Ran, Ann, Bob, Fluffy, and Shirley all lost their balance from the tremors, causing them to fall like dominoes. They didn't know if it was like this everywhere, or if it was just localized to the tower, but they were afraid nonetheless.
"W-what was that about?" Shirley looked around warily once more as she spoke. Too much shaking had happened today and she felt her brain knock against her fishy skull.
"I think we're about to find out," Ann responded. She pointed at the scene playing on screen and they all looked towards it.
On the screen, the crowned figure had slammed his palm on the ground, causing the whole planet to shake horrendously. Worse yet, the guy seemed pretty relaxed while doing it, even to the point of shouting.
When he removed his palm, a hand-shaped hole was left and the lower mantle was bubbling underneath, ready to rise up. Seeing the entrance, the figure nodded before casually drawing a seal in the air with his red soul juice.
The seal was fairly simple, merely being a three dimensional, spherical, spiral with some criss-crosses. The whole thing was no more than half a foot in circumference and after taking a second to draw it out, he tossed it into the air.
The next second, as the pov followed the seal, it appeared in the skies above the surface. It cut through the clouds before finally slowing down and stopping. It stood far above everything else, and only then did it finally react, as if it had to look down on all those below it before acting up.
One by one the crosses lit up, and true to its namesake (a seal), something seemed to break once they all lit up.
Then, to the astonishment of the group, an orange-red sun abruptly appeared in the sky. In fact, it wasn't a sun, it wasn't even spherical in shape. It was instead a spiral with arms, so it was more akin to a disk. The crazy thing was, it was still the same size as it was before, but its radiance, with consideration to its location, was as bright as the two actual stars.
The spiral spun rapidly and the center got brighter and brighter with each successful revolution, until it couldn't sustain the reaction anymore. Next, with an explosion loud enough to echo across the entire planet and disperse all the clouds, a jet the size of the Northern pit itself struck downwards!
At this point, you know, everyone knows what's happening. First, a planet-sized golden serpent appeared out of nowhere and was watching them indifferently which of course freaked them out. Most of them were kowtowing, pissing their pants, or begging for mercy—millions of soulful beings were doing this. And when the third sun suddenly appeared and struck the planet, many of them either fainted on the spot due to shock or just cried themselves to the point of emptying their bowels. Some even cried the end of days and prophesied the coming of judgement.
Luckily, while, at the time, the population was evenly distributed, both the Northern and Southern pits were points of contention and no one dared to be anywhere near the dark holes. This was especially so when they felt something was down there that made them afraid, though we already know what that actually is.
But continuing on, the deadly heat emitted from the jet melted the ground in and around the hole, making it as smooth as glass. Yet, when the jet reached the bottom of the hole, it all coalesced into the small hole the figure had made with his palm.
When the beam reached the lower mantle, it split numerously, traveling to each corner of the world. It then went back up to the crust before congregating to the Northern pit once again. The whole thing was ominous as the pov followed the streams, and the end result was akin that of a circulatory system. Its energy was even being permeated throughout the ground like nutrients.
Meanwhile, the jet kept feeding the planet energy and soon it was entirety bathed in a red glow. When the process was done, the core of the planet finally reacted.
The inner core was doing its thing, spinning, when it suddenly stopped like it was caught with its pants down. Then, under the infusion of all of that soul juice, the core just straight up cracked like a chicken's egg. Or any other egg for that matter.
Just like that, black rays shot out from the cracks; it phased through the entire planet and extended towards the ends of its crowded planetary system.
Then the locals of the planet started to feel a presence, like something was watching them. It felt almost like something gently blowing on your neck, and that was on top of the fact that they had a giant snake actually breathing down their entire planet. Actually, that was false. If it could even breathe, then a single breath would bring about a storm that would cancel all life in an instant. And if it breathed in… well I think we know where that's going.
Anyway, and… that was it. The planet was now conscious. The will of the world was successfully awakened. Of course, there was nuance, but there is always more nuance.
"Great!" The crowned figure, upon feeling this presence, exclaimed as he sighed in relief. It appeared that he was tense as his expression was somber beforehand, though the reason was unclear.
He then took out an old-timey leather-bound book from what was presumably a spatial ring. But that wasn't the main point. The main point was the leather was actually made of human skin! The guy even caressed it a little like he was fawning over it, ugh!
Okay, okay, the cover was made of a human's dermis, so what? It was merely a homage to their sacrifice; it was a testament to their growth as a species, the majority of which did not have any special affinities or attributes. That wasn't even the main main point.
But moving on, the book was dark brown in color and was embroidered with the pattern of a human made of purple silk.
At the top and on the side of the book, the title read, "A Human's Guide to Runology: Volume I". It was also sewn with purple silk.
The book itself was about a thousand pages thick and of course they were made of human (what else did you expect it to be made of?). With the dimensions of six-by-nine (inches), it was a fairly sizable book, but the really good stuff was on the inside.
Each page was littered with what was basically a shit ton of dots and lines; I know, exciting right? Okay no, the dots were actually the sauce, crux. Basically, each dot included a figure of a rune as well as their descriptions and method of origin—all at a near microscopic scale. Each line divided each dot while also simultaneously grouping them together.
Each side of a page, on average, had about a thousand of these dots. And certainly, all of it, except the rune itself, was written in the human's written language.
"Oh! Here we go." The crowned figure opened the book and looked at the first page. He then closed the book, put it back in his ring, and took out two individual pages.
The first one was the introduction to the human's written language, while the second was actually the first page of the book we just introduced.
Next, he encased them with his… juice, before removing his will. Upon such removal, the juice quickly solidified, turning into an amber-like box with two pages suspended within.
"There. I don't want to give them too much of a head start, otherwise, they'll wipe everything out too quickly and end up fighting each other."
With that, he merely placed the rectangular box on the still molten ground before leaving the Northern pit.