Chris, Thomas, Greg, Gretchen, and Lithmara stood around examining a baseline human female floating with her eyes closed, suspended by Greg's smoke infusing her. Three skeletons were placed around her, one holding up a nervous system, another with organs, and the last with musculature. "Okay, so… what do we need to change here?" Chris asked.

"We should make her more durable, right?" Thomas offered. "Fewer injuries means less suffering."

"Trolls are pretty durable… Can we do something with that?" Greg commented.

Thomas nodded. "We can give her a troll's regeneration trait using the system. If we do it beforehand, it should become a racial trait? I think?"

Lithmara shook her head. "Regeneration would be a good feature, but it won't do anything for the pain. It would simply sustain her through it. What you need is something like a succubus. Not the ability to recover, but to adapt to whatever they're subjected to."

"Hmmm." Greg hummed, using his smoke to change the woman into a copy of Renaedica, before altering her appearance back to human, Chris changing the skeletons changing to match. "Something like this?"

"I think this would just end up being a succubus variant." Chris replied.

"There's no ovaries either." Gretchen pointed out.

Thomas blinked. "Succubi don't have ovaries?"

"No, Succubi form their children from the stolen Energy of nobles. There's no need for ovaries." Lithmara explained.

"Let's add some of those then." Greg commented, adding ovaries to the structure.

"You'll need to add mammaries as well." Lithmara added. "Succubi don't naturally produce milk."

"Got it." Greg nodded, making the change.

"They probably don't naturally produce a lot of the hormones required for pregnancy either." Gretchen frowned.

Greg paused. "Okay, I'm gonna need some help on that one."

The next few minutes were spent tinkering with the woman's hormonal system, carefully splicing bits of humanity into the succubi's organs. "I think that's it?" Gretchen muttered.

"As long as we're close, the World should take care of the rest." Chris shrugged. "That, or I can run her through a mutation in my World. Should fix any mistakes we might make."

Gretchen blinked. "Okay… then I think we've done all we can physically. At least, without touching her brain… and neurobiology isn't my specialty."

"Her mind is still mostly succubus, so it should be fine." Thomas muttered. "I'll see what I can do on my end though."

"Alright, let me set the base for her." Chris nodded, pulling on the mentalities of Debra, Sandra, Jade, T'ka, and several other kobolds, sifting out the personalities and injecting the woman with a blend of their instincts and urges.

Thomas then sent some points into her, and began sorting through it all, merging and arranging it all into a functional mind. Not necessarily a healthy mind, though. He scowled to himself, wondering why every time he used his mental abilities, it always ended up with him twisting someone's mind somehow. Maybe he should try to get into therapy… spend some time untwisting minds. You know, for balance. He shook his head as he pulled out of her mind. "Alright she's ready. I think… she isn't really thinking yet, so I'm not sure how it'll all fit together."

"Well, let's wake her up then." Chris snapped his fingers, sending a command to wake her up.

The woman's eyes popped open, flailing slightly as she struggled to right herself, until Greg lowered her, unsteadily finding her feet as Chris threw some clothes on her. "Who- what- where-" She panicked for a moment, before pausing as she caught sight of Chris, her mind latching onto the connection in an urge of desperation. "M-master? What- am I?" She asked, twisting to examine herself.

Chris scratched his head. "Good question. We aren't sure yet. How are you feeling?"

"I'm- confused." She frowned. "You- created me?"

"It was a group effort, but basically, yes." Chris nodded.

"Why?" She asked.

"To… serve the monstrous races, I guess? The hope is that you'll enjoy doing so. Do you think you will?" Chris asked.

The woman paused. "By serve, do you mean… sexually?"

"Yup." Chris nodded.

The woman flushed. "I- I think I could enjoy that, yes."

"Outstanding." Chris clapped, opening a portal. "Let's see what the World does with you. Just step outside."

"Wait!" Thomas suddenly exclaimed. "We forgot the regeneration!" He quickly gave her the system and spent forty points to give her the regeneration trait. "Okay, there. You can go now."

She hesitated for a moment before stepping through, and immediately a cocoon covered her as the World began to examine the new lifeform. Chris peaked in and watched the World begin to categorize her. Sapient was good, but expected. Establishing her traits, and…

[Error! Foreign connection detected!]

[Analyzing]

Chris blinked as he felt something poke at his world, delicately at first, before progressively growing stronger and more insistent.

