6: rock

"Hail?" Hearing the system, Zhao Ke immediately fell at an extremely fast speed. Along the way, more and more supercooled water droplets gathered on him, which froze upon contact with the hail.

Since the hail had not yet reached its terminal velocity, its speed continued to increase.

A few seconds later, he finally felt the hail stop accelerating. "Have I reached maximum velocity?" he thought.

As he fell, he began to worry about shattering into a million pieces if he hit something hard. This would mean he'd have to start over, as his body would absorb the maximum energy from the impact. The system almost guaranteed he'd only lose half his energy each time.

But if dispersed into millions of pieces, even the maximum energy would likely be many times less than half. 'But the system said half. Hey, system. What would happen if I hit something very hard at this speed—'

Boom!

A loud bang came, and he must have hit something very hard.

"—Ah." He had not finished speaking when he hit the ground. The system still answered him.

<Energy transfer occurs between two objects upon collision>

<The object with higher energy will be the one you inhabit>

<You are now inhabiting a rock>

<You gained 962 energy points>

He received the answer and the collision prompt one after another. His originally cold body suddenly warmed up again, and he could feel the rough texture beneath him.

As more hail fell around him, he could hear many impacts.

<You gained 395 energy>

<You gained 251 energy>

<You gained 366 energy points>

"Hide energy notifications. Set threshold to millions." He said immediately.

<Hidden successfully>

"System, what happened? Why am I in a rock now?" he asked.

<During your collision, the hail you inhabited shattered into countless fragments. Most of the energy in the hail was converted into heat and sound energy, which was absorbed by the rock, and at the same time, it absorbed you>

Ning hesitated slightly at the system's reply and asked in return, "I remember learning something in the orphanage; they said energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only change forms. Is that correct?"

<Correct>

"Then how did I not only survive the collision with the rock but also gain energy from it? That doesn't sound right, does it?" he asked.

<You were not the only one falling>

<Your snowflake gathered other water droplets, forming a huge hailstone>

<Because the energy in those waters was not heat energy, but potential energy, it could not be collected>

<However, when they hit the rock, most of it was converted into heat energy, and you successfully obtained it>

"Oh, in other words, I was lucky. If I had fallen as a slightly smaller hailstone, my energy conversion would have been a net loss."

<Yes>

As more and more hail fell on the rock, he received another notification.

<You have unlocked Pressure Sense>

As soon as he opened it, he could feel the force of the hail hitting the rock.

The downpour of hail lasted longer than he expected. "Hey, system. Where exactly are we now?" he asked.

<You are currently on an ocean rock a few kilometers off the coast of the South Continent>

"Oh." As soon as he finished speaking, another notification came.

<You have unlocked Proprioception>

"Wait, I've already unlocked something? That was fast. Man, I love this hail so much." He quickly opened the status page.

[Status

Energy: 20328

Mission: Collect another 29672 energy points

Reward: You gain One-Way Vision

Shop: Locked

"Prop—Proprioception? Damn, that's hard to pronounce. What is this system?" he asked.

<Proprioception: You can feel how every part of your body relates to each other>

"Feel a part of my body?" He began to focus his attention on the hail hitting him and found that he could now accurately distinguish which part of the rock they hit.

"Ah, I didn't even realize I missed it. Wow, this rock is huge." He could finally feel the overall size of the rock he inhabited. By his estimation, it was roughly spherical, about 20 meters in diameter, and half submerged in the sea.

He had transformed from a drop of water into a giant rock. He now realized why he had gained so much energy.

After the hail stopped, he had a total of about 30,000 energy, and the next unlock required 20,000 energy. As the clouds dispersed and the sun slowly rose, he gradually felt the warm sunlight shining on the entire rock.

The heat energy gathered by the boulder far exceeded his imagination, increasing by about 1000 energy points per minute. The seawater also carried away some energy as it cooled the boulder, but this was negligible compared to the massive gain.

As he felt the sunlight hitting at a steep angle, the energy gain slowly decreased every minute, meaning the sun was about to set below the horizon.

"Ah, just a little more and I'll complete the mission. Sigh, I guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow to unlock this one-way vision," he said.

After asking the system what it was and learning that it would allow him to see 30 degrees forward, he was very excited about it. He didn't need eyes, or skin to feel, or ears to hear.

Night fell and the air turned cold. "Then I'll just sleep until tomorrow morning. Hey system, wake me up when the sun rises tomorrow."

<Confirmed>

Then he lost consciousness.