"That's because your soul place has a very high potential!" Howrah stated with excitement behind his words as he patted Damien's back. He then moved away and began to tap at the tree.
Damien stared at the floating branch with a complex expression, 'Potential?' His eyes widened at the thought as his hands tightly formed fists.
Damien turned his head towards the old man, knocking at the tree, "Could you explain to me what a soul place is? And is this barren wasteland actually mine?"
Howrah, having been interrupted once again by his insistent tapping of the tree, turned his attention back to Damien. "Have I told you what a soul place is?"
"No," Damien answered, which caused Howrah to smack his own head lightly at his negligence. "I see, I see... Well, then, I should probably tell you how you're even here."
He leaned his body against the side of the tree, arms folded and ready to teach the naive skeleton before him. Howrah waved his staff around to the surroundings, "This place here is your soul place. A world entirely made up of your personality and also potential."
"And how you got yourself in here is due to that Soul entering candle," Howrah told Damien, who couldn't help but feel tricked.
"You told me it was to measure my soul energy."
"It is to an extent. But it is mainly to allow those on the path of Circlers to begin in the arts of the soul but transferring them inside their soul place." Howrah shrugged with an innocent look on his face, "I was initially going to measure your soul energy output through the size of the flames, but it seems that it grew so huge that you made contact with it. Which causes you to appear here."
Damien sighed, "At least I know I have a high output then." Howrah nodded to that before continuing with the lecture, "Anyway, one's soul place would naturally have something off about it. When a concept in one's soul place is abnormal, then that decides whether or not they have potential or not." He said before pointing towards the floating branch.
"For example, that branch there. We can deduce the concept of time is at play here."
"Then how come we aren't frozen as well?" Damien asked with a perplexed expression. He had already thought about the existence of time not being a thing here already, but that wouldn't make sense since he was still moving.
"Ah... Here's the exciting part. I don't know." Howrah shrugged, which caused him to get a doubtful glare from Damien. "Hmph! Change that look, boy." Howrah snorted.
Damien sighed once more, "How is this exciting?"
"Because it's for you to figure out and tinker with," Howrah stated with a bit of giddiness, "The place of one's soul is a miraculous thing of wonder and creativity! This is your sandbox for creating your own path to power!" Howrah yelled while spreading out his arms.
"And usually, the one would either have one concept in their realm or rarely two!" He then raised his staff to the sky and stared at the black clouds, grey sky, and a little bit of the white sun.
"You have three, my boy!"
"Three?" Damien looked around. The only thing he could list off was the time abnormality and the bland colour palette of his world. "Do you perhaps mean the colour?"
"Indeed! Other than us, this world has no other colours other than three! But that is not all—" He placed his hand against the tree, "This, too, is also a concept!"
Damien eyed the tree with doubt, "Are you sure? It's just a tree."
"Exactly! Even if this tree has been stuck by the stillness of time, how could it possibly grow to this height despite others around it all shrivelled up?"
"You said something about it draining the nutrients of the other trees?" And at that, Howrah gave a strong nod, "You remember well for a skeleton. Yes, I theorise that this tree must deal with the concept of parasitism."
Damien raised an eyebrow at that, "Are you calling me a parasite?"
"Perhaps, perhaps not. That's for you to discover and to report back to me on your findings." Howrah told Damien before folding his arms around his back and turning to face the tree. "Now then..."
TAP TAP TAP
"This must be it..." Howrah said after hearing something hollow within the humongous tree.
"What must be—" Before Damien could finish his sentence, Howrah had blasted through the side of the tree to reveal an entrance to the hollow inside. He then turned to face Damien and motioned him to follow.
"Come now, boy. Power awaits for us..."