As I continued to hide in the hollow tree that was once the body of the dryad I thought about Kopusha. The memories of the young Agromancer seemed to be fractured, missing, incomplete as if she was suffering from a very severe case of Alzheimer's.

I discovered that I couldn't recall her childhood, couldn't bring up the faces of her parents. Perhaps these memories had degraded away over time or most likely they simply didn't get transferred to the dryad because the Agromancer died so suddenly.

Only the last few memories of the Acolyte's life got preserved within the tree and even those were a bit warped, faded and hard to sort through.

It greatly upset the Kopusha part of me to think how long it's been, how long the desiccated remains of her dryad... phylactery sat in the Astral. Has it been a decade? A century? Longer? Did anyone survive? Did any Alanian outposts or any other Citadels remain standing after the fall of Tricameron? Did the colony on Lunaria survive?

I thought about other things, trying not to focus on the despair and sadness of the Agromancer girl.

What exactly was the Soul-Song? Kopusha's memories told me that it was a chart of sorts that defined a person's magic. The Soul-Song calculated and defined the inner parameters of a soul of any given individual, listing all of their skills.

Children as young as seven were taught the Song-spell necessary to ignite the soul-spark within them. Also, the very same Song-spell was repeated every sunrise by Tricameron Acolytes to reinforce, stoke the flames within their Soul.

The song was called "The Awakening of our Anima". I tried to recollect the song, based upon the fragments of Kopusha's life and hummed it softly to myself as I did so.

Like the other Alanian Song-spells it was also a story.

The soft hymn began with a tale of a talented girl named Morningstar, who was born long, long ago at a time when glaciers, stars and the gods of winter had ruled the world. She was not deterred by the apparent great wisdom of the stars and cold of winter and the monsters all around.

Morningstar wanted to be free, so she studied the land, the animals and the sky and after a long and fruitful life she had harnessed a way to fully awaken her Soul-Song. It was too late for her, however, so she taught her daughter the song of Morningstar.

From one generation to another, the song was passed, magnifying into a chorus of the awakened people. The children of Morningstar had built a prosperous nation, an Empire and carved runes into the sky itself to light the way home even in the darkest night.

I sang a tale of an endless myriads of sunrises, of the coming Spring, of rivers being born and coming down from the Glaciers of Skyisle Valley into the Tricameron river delta. I sang of the legacy of Morningstar enshrined into the heavens to drive away the night and awaken my soul.

At first nothing happened, but as I continued to repeat the stanzas, I felt some inexplicable change within me, a connection to something far greater than myself.

Welcome to Novazem Astral, lost soul.

System connection re-established.

A strange message flashed in front of my eyes, the words resonating to me in impossible, ethereal tones emanating from all around and also from within me.

Yes! It worked.

I thought about, attempted to define my soul.

Name:

[Evaluation error]

Age:

[Computational error]

Species & Subtype:

Untethered Soul [+1 agility/dexterity]

Affinity:

Astral Phantom [Various stat bonuses from subsumed soul-shards and affiliated affliction]

Spark of the Morningstar [+ 3 skill channels]

Blessing of Lunaria [+ Soul Song skill]

Agromancer [+ Life Forge skill]

Dryad [+Chrysalis skill]

Level:

0

Experience:

0/50

Health:

0.1/0.1

Stamina:

0.1/0.1

Mana:

0.1/0.1

Mana regen:

0.1m/hr

Strength:

0

Agility:

0 [+1]

Dexterity:

0 [+1]

Vitality:

0 [+2]

Charisma:

0

Magic:

0 [+2]

Luck:

0

Intelligence:

0 [+2]

Wisdom:

0 [+2]

Soul:

1 [+2] [-2]

Skills:

[Soul Song LV 0]

[Life Forge LV 0]

[Chrysalis LV 0]

Affliction:

[Soul decay: - 2]

I stared at each line in serene wonder of first discovery - it was an entire System that evaluated a being! How unique. Could something like this develop naturally through evolution or was this a construct of some advanced intelligence? Did the Alanian Archmages create it?

The memories of Kopusha sadly did not provide me with an answer.

Also, the fact that the System had defined me as an "Astral Phantom" was an extremely unpleasant discovery. According to the Animancy professor, phantoms were creatures of the Astral that only sought to devour life. I had likely gained the damned affinity when I had absorbed the soul of the Dryad within the tree.

