Chapter 68: Choices and Paths

Upon opening his status, Trint saw a drastic change. A notification he couldn’t close or minimize or ignore was flashing a golden alert.

True Ascension Unique requirement met.

True Ascend Now:

Y/N

“No! God no!” Trint yelled aloud.

“No? What are you seeing? I am still locked from seeing your notifications,”

True Ascension Declined.

Further requirements are required to ascend if declined.

Confirm: Decline or Accept

Trint quickly sent a mental command and declined. The last golden alert popped up and he read it before it closed without Trint’s command.

Ascension Declined and Confirmed

“That was close,” Trint breathed a sigh. “You know how the point of the iterations is to reach True Ascension?”

“Of course. That is my whole purpose with you. To guide you, see you grow, and reach your family but ultimately for us to Ascend. Why?”

“Well, I just declined the system option to True Ascension.”

“You declined? Why would you ever decline? Wait, you are far from the level and power requirements! What did the message say?”

Trint explained to Pneuma the exact wording although he couldn’t see any log of them in his system or records.

“Something with the fruit, you ate, had to be an unknown backdoor for early ascension,” Pneuma postulated. “That’s all I can think of. You continue to find bugs in the System and shatter my understanding of what is possible. So, what now?”

“I have more system notifications I need to go through then let’s head back. See what the Cease people have for us and then find a way to get to Cara. No change to the goal but we need to understand more about our Souls. We will need that understanding to progress to the higher iterations.”

Trint pulled up the notifications. There were notifications he had ignored for a long time, and it took him a few hours to sift through them. There were a few surprises and he discussed those with his sole companion.

“I’m going to need your help with this one. It seems pretty important,” Trint turned his attention from the unseen menu to Pneuma who had patiently been resting against the wall.

“And just when I was reaching a deep meditation,” Pneuma’s sinister black smile was familiar enough for Trint to know he was joking. “What’s it say?”

Soul Capacity, Scale, and Scope Synergy Registered

Synergy with Soul, Class, and Open Profession Available

Resulting in an unlocked Profession Pathway Anchors

Please select from the following professions: Note selection will use one of your three Anchors for Profession Pathway.

Soul General (Legendary): The path of conquest is paved with the souls of your enemies. Command and conquer.

Soul Architect (Legendary): The structure of civilization is built with the souls of your creation. Plan and create.

Soul Priest (Legendary): The faith of the followers is greater than the strength of many rulers.

Soul King (Mythic-Unique): The souls of the many serve at your command. Your kingdom to rule, your subjects to serve.

Trint relayed the professions to Pneuma. They discussed the different options and Pneuma attempted to fill in what he knew of professions and how these were nothing like what he had ever seen.

“The fact they are legendary is extraordinary but not unheard of,” Pneuma said. “The one Mythic-Unique is. But the most shocking is they are called Profession paths and,” he emphasized the conduction with a pause, “they are all related to Soul. Soul is supposed to be a Pool and give stats. Yes, you have unique stats but those notifications about synergy with capacity, scale, and scope…”

“Yeah, I think that one is where we need to find answers,” Trint decided. “The synergy with my Soul and Class of Sovereign doesn’t tell us a lot. But I think the Cease and our mentor might know more about capacity, scale, and scope.”

“Yes, and you should get more information before choosing. I’m sure you are drawn to the Mythic-Unique option but are you willing to wait and learn more?”

“Yes, I promise to wait and see what we can learn,” Trint was excited, but this seemed like an important decision. If the Profession was tied to the Soul and it was also a path, then he wanted to know where it might lead and the path that would help with his goals.”

“Part of me wonders what would have happened to me if you would have ascended,” Pneuma changed the subject.

“I hope you would go with me,” Trint looked at his hands while considering.

“Me too,” his companion and Trint left the other options unspoken.

“Do you think I need to wrap my hand to hide the new tree tattoo?”

“I’m not entirely sure. They will probably just ask to see your injury or what you are covering. So maybe say it was there before.”

They discussed a few more things. But since they had been gone for close to four days, they started the trek back through the square hallway.

Not too long after they reached the black crystals and as they walked past every crystal within 10 feet of Trint glowed black.

“That’s new!” Pneuma said looking at Trint. “It’s not me.”

The Sovereign stepped away from his friend and left off the center path. The glow intensified on that side and slightly dimmed on the other.

“Yep, definitely you. You need to see if you can stop that radiation or whatever you’re doing,”

Trint took out a few furs and blankets to make a place for them to sit down. Then spent the next several hours meditating.

