The world we're in is actually a tree"
'A tree?' I'll admit, I might be thinking about an offensive joke or two
After telling me 'I needed to know the past before understanding the present' or something he started telling me the information on this world
The Cosmic Tree is a mysterious organic-energy life form that possesses the features of both an organic and energy life. It is organic in the sense that it has some of the biological parts of a normal tree, water can be extracted from 'stomatas' all around the tree, and all the Cosmic Energy you see is produced from the Tree.
The Cosmic Tree is approximately 10,000 lightyears and resembles a long golden bridge because of the Cosmosphere and all the Cosmic Energy that comprises.
WAIT. THAT BRIDGE OF LIGHT! THAT WAS A TREE??
My mind flashes back to that long line that stretched on till infinity in the dark space, was THAT a tree trunk? Wow!' okay, I'm over it now. But these guys here live on a tree, huh. That joke can only fly when you haven't seen the tree itself or the people.
"Wait, how do you guys survive on a tree? Was there oxygen or something?"
"Yes, and we don't use it as much. Once you begin training you don't need to respirate and eat food, you can just rely on trace energy in the air. The reason you passed out when you originally landed was because you awakened."
"Is it always that painful to Awaken" I asked, still fearful of that horrendous pain.
All living beings animals, plants, micro-organisms, have the capability to absorb energy naturally. The cells have the capacity to 'breathe' in the energy the body deems most appropriate for itself. If the body's adaptability isn't high enough you can't Awaken, and you can only passively absorb through the skin, but the higher your body's adaptability the greater the absorption for Energy and before you know it you're Visualizing in your dream of the specific Energy and it's sub-class you belong to."
After saying that he looked at me and suppressed his laughter before continuing on
That is how Awakening usually happened in the olden days and still happens to these days, but in this day and age you have the option to go to the nearest testing center undergo a simple testing process and receive your potential, body's energy profile, expected date and a couple of other information. A simple jolt to the body of that energy will Awaken you right up, no pain, 10 minutes, no disadvantages."
"I choose the second" I cried out tearfully knowing it was too late for me
"No takebacks" after that we both laughed 'haha but the pain was not funny, haha'
The Cosmic Tree, or 'Yggdrasil' is an existence that we have come to revolve our lives and entire wellbeing on, its very convenient. Some even formed an entire religion based off it but the Tree is in fact NOT sentient and hasn't shown any sign otherwise.
There exist three Planes in this Hub- oh. A Plane is like an entirely different continent. The large distance separating them has caused there to be different landmasses, differences among the same race, plus the Energy is a different Flavor.
The galaxy follows a particular trend, and the different planes spanning 10,000 lightyears shows clearly what the difference caused by the distance between Planes can do.
Starting from the Kingdom downwards to the Universe South, the Nation of Muspelheim, the land of Fire. They are ruled by the four states formed from the Original Nine races that are from that location. They are led by a Fire Demon Leader and align towards 'dark' they specialize in the research of 'dark' related technology.
'Dark?'
A different Plane, the plane where we live, is the Northern Plane towards the Universal North and is comprised of races and is ruled by 4 Kingdoms who are also each a race from the Nine Original races, based on the general location where they come from. They claim to align towards 'light' but as far as anyone can see both have similar crime rates and ratios of delinquents. Each race is focused on different fields of research, aligned to 'light'
'Okay... very vague, but okay'
As for the last Plane? Directly in the center of the Trunk is Celestial Territory. Everyone of us in both the North and South hold longing towards this place because of at least one form of attraction"
"Is it really all that?" I blurted out without much thought.
"Hmm, how do I explain this for an ignorant commoner to understand…"
"…" Wow…. The disrespect just got real real. I rolled my eyes.
"In this world, everything is about Energy, if you can't use energy your future is… confined to regularity.
The Celestials , they can ALL use Energy from birth, and they do it to superb levels! The stuff we train hard for, they can do it easier than us, faster than us, much better than us on average."
'That's nothing compared to my old world-'
"-Possess access to a Plane that is 'higher' than ours, our everything; Cosmic Energy, Natural resources and even the average person there can compete with someone with 'some talent' in the two normal worlds"
'Okay, it seemed pretty much the same now'
"And as if that wasn't bad enough, some places in that 'higher plane' are so high up that you can just climb up and absorb Energy from the stuff that are lower in the Cosmosphere! We don't get the fresh ones"
"Ever since their Plane suddenly evolved 100 years ago they've been racking up big leaps in their research and development, and have long since left the other races in the dust, them and their five vassal races"
'Ah, slave races. shouldn't things change in a more advanced world' even though I'd learned a lot in the past 30 minutes, I still clearly hadn't learned enough.