Reality is akin to an ocean. It spreads far and wide, seemingly endless. Teeming with life in every corner, as diverse as the different portions of the cosmic sea they inhabit.
From the bright portions of the celestial heavens to the burning pits of the infernal hells and even the eternal darkness of the abyss, there thrive in this vast cosmos.
A prominent current is the ever-endless stream of souls. Death and resurrection are the most prominent methods to travel from the mortal realms to other portions of reality. There are others, of course. Summoning is one of the most widespread.
It was like fishing. An attempt to bring a creature from the great beyond for their own purposes. A companion, a slave, or even a tool to be used and discarded. Of course, that is if the fisherman did not catch a soul to strong for their hooks.
The System was an expert fisher. A thing of precision and accuracy with experience to dwarf even the oldest of beings. And it just so happened to require a soul. What is the secret to being a great fisherman?
Sometimes, you need live bait.
The soul was unremarkable. No history upon its spirit, newly born into existence. A perfect subject for the System’s purposes. Anything more complicated requires excessive effort.
A bit of tinkering and the soul was ready. There was virtually no change. Except for a minor spark of intelligence. Give the souk enough sentience to make basic decisions. While the System could easily shape the soul into whatever it desired, there was something it couldn't quite replicate.
The freedom of choice.
That near insignificant ember would provide enough motivation for the Systems purposes. It touched the soul, but provided outside stimulus this time. It would understand. That was a guaranty.
The message had no presence between the soul and the System. It was purely information at the moment. Information perfectly crafted to be translated without error.
A list of options was given. Each creature familiar to the reality the soul would be sent to. All part of fair play. But to keep it truly fair, someone other than the System had to make the choice.
The soul observed its options. Whenever it's attention was given to an option, a short description was given. No need to overwhelm the newborn just yet.
A pair of monstrous races capable of allowing cooperation with the natives. It would require excessive effort to do such a thing, but diplomacy was always an option. Assuming either side didn't kill each other before that point, of course.
More enhanced versions of the natives' wild life. Easy to interact with the local species and provide a suitable threat before the later events. Also a way to breed and spread the Systems influence without spending excess energy.
Evidence of the changes coming to their reality. While the monstrous races do that as well, these bend or even break standard convention. Great training wheels for the natives, while also giving them ideas about how to use the new powers and resources they'll have at their service.
The soul moved from one option to the next. Its non-existent eyes settled on the animals for a moment, but then would quickly change to the more arcane monsters. It didn't appear to have any real interest in the first two.
The System decided to provide an additional option.
The System didn't quite like using this option. It gave it more control over the choices the soul could make. But it was also a choice not to choose. Within acceptable parameters for the System.
Even with such freedoms, the simple soul was still stuck with choice paralysis. An unfortunate situation for both entities involved. While the System had infinite time to wait, it did not have infinite patience. Maybe an extra push was needed.
Each race received an extra boon. A minor boost in power, but hopefully nothing game-breaking.
It proved to be a bit more information than the soul was built to take at the moment. The spirit fractured, on the brink of breaking. Thankfully, the new sensation of pain forced it to choose. The System just wished it hadn't demanded such unnecessary agony.
Hopefully the extra boost would be good enough compensation.
The soul selected Random.
The System rolled a metaphorical dice on the list of races. It landed on the snake.
The choice had an immediate effect. The soul began to mold itself into the shape and color of a snake. A dark gree serpent common to the natives reality. But once the boon was applied, further changes occured.
A simple snake became a venomous snake. A black and yellow striped coloration to its scales took over. Other than that, there were no other external changes. It raised its head into the air, tongue flicking out to taste the air.
So the soul would be a wild animal. Not the most advantageous creature from the list. Hopefully, with enough levels, it would evolve into a stronger creature.
Who knows, this little soul might just surprise the System. There was still the boost from selecting random itself.
Maybe the little snake would get something to increase those odds of survival. There were near-endless possibilities. Fire magic? An inventory? Time travel? Ouroboros was always a classic.
Well, that was new. Might cost the System more energy than it was planning to but where was the harm? The snake might get something easy, like an angel or devil race. Maybe something like the minotaur or griffin. People love their hybrid beasts.
As long as it wasn't something like the platypus. That thing had been hard to make.
The list popped up.
It was not the intended list.
Another die was rolled before the System could stop it. And this dice had seven faces instead of the intended six.
It landed on Random.
The System was panicking, flipping metaphysical switches to stop whatever the hell was going on right now. Eternity of letting the process automate itself reared its ugly head at that moment.
While the System was busy, the die fell on Skeleton.
A flood of information hit the poor snake all at once.
The messages began to glitch out.
The System smashed the more recent message, finally putting a stop to the insanity that was occurring. Unfortunately, one last piece managed to slip through.
While the System was fighting an extreme level of energy being drained as its automatic process tried to correct the glitch, the snake itself experienced rapid changes.
The scales and muscles of the animal quickly decayed and fell off the newborn undead. What was left was a snake skeleton with a gray flame flickering in its eye sockets. Then it regenerated its flesh, with its black and yellow stripes now patterned in beautiful swirling imagery.
It blinked, pupils dilating as a spark of intelligence was granted to it. It looked around, observing the void around it. Its vision landed on the only other presence in the void. A being beyond most mortal understanding, doubly so for how it looked.
The physical manifestation of the System was a sight to behold. A beautiful cosmos kaleidoscoping into countless colors. Its admiration was cut short as it was struck with agony.
Light poured from every orifice, burning it from the inside out. The snake writhed in pain as the System tried every trick to fix its unintended blunder.
While it could have aborted the entire process, it had spent too much energy to back out now. Much less afflicting the poor creature with high levels of unnecessary suffering.
There was only one solution then. Forward.
After an uncomfortably long time, the snake's existence at a knife's edge during the entire process, an equilibrium was reached. The snake would live. Well, as much as a vampire could be alive, at least.
A new stream of information, first for even the System, flowed into the snake's mind. It failed to notice of course, the pain having knocked it unconscious, but it would be there for when it awoke.
Well. An extreme amount of energy and the near destruction of a soul later, the System had succeeded in its creation of a new monster. At least it managed to fix an unknown bug in the automated process.
Just to be safe, the System wasn't going to let the next souls pick the random option.