During the first hour of meditation, Trint kept entering his inner Spirit. The view was different than he remembered. The view was now filled with a feeling of vibrance and peace. There was nothing to see but there was a strong sense of connection. For the second hour, Trint kept his eyes shut and focused on his breathing and the glowing crystals around him. He was able to sense what he began to believe was a connection to his Soul. The first hint was a warmth in his right hand. With eyes closed, he sensed the glow was the result of the tree tattoo. Knowing that he tried to pry at that. It was like he was pulling on a rope. The harder he pulled the more he felt his conscience dive deeper. Suddenly he was on a vast plain. There was nothing but grass. He looked around and directly behind him was a single tree. A replica of the tree Patro led him to find inside the giant tree. It was about a mile away from him, but he knew immediately it was the same. He stepped to walk to the tree and after one step he was under its branches.

“How did that happen?” Trint was puzzled but decided to explore. “So, this is my Soul?” So, what do I do other than stare at a tree?

System Information Available:

Readout and Readout explanation:

Primary Soul Anchor: Tree of Life

Details Unknown

Purpose Unknown

Capacity, Scale, and Scope impacted by Anchor: Resulting in expanding Soul.

Expanding Soul will increase in those three measurements equally based on expansion synergy.

Current Capacity: 1,010,000 Soul Sustainability.

Current Scale: 1,010,000 Soul Spheres.

Current Scope: 1,010,000 Soul influence

System Soul Readout Complete:

“Please explain Capacity, Scale, and Scope,” Trint hoped the information would continue as he was still completely unsure what this meant. He also noticed the amount of 1,010,000 started increasing as he observed them.

System Soul Extended Introduction Requested: Accepted. Accessing relevant information for an explanation.

The Soul’s Capacity is the Soul’s ability to house other sapient or non-sapient life inside of the Soul and is measured in Sustainability. The number is a measure of the maximum number of lifeforms that can live in your Soul.

The Soul’s Scale is the Soul’s dimension of habitable and useable space. There is a void beyond the bounds that must normally be consciously managed. As your Soul is expanding, your management of the void will be automatic as it pushes back the void. The Scale is measured in spheres. One Sphere equals approximately one Earth mile diameter Sphere.

The Soul’s Scope is the measure of impact you can have inside your Soul. Typically measured in a percentage. The percentage is equal to power over the forces of the Soul and counters outside influence, corruption, void and external forces, and soul damage. As your Soul scope, scale, and capacity are synergized and expanding in identical dimensions you have an effective scope of 100%. Meaning you will have a stronger influence within your soul to protect internally, protect from external influence, and exert your Soul power in the outside world.

“Wow, that was helpful but still leaves me wondering how to make the glowing crystals stop.” Trint sat beneath his Tree and considered what to do next. He tried to mediate while under the Tree. He found he was able to see anywhere inside his Soul. He moved around his Soul and starring into the void directly above the Tree at the very edge of the Soul’s scale. When he saw a pair of eyes look at him.

“Whoa!” He opened his eyes to find himself sitting under the tree still. He got out from under the tree but just enough to look up. He looked and his vision was perfect, and he could see as if he was right there again. But after staring for 10 minutes, he didn’t see a set of eyes.

“Anyway, that was interesting,” He sat again, and instead of trying to see he spread out his presence and could feel the entire soul. He kept his vision off and just felt. He could feel his presence was expanding and some of His soul was spilling over beyond his controlled space like a rolling fog or ever-flowing wave, crashing out in all directions. It was gaseous and liquid-like until his Scale expanded over it.

Trint exited his Soul and saw Pneuma starting to sit down.

“I think I see a possible reason why I light up the crystals,” he stood up from his meditation position.

“That was fast, I didn’t even get comfortable,” his pitch-black friend jokingly complained. “What did you discover so quickly?”

“How long was I meditating?”

“About one second after you closed your eyes you reopened them. Hardly more than a blink. Why what happened on your end?”

“That is wild. It was a few hours from my perspective. Time must move extremely slowly or stop when I enter there. Well, I learned from some system messages that my Soul is expanding. Then when I observed the expansion, I saw that my influence was billowing out like a fog but also like a wave. Hard to explain, but I can maybe show you later. I think that I need to reel in my influence to match my expansion. But I’m not sure since they are supposed to be synergized and equal in measure. It’s all confusing.”

They discussed for a while and then deduced Trint should try to reign in the fog and waves to hide or limit the signs of his Soul to the outside world.

After some experimenting and what Trint felt like was a few days in his Soul, he reopened his eyes to see Pneuma starting to sit down again.

“Don’t tell me you never even got to sit again?” Trint asked with shock written on his face.

“Yeah, why? How long were you gone?”

“I think a couple of days. I only came back because I think I figured out how to match the expanse and the control and I was thinking you’d be worried about me.”

“You didn’t give me time to worry,” Pneuma chuckled as he stood back up.

“Since time is basically stopped for me in my soul, I think I need to see if I can get you into my Soul space and we can decide what Profession path to take. I think it will dictate some important features inside the space and maybe explain the whole Anchor thing. Try combining with me again and then see if you can sense anything with my soul. I’ll wait while you try to figure it out,” Trint suggested as he held off diving into his Soul.