It was such an odd feeling, you found, waiting to be born. Most beings, you somehow knew, lacked awareness until birth, many even taking some time after their birth to truly become conscious. Your race was not most