"Come again?" Rory asked, doing his best to take in the not-human stranger.

"I am the world spirit of this planet."

"Well, at least I heard you correctly." Rory folded his arms one over the other, nodding to himself as he did. "So, like from a fantasy novel or movie?"

The now familiar feeling of wind gently whispering past his ears lasted only a second as the world spirit smiled.

"Yes! And while you're at it, you should make some of those-"

The strange woman floundered momentarily, apparently at a loss for words.

"Movies? Books?" Rory offered.

"Yes, books! Vessels of information are the perfect way to nurture those upon my soil."

"Not exactly a librarian or a bookmaker." Rory frowned slightly, suddenly curious about how one made a book in the first place. "But that's not the point. You're a 'world spirit.' What exactly does that entail?"

"That's… difficult." The world spirit mimicked Rory's slightly downturned frown. "I've only just begun to understand thoughts, concepts, words. I must say, words are tricky things. Words and phrases that make no apparent sense, yet at the same time, they do. That's why I must keep borrowing them."

"Borrowing them?"

"Yes, I borrow what you all have to offer here." The world spirit pointed toward her head.

"Wait, you all?" Rory sputtered, not missing the weight of what she just said.

"Why yes. You and the other seven. One for each of my continents."

Eight people total. So, I'm not alone. And this is, in fact, a planet with eight continents, though how large is unknown. Rory thought to himself, pleased he'd managed to deduce as much.

"What exactly do you mean by borrowing?" Rory found his lips moving before he'd registered his own question, half his mind still considering that he wasn't alone.

"You eight -yourself included- are my first. My first…. Hmm, I'll have to think of a name for you all. Regardless, as my first, you all share an intimate connection with me. It can take horrendously long for a budding world spirit such as myself to learn things, which is why I borrow from you. I feel through our bonds the shape of your thoughts and minds, and from there, I gain what I lack."

"I understand." Rory lied. "So, you're reading our minds or something?"

"Reading minds? No. Imagine you begin to ponder a question, but the answer appears before you can even give proper phrasing or thought to your question."

"Like picking up a book and knowing everything that happens without reading it?"

"Exactly!" The world spirit beamed, extra happy at the reminder of books. "I knew I made the correct choice in picking you."

"Picking me? I was picked?"

"Well, of course." The world spirit said.

She reminds me of some of the more… eager clients I worked with as a trainer.

"At first, there was nothing. Then, from nothing, something began to appear. Those somethings began to gather, forming-" The world spirit paused again, once more looking lost.

"Stars, planets, galaxies, etc.?" Rory offered, feeling he knew what she was about to explain.

"Exactly! I was nothing more than a barren rock, barely a sense of anything when I first formed. Time passed; I had no proper perception of time as I was, but I can only imagine it was a long time before it happened."

"It?"

"Yes, it. You have a word for it, but it doesn't match the scope. It encompasses everything."

"The universe?"

The world spirit nodded vigorously. "Your universe, or how you once understood it, is merely a shallow reflection of what you now exist within."

"Apologies if I'm rude." Rory offered in advance, aware that offending an entity that referred to itself as a world spirit might be a mistake. "But how exactly do you know all this? You said you only just began to understand thoughts?"

"Call it instinct, plus filling in the blanks with some of the knowledge gleaned from you eight." The world spirit seemed content to leave it at that, or perhaps she had no better way to explain it.

"Fair, I suppose." Rory wished he had someone smarter with him. "So, 'it' refers to this super-universe, and something important happened."

"Indeed. From the 'universe' that was cold and lifeless, the first Ascension occurred, and energy raced across all of existence. It allowed us barren rocks, planets devoid of anything, to gain the capacity for life. Another outrageously long time passed -I had only a smidge better sense of time as I was then compared to my existence as a barren rock- but over that time, using the energy permeating everything, I was able to foster growth from nothing but the dust of the universe that had settled upon my crust."

"Then what?" Rory questioned.

"I ascended." The world spirit seemed immensely pleased with herself. "One of the first to ascend as well."

"Ascend? What does that even mean?" Rory asked.

"Ascend, to uplift, to-"

"Excuse me, I didn't mean the literal definition." Rory coughed awkwardly. "I mean, what does this… ascension pertain to?"

"Oh, that's simple; it's one of the first innate Laws, something we world spirits have an instinctual understanding of."

"Laws? Like the laws of physics?"

"Laws of physics?" The world spirit scrunched up her face; a moment later, the sensation Rory had come to recognize as her probing of his thoughts lasted for a split second before she nodded. "Ahh, yes, something like that. Many of those laws still hold, but as I am not a being from the past, I can't say I can explain which still hold. At the very least, there seems to be something like that 'gravity' binding things, but perhaps not as tightly."