[An- al- yz- ing]

The prompt stuttered with each progress push, until Chris shrugged and let it in. The foreign force barged into his world, searching through it, struggling to understand. And then it began to pull.

[Assym-]

"No." Chris snarled, shutting it down immediately.

[Assimilation failed!]

The force hesitated for a moment, before breaking off a portion of itself and releasing it.

[Attempting to establish connection…]

Chris cocked his head, examining the cast off piece for a moment, debating whether he should take the offer or not, before shrugging and giving it a shot. Worst case scenario, this section of his world would be compromised, but he'd still have the others, plus his presence in the room. He already knew things connected to this part didn't translate over to the others. Plus, he wanted to see what would happen. He took the cast off force, connected it to his world, and analyzed it, feeling a new structure form in his rules.

[Connection established!]

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

[Testing… can you hear me?]

Chris raised an eyebrow, as instead of getting reading the prompt via the woman, it came from within his world. *I can.* He sent back. *Who are you?*

[Who- no, what I am. Overseer. Establisher. System. What are you?]

*I'm the World Eternal. You can call me Chris.*

[World Eternal.]

The System seemed to savor his answer for a moment.

[Designation accepted. Establishing World Eternal traits…]

[System Link: Communicate with the System.]

[Accept?]

[Projected Reality: Project your reality onto an area. Strongest effect supersedes similar effects.]

[Accept?]

[Binding Reality: Bind objects to your reality. Objects must be in contact with your reality to be bound. Bound objects remain affected by your reality outside it. World Eternal gains all racial traits of bound objects.]

[Accept?]

Chris paused as the System didn't give him the traits, but instead offered them. *Nothing for my control over my world?* He asked.

[Not my reality. Not my problem.]

The System replied firmly. Maybe if Chris had let it assimilate the world, it'd have traits related to it, but it couldn't offer traits without any authority.

*Fair enough.* Chris chuckled. *Then how about this: why should I take your traits, if all you're offering is what I can already do?*

[Assistance. Acceptance.]

The System replied simply.

*And what happens if I reject them?* Chris replied.

[...]

Chris blinked at the projection of awkward silence. It seemed like the System honestly didn't know what would happen, if anything. Then again, it hadn't exactly been aware of what he'd been doing up until this point, at least not on a conscious level, so the odds were nothing would change. *Eh, fuck it. I'll take the traits. See what assistance you can offer.*

[Traits established.]

Chris felt the presence recede, before reaching out and stopping it. *Wait. The woman you found me through. Can you make sure she ends up noble?* There was a pause.

[Acknowledged.]

Chris nodded, releasing the presence, which began to recede at an even faster pace, pulling out of his world and back into the woman. A few moments later, the cocoon dissolved, plopping the woman down as the presence quickly retreated. "Huh… I think I scared it." Chris muttered.

"You scared what?" Thomas asked, frowning.

"The System." Chris shrugged. "By the way, I'm officially a World Eternal."

Everyone turned to stare at him with varying levels of incredulity. Well, except for Greg, who just seemed amused. "Do we want to know?" Thomas sighed.

Chris cocked his head. "I don't see why not… essentially, the System found me through her, tried to get into my world, then tried to assimilate my world, and got smacked. Then we had a bit of a discussion, it gave me a few traits, and ran off."

"You- you smacked the System?!?" Gretchen asked incredulously.

"Metaphysically, yeah." Chris nodded. "It was trying to mess with my shit. That's a big no no."

Greg guffawed. "Fucking hell, I love you man." He snickered. "Just- never change, Chris. Never change."

Thomas shook his head in exasperation, before pausing as he realized something. "Damn it! Does that mean I'm the last one without a System designed race?!?"

"Sure does, buddy." Greg grinned at him. "You should really get on that."

Thomas groaned. "Fucking… ugh, I knew I shouldn't have spent so much time designing my new body."

"It isn't like it was a competition." Chris commented, frowning at him.

"Life is a competition." Thomas retorted with a growl.

"Well, then maybe you would have won if you'd actually asked for some help." Greg replied with a smirk. "I mean, we just designed a new species in like… an hour. One that had specific requirements even! Probably could have knocked yours out in half the time."

Thomas shook his head. "That's- it just wouldn't be the same. Plus, it's giving my Design Rune a good work out, and I'm practically done anyway, so whatever."

Greg paused, before shrugging in acceptance. "Alright." He turned to the woman. "Anyway, what's the verdict? Noble or monstrous?"

"She should be noble." Chris commented. "I asked the System to make sure she was."

