Ah I see. Apologies but the game is currently a little unclear here but that the main thing to do is unlock skills on the skill tree. You can do this immediately.
So you didn't interact with the core of the game (a clarity problem I think, which I'm definitely going to patch) and of course it's impossible without doing that. Would love to see you try it again with this knowledge. The part about exploration is definitely true. That's part of Path of Achra, which I'm trying to emulate here.