I, Stone Golem, only want to forge.

The first thought that came to Murphy's mind the moment it touched the stone was—

"eat"!

This is very strange for a stone man.

As a creature capable of starving itself to death, the Stone Man has no sense of taste, let alone hunger.

For Murphy, the concept of food, like hot and cold, was an unknown realm.

But it feels it now.

Where do these stones originate?

"Wait, let me think..." The man pondered for a long time. He remembered that although he bought the stone on that island, its origin did not seem to be near that island.

He remembered the vendor saying that, but he hadn't paid attention, so his memory was now very vague.

Diaz, standing to the side, patted him on the shoulder and spoke up somewhat anxiously.

"Hey, I'll speak for you, I'll speak for you."

He gathered his thoughts briefly before reciting them rapidly.

"A little downstream from the upper reaches of the Kulun River, which is in the northeastern part of our area."

There's a Mediterranean Sea with several islands in it, and we bought this stone on one of those islands.

But the stones were likely collected in that country on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean.

If we take the middle reaches of the Kulun River as the center.

To the south lies a sea of ​​blood, to the southwest a cluster of human cities, and to the north the northern lands.

To the northeast lies the so-called Mediterranean Sea.

Although that place is closer to the north, perhaps due to the influence of the mountains, it is actually insulated from the cold wind.

However, that is precisely why.

This means that the moisture from the Blood Sea to the south will fall onto the Mediterranean Sea to the greatest extent possible.

Fortunately, the moisture dissipated as it drifted away from the area of ​​the sea of ​​blood.

Most of the time it will return to normal, but occasionally, for some unknown reason, the moisture will turn blood-red.

Upon hearing that the stone originated from the southern coast of the Mediterranean, Siri naturally agreed.

"Over there in the Mediterranean, after being drenched in bloody rain for so long, it's normal for some strange things to appear..."

The infamous reputation of this bloodbath in the south is still terrifying even in the far north.

This thing is beyond description in terms of whether it's dangerous or terrifying.

This sea of ​​blood has become a conceptual thing.

Anyone who comes into contact with this stuff will undergo some degree of mutation.

As for how it mutates, that's up to you.

It's truly doing whatever you want, completely disregarding the rules.

An ordinary wooden plank, once it reaches the Blood Sea, might become a wooden plank covered with human infants.

Okay, actually it's not possible.

That's the truth!

Siri had actually seen something like this at an auction house before.

The wooden board was placed flat, and all that was needed was to pour a bucket of blood water of unknown origin over it.

Babies will be born continuously from the wooden board, from granulation tissue and skeleton to embryo, and finally grow into complete beings.

Then, when the time comes, these childlike things will explode with a bang!

Those who miraculously survived a stroll along the Blood Coast without going insane offered only this explanation.

If in the sea of ​​blood you only see bizarre creatures covered in human limbs, countless heads, eyeballs, and gaping mouths—

This is the luckiest outcome.

Siri glanced at Murphy, then turned his gaze back to the creations on this land filled with blood and rain.

Although occasional blood rain is certainly much better than a sea of ​​blood.

But those strange and bizarre creatures created from the sea of ​​blood did indeed cause him some aftereffects.

Upon seeing this stone, he couldn't help but frown.

"You dare buy something from the Mediterranean or East as a talisman?"

Diaz quickly glanced at the amulet's original owner, then chuckled awkwardly and explained.

"Things from the Mediterranean and the East, for every good thing, there's a bad one. Some things, after being drenched in blood and rain, actually develop some positive effects!"

After he finished speaking, he could only give a bitter smile and sigh.

"The Mediterranean to the capital route is currently the most profitable route for us ship sailors."

If you want to make money, you have to take some risks. There's really no other way, right?

So, after much thought, we sailors decided to go to the islands to buy products from the Mediterranean that had been selected by the Vatican; who knows, we might find some good stuff.

The place where Sri used to live was frozen all year round and there were not many ships.

He might be able to say a thing or two about trading, but he really knows nothing about sailing.

Instead of offering any comment, he simply turned to Murphy and asked.

"So, Mr. Murphy, did the stone gain some special ability because it was rained on?"

Murphy put the stone down and stopped facing the sun.

The tentacles on the rock were still there, but they drooped down, looking listless and dispirited.

"Don't you feel a sense of life within the gemstone?"

Murphy asked Siri.

The moment Sri focused his attention on the gemstone, he actually sensed a life force within this otherwise ordinary stone, just as Murphy had said.

"Is it because it's exposed to the sun that it gains vitality?"

Siri recalled Murphy's actions just now and immediately began to speculate.

Murphy nodded, then examined the gem more closely.

It even pulled out its precious rune microscope from a crack in the rock.

really!

Even though Murphy used special methods to discover that the stone was covered in tentacles.

But these tentacles are only the most inconspicuous part of its essence!

Under the camera.

The dark green gemstone was covered with things resembling the deep blue markings on ice crystals that signify curses.

They were scattered and far from being as cohesive and orderly as those curse marks.

If I had to say something...

The ice crystals are made of ice, while the rocks are made of water.

Murphy suddenly had a feeling that this mark-like thing was essentially a kind of rune.

However, these runes seemed to have been dirtied and shrunk in size.

Its original appearance is completely unrecognizable.

But the more it looked at it, the more familiar it became.

So they raised the gemstone into the sky again.

The tentacles on the stone saw the sun and began to thrash and twist wildly again, pulling something into the gemstone.

Murphy felt that the dark green stone inexplicably resembled two different things.

The first one is somewhat like a mountain core that can still produce stone golems.

This stone collects sunlight and transforms it into vitality.

The mountain core collects the remnants of the earth's souls, and what emerges from them is a complete soul.

Unfortunately, when Murphy was working on the mountain core, he didn't have the same level of vision he has now.

It couldn't be sure whether those mountain cores really had countless pairs of tentacles collecting remnant souls everywhere.

And the second one... is also a mountain core.

Of course, this is not nonsense.

The mountain core here refers to the one Murphy used to make the cursed furnace.

That thing was disguised by Murphy with runes to resemble the properties of ice crystals, and then used to absorb the curses on the ice crystals.

And this dark green stone gave it that same feeling.

It's as if those markings disguised it as some kind of plant.

However, this disguise was more effective than Murphy's, actually making the stone believe it was a plant.

As long as it encounters sunlight, it will frantically absorb energy and generate vitality.

Combining the two situations above, we arrive at the following conclusion:

This stone may have originally been just an ordinary stone, but this mark has transformed it into the rules of plants at the level of rules.

However, the stone itself does not have any plant-related structures.

And so.

Rules are the stones of plants, so the effects of plants can only be seen at the level of unseen rules.

It's like a curse on ice crystals.

Even though you can't see the cold wind or feel the low temperature.

But it just gets cold for no reason.

Murphy suddenly had a guess about why he wanted to eat the gem.

What it really wants to eat is this stone?

Or is it that within this stone lie rules that can alter reality?