Rory found himself thankful that the world spirit could seemingly snatch the explanations for things she was unsure of from his mind; otherwise, there would be a lot more pausing to explain things he wasn't sure he could confidently explain.

"So, these… Laws, whatever they may be, you instinctively know some of them? Such as this ascension thing?"

"Yes! And Ascension is the most important of them all!" The world spirit clapped her hands, the trees nearby trembling as if sharing her excitement. "Our existence is made of countless smaller, less significant universes becoming one. The base was formed from your original universe, but the energy and many things you wouldn't understand come from the other dimensions of your past reality. The most important point is that the' infinitesimal energy of countless universes wasn't simply added; they were multiplied one against the other. All the energy of your universe put together couldn't compare to the energy you'd be able to find in a single system. That much energy can't simply exist in perpetuity. Hmm, perpetuity. I like that word!"

"Focus, please." Rory snapped his fingers before her, a trick for getting scatterbrained colleagues back on track.

"Right, right, sorry. All that energy begins to make us more. Gather enough, and you can achieve an Ascension, where you break through your former limits and potential. For us, planets, you can think of it as starting from zero—no thoughts, emotions, or anything other than the barest sense of potential. The first Ascension allowed us to begin cultivating that potential: life itself. From the first forms of life, we gained the ability to gather more of that same energy, a cycle of give and take, harmony. After long enough of that, the veil lifted. Suddenly, I wasn't just a planet; I had become part of that potential."

"That's… a lot." Rory wasn't sure how else to respond, trying his best to wrap his mind around the entirely alien concept, unlike the universe of hard science he'd once known.

"This planet formed a world spirit, but not as I am currently. With just a hint more awareness, I was sentient more than I was sapient; I was preparing to start seeding the smallest forms of complex organisms as far across my lands as possible when I sensed something. Within the energy permeating everything, I could feel things like me. Infinitesimally small, yet they didn't escape my awareness once I'd felt it. So, rather than seeding myself with more advanced life, as I figure many of the other early ascending planets did, I spent that excess energy looking deeper, curious as to what this feeling was, until I found something marvelous. Like gems hidden within the depths, tiny troves of energy screamed of life, thought, and potential. I spent even more time and energy exploring this potential new curiosity when, at last, I uncovered, uncovered, well...." The world spirit gestured vaguely at Rory, who pointed at himself.

"Me?"

"Well, not you, not at first. I found those who had been ferried over from the before. At this point, I had wasted nearly three billion years of head start, so I had to act if I wanted to catch up. Whereas the others have likely been cultivating their capacity, making steady progress towards their next Ascension, I had remained as I was, stagnant as I searched for what had caught my attention; the only thing I'd developed in that time was my ability to think, though not in the human fashion. Spending another half a billion years, I gathered all the strength I could muster to begin peering into these life capsules of the before, feeling for those who felt right. And that was how I found you and the seven others. Four other humans, two osferians, and one varasay."

"Why so many humans? Wait, how do you even know the names of us all?"

"Oh, I didn't know what you beings were called until after I'd begun growing through our shared bonds. As for why so many humans? That is simple enough."

Rory waited patiently as she once more gestured vaguely, this time all around.

"Humans were… interesting. You were by far the least abundant being out there, but what made me so inclined for your kind is that while rarer than the other races, your constitution more than made up for it; only a few others, such as the Osferian and the Varasay, felt like they would work as well."

It reminded Rory why humans were once enlisted to aid in the universal war. Sure, humans hadn't had as much time to grow as a civilization, and human tech and understanding of the universe at large were barely considered adequate compared to the races that had expanded across the stars. But coming from a planet nearing the absolute gravitational limit for intelligent life, humans were one of the sturdiest and most adaptable species while still having room for intelligence.

Deciding he'd had enough of standing, Rory dropped back to the ground. Leaning back with his hands behind his head, he continued his interrogation of the living embodiment of the planet.

"So, the other planets have had an extra few billion years' worth of time on you to cultivate energy for this… Ascension. They did this by seeding life on themselves as soon as possible after their first Ascension. But you decided not to because you were…curious?"

"Essentially." The world spirit joined him, lying casually on the ground a few feet away. "But my gamble has paid off. Even with three and a half billion years' worth of gathered energy, it was only enough capacity for eight of you. Your form of life is exponentially more advanced than the simple microorganisms the other planets have been slowly advancing to more ascended forms of life."

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"Forced evolution," Rory said. "Darwin would be proud."

"Who is Darwin?"

"Not important." Rory shook his head in dismissal of the question. "So, you plucked eight of us. Then what?"

