'Hail?' as soon as he heard the system say that, he started falling down with extreme speed. Along the way, he gathered more and more supercooled water droplets that froze as they came into contact with the hail.
The speed kept on increasing as the hail hadn't reached its terminal velocity yet. After a few seconds, he could finally sense that the hail was no longer accelerating. 'Have I reached my max speed?' he thought.
As he fell, he started to worry if he would get broken into a million pieces if he fell on something hard. That would mean that he would have to start all over again as he would inhabit the body with the largest amount of energy from the impact. The system pretty much promised that he would always only lose half of his energy at once.
But if he were to scatter into millions of pieces, even the largest amount of energy would most likely be many times less than half. 'But the system said half. Hey, system. What happens if I hit something very hard at this speed as a h— '
Boom
A massive sound came forth as he most definitely hit something very hard.
'— ail.' He had reached the ground before he could even finish his sentence. The system still answered him.
<Energy would transfer between the two objects during collision>
<The object that ends up with a higher amount of energy is what you will inhabit>
<You are now inhabiting a Rock>
<You have gained 962 Energy>
He got both the answers and the notification from the collision back to back. His very cold body suddenly started feeling warm once more, and he could feel the very uneven texture below him.
He could hear a lot of other crashes as more hails dropped around him.
<You have gained 395 Energy>
<You have gained 251 Energy>
<You have gained 366 Energy>
'Hide the energy notifications. make the threshold number in the millions.' he said immediately.
<Hidden successfully>
'What is happening, system? Why am I in a rock now?' he asked.
<During your collision, the hail you were inhabiting broke into many pieces, and most of the energy in the hail turned into Heat energy and Sound energy that got absorbed by the rock, and alongside that, it absorbed you too>
Ning weighed on the system's answer a bit and asked back, 'From what I remember learning back in the orphanage, they said that energy can neither be created, nor be destroyed, and only change its form. Is that true?'
<Correct>
'Then, how did I not only survive a collision with a rock but also instead gained energy from it. That doesn't sound right?' he asked.
<You were not the only one falling>
<Your snowflake had gathered other droplets of water to form a massive hail>
<Since, the energy in those water was not in the form of heat, but rather potential energy, you could not gather them>
<However, when they struck the rock, most of those got transformed to heat energy, and you managed to gain it>
'Oh, so in other words, I got lucky. If I had fallen as hail in a little bit smaller size, I would've had a net loss in the transition of energy.'
<Yes>
As more and more hails fell on top of the rock, he got another notification.
<You have unlocked pressure sense>
As soon as he unlocked that, he could now feel the force at which the hails were hitting the rock.
The downpour of the hails lasted a lot longer than he had anticipated. 'Hey, system. Where exactly are we now?' he asked.
<You are on a rock in the ocean a few kilometers away from the shore to the southern continent>
'Oh,' just as he said that another notification arrived.
<You have unlocked Proprioception>
'Wait I unlocked something already? That was fast. Man, I am loving these hail.' He quickly opened the status page.
[Status
Energy: 20328
Task: Collect 29672 more energy
Reward: You gain Unidirectional Vision
Shop: LOCKED
]
'Prop— Proprioception? Damn, that is hard to pronounce. What is this system?' he asked.
<Proprioception: You can sense where every part of the body you inhabit are in relation to one another>
'Sense part of my body?' he started focusing on the hails that were hitting him, and found out he could now tell exactly which part of the rock they were hitting.
'Huh. I didn't even realize I was missing it. Oh wow, this rock is huge isn't it.' He could finally sense the overall size of the rock he had inhabited. From his estimates, he was nearly spherical in shape with a diameter of 20 meters or so, and half of it submerged in the ocean.
He had gone from tiny drops of water to be in such a massive rock. He was realizing now why he was gaining so much energy.
By the time the hailstorm ended, he had about 30,000 energy in total and required 20,000 more for the next unlock. He slowly felt warm sunlight caress the entire rock as the clouds parted to give way to the sun.
The heat energy of the massive rock gathered was far more than he could've expected. He was gaining about 1000 energy every minute. The ocean water also took away some energy as the water-cooled down the rock, but they were inconsequential in front of the massive amount of gain.
The energy gain slowly went down every minute as he felt the sunlight hitting from a steep angle, meaning the sun was about to go down the horizon.
'Ah, just a little more and I could've completed the task. Sigh, I guess I will have to wait for tomorrow to unlock this unidirectional vision,' he said.
He had been excited for it after asking the system what it was and learning it would allow him to see at a 30 degrees angle in front of him. He didn't need eyes for them, as he didn't need skin to feel or ears to hear.
Night came and the air chilled. 'Guess I will sleep till tomorrow morning then. Hey system, wake me up when the sun comes up tomorrow.'
<Confirmed>
And he fell unconscious.