When I say research, I really mean trying things until I get the result I want. Or a good one. I wasn't even sure if that was what research really meant. I just knew that at some point something different, or enlightening, was bound to happen. That was until I learned something.

I was capable of learning. That is what I learned. That I could learn. More than what I knew at least. And it was exciting, because it showed that I could become even better at being a tree than I already was. Also, learning to speak was possibly within reach now.

It was invigorating. If invigorating meant what I thought it did anyway. If it did, then I was excited, ecstatic about what this meant for my future.

Oh, and I also kept messing with the thingy. Mostly poking it and trying to get it to do what it did last time. My results were mostly failures, with it either doing absolutely nothing. Or it doing something different than what I would've expected. Only once more did it give me that energy feeling.

Stolen story; please report.

Most of the other times it did anything, it kinda just sucked stuff into it. I don't know what the stuff was, but I knew where it was going. Which was weird, as it wasn't going someplace I could see. Only someplace that I knew. It was an invisible place, like where my thoughts were stored, and I couldn't interact with it.

What I could do was... Postulate. A fancy word for think, I think. And I postulated about many things. Including on the meaning of why the sky was blue. I never figured it out, but I did discover that the thingy liked when I thought about it. Specifically when I tried to use it while thinking about it.

Pretty weird considering it wasn't sentient. Not like I was, at least.

I could form full thoughts, and it could shake and make me feel like the sun was pouring its life force directly in me. One was far more impressive than the other, and I knew which. It was a shame the thingy didn't. As I was pretty sure it thought that it was better than me in some ways. Or at least it had thoughts like that to as much of a degree as a non-sentient thing could have.

None of which mattered, as I could use the thingy. Mostly. I knew how to get it to do stuff, but not how to get it to do the stuff I wanted it too.

That was very much still a work in progress.