"As I said, it paid off. Since you eight have been active, you've gathered me enough energy to ascend again."

"A few hours were enough to overtake a three-and-a-half billion-year deficit?"

"You must understand something. This isn't the universe you once knew, even if it may have a passing resemblance." The world spirit pointed at the stars overhead. "It's raw and unshapen and volatile; Laws are being made and even broken; the planets, as we became world spirits, simply knew that through Ascension, we could be the ones to dictate Laws as we advance. It's a race of sorts, one that is woven into our existence for reasons we do not even understand. I'm explaining this same thing to three others; another two are attempting to refute me, and finally, the last two have accepted it. This universe doesn't follow straightforward, concise rules and logic. Significance plays just as important a role in everything as the particles that assemble everything. Sure, the others have had three and a half billion years to press the microorganisms they seeded to advance into more complex life, but they still are far less than what you eight are. And most importantly, for all that, none achieved the monumental task of creating the first home in all the universe."

As if to drive the point home, the world spirit turned her gaze to Rory's lean-to.

"That thing?" Rory, acting very unlike himself, gawked. "That was enough for you to gather the energy to ascend?"

"Yes, it was. It was a universally significant act, but don't treat it too highly either. As I was only in my first tier of Ascension, the energy required for my second Ascension was minimal. Your home, the first home, was a source of enough significance that the greater universe responded by feeding me the energy to ascend and then some."

Rory's head was beginning to pound, nearing the limit of what he could intake before his brain refused anything else. Holding up a hand to stop the world spirit from launching into any more explanations, Rory sighed.

"You are a world spirit. You are responsible for us being here. You grow, er, ascend, as we do things here. This makes you more of yourself, or whatever that exactly means. Anything else I should know?"

"There isn't much more I know." The world spirit laughed. It sounded more like the whistling of the breeze, so much as it did an actual laugh. "I've explained everything I, as a world spirit, understand by the simple nature of my existence. You'll have to figure everything else on your own, or at least wait until my next Ascension, which may be… unwise."

"Unwise? Why?"

"My dear… hmm, I still don't have a name for you eight. Founder… no, that doesn't sound right."

Rory snapped his fingers, not even bothering to say anything.

"An issue to settle later, you're correct. I was saying that now that I've reached my next Ascension, I will be taking steps forward as my capacity has increased yet again. That means I will be able to seed life more complex than what my brethren could, though not as complex as you or your seven peers. That means you must be ready. Part of my path forward is through your growth, as with your growth, I achieve my growth, so I cannot and will not coddle you. You will have five days while I channel the energy of my Ascension, and in those five days, I suggest you attempt your own Ascension, or you will find surviving difficult; you will not last to see my next Ascension if you remain as you are."

Oh, a warning, or perhaps a threat? Rory mused. He found himself relatively unfazed, probably because he'd not expected things to have been that easy to begin with.

Rory hadn't even considered what went into this so-called 'ascension' when the world spirit began standing up, dusting herself off like Rory would expect from a human.

"I enjoyed this conversation with you, my most successful one of eight so far, but I must leave and concentrate my mind inward. So, I will leave you one more message. Please do not attempt to find the other seven, as I mentioned, they've each been placed within their own continent. It would take approximately seven hundred and eighty-six thousand years to reach them on foot. You will come together in due time, but much as I must race with my brethren to ascend, you must race with the others. You will grow far faster through struggle and competition against one another until one unifies the rest. I ask that you not kill each other, but once I allow you all to find each other, you will seek to defeat each other, after which you shall be brought under a single banner before you seek out beyond the stars. Now, there is no specific reward for being the one to unify the rest, but I believe each of you shall find an intrinsic enough reason to push yourselves against each other. Now, I must bid you farewell."

Rory didn't miss that throughout their discussion; the world spirit seemed to grow more and more eloquent, likely due to exposure to eight minds' worth of information. Unsure what else to do, he instead bowed his head in farewell. That was until one last question piqued his curiosity.

"Do you have a name?" Rory asked.

"Ahh, that is where another beat you to the punch if you intended to be the one to name me. I am the world spirit, Aelia, of the planet Aelia."

And just like that, she vanished, the trees rustling quietly as a slow wind petered through.

Well. Rory thought to himself as he gingerly flexed his hands and feet before slowly entering his shelter and dropping into it, exhaustion hitting him like a bullet train. That was eventful.

He couldn't deny it as Rory stood with his hands on his hips, taking in the sight before him.

The world spirit had been right, and the proof was right before him—his lean-to of all things.

