The horrid Phantom creature continued to circle my tree, bumping into the barrier created by the Astral Engine obelisk with its jaggedly, clawed tentacles. Thankfully, it was a rather stupid beast and so it simply repeated the same attacks, grabbing the shield in the same place over and over.

I woke up fully, paused [Chrysalis] and peered at the ghostly creature with my Astral eye-stalks that have grown on my Astral tree. The world was no longer a warped 360 degree view. Thanks to these eye-stalks I could now observe perspective properly. The Phantom was about 30 times my size.

I needed to get stronger faster, I needed to level up. I checked my Soul-Song chart and discovered that I had gained exactly 5 experience points from producing a single spore.

I tried to make another spore... and realized that I had no idea how long it would take.

Kopusha's memories told me that the Soul-Song skill provided detailed information about skills. I dove back into my menu, ignoring the Astral Phantom clawing at the shield near me.

[Expand skills!] I declared mentally.

The menu suddenly updated itself.

Skills:

[Soul-Song LV 0] [ON]

[Raising Spell efficiency by 0.1%]

[Providing detailed Soul-Stats]

[Translating the Soul-Song's Language]

[Life Forge LV 0] [ON]

[Forging 1 Spore] [2% complete]

[Chrysalis LV 0] [PAUSED]

[Forming Astral tree 69% complete]

[Forging Avatar] [32% complete]

"Oh wow, fantastic." I thought sarcastically "Whole 0.1%."

I considered how my [ON] skills were on... and why my mana wasn't going down at all and realized that the various branches of my tree were vibrating in repeating, musical resonance patterns, all while pulling energy directly from the obelisk.

Kopusha's memories told me that I could unslot any skill from my soul, but it would reset its value to zero as the channel lost its form. Also, I could turn off an active skill without losing it.

Translating the language, eh?

I decided to turn the [Soul-Song] [OFF] to see what would happen.

[Deactivate Soul-Song!] I though.

[Are you sure you want to halt the [Soul-Song]? Warning: Deactivation of this skill will make you unable to comprehend the Soul-Song. Do you want to proceed?]

Pffff. Don't threaten me with a good time, Soul-Song. I'll do what I want.

The ability to contemplate and comprehend incomprehensible-seeming things was fun for me. Some people found happiness in family, friends, relationships, sports, food, wealth and so forth. I found happiness in the beauty of thought itself, in cracking, figuring things out with my mathematical knowledge.

Using my imagination, my Besm-6 supercomputer and fractal mathematics provided to me by brilliant Dr. Benoit Mandelbrot I could mathematically figure out how almost any chaotically-seeming system was formed. For example, I could explain why something as microscopic as a 20 nanometer bacteriophage virus and something as gargantuan as the 30'000 kilometer-wide storm on planet Saturn both had a very specific hexagon-shape.

[Yes, Deactivate the Soul-Song!] I thought with determination.

Half of my branches suddenly stopped vibrating, stopped humming.

The word [Soul Song LV 0] that I was staring at, suddenly shifted around, rearranged itself to:

The skill menu flickered too, words warping into incomprehensible gibberish.

Hmmm...

Kopusha's memory suggested that this was simply the original, arcane language of the Soul-Song, stolen from the sky-gods a thousand millennia ago by Mage Morningstar.

Interesting. The legend of the Morningstar seemed akin to that of ancient Greek Prometheus from my Earth.

Kopusha also recalled that the Alanian Academics did not interact with this arcane language because it was too complex, chaotic and confoundingly difficult to work with. Instead they designed beautiful, geometric, hexagrammatic musical patterns. For example, the Spell-Song like the "The Awakening of our Anima" consisted of a hundred hexagrams or a hundred musical stanzas flowing from one to the other.

An interesting point of note was that all of the Alanian Spell-Songs relied on drawing power from nearby Astral Engines. Since I was sitting right on top of an Astral Engine my mana use was zero.

I squinted at the gibberish words in the menu. They weren't like anything I knew, didn't seem to have a pattern to them that I could figure out instantly. Oh well.

I started to sing the "The Awakening of our Anima" again. When I finished the last stanza, something clicked within me again.

[Achievement Unlocked - mental fortitude. You’ve disabled an essential skill and managed to enable it again! Congratulations on interacting with your Soul-Song without translator's assistance!]

[50 Experience points gained!]

[55/50 Experience optimum reached! Initiate level up?]

Well, that was easy!

[Да,] I thought in Russian to test whether the Soul-Song understood any language. It did.

A strange feeling overwhelmed my small, tree-shaped body along with a strange, ethereal music.

Ah! Kopusha recognized it as the "Song of Uplift".

The song stretched on, sounding like it was nearby and distant at the same time. It rang like a keypad password door beep in the Virology lab and also like Orthodox church bells. The music was memorable, refreshing, nostalgic and rewarding at the same time.

It suddenly felt like blinding bliss was emanating from within me, like stabbing all-consuming pain ignited all over. An indeterminate, entirely new sensation that I couldn't quite comprehend came over me and my consciousness folded in on itself.

[Congratulations on reaching : Level 1]

The Soul-Song resonated.

I woke up, blinking my eye-stalks. The grotesque squid-whale was still there, still clawing at the shield.

I had no idea how much time had passed.

The alien sensation had long faded. I summoned up my Soul-Song once again.

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:

1

Experience:

5/200

Health:

1/1

Stamina:

1/1

Mana:

1/1

Mana regen:

1 m/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 1]

[Life Forge LV 1]

[Chrysalis LV 1]

Affliction:

[Soul decay: - 2]

Investiture points:

5

Excellent!

"Now... where should I invest my points? What do you think, my magical pals?" I asked Kopusha and Leeny, not really expecting an answer.

[All five points into Luck!]