Awakening Chronicles (A World Creation Novel)

As I gazed into the void I wondered how much time had passed. Was it days? Years? Centuries? I wasn’t sure, but it didn’t bother me. I felt far more at home doing this stuff then I did on Earth. There I spent my days playing video games, and just being a potato. But here, it felt like I was actually doing something meaningful. Even though I knew my parents wouldn’t know about it, I hope they would be proud of me.

The thought of them drove a spike into my heart. I missed them dearly. From my dads ramblings to my moms nagging. It was home to me. But it was home no longer. Now I was dead, and the old me didn’t exist anymore. Or did it and this was the lie I told myself to feel better? Perhaps Malek would let me visit Earth some time in the future. At least that way I could get some closure on my life and focus on me. Though not now, that would be in the far future.

I pulled my attention back towards my forge screen, and decided it was best if I didn’t dwell on that. I still have two creation charges left, which meant I had an obligation to be a mad scientist. My next task was to merge the star borne with the human template. There was no real rhyme or reason as to why I wanted to. But I figured it would be a fun exercise, and a potential new body to inhabit.

In a few seconds I had the star borne template on my screen, and I was gazing at their building blocks. Though what I saw left me stumped. Accordingly, these creatures didn’t have DNA or a nervous system. They simply were. Which was strange. There was no carbon footprint. No cells and nothing that made it a living form. If anything it was just a floating consciousness, and that was scary. But as scary as it was that made it really fucking cool and I wanted to know more about it.

So I dug into them even more, and found that they convert the radiation that stars emit into energy that they use to grow. But even that was a mystery to me. Everything about this race just screamed unnatural and I wasn’t sure if it was me, or this species. Maybe I was just in over my head in this whole genetic manipulation thing. I only shrugged, and brought up the human template once more. Now, just like last time, let's merge these two together. By merge, I mean violently slam them together and hope something good comes from it.

I took the two templates and merged them together. Much to my surprise, the two slid together like water, and the human template completely devoured the space borne one. At least that is how it looked on the surface. Instead, it seemed like whatever composed the space borne, blended in with the DNA of the human template perfectly. But it didn’t change anything. I delved deeper into it to see what had happened, and eventually I found an answer.

Human DNA was not changed during the process, however, that didn’t mean that there wasn’t any change. Instead, it seemed like all of the organs had vanished, and in their place was the compressed gaseous nature of the space borne. But it still didn’t make any sense. What the hell was this thing?

If I still had a face, I would be frowning. This thing was so annoying. It didn't have much of a body, and it just merged with the human template so easily. Did that mean that it was a dangerous entity in the universe? How rare was it? My mind was already turning thinking of all the possibilities and it excited me as much as it was frustrating..

A final glance through the template showed that nothing was out of place, so I figured I’d give it a shot and see what the system had to say about it. I clicked on the save template button, and gave up a single charge of creation.

Somehow I had a feeling that this wasn’t going to fail. The way that it seemed to just merge with the human template so easily meant something. Did this race just go around possessing bodies at will? I didn’t know, and if I found one of these in the wild there was definitely going to be some testing going on.

As for a name, I wasn’t sure but I definitely wanted something that sounded mythical? I also wanted celestial in the name somewhere, to convey that this race was from the heavens. A celestial angel? No, that sounded eh to me. I wanted something a little darker. I pondered the thought for some time and did my tried and true method of mashing things together. Celestial herald? No, that sounded strange too. It didn’t roll off my tongue the way I wanted it to.

Celestial harbinger? No, that sounded too edgy.. What could I slide in that would make it make sense? I chewed on it for a while, until I decided to settle on something angelic. But what would fit? Seraphim? No, but it was close. I thought over my choices, consulting my limited experience with my christian religion. At least until a thought struck me. Nephilim. I like that word. It was short, sweet, and sounded ominous. So I shall call them Celestial Nephilim. Happy that I had settled on a name, I typed it into the bar, and waited.

This was no as well. Partially because I didn’t want any of the other administrators to enjoy the fruits of my labor. But also since I had zero clue what this race was functionally capable of, I didn’t want to expose it to the rest of the galaxy. This would be mine, and mine alone!

Since it was done now, let's see how it looked in my character creation screen. I selected the template, and dragged it over and dropped it. What I saw made my non-existent jaw drop. My body, if you could even call it that, looked human, but it was shimmering now. Almost like the gasses that floated through space were condensed so tightly into a human shape that they became a solid inky black. Not only that there were small pinpricks of light that would twinkle into reality, before fading back into the darkness.

My face was oval with glowing lilac colored eyes that blazed like twin stars. The body was lithe, and regal, yet it radiated a deep primal dread that came with staring into a swirling abyss. It was like someone took the universe and compressed into a humanoid shape. I like this. No, I loved this. This shall be my new form! But I’ll come back to it and add on the final touches. I still had one last creation charge, and I wasn’t about to let it go to waste because I got side tracked.

