heterogeneity Sickness?" Li Luo asked, not quite understanding.

Shibeng shook his head. "No. I can sense a great power hidden within the Thorn Stone Forest. I’m preparing to embrace the Heterogeneity Sickness so I can confront that power."

"But that will have to wait until I’ve completely mastered fear. After that, I’ll master the other emotions one by one. I believe they have a similar function."

Shibeng explained his unique perspective.

Mo Ling was stunned. ’Shibeng really is a genius.’

’With just a little guidance, he can quickly master and skillfully apply new abilities. Maybe that’s the potential the Ancient Mine Race saw in him.’

’But what is this immense power Shibeng mentioned?’

Mo Ling was lost in thought when he suddenly felt a tap on the Block.

He instinctively turned his head, only to find himself once again plunged into pitch-black nothingness.

’Again?’