What Earth lacked

"I want to know everything."

All the way up to this point, all my knowledge regarding aura and the ranks one could achieve by practicing it was a tapestry of clues, hints, and guesses. A series of different theorems I ironed out to make them fit reality and, by extension, reflect its potential limits. 

In the end, though, I knew nothing. 

What made someone an ascender? Did all the human ascenders in the imperial army overcome the rebirth process just like I did, or was I a special case even in this regard? And even if… then what about supremes?

And what was this entire aura to begin with?

I continued to stack those questions and leave them with nothing more but a guess for an answer for so long, now that it came to actually posing those questions…

'What am I even supposed to begin with?'

I rested my back against the trunk of one of the huge trees surrounding the small clearing.