I forced myself away from the character creation screen and back into the forge tab. I had to reel my mind back from day dreaming about all the amazing things that I could do with that body. I needed to focus now. As excited as I was to have found a form that I loved, this next part was equally exciting. With the other two I simply merged some ideas I had. But this next race. Would be the true monster. I wanted something I could create as a living weapon. I had no clue what existed in the universe and Alpha had made it clear that there were some Administrators that only served themselves. That wasn’t even to mention that humanity had a target on their back, and even though I wasn’t human anymore I felt that I had a duty to protect them. So I needed a weapon that would act as my bulwark.

So what did I want in a race like that? I consulted my knowledge of various sci-fi games, and universes. I needed something that would adapt as needed. Something hyper intelligent and would only grow in strength as time passed.
My thoughts trailed off as my eyes sat on the forge screen. The running theme that I saw in a lot of those settings was a race that was either parasitic or fungal in nature. Typically they would consume organic matter and grow exponentially fast. In turn they would overwhelm opponents. Now, I understand what I was about to do was equivalent to committing every single war crime imaginable and yet to be thought of. But I met God, and he essentially told me to abandon my morals. So should I feel bad for intending to create a potential galactic threat? Yes I should, but it wasn’t going to stop me. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Now where to start. Unlike my scientifically certified method of ‘smashing things together until something worked,’ I had to do this the old fashioned way. Which was built entirely from scratch, and I had no clue how to do this. So I should invent a new method. I’ll call this one, ‘Messing with the laws of nature until something works.’ Truly I was becoming a visionary with each passing second of being an Administrator.

I went to the search bar and typed in a few keywords like, parasite, hivemind, fungal, and highly adaptable. It was broad, and I had no intention of using any of these templates. I just wanted some reference guides on how DNA worked. Which, now that I thought of it, I could have consulted before I spent god knows how long looking like an idiot.

The races that I found here were a bit of a let down. While yes, they did infect and possess people they lacked that certain flare that I had grown accustomed to on Earth. But this was good! I opened them one by one, and saw the basics of what they were and how they functioned. Some infested through spores, others through direct contact. At least the fungal ones did. The parasites mostly just spread through consumption or physical contact. But none really combined all the traits. I wanted something that could infect anything and adapt in the process. Not only that, I wanted it to be able to use the minds of the host to get smarter as time went on. That way, hidden in my back pocket, I had an ace that could potentially save me.

After spending some time scanning through the traits of all the species, I had a general idea of what worked and didn’t and how to do it. If I could have taken a deep breath to steel my nerves I would have. This was my first time flying purely solo, and I hope I make something great.

My mind was swirling with ideas as I went back to the forge page, and cleared everything. All that was left was what was considered building blocks of life and DNA that was essentially blank. While I couldn’t pretend to be a geneticist, I now had an idea of what to do. So, I started my task. The first trait I instilled was that of hyper adaptability. I wanted it to be able to thrive in any condition and change as needed. The second was that of an ever expanding bio-intelligence. While I didn’t understand it fully, what I had deduced was that this trait would allow them to infect a host, and essentially pull their nervous system and mind into the greater consciousness of the race. It would act as a relay and transformer in a sense. Yes, that was way above my head and I didn’t understand all of it. But I didn't have to. As long as they performed that is all that I cared about.

Another unknown length of time passed as I worked. I didn’t know how long it had been. But it felt like an eternity and thousands of tries of getting something right. Some time the strands of DNA would self mutilate, or the nervous system would overload. These were issues I didn’t have while working on the other two templates and it was frustrating. So I kept tampering since I couldn’t get tired. The only thing at risk here was my sanity.

But I think I finally settled on something. Whether or not it was good, I didn’t know. But the system stopped freaking out about it a while ago. I managed to get all the traits I had originally desired and then some. For example, not only would it adapt to its environment, and it would adapt against whatever it was fighting. Which I thought was pretty dope. There were dozens of other things as well, but I'll explore them when I get to be on my own. Now onto the next part of the show!

scrolled down to that big red button and pressed save.

Yes! For the love of god, I am finally finished. If I still had a form I’m sure I’d melt into the ground. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see a strand of DNA or a sequence and I wanted to scream. While it was fun, it was destroying my sanity. I don’t know how much time has passed. Trying to learn genetics and traits solely through trial and error could break a man. But I was finally done.

I sank into the void and gazed upwards clearing my mind. I made three races today, and I didn’t know how far ahead that put me. Did other administrators get the same boost? Or did Alpha just favor me because we came from the same home planet? But did it really matter? At the end of the day, I think we were all overpowered, just at varying degrees. It was just speculation on my part at any rate. I wouldn’t really know till I finished my steps to awakening. Now all I had to do was name this race, finish making my body, and then buy those races and I was finished. Thank god.