“Fast forward time huh? I swear everytime you bring something like this up I feel dumber.” It was actually getting annoying if anything. I hated feeling like a lost child. After scrolling through my menus I found the search function and started to look for the time skipping function.
“No need,Kairos. If memory serves correctly, there was a quote from Earth. Something along the lines of, there is more between heaven and earth than dreamt of in your philosophy.” Upon his words, I cast him a quick look. His golden eyes shimmered in the rays of blue light from the console.
“Yes, I remember hearing that in high school once or twice. How do you know about it?” I pulled my eyes away from him, and back to my menu and clicked the skip time function. The screen flickered here I saw three options:
Fast Forward By:
100, 000 Planetary Years
1,000,000 Planetary Years
1,000.000 Planetary Years
“I have some knowledge of Earths and its cultures. It was part of the knowledge given to me at birth. It’s where I received my knowledge of poetry, after all.” He sounded dismissive as he spoke.
“Ah, that would make sense. I was just curious about it. Anyway, which option is the best? I only see one for a hundred thousand, a million, and a hundred million.” It made me wonder, why did they implement knowledge of Earth into my companion? Was it for familiarity? So I have some sense of home here?
“One hundred thousand would be your best bet. The other two options are too expensive for what we are about to do.” He stood as a radiant light against the backdrop of space. I’d say he looked like a glowing angel with the way he shined like a star .
I reached out and confirmed my choice, and a ray of golden light sundered the universe. It reached out to Ouradia and encased it like some sort of magical prison. The planet encased in it’s golden prison seemed to come to a screeching halt. Drifting continents sped up, and I watched as they shifted almost faster than I could blink. Seas of magma cooled, and new landmasses seemed to rise from the sea guided by an invisible hand. Blankets of green rose like a tidal wave and swept across the continents. Ice spread across the poles, and waves of snow expanded upwards before fading into the sea.
The canvas that I had made changed as the planet found its own equilibrium, and there was a beauty in that, which I had no words for. But just as quickly as it started, it had ended. The golden prison melted into the blackness of space and the once ravaged planet was now a haven for life and waited patiently for me to turn it into a cradle of life. “That was breathtaking.” I whispered quietly as I touched the glass just hard enough to press my hand against it, but not hard enough to fall through it.
“That it was. There is something watching life change that is mesmerizing. It’s like watching a pattern that repeats itself, yet is ever changing.” He broke away from the glass and walked towards the console. “Life is as diverse as there are atoms in this universe, and watching it change is gripping. But we digress. Come here Kairos.” He whispered, and with a measured cadence.
I pulled away from the window and walked to him. “So, what do we do next?” I was beyond excited to get this show on the road! My first species, my first realm!
My companion quickly typed something into the console and I saw a blue holographic display of the planet appear into the palm of his hand. It was the size of a baseball and hung a few centimeters above his hand. “This is a copy of your planet. Access your menu and find the inventory slot. Once you do, just drag and drop the operating systems. As for life, just drop it wherever you like them to live.” With a quick flick of his wrist, he flung it towards me.
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The hologram soared through the air like a baseball, and I reached out to catch it. It grazed my fingers and snapped towards the center of my hand like a magnet and floated there. The hologram blossomed and grew in size, displaying all the data that this world contained. From the number of trees to the number of single-cell organisms that were growing, all in real time.
My eyes drifted to the side of the screen that hung in the corner of my vision, and I went through it until I found my inventory menu. Within it was everything I had brought up to this point. I mentally grabbed all of my magical systems and the new operating system I purchased and dropped them into the world. A flicker danced across the surface of the hologram a split second later and a string of notifications appeared, telling me that all the new systems were installed.
While that was happening, I glanced at the list of templates and took stock of them. I had the Dark Elves, Humans, Living Golems, Arachne, The Ancient Ones, and the Celestial Nephilim. While the list was small, I thought it was perfect. I had zero intentions of creating the Celestial Nephilim, and I didn’t want to drop The Ancient Ones here. That meant I could give each of the races their own continent, and see how they would develop by themselves. Or, I could put all four on each continent to see what would happen? “Helios, I'm torn.” I confessed after thinking about it for a moment.
“What do you mean?” He replied as he tilted his head slightly at me.
“Should I keep the species together, or should I separate them?” I was stuck because I didn’t want to make the wrong choice. At the same time, I’ve never done this before, so I wasn’t sure what the outcome would be.
“It doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, your job is to seed life. Let them do what they will do. In the end, there is no wrong answer.” He shrugged nonchalantly and moved away to do something else, leaving me to ponder.
There is no wrong answer. So, I could operate freely then? A part of me felt uncomfortable at the idea of having agency over my choices. Yet I knew I had to do it. Mistakes are going to be made, and life will do what it will do. So I’ll just let it be. With that thought in mind, I decided it would be best to just mix life onto all the continents to see what would happen. Even though a part of me still wanted to seed, everything separated.
Once I had dragged and dropped all the templates I wanted onto Ouradia my control room shuttered. My head jerked upwards, and I saw large gouts of flame roar into space, followed by the ejection of sixteen metal fragments. They were the shape of small teardrops, and were the color of freshly polished stainless steel. In the blink of an eye, they crossed the vast distance of space and shot towards the planet, before they exploded above the planet's surface in a brilliant display of fireworks.
Was that how life on Earth started? With a flash of fireworks? I stared at the scene for a few more seconds before I turned away and back towards my console and ran a mental checklist to take my mind off of my previous life, and to shrug the burden of knowing the truth away.
Operating systems? Check. Life? Seeded. So there is only one thing left. To implement monster life! So with that thought, I dragged over the monster bundle, the orc bundle, and dropped it onto the planet. This time, there was no grand fanfare, nor a radiant light show. Just silence.
It was a deep, purveying silence that gnawed at my mind. Time seemed to creep past agonizingly slowly as a single thought struck my mind. What next? My young life up to this point has waited for this moment, and now, what? What next?
But just as my thoughts rose like a thick cloying miasma, Helios spoke reassuringly and cut through them.. "Relax, young sire. Life takes time to grow, be patient."
He was right. I had to be patient, and let life do what life does. “What next?” I asked as I stared at the planet in wonder and excitement. Life that I made was down there, forming, and I wanted it to finish now.
“Now? Now, we wait. If you’d like, you could hit that fast-forward button, and jump the planet forward. If not, we can wait up here as everything finishes. Not much else we can do till life gets up to sufficient levels.” He spoke from across the room, as he sat on the dirt next to the sapling.
“Say less.” I reached out, and pressed the fast forward by one hundred thousand years, and watched as Ouradia was shrouded in its golden prison once more. This time however, my mana was consumed fully, leaving me empty.