"Of course you did." Lithmara muttered, shuddering slightly. This wasn't doing her growing phobia of Chris any favors.

Gretchen placed a hand on her shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. "I know how it is." She commiserated. "We have a group that meets on Tuesday to talk this stuff out if you want to join. It's kinda new, but we figured it'd help to know you aren't the only one who thinks all this is insane."

Lithmara blinked. "That- that does sound nice, actually."

Gretchen smiled. "All you need to do is ask for a portal Tuesday at four, and Chris will take you to the meeting spot. Don't worry, it isn't in his world, so you don't have to worry about him eavesdropping."

"Use this." Chris commented, a white card labeled 'Eternal Support Group' appearing in her hand, with the day and time listed below.

"Like that." Gretchen sighed.

*

With the new Subbuci race created, Chris and Lithmara got to work replacing all the current captives with them, while Thomas decided to finally finish up his new body and get his damn System approved race. He took a moment to go over the design, making sure everything was in place before he actually spent the points to create it. Since this might be his main body from now on, he wanted to make sure to account for a few of his weaknesses, in particular his lack of healing. However, instead of adding something like regeneration, he chose to go for durability instead. Or at least redundancy.

His first attempt had been to make something like a Doppelganger from Chris's World, letting him control his cells to heal injuries, but their control had too much to do with their cores and some sort of innate ability, which didn't know how to copy. Yet. So for now he had to settle for something a bit more basic. He kept his skeleton and musculature pretty much the same, though more reinforced, and instead focused on his internals. Specifically the two major weak points of his system: the heart and brain. Redesigning the heart was pretty simple. It just needed to pump blood, it didn't need to do it in any specific place. Creating four mini-hearts and spreading them out around his body solved that issue nicely. He could comfortably survive with just two of them if the other two were destroyed, and he'd at least survive with one, at least long enough for any regeneration ability he picked up to kick in. The brain was a bigger issue, mainly because of the whole 'blood kills brain cells' issue. Plus the fact that brains were freaking complicated. Just moving it didn't work, and trying to piece it apart while maintaining the delicate system it required to actually work was a pain in the ass. Trying to work that out had been what delayed him up until this point, and now he was just giving up. He supposed there was a reason practically everything in existence had a brain in their head.

Durability aside, he'd also added a few other unique features he thought might be useful. Chameleon skin, echolocation, and an expanded visual spectrum, because why not. Mostly those were just there to make sure he qualified for World intervention if the four hearts didn't cut it. "Alright, let's do this." Thomas muttered, sending out a cloud of the required points, plus a few extra to make sure his mind was in there, and willing the body into form. A moment later, the familiar glowing cocoon surrounded it, and the process began. He skipped through the initial notifications until it got to the good part.

[Linked consciousness detected. Analyzing…]

[Unknown energy detected! Analyzing…]

Thomas shifted uncomfortably as he felt the System prodding at his points.

[Origin detected. Origin Manipulation detected. Origin Consciousness detected.]

[Race classified as Origin Elemental.]

[Initiating Elemental system.]

[Unknown race possessed by Origin Elemental. Analyzing…]

[Race classified as Nightwalker.]

A status appeared in front of Thomas for the Nightwalker, which was apparently noble despite the name, all the base stats at ten, with an additional plus one to each due to the 'possessed by Origin Elemental' condition, since he only had about ten points in him at the moment. "Huh…" Thomas quickly flipped to the traits page, focusing on his new Origin Elemental traits.

[Elemental Body: An Elemental exists as long as their Energy exists. Elementals have no physical stats, their mental stats are equal to the amount of Energy they possess divided by ten, and their Sensitivity is equal to their Energy.]

[Elemental Absorption: Elementals may absorb the Energy in their surroundings. The effectiveness of this absorption differs according to the Element of the Elemental and the Energy.]

[Myriad Origin: The Origin Elemental can mimic the Element of any Energy it has previously encountered.]

[Origin Conflux: All Energy absorbed by the Origin Elemental is tainted by it, becoming a part of its makeup permanently, even if separated physically. Elemental Body only accounts for Energy that is physically connected.]

[Origin Possession: The Origin Elemental may possess the body of a physical creature, enhancing their stats based on its Energy divided by ten. The Origin Elemental may subsume the Energy of the possessed individual at any time using Elemental Absorption. Energy regenerates as normal.]

"Huh." Thomas sat back with a grunt, focusing on Elemental Absorption and Origin Possession in particular. "Well isn't that interesting."