Another lecture segment suddenly swam to the forefront of my mind.

"What if I were to integrate the soul of another human being with my own professor?" One of the students asked.

"From the tests we ran on death-row subjects… such an action would be very unwise. If a full soul is injected into a human, the end result is split-personality and insanity caused by extreme personality dilution and massive soul-decay. Essentially, the merger of two souls produces a schizoid. Such unfortunates are defined as… aberrations. The corrupted soul becomes so addicted to extra power that it craves more and more, the affliction driving it desperate for warmth it cannot ever attain. If the afflicted individual is fed more souls, the original personality vanishes completely, diluted into nothing," the Animancer explained.

"What about just a fragment?" The next question came from the auditorium.

"Ah, an excellent question. An integration of a small soul-fragment into the soul produces small degree of split personality. Partial soul-decay occurs as the original soul absorbs and rejects various bits of the new soul-fragment. While it is less dangerous compared to a full integration it is still... extremely inadvisable due to the soul-decay and loss of your own personality."

The students made whispering noises at each other at the revelation.

"Yes, consuming the souls of others is extremely dangerous, akin to cutting your chest open to insert the organ of another being," the lecturer concluded.

I shuddered.

Devouring human souls would set me on a very dark path towards madness.

I definitely felt it then, a gnawing, animalistic compulsion, an unnerving desire to consume more fragments of hollow people around the tree.

Damnation!

I now knew that the compulsion would get worse if I ate more people, turning me into an aberration. I was lucky that the dryad was so young and incomplete when she died - her Astral imprint wasn't as dangerous as the consumption of a full human soul. Her [Chrysalis] was interrupted by the apocalyptic destruction of the Alanian civilization before she managed to evolve her shape from the base tree.

The mere thought of eating more imprints in that moment made the rational part of me feel disgusted, sickened by the animalistic desire for power and warmth.

I looked up again. The blue thread was incredibly suspicious. Maybe it was a trap set for me. Most likely, it was set by the surviving enemies of Tricameron and would likely lead me into a phylactery from which I would not be able to escape. Maybe they would turn me into a soul-battery to power a golem, or worse...

I had to get stronger. I had to gain power and learn more before leaving the Astral to the world of the living. I floated out of the tree, scouting the gloomy terrain for anything else Kopusha could recognize.

If there were currents in this cursed Ocean of death, they were caused by something. Something had to gather or leak power. Of course!

I swam against the current that pushed me away, hoping to find an imprint of power.

After a while, passing through the seemingly endless field of dead things… I saw it. An old, cracked, looming black obelisk!

An Alanian Astral Engine. Yes! As far as the Agromancer Acolyte recalled, this machine gathered power and kept wild beasts away from houses as its core function.

I flew towards the looming obelisk, circling it. The dark obelisk tried to push me away, but I fought the current stemming from it with all of my strength.

There! A glowing crack in the base of the structure! I flung my tiny body into the small shear located on a hexagonal snowflake-like base and clung to it for dear life. Something sparkled, shimmered within the small crack.

An Alanian power battery imprint! Yes.

I shaped my body into something akin to a riftia pachyptila, commonly known as the giant tube worm, a marine invertebrate denizen of the Pacific Ocean that lives near hydrothermal vents.

I sacrificed some of my threads, pulled energy from them and they turned pale, calcifying me to the crack in the battery.

I extended most of my threads into all directions, trying to catch the current of power leaking from the old battery imprint.

It felt warm and didn't fill my mind with new, painful memories. Perfection.

The current started to feel like it was burning me. My small, insignificant body wasn’t strong enough to handle it. The memories of the Dryad told me what to do next. I had to change, had to adapt to the environment I was in… had to grow.

I activated the [Chrysalis] skill. I wasn't too sure exactly what I would metamorphize into, but it was a lot better than simply following whatever dastardly trap was set for me at the end of the blue thread.

My mind slowly faded into the sweet embrace of dreams as most of my body calcified, hardened and turned into an Astral tree gathering power for my next evolution.

CHOOSE THE EVOLUTION PATH:

[A Faith Based Spiritual Being]

[Cordyceps Fungus]