Penta had continued his binge until the green rock was no more. Another few days had passed as he kept ingesting the green rocks until his body eventually got used to the pain.
The green minerals turned into the basic components a body was able to ingest through the cockroach's impressive digestive system. Already dirt was nothing to it. The emperor roach adapted very easily to the green rocks.
Penta was satisfied as he felt a newfound strength within him after the few days of ingesting the green rock.
His body felt stronger than ever. He realized the green minerals strapping themselves to his muscle fibers eventually caused the fibers themselves to be stronger as he felt his body get covered in them everywhere.
The main thing that changed his view on his current strength was the speed at which he could move around in the tunnels as well as the efficiency at breaking down the dirt and rocks. He even tested his base strength by performing a quick running test and he noticed he could travel at an intensity that was almost two folds faster than when he escaped the Hell beetle though he wasn't eating so well at the time. The progress was still a happy encounter.
Especially considering he was already very fast as a cockroach. He now could control twice the strength and speed of his original body.
"Guess I should find more. I feel like I can get much stronger if I fully coated my muscle fibers with this thing." Penta thought to himself as he ate the last piece available to him.
The journey continued as he progressed towards the depths of the world.
Penta found a few pieces of green rock but nothing as large as the original one he had spent days eating.
The journey ahead was a lot easier as he could cover more ground than before but the impending crisis of his short lifespan still haunted him every day. Penta was not one to give up easily but it took a lot of effort to make sure he rested properly in between the digging as even though he got stronger he was sure the roach wasn't some machine that could keep going unstoppably at least not at this level. He did increase his digging duration and decrease rest time but it was in tandem with his newfound body.
"How much further before I find another green rock... sigh." Penta smashed his way through a new tunnel leading slightly upward since it had been over a day and he felt like he went too deep without finding anything. He considered the rock-forming at a certain level only and deeper it wouldn't form.
As an ex-human and current roach emperor, Penta was by far no geologist but he considered his theory a good 70% plausible.
He continued upwards in a slight ramp to catch anything new while also craving to see the surface after so long underground. He still had a human soul and darkness for so long was already affecting his mind.
"Argh, that bastard making me suffer. I cannot wait for the day I see you kneel before me as I smash your arrogant voice into smithereens. I'll make you say the dumbest things in that arrogant voice and shame you to death before beating you with it." Penta chuckled as he continued his upward trend.
The tunnel wall to his right suddenly smashed open and for the first time in weeks.
There was light shining.
"Wh..what? The hell is this?" Penta was shocked at the abrupt flash of brightness as he had been adjusted to the dark for so long.
After a few seconds of blurry sight, he looked towards the light to notice that he had come upon a room.
"No... is this... is this artificial!??" The sheer shock sent his little roach heart into a frenzy. He had believed he was too far away from any civilization considering the Sahara of death he roamed through. Though he was inside the earth for most of it.
Before him, was a small chamber the size of an average human living room. There was a white orb floating in the middle and at every corner of the chamber shining light into the room.
The room was a perfect square or as close to one as it could look like. The walls were made of dirt as though someone simply cut four sides to a room. In the middle was a stone Steele with a skeletal corpse sitting by its side. Decay had overtaken the room from the scent his senses were telling him.
Penta wasn't bothered at all as he entered the quiet room with excitement.
He neared the corpse only to realize his body had grown to be as big a two meters. The skeleton looked slightly humanoid from what he could tell, though it was smaller at around 1.8 meters long with a width of about half a meter.
"Is this a human? No, but something like them must exist here!?" Penta was already heaving at the thought of other intelligent beings like humans existing here. He knew this was a groundbreaking discovery.
"If I could find him, I could find more. That means there must be civilizations. I could probably find out more about where the f*ck the bastard sent me!" The idea sprouted the moment hope was seen.
Penta with excitement started looking around for any other clues but aside from some decayed materials and the skeleton. There was only a small white orb shoved into the stone Steele.
Penta tried understanding if there was any meaning on how things were left as is by the dead figure. However, even with his superior human soul, there was only scribbling on the Steele that he couldn't understand and finally the white stone in the middle.
He scoured the whole room for anything else but he was left with no other options which dissatisfied him. Considering he wanted to find out where this figure came from but couldn't at the moment.
"Screw it, the knowledge that there is something like humans out there that can build such rooms is enough for now. Already I feel luckier than I ever would have thought considering my recent past. Now I guess, all that is left is hmmm." Penta mumbled screechingly though a distinction could be made from his screeches now.
"CRUNCH" A large crunching sound immediately echoed in the small chamber.
"Taste pretty bland, bleh," Penta thought as he finished eating the white stone in the Steele as he had no other way to decipher the text and he figured the mineral could help him in some way towards boosting his abilities.
"Hopefully," He thought again.
The area around him suddenly went hazy and Penta started panicking as he felt his strength leaving him as his consciousness started drifting.
"Shit!" Were his last conscious words.
The surroundings filtered into a changing color and eventually settled on a misty white.
Penta found his human form revealed in this white place. He was lost as he looked around before smiling heavily at the sight of his former hands and started frantically feeling his once old body.
"Is this a dream? I haven't had one of those since I became the roach." He mumbled as he didn't understand what was going on.
"Hello, young one." A dreary and sad voice echoed in the misty white room.
"Oh f*ck! Not again! Did I die!? Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. ShIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!" Penta lapsed into recent memory and started frantically cursing as he believed he died again and was meeting the voice of his revenge.
"Calm down, young one. You aren't dead. I see you read my instructions and came to meet the last vestige of my spirit here." A misty old man formed in the white space and Penta was finally shocked into silence.
White misty beard, white hair, sharp black eyes with an aged color. Dressed in marvelous looking shade grey robes with embroidered silver patterns running through them.
"You mean, that's you old man? The dead one I mean? Phew! I wasn't dead. Thought I was meeting that bastard again." Penta quickwittedly put the words together and came to a relieving conclusion.
"Didn't you read my instructions? Once you activated the words on the Steele you would meet me" The old man inquired with a questioning look.
"Oh... of course. That is exactly what I d..did. The shock was just so s..sudden that I forgot. First time meeting the spirit of a recently deceased." Penta quickly thought of a small lie.
"From your earlier reaction, it doesn't sound like it but we have limited time. I already feel the last whisp of my spirit fading, faster than I originally calculated it to. Time must have damaged it."
"Let me tell you my story young fella, hopefully, I could request something of you in return for a request of mine" The wizened old man smiled bitterly.
"I am the third-grade shaman - Ban Shake - I had discovered documents leading to the belief that there be another continent near our great lands of Valor. With adventure and a thirst for discovery, I ventured out at sea for months and months before finally arriving at these plains. I'm sure just like you noticed, these plains were dead lands. There was barely anything far and wide. I searched for many years trying to find anything of use but nothing existed in these lands. Except for a few powerful creatures that somehow managed to survive through some form. Sadly, they were overbearingly powerful. Such that I was injured and wasn't able to examine them nor outlive their attack. Sigh. In any case, I left this here in case anyone of our origins were to find it, in hopes of entrusting them to return a message for my beloved tribe and children. Sigh. My final hope was this secluded cave I built near the shores of where I landed and someone stumbling upon it." The old man sighed for the umpteenth time.
"Wow, I thought I was unlucky but it seems you are too," Penta said.