Or rather, what had happened to his lean-to. Perhaps it had been during the darkness of the night that he hadn't noticed, or maybe it had happened while he was asleep, but there was no denying that it had been changed. When he'd finished his lean-to originally, it was barely a functional shelter, bound together by excessive amounts of the twined vine and plastered obsidian-colored mud filling the gaps between the chopped branches.

Now, the branches had fused seamlessly, veins of gold pulsing under the bark like a heartbeat. Even the mud had crystallized into obsidian filigree. It was as if a tree that had been forced to grow into such an irregular form. It wasn't any more furnished or extravagant than before -which was to say it was empty- but that hadn't changed the obvious reality before him.

"Ascension, eh?" Rory let out a quiet whistle, or attempted to, still unable to whistle. His only guess was that, given that his shelter had been the source of the world spirit's second Ascension, his small shelter had also benefited.

"Or." Rory began to pace slowly, sorting his thoughts. "Maybe anything made on purpose can ascend if it's exposed to… well, whatever the 'energy' that causes such a phenomenon is."

It was an irrelevant distinction for the time being, but it was one he'd investigate later. For now, he had more pressing concerns.

So… How does one cause an ascension?

The world spirit had warned him that he had only a few days to undergo an ascension, or else the creatures she would soon release upon the planet would tear him apart.

Well, she hadn't said the 'tear apart' thing herself, but Rory could fill in the blanks.

I have no intention of dying now of all times.

When the end of the universe came, Rory accepted it, for there was nothing in his power to do, so there was no point fretting.

Now, being turned into monster food? That was something he could fight, something that he'd do his very best to avoid.

"What do I know about Ascension?" Rory mused aloud. "First, the energy for Ascension can come through natural means, though I'm not sure if that is only for planets. Otherwise, it comes from 'significance.'"

Saying it out loud, Rory couldn't ignore how silly it all sounded, but given everything he'd seen, he wasn't about to start doubting now.

"So… what is significance anyways?"

No one answered Rory. Part of him had hoped the world spirit might pop in and explain, but she had said she'd be busy and wouldn't be looking to coddle him or the seven others.

Right. I'm not alone.

The thought was hardly comforting, given they were literally continents away, and the world spirit had made it a point to explain how they would not be acting as a team to start.

If I can't do anything about them, and they can't do anything about me, there's no point putting energy into that train of thought.

"Right, back to the topic at hand, Ascension and Significance. Significant feats… Significant accomplishments? Or maybe there comes significance from anything?" Rory tested his thoughts out loud, sounding them out as he sought any glaring errors in his logic.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, depending on how one looked at it, there wasn't enough reasoning or evidence to give him a more concrete idea as he considered it.

"Do, then question after," Rory mumbled, a phrase he'd preached often.

Pacing in a circle, Rory thought his current theory over. It seemed logical enough, so for the time, he'd act in a fashion that assumed he was on the right track. The only problem was that if what mattered was significance, surely being the one to make the very first structure in the universe, he should have ascended from such an accomplishment as well.

Unless? Rory stopped, picking at a new thought avenue.

He was assuming that he hadn't, but what if it was just a matter of how that energy was divvied up? The world spirit Aelia had explained how his accomplishment had provided her with the quasi-mystical energy needed for Ascension, as it had also done with his structure, the direct epicenter of the accomplishment. It could have simply been that the ascension energy had primarily gone elsewhere, the world spirit getting ninety-nine percent of it, his little shack getting nine-tenths of a percent, and finally, himself only receiving the last little dredges.

If only I could see just how much I gained and how much I need.

Chuckling, Rory shook his head. After all, this wasn't a video game; he couldn't just pull up the menu screen to see his progress. Amused, perhaps more so than was warranted, Rory played into the thought, squinting his eyes and imagining a menu appearing. After several seconds of nothing, he returned to pacing, snorting once more at the childish thought.

"Of course, things don't work that way…" Stopping mid-sentence, he shook his head before blinking vigorously. He wasn't sure what, but something seemed off, a darting fly constantly fluttering around his peripheral vision.

Except, as the world spirit had informed him, there was no other life on the planet, discounting the other seven, at least not for a few days. There shouldn't be any flies.

So why could he not shake the feeling of something barely visible hanging out at the corner of his vision?

Rory froze, focusing. Like something slowly gaining resolution on a blurry screen, what looked an awful lot like a loading bar, three-quarters full, appeared.

No… Unless?

Thoughts returning to his silly attempt at levity from seconds earlier, Rory closed his eyes, focusing his attention and imagination as strongly as he could. Opening his eyes a ten count later, Rory was greeted with something that clearly wasn't normal.

