Golden stone

The group decided to search systematically for a different object hiding in plain sight. Or something that was out of the ordinary in the time loop world. Because the object would be near the center of the world, they first decided to check the clearing. As the night progressed, they sneaked into the village and decided to sense the object.

As Ajay entered a hut, he found a person sleeping on a mat on the floor. The hut had minimum possessions. It was very clean except there was a dirty wooden bowl. The earthly possessions of this person could be considered as two pairs of clothes, two earthen pots, and a wooden chair. There was nothing else and the hut was spotlessly clean. It was as if someone had cleaned to disinfect. But he did not understand why the person did now wash the dirty bowl.

Ajay then crept to the next hut. It was similar to the first one. He was finally noticing that people here weren't real. They acted like NPCs. They did not have any thoughts or real life. They acted in a pre-programmed way. Many things were going wrong here. This world was like a page torn from a book. Or a scene from a movie. And then suddenly, he put it all together.

This world was the scene of the painting in the cave. That's why it had to be reset after a day. Because the painting showed the scenes of a small village from morning to night. And then the next morning, it turned back to normal. This was a loop in a program that will be repeating as long as there is something providing power and there are no conditions to be met.

Dhvani also realized that something was giving energy for this one-day world to continue existing. They had to find the power source. And what was the specialty of a power source? How was it different from literally any other thing in the world?

"System Status," Ajay muttered.

Dhavnai felt good that she finally had something to do.

["Online"]

"Can you check the energy signature in this world? Any different scan, you can tell me."

Dhvani also understood what he meant. He wanted to see if there was something that was emitting or absorbing energy unusually. Because all living beings simultaneously absorb and release energy that can be scanned by magical signatures. But things like sources have a very high emitting factor and a low absorbing factor.

So she quickly started a scan. She found at least a hundred such options and she quickly displayed them for Ajay to see.

After seeing the result on the screen, Ajay carefully considered each position. He pinched the screen to zoom in and zoom out many times before circling some positions.

He then waited at their agreed position to meet and talk about his findings. The others came back near midday and they seemed exhausted.

"The people here seem very friendly. If I hadn't known that this place was a loop, I would have wanted to stay with them for a while," Hiyen said while fanning his face. His appearance was already unkempt. Everyone was unkempt but Hiten still managed to look good. Maybe he was taught about all this in his superstar lessons. Because as often as he went to closed venue shootings, this kind of appearance should be common for him. The others had messed up hair and they didn't even want to bath so their energy wouldn't be sucked away.

Dhvani thought that if they went to the village the next day, even the NPCs who were not real would ask them to bathe.

Ajay told them about the energy signature locations and asked them to check those out. Each of them went to their assigned locations to check. Vihar had divided the locations for each member to check out.

Ajay went in a direction he supposed was east. He had arrived here when he was thrown so he thought that this direction should have something important. But when he arrived there, everything was quiet and small there as it was when he had arrived there. The trees were tall, but the leaves were light green which could be left undetected. But Dhvani who had the help of the system understood something.

["Host, this tree is different from before. You can touch it."]

Dhvani quickly summoned Tarsh who appeared lightning-fast.

"Check that tree."

As soon as Ajay touched it, something silvery and golden materialized before her. Because It was vague, she could not identify it properly. But Tarsh had already found its identity.

"Sister, this is the stone spirit. But I don't know why it is attached to a tree. In their community, it must be considered traitorous."

Dhvani did not have time to ask why it was traitorous but she was more interested in how the spirit was pulled in here.

"Why did you come here?" She asked the spirit.

"I felt the breath of the lord so I found him." The spirit was shaking all over and trembling like the leaves of a tree. Being on a tree changed its activities.

"Ah. I understood sister. You are connected to my brother and I'm connected to you so my brother is distantly connected to me. Because I gave my energy to you, you also have my energy in you and my brother has a tiny amount with him so this spirit was pulled out by my brother. But brother Ajay cannot put it anywhere and he is connected to this place so subconsciously he was placed here. And we both attracted the spirit here," Tarsh answered and looked at her begging for praise.

Although his you, I and brother confused her, she understood the gist. Because of their three-way connection, the stone spirit came here. So she had to tell her host so he could get some answers by interrogating the spirit too. And honestly, she didn't know what conclusions Ajay drew from the situation.

So she gave him a quick recap. She hadn't told Ajay completely about Tarsh. So she had to quickly invent a lie to appease him. She couldn't tell him that they were co-systems or that Tarsh was picked up by her. Because she was a system and not a human in Ajay's knowledge. She understood that a lie would lead to another lie and someday it would snowball into an avalanche.

So she had to give an impromptu performance.

