If I had learned one thing during my interactions with Lady Hecate, it was that her lessons would always leave me with a headache. This one was no different, especially as it focused on something I had barely learned about, meaning I didn’t have the time and mental capacity to sort a new revelation into my worldview. In this case, the new discoveries were those thin, blue threads I had observed while delving deeply into myself. From what Lady Hecate had revealed to me, what I perceived as blue threads were the strands of the system, interwoven with reality, and these very threads were the target of the lesson.

  Or rather, the target of the lesson was something inherent, or maybe clinging to, those strands. The system described the target as EXP, though Lady Hecate occasionally used a different word, calling them Soul Energy. I wasn’t sure how accurate that was, though I was willing to accept the term, at least for now, and focus on what she was describing.

  While she wasn’t willing to show me outright, she heavily implied that the Soul Energy gathered and generated by people while they were levelling up within the system wasn’t just energy; it also carried information. Namely, information about the things people had done and accomplished while they were gathering said Soul Energy. In a way, my EXP, or my experience points, were quite aptly named. They carried a record of my experiences while gathering them, and that, as I realised, was the lesson's true value.

  Knowing that the system effectively kept a record of the experiences had over the course of their lifetime meant that a record of Sigmir’s life existed somewhere. Finding it would be difficult, but if I managed, I would have taken a massive step on the path to bring her back to life. The best thing about this was that I already had an idea where to start looking; I only had to figure out how to get there.

  Back when Sigmir was mortally wounded and dying thanks to the accursed elves, she had used some strange ability to transfer her EXP to me, allowing me to gain a number of levels all at once. Now, while Morgana, the being who had received those EXP, had effectively died when Road to Purgatory ended, her legacy remained. The system had granted it to me when the Change happened, and I had accepted. While the Legacy didn’t grant me any EXP outright, it assisted in my own journey, possibly by slowly funnelling some of that Soul Energy into my current being. Maybe converted in some way, I would have to investigate that bit.

  “Could you tell me what this Soul Energy is, how it is formed?” I asked Lady Hecate during a break in her lesson.

  “Fundamentally?” the Grandmother asked with a raised eyebrow. “No, I can’t,” she admitted, pausing for a moment. “We can only passively observe its formation, see when it happens and correlate that to events happening at the same time. That tells us what actions form it, but not the actual mechanism.”

  For a moment, I couldn’t do anything but blink in disbelief, realising that a deity had just outright told me about a major limitation in their knowledge and power. This was not about a minor, inconsequential matter, but regarding a significant element of the system.

  “To make matters somewhat more annoying, the system isn’t consistent,” the Maiden added, her voice filled with that pouting annoyance she sometimes had, the tone that would make me want to call Luna a brat if she used it. “It’s relatively easy with animals, though there are some differences between species. With people, though, there, the system seems to play favourites or something. Some people receive EXP for things others do not, making it hard to create a useful model. Luckily, a few sources seem to be universal.”

  “Care to share those universal sources?” I asked, curious what she was talking about. Probably just combat against enemies capable of threatening your life, that seemed to be the big one from what I had learned on Mundus.

  “As you know, combat,” The Mother confirmed my thoughts, before adding, “Additionally, anything that seems to assist with the survival of your species on a large scale. That one is a lot harder to track, so we might be wrong. However, we have multiple examples of people who received a great deal of EXP for seemingly mundane actions of leadership that had large-scale consequences, meaning the data seems to support our current thinking.”

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  “If I may, did one of those examples happen on Terra?” I asked, hoping to learn if there was someone out there who might have been given massive amounts of power from the system.

  “Yes,” The Grandmother replied, “You even know about it.”

  “After all, what else would you call the widespread teaching of Arcane Magic, enabling numerous people to accomplish feats usually impossible and greatly increasing the chances of their survival and subsequent spread of those abilities?” The Mother asked, making me groan in realisation.

  “It’s unlikely that I was the only one to gain EXP from that then,” I reasoned, “But do you know if there’s someone who gained a lot from it?”

  In response, all three aspects of Lady Hecate collectively shrugged, “We can’t tell you everything, you know? Some things, you need to find out for yourself,” The Maiden explained with that smug energy I had come to dislike.

  “Wonderful, thank you so much,” I snarked, getting a snicker in response. However, I also realised that the question was far too vague to get a helpful answer. After all, what definition of ‘a lot’ would be pertinent here? Too many variables, too many possibilities. This meant the question was far too open-ended to be answered by Lady Hecate unless a lesson was involved.

  “Anyway,” I continued, after shaking off my annoyance, “If EXP are Soul Energy, whatever that actually means, what is the equivalent when it comes to levels in the various skills? What about traits, titles and such? They all have an effect similar to levels, at least some of them, but their acquisition is entirely different,” I asked, curious if they’d answer me this question.

  “That’s a little more complicated; not all of those function the same. If they did, they’d all be under the same category, not have their own, separate ones. To simplify things a great deal, and slightly misrepresent them at the same time, think of Skill Levels as a combination of mental and physical energy, traits as an internal conglomerate of all three, mental, physical and soul energy, while titles are the same, but from an external source,” The Grandmother explained, answering the question without actually telling me anything, as those labels were meaningless to me.

  “Would you show me how to access the Soul Energy from those strands?” I asked, hoping the lesson would extend to that.

  “That’s where things get difficult,” the Mother replied, “You see, there are only two beings here. We might be able to extract the Soul Energy from you,” her voice stressed that it wasn’t a sure thing. “But that wouldn’t really help you. The only thing you’d learn would be that the possibly most excruciating pain you will ever experience comes from the extraction of Soul Energy when performed by an outside party. I doubt you’d be able to tell anything about the process,” she paused for a moment, “It might even kill you, though that’s fairly unlikely,” she admitted, the casual way she said it enough to send a shiver down my spine.

  “Think about it, to extract Soul Energy, we’d need to delve deeply into your soul. That alone would be painful, but if we want to draw something out from there, we’d have to overwhelm your soul. So…” The Maiden shrugged, making me nod in understanding and acceptance.

  “Now, we could show you the process using our own Divine Soul, but…” This time, it was the Grandmother who let those words hang in the air, though I could already tell why that was unacceptable.

  “I see,” I nodded, “I guess I’ll have to figure that part out on my own,” I sighed, “Still, it’s vital information and, yes, it was undoubtedly something I wanted to learn.”

  “I thought as much. You are getting much, much closer to your goal. Your Daughter might already be able to accomplish her part of the task, though I believe she’ll need a few attempts to get it exactly right.” The Grandmother praised me, making me blush just a little at the slightly teasing tone in her voice as she praised my daughter and me.

  “Regaining her Soul, though, that’s going to be a challenge. Your ploy with the Giants has a good chance to succeed. However, it’ll take time,” the Mother added her own insight, before grinning, “I’m looking forward to your other ideas. You have the unique ability to surprise me with your ingenuity,” she added, making me blush even harder.

  “But, for now, I believe it’s time for you to return to your body and get some rest. You’ve worked hard,” the Maiden told me, before I was gently pushed back and the world around me faded into black.