No, it wasn't a full-on menu screen showing stats, not nearly anything so gaudy. Instead, the loading bar had two sets of numerals. On the left side, there was a simple 'A0'. As for the right side, marking full completion was 'A1.'

"A0, and A1… Ascension zero, and Ascension one?"

It was the only thing he could think of that made sense. If it were really what he suspected, then it also would reinforce his thought that he had gained energy from the creation of his shelter, just not enough to ascend with the scraps he'd been left with.

An idea popping into mind, Rory rushed over to look at where he'd left his makeshift tools, only to feel disappointment as he examined them. They had remained unchanged.

Meaning it's not as simple as 'make stuff.'

It was a disappointment but not a setback.

Another idea came to mind, and reaching out, he swiped two fingers to the right, like he was closing an app on his phone. Responding to his intention, the tiny interface vanished.

Interesting, Rory thought. He had doubts that the universe was operating on video game logic. If anything, it was more likely that it was simply how his mind had processed and understood information that it instinctively knew, much like how the world spirit also seemed to know certain things instinctively.

Flicking his fingers back and forth, he tested summoning and dismissing the interface and could even do it with a mere thought. Physically flicking his fingers seemed to have the best results, not requiring him to imagine the interface appearing as he did so mentally.

"Well, seeing as I have some time, and I'm not starting from nothing…" Rory said aloud. The lack of living creatures meant it fell on him to break the silence occasionally, lest he start to go stir-crazy.

Sitting next to his shelter, he flicked his fingers, resummoning the interface as he sat cross-legged with his eyes closed.

And now I wait.

If his theory that he'd only gotten the dredges of the ascension energy for building his shelter were true, it meant that the energy required for the world spirit to ascend was exponentially greater than he, as an individual, a tier zero ascension human. If that were the case, perhaps the latent background energy that permeated the planet would be enough to finish the job.

Not wanting to flounder cluelessly for the next few days, Rory pulled up the ascension progress bar to check it for any changes. He would give it two hours, and if he'd seen no changes, he would give up on the idea, searching for clues as to how to gather the rest of the energy needed for his first Ascension later.

With nothing to do but wait patiently, that's precisely what Rory did.

The first half an hour was a rather dull slog. With no distractions, his mind wandered.

As time crawled, his wandering mind slowly returned to his immediate sense of self. Without the usual concerns of his old life and world, and a minimal understanding of this new world, there were only so many things for his mind to wander to. With his head empty, he sat there doing nothing, the only occasional thought being a wandering mental glance at the progress bar.

It wasn't until roughly an hour and a half after he'd settled down and half an hour since his mind had emptied of excess thoughts that he began to feel the familiar buzzing field of static electricity from when he first appeared. Thinking it was a sign he was thirsty, Rory nearly opened his eyes to quench his assumed thirst when he froze. The progress bar, which had been unmoving for the last hour and a half, had flickered. It was only slightly, but it was the first sign of movement since he'd sat down. He remained frozen like a statue, no longer inclined to move a single muscle.

Sitting absolutely still, Rory found his first breakthrough. As the itchy, buzzing static seeped deeper and deeper into him, the bar's speed increased. He remained locked in place for half an hour before even his excitement at seeing progress was overwhelmed by what felt like a colony of ants crawling under his skin, the primal part of his brain no longer capable of being silenced when it screamed at him to move.

Jumping up, he ran over to the pond of mystery liquid, taking several deep gulps as the itchy static faded into the background until it was no longer noticeable.

"So that's what that feeling was." Rory sighed as he leaned back, resting his hands behind his back. He assumed it was caused by the two suns burning him with whatever rays they produced, but he'd been wrong.

The static had something to do with the 'energy' that existed all around him. There seemed to be a distinct difference in the rate at which it gathered within him, depending on whether he was moving about or actively attempting to collect it as he had just been. The severity of the discomfort it spurred on was a dilemma, but nothing that couldn't be acclimated to and overcome with proper discipline.

What was more intriguing was that whatever the mystery liquid was, it didn't just quench his thirst. As soon as the liquid hit his stomach, the slowly climbing progress bar instantly stopped, as if it forcefully expelled whatever energy concentration had lingered.

"Baby steps. Crawl first. Worry about running later." Rory itched at his nose as he spoke, a lingering response to the static that had clung to him so tightly. Glancing at the progress bar, he noted that for as much progress as it had made, there was still a substantial chunk remaining, perhaps a full day's worth of sitting. If he were continuously disrupted by his own body's instinct to shake away the scratchy static crawling along his skin, he'd cut it close, even with the extra day or two he'd have before the world spirit had a consummate grasp of mastery over her new Ascension.

"Already survived the end of the universe. What's a little itch?"

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