["This spirit was pulled in because of Tarsh's energy. Because Tarsh has frequent contact with you, he has given you his protection layer which is very attractive to the spirits. And that spirit entered the system space because you have a system."]

She made a perfect lie to deceive him for the time being. She didn't trust him yet to reveal more of her information.

Also, why would she want to give her life to another person? She had to control her decisions but if her secret was known, what if her powers were used against her?

"Then can I also enter the system space?"

He couldn't. He didn't have those permissions yet. It would take them at least level forty for that. And also they must have some kind of friendship value. She didn't see any friendship value. Maybe it would appear when there was some kind of task related to it. Anyway, she didn't want him to enter so he couldn't enter. It was as simple as that.

["You don't have clearance for that, host. Please strive to improve your level with the completion of tasks and remove restrictions one by one."]

She answered him in what she hoped to be a systematic reply.

Ajay nodded. He seemed to have foreseen this situation and his acceptance was what set Dhvani's nerves off. His calmness about the entire situation was unusual.

"Can you ask him questions I tell you? You can relay the answers back to me."

["I can give you live feed."]

With that, she gave a communication channel to him where he could only see and comment but her side wouldn't be able to sense him. But because she would be able to get his message, it could be considered half-duplex communication in a way.

Ajay then called up the system screen The transparent light screen lit up and turned blue. It was as if a layer of ice had formed on it before it formed the vague shadow of the spirit. He couldn't distinguish if the spirit was male or female. Because it seemed to hide its features.

"Why are you in this world?"

He muttered hoping the system would ask the spirit this question. And Dhvani asked making her voice.

The spirit stopped shaking and then bawled like a child.

Both Dhvani and Ajay were baffled seeing this spirit cry. Tarsh sat out of the screen's reach and nibbled melon seeds. He did not pay any attention as if this kind of thing was a normal incident to happen.

Maybe he had seen many crying spirits. Dhvani also felt that the spirit was very lonely. She would also cry if someone saw her when no one could even see her for many many years.

The question now was how to calm the spirit. Dhvani had much experience in this regard. Just give the spirit something to eat. Her trick was very useful to her brother but she didn't know what spirits liked to eat. She quietly motioned to Tarsh and acted the scene out. Tarsh seemed to both understand and not understand. Instead of sending the melon seeds, he extended a strand of his magic.

She wanted to bang her head against the nonexistent wall but she couldn't make noise. She didn't want herself to show up on the monitor. Her identity should be kept top secret.

But maybe Tarsh knew more about spirits than her because it finally calmed and she saw that the spirit was a young girl. She was tall and the spirits were very different from humans. They didn't have to take care of their bodies like humans. So this spirit had abnormally long hair which could sweep the floor. Her eyes were green and she wore a gray dress which was the color of an average rock. Her features were a combination of rock and tree spirits. The spirit looked like she was ten years old in terms of human age. And how would Dhvani know all this? She had a mini 101 lesson from Tarsh.

She felt infinite sympathy for this rock spirit that had become an impostor and then really became a citizen. Maybe she cried for this reason. She was now half a rock spirit and half a tree spirit. She was the first spirit Dhvani met who wasn't an animal.

"I was always here but I had to hide after some time."

"Why?" Ajay asked and Dhvani also wanted the answer to the same question.

"I got trapped here. I immediately hid in this tree. And I fell asleep. After sleeping for some time, you caught me."

"Did anything happen before you got trapped? Ajay asked in a patient manner when was itching to know the answer.

"Nothing. As usual, I was hit by stones." Her green eyes looked watery as if she was about to cry again.

If nothing unusual happened, could this spirit become trapped? This rock spirit was a bit naive.

Where was the issue? Ajay thought repeatedly about this matter. If there wasn't any problem before then maybe there was a problem during or after the situation. Because after getting hit, it came to this world. Then the problem should lie during the situation. And this situation was being hit by stones. So what were those stones?

He had to coax this spirit to think because he didn't think some time was some time in reality. This should have happened years ago. And this spirit could be living for thousands of years in this time loop. The spirit looked like a teenager but spirits were babies for thousands of years. She must have spent a very long time here.

"Do you remember what kind of stones were hitting you?"

The spirit looked like a deer caught in the headlights and seemed to ponder. They waited till she thought enough and frankly they could feel the gears turning in her head. She became rusty in this world. Such an environment was not healthy for species such as spirits.

"It was a golden rock. I was jealous of its appearance so I tried to talk to it but it turned away from me. Humph."

She seemed unhappy when she remembered the fact.

And Ajay and Dhavni quickly understood the identity of the culprit.

The golden rock was none other than the energy stone.