[Year 5 Month 3: 5 Months have passed]

  I was jolted from my dormant state by a new notification.

  [15 Blessed have died]

  [You have gained 3 levels]

  [You are now level 5]

  [Blessing of Warding has upgraded]

  [You now gain a negligible percentage of power for each person blessed by your ability. This slightly increases mana regeneration and damage resistance. This does not weaken the other individual.]

  Oh, people died. Still, at least I gained some levels, and the upgrade to my skill is also exciting! Now I get something more active than the xp. Sounds like a win-win to me.

  Turning away from the notifications, I realized something had dramatically changed with my surroundings. The constant church hymns were absent, and there were no priests or even a stray normal person in the cathedral.

  While it could have just been a weird day, a thin layer of dust coating the floor told me all I needed to know. The cathedral must have been abandoned for several months now.

  Where did everyone go? Something must have happened.

  I spent a day or two awake, curiously waiting for someone to come by, perhaps a stray straggler. Alas, nobody arrived.

  Before I went back under, I quickly pulled up the number of people I had used [Blessing of Warding] on.

  [Blessed: 152]

  [You are granted a 15.2% increase in mana regeneration and resistance]

  Not bad.

  [Year 6 Month 0: 9 Months have passed]

  [41 Blessed have died]

  It was several months later before anything changed.

  Instead of being awoken by voices, it was a strange, repetitive skittering sound.

  Moments later, several spider-like creatures entered my vision.

  I had always disliked spiders.

  These seemed to be a much scarier version of earth spiders, however, and were each roughly the size of a small dog. Their chitin was also considerably thicker than what I remember spiders back on earth having.

  Are these creatures the reasons why everyone left? Honestly, I would too. These things give me the creeps!

  Almost like they could hear my thoughts, the spiders had slowly approached where I was standing, seemingly investigating every corner of the cathedral.

  Eventually, one seemed to feel my mana and approached, bringing an antenna to my surface.

  Ew ew ew get off! Get off!

  Several moments later, it let out a chilling sound, chittering loudly and with obvious excitement, like a dog that found a chew toy.

  It rounded up its fellow companions and quickly left the cathedral, leaving my vision completely.

  At first, I didn’t know what to think, but roughly two days later, I heard the same clattering sounds but considerably louder and… heavier.

  Much to my continued dismay and horror, the little spiders brought their mom. It just so happened that their mom was a towering creature whose legs went out of my vision, and attached to it was a large, meaty body that looked grossly out of place without any chitin or shell.

  Without delay, it beelined to me, only taking four steps as its legs pounced through the wooden piers.

  With surprising care, its long feelers rested on the runes that covered most of my surface, and without further ado, I could feel the presence of its mind pressed upon me.

  [A Vexus Broodmother is requesting a blessing. Grant a blessing?]

  Unlike with previous requests, I didn’t accept automatically, and told the system no. No way was I giving this creature any bonus if I wasn’t required.

  At this refusal, it seemed to understand why nothing changed, and I could tell it was angry. Its legs grew erratic, crashing and destroying more around it.

  A ‘Vexus’ Broodmother, huh? That is rather interesting. It probably is what made the little ones. It is probably what has killed some of my Blessed people. I hope the rest escaped and got away.

  Once again, it brought its feelers back to the rune and requested another blessing. Once again, I denied it despite its raging.

  This turned out to be a mistake, as it decided to take what it wanted rather than ask. Activating one of its abilities, I felt a ripping sensation, almost like someone had stuck an arm down my throat and decided they wanted what I had for breakfast.

  [A Vexus Broodmother is attempting to extract your ability [Blessing of Warding] ]

  [Your ability is unique to your race]

  [Mana drained as replacement]

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  With that, the surging pain vanished, replaced with a steady drain. For whatever reason, my mind felt a little sore; the mana drain must be pretty intense.

  As I watched it continue to drain my mana, I realised something, it isn’t going to stop anytime soon. As a Blessing Stone, my mana would continue to regenerate.

  Once I felt a certain amount of mana leave me (I checked, and there is no ‘mana tracker’; all I get is a general idea of how much I got left), the Broodmother’s lower body began to bubble, the fleshy muscles rippling.

  In fascinated horror, I watched as the bubbles dripped from its body, and after they hit the ground, formed into the small spiders that had found me.

  Oh. That’s not good news.

  Despite my unwillingness to both the mana drain and my chronic sleepiness, I felt the pull of [Dormant] stronger than ever, likely strengthened by the exhaustion sleeping through my mind.

  After a few hours of resisting the pull, I was eventually dragged back into my dormant state, as I watched the Broodmother make more of its spawn.

  [Year 8 Month 3: 25 Months have passed]

  [15 Blessed have died]

  [You have gained 1 level]

  [You are now level 6]

  [Ambient Detect has upgraded]

  [Larger range of detection]

  Oh, good, seems fewer people died this time.

  Like a human waking up bleary-eyed, I awoke with my surroundings blurry, my [Ambient Detect] struggling to work after what I assume was a very draining two years. Probably why it upgraded too.

  After doing the sentient rock equivalent of rubbing my eyes, I saw the situation was arguably worse than last time; the Broodmother had obviously been busy making more of its kids, and its antenna had warped to latch onto my rune-covered surface, and had completely terraformed the interior of the cathedral.

