‘What?’

Such a thought was indeed the first thing that ‘crossed’ the crystal’s fresh mind. It felt things it didn’t understand before. Even the thought itself was more a reflection of its current state rather than a ‘verbal’ thought.

But who told the crystal to be ignorant of language? At this stage, it had been isolated for years now with only itself for company. The simplified mind felt there were more things accessible to it, and yet it couldn’t figure out what they were.

As if it were standing before a metaphorical door and seeing a light shine from the gap at the bottom, it knew there was more to what it was than what it already was. The emotion itself was too complex for the infant mind to comprehend, so it ignored that feeling.

Rather, it chose to focus on the problem at hand. It has to be said that the crystal retained the grit and tenacity that got it where it was now. However, it now also had a meager intelligence to back that persistence up.

It understood cause and effect even better than before. Linking the connection between effort put into a specific task and the repeated failures prior to success allowed it to understand there was a connection between its evolution and the new ability it learned.

If prodding the area below it and breaking it apart gained it the ability, then the two must be similar to some degree. The simple logic was enough for the crystal to invoke the skill. Nothing happened.

Tendrils reached out as they had in the past, however the results were the same as far as the crystal could tell. Without any sensors to understand the results of its efforts, the crystal felt that emotion once more. Frustration.

The crystal experimented further, however the problem persisted. It felt the frustration build further. It wasn’t that nothing was happening, the problem was that the dreaded pressure was starting to overwhelm what space it could excavate from its home.

As each euphoric breakthrough brought with it a means to delay the threat, the crystal found the new skill useless as it failed to solve the problem at hand. It resumed breaking down the area below it, setting the task to the back of its mind as if it were natural.

Another fluctuation crossed through the crystal. Surprise. Elation. Reflection. Various fluctuations it never experienced before rebounded off its inner mind. Each sensation came with a subtle rewiring of its internals. The new sensations became less novel and as they transitioned to something more natural, the crystal became curious.

Curious about itself. It held little memory of its past, it only knew of a threat that chased it since birth, the dreaded suffocation, and the euphoric sensations. Yet, as a tendril continued its automated process of dragging debris to it, the crystal felt itself store the material away for the first time as something abnormal.

The sensation lasted but a moment as it always had, yet the crystal realized it somehow ‘knew’ where the material went. With that understanding grew another fear, however. Not only did it know where the material went, it suddenly realized the ‘where’ was running out of ‘where’.

Though not the most intelligent rock on the planet, the simplistic thoughts of the crystal were capable of projecting to the future. Without a ‘where’ to place the debris, what would happen? That simple question drove another series of sensations through the crystal. Fear. Anxiety. Panic.

Just as before, the emotions restructured the crystal’s internals. The novel feelings interrupted the tendrils’ work for a moment until the sensations calmed down. Though still prevalent, the crystal adapted to the feelings rather quickly. Of everything that was the crystal’s mind, tenacity and grit were the two things it could claim were etched into its very soul.

Death was approaching and the crystal understood now that it had some degree of control over its own fate. Unlike its blind approach from infancy, the crystal took control over the tendrils for the first time and chose to halt its digging.

It developed a rather poor understanding of its environment. As it was understood, ‘death’ was always around it, cornering it if it remained inactive for too long. It removed what was around it and that seemed enough to please the threat for a while, however it wasn’t a permanent solution. Without understanding the threat, the crystal understood it would eventually hit a dead end, literally and figuratively.

Controlling the tendrils, the crystal dragged them along the surface of the ground using the resistance it felt as a means to understand what was around it. A day or so later, the crystal was both pleased and surprised as a familiar euphoric sensation overtook it.

[ Criteria Met: Attempting skill unlock of Lesser Energy Perception. ]

[ Success. Acquired Lesser Energy Perception 1. ]

The crude sensations of the tendrils pushing back against the crystal as it dragged them along the ground became more refined as the tendrils themselves seemed to transmit sensation back to it. Previously, the crystal managed to build a primitive outline of the hole it was in, however with the added sensitivity, that map refined itself into something more reasonable.

Such successes don’t always provide the best understanding though. The crystal rotated the map in its mind trying to understand. The tendrils only felt the stuff it was digging through and never made contact with the ‘threat’.

Without a means to find the ‘threat’ and sensing its pressure still crushing down, the crystal turned its meager thoughts from it. As it stood, without a means to identify the threat, it could only press on with appeasing it.

The tendrils went back to their task while the crystal started playing around with its skills. In particular, it was poking [Degenerate]. The sensation when acquiring [Degenerate] was different than it normally felt. The feeling was more euphoric, more personal.

Applying [Degenerate] to the surroundings held to results. The crystal targeted the rocks that its tendrils were unable to break apart, the loose soil and debris each tendril managed to scrounge up to the crystal, and even the empty air around it.

Without results, that all too familiar feeling of frustration traveled through the crystal once again. As it ‘sat’ there in its cylindrical cavity, another load of debris was pressed against it and absorbed. Once again, the ‘where’ became less.

The fear of the near future drove anxiety through its small mind when its attention turned inward. Less than a eureka moment, the crystal considered the possibility of using [Degenerate] on itself. Something it really, really, really, didn’t want to do.

It gained the ability through destroying things, so why would it ever use something so dangerously related to that on itself? Those thoughts eroded though as one fear began pressing harder than the other.

Taking a metaphorical deep breath, the crystal invoked [Degenerate] targeting the material in the ‘where’. To its wonder and delight, a familiar euphoria tore through it once more.

[ Criteria Met: Attempting skill unlock of Lesser Chemistry. ]

[ Success. Acquired Lesser Chemistry 1. ]

Information flooded the crystal’s mind as it felt the ‘stuff’ inside the ‘where’ divide into other ‘stuffs’ that were entirely different from each other. Its curiosity peaked and so it tried to ‘look’ at the new ‘stuffs’ closer.

How surprised the crystal was when the material was brought before it in a way it could ‘see’. Unable to make sense of the colors and shapes it somehow ‘felt’ from the ‘stuff’, a rapid series of pulses shattered its wiring, then reformed them just as fast. As if by its nature, the crystal began to ‘understand’ what it was ‘seeing’ inside itself. The last pulse ripped through it and as it recovered, the crystal was hit by another series of euphoria.

[ Criteria Met: Attempting skill unlock of Lesser Identify. ]

[ Success. Acquired Lesser Identify 1. ]

[ Criteria Met: Lesser Energy Perception leveled up. ]

Shocking it from its inward gaze, sensations assaulted the crystal once more. Dull images of black with a twinkling haze filled its mind. The sight was blurry, however the crystal found that as it moved its tendrils, the blurs moved in tandem.

[ Criteria Met: Attempting skill unlock of Lesser Proprioception. ]

[ Success. Acquired Lesser Proprioception 1. ]

Suddenly, it felt it much easier to control the tendrils. There was no longer a guessing of expansion and contraction. The blurs matched the vague movements and as it played around with its newfound sensor, it was hit once more.

[ Criteria Met: Lesser Energy Tendrils leveled up. ]