The Cavern

Despite his complaints, Roland knew he would never have known about the people heading in his direction without the help from the system.

He looked at his location on the map and started to move. Using the ability of his mana sense, he found where the walls were so that he wouldn't run into them. Since the map wouldn't constantly update an area unless he was close to it, he only knew how many monsters there were and not their exact locations. They could have moved around after the system scanned the caves.

After it had scanned the area underground, the system had placed another marker that showed him where to go. Following the map, Roland made it to another part of the caves, heading to one of the tunnels. Moving around a few stalactites at the entrance, he made it to his destination. This particular tunnel led to a dead end, a few hundred meters in.

Littered inside was yet another pile of bones, although smaller than the one that was at the entrance. Roland ignored it and kept going further inside. The tunnel was larger than he expected, and there were a few forks on the path. Luckily, he had a map, and he just needed to go in the direction of the marker.

After a little while, he reached a small cavern. Within was a nest of made many thick tree branches woven together. He rolled over to it. His measurement wasn't particularly accurate, but he estimated the nest was about as tall as a fully grown man. Flying up, he looked to see what was inside.

Exactly five light brown eggs lay on the branches. They had little red spots on them, and each was the about size of...

Roland couldn't think of anything to compare them to. They weren't as big as a fully grown man, but they were bigger than a child. If anything, they were somewhere in between the two, like the size of a twelve-year-old or something.

He wondered what was inside those eggs and why the system had led him here.

[We're here to get some levels and experience. I've also noticed that you only ever stay in the back lines while others take all the damage, so if you're going to work independently, you need to take care of your defenses. Since you're not planning to do much about it, we'll need to get a beast that can do the job for you.]

Roland looked at the screen in front of him skeptically.

'And what makes you think any of these guys will help me?' Almost every animal around here wanted to either kill or eat him somehow. Then again, how would he even die? He wasn't technically alive in the first place, with him being a rock and all.

Ignoring his inner thoughts, the system answered his previous question.

[We're going to tame a newborn beast. Your mind can't handle much more than the mind of a newborn, so that is as good as it gets]

'Wait, how will this whole taming thing work?'

A few seconds passed before a reply came. The system was probably thinking of the simplest way to explain it.

[Basically, we connect your soul to that of another creature. This should make it feel some sort of connection to you, and also allow you to sense each other's feelings. However, this also places a lot of strain on your soul, spending on how powerful the creature is. Since your soul is already housing me, you can only fit in a newborn creature right now.]

Roland took a moment to read the entire explanation.

'Is that what we're doing with these eggs here?'

[Well, you wouldn't want a useless ally, so I would normally look at their potential first]

'Normally?'

[You're out of SP, so I can't do that right now]

'Great,' Roland thought, 'yet another paywall.'

He was really getting tired of this.

'So why did you lead me here then? Don't I have to hunt some monsters or something?'

No reply came.

'Whatever,' Roland headed out of the tunnel he was in. He could only rely on himself for this part.

He looked at the MiniMap and headed in the direction of the closest monster. He wanted to get this over with as fast as possible.

However, when he arrived at the spot where the monster was, there was nothing there.

'Great,' he thought to himself,' now I have to go find them myself.'

He knew he couldn't completely rely on the map, but he hoped that the monsters hadn't moved around too much so he could finish this quickly.

He set off again to hopefully find an enemy.

First, he decided he would look in the tunnels close to the area, to see if the monster was nearby.

He turned a corner, coming into another tunnel. He checked the map and headed towards a cave that ended in a dead-end. If there was a monster, in there, he could hopefully corner it

However, instead of finding what he was looking for, he found himself staring at the wide-open jaws of a beast the size of a tank.

'Aahhhhhh!'

Now bothering to wait for something bad to happen, Roland immediately turned tail and ran. Behind him, the beast looked confused, before seeming to realize what just happened.

"Rrooaaaaarrrrr!!!"

Immediately, it chased after Roland.

As he was escaping, Roland heard loud stomping and the sound of something breaking. He turned to look at what was happening behind him. The beast that was chasing him had crashed through a few protruding stalagmites. It looked like a lizard that got mixed with the world's largest dinosaur. And maybe an alligator.

To elaborate, it was a giant lizard with a neck as long as its body. Its exoskeleton was as hard as steel, and even in the thinnest areas, it was an inch thick.

Roland immediately used his skill on the... the... lizard thing.

[???] [Lv. ?]

[Rating: Dangerous]

Roland took one look and immediately decided it was not worth it to fight the creature. Immediately, he sped up.

As if it sensed its prey was getting away, the creature sped up as well. They raced through the tunnels, occasionally running into a monster that would join the chase. In just ten minutes, Roland already had a mob of monsters chasing after him.

The ones that joined the crowd later probably didn't even know what they were chasing, they were just following everyone else.

Suddenly, the tunnel they were running through opened up, revealing a large underground cavern.

Hundreds of large stone pillars supported the ceiling, and Roland couldn't see where the walls were. A thin veil of fog covered the entire cavern. The only source of light came from the ceiling, which was covered in bright, glowing crystals. Every other part of the ceiling was filled with an assortment of various species of moss, mushrooms, and lichen, all of which were glowing in many different colors. Just this cavern contained an entire ecosystem. There was a giant forest below, and Roland could see many birds and what looked like winged dinosaurs flying in the sky. He was currently on a ledge that overlooked all over this, and he could see any other caves leading to this gigantic cavern.

The monsters chasing him stopped for a moment, stunned by the unfamiliar territory, before immediately resuming the chase.

Roland ran, jumping off of the cliff without any hesitation. A few foolish monsters that were at the head of the pack jumped after him, before falling to their deaths just a moment later. This seemed to set an example for the other monsters, since they loitered on the cliff, hesitant to continue the chase. Eventually, they left, seeming to decide that catching Roland wasn't worth the trouble or their deaths.