  The once pristine stained glass had gaping holes from where the broodspawn had crawled through, using it as an exit instead of the door. The most dramatic of the changes was to the stone walls near us. While most of the marbled stone was intact, the material closest to the Broodmother had been converted into a strange, hive-like material with a honeycomb shape.

  Even I had some of it covering me, which was a strange sensation as I couldn’t exactly feel it but could certainly imagine it.

  It looks pretty soft and squishy, actually. I shivered. Now that’s a gross thought.

  Drawing my attention to the entrance that was now in range of my detection skill, I could hear shouting and the faint sounds of battle.

  A young voice shouted, “They are coming from the old cathedral! The nest must be inside. Just a little farther!”

  Also, having heard the voices, the Broodmother carefully detached, long slimy strands peeled off as its appendages removed themselves from my surface. Having grown considerably since leaching off my mana regeneration, it struggled to fit through the cathedral doors, which it once cleared pretty easily, and eventually it just gave up on fitting and slammed its body through the stone, causing large cracks to form in the stone pillars holding up the ceiling above. Hopefully, that doesn’t come back as an issue.

  With the Broodmother having left, and from the apparent screams had joined in the battle against whoever was outside, I finally had some time to myself without some weird leech attached to me.

  If those people win, hopefully they clean this junk off my surface, it’s super gross just to think of. Fortunately, it sounded as if the new visitors hadn’t died and were still winning, albeit less than before.

  An hour passed before I heard a crashing thud. The Broodmother was obviously dead, and the cheers outside certainly reaffirmed that thought.

  After they had recuperated somewhat from their victory, I saw a few people creep inside, watching for any stray spawn or any other hiccup.

  Calling over their shoulder, what I assumed was a scout from the way immediately checked for any enemies, and they beckoned to the rest of their group.

  “The ambient mana is a little tainted by corruption, but it should return to normal now that the boss monster is dead.”

  Surprisingly, it wasn’t as large as I expected, only 26 people. They had likely lost some, but still, from the apparent strength of the Vexus creatures, I was surprised. They must be at a rather high level to combat such monstrosities.

  Much to my excitement, someone had noticed the combed hive area and also found me buried under some stray gunk that had seeped from the wall while the Broodmother defended its nest.

  “Hey, check this out. It’s a Blessing Stone! That must be what the Broodmother was using to make so many of its spawn!” The person who said this got the attention of the others.

  Approaching me, I watched as a man in heavy armor approached with curiosity. Drawing his sword, I thought for a moment he was attempting to shatter me, but he merely used it to pick at the sludge covering the front. “Yeah, no, I'm not going to touch the stone until it's clean, new blessing or not.” Honestly, same. “I mean, it is rock, so it should be fine if we burn away the corruption. Hopefully, it hasn’t impaired the stone’s function.” Sheathing his sword, he walked away, leaving the one who found me to do as told. Could it have corrupted me? Thank goodness I wasn’t in there for longer.

  Fire worked surprisingly well. When it was lit by a torch, it went up in flames much faster than I expected. It reminded me more of spider silk than anything, which made sense considering how the spawn looked pretty much like a much larger and more dangerous spider. Oh, the group calls the little ones “Spyiders.” Yeah, I know, right?

  Only taking a few minutes to completely burn away, I was finally free of the accursed slime, and the same man approached a second time, having seen the now clean surface. It was pretty obvious that he was the leader of the group, and no one protested when he reached out.

  Somewhat relieved to no longer be used as a makeshift and unwilling battery, I activated my [Blessing of Warding] when the man pressed his hand against my runes. I did sort of owe them for saving me afterall.

  In a fit of inspiration, while the ability was activated, I didn’t just send my agreement to the system, but I also attempted to send along a message of thanks with the blessing, hopeful that something would leak through and get the idea across.

  Seemingly detecting something was off, the leader quickly pulled his hand back, taking a moment to calm his fellows. His eyes went vacant for a moment, staring off at what I assume was a notification. After a moment, he spoke up, “It works. You know what that means, people, let's get it packed up!”

  After his announcement, there was a flurry of activity, and two people who looked to be carrying most of the stuff walked up with a roll of fabric, with what looked to be a skill activation. One of the porters completely wrapped me in the material while the other one channeled mana into the linen.

  If I had wanted to, I felt like I could have absorbed some of the mana, but I didn’t know what that would do to the fabric or skill. I'm not sure if ‘backlash’ exists here.

  Suddenly, I felt a strange jolt, and I was no longer on the ground, but slightly floating. Skills are so convenient. I must weigh several tons,s and it was that easy?

  From the way the channeler had panted, it looked as if it was not indeed that easy, but bah, who cares when they just made a several-ton rock float using some fabric and a couple of seconds.

  With there being little else in the cathedral of value, if anything else magical was present, it had already been long since packed away or consumed by the spyiders. On that thought, I wonder why I was left behind if I am so valuable? Perhaps there wasn’t enough time to escape and grab me.

  Pushing off the stray thought, I continued my observation of the man in charge.

  He had to have received something. I’m not sure if it was an emotion, feeling, or even a thought. But the notification I was reading confirmed it.

  [An ability has evolved]

  [Ambient Detect -> Ambient Mind]

  [Ambient Mind allows for surface-level interaction with creatures' minds. Words are too complex, but images and emotions are viable. You can still detect your general surroundings, with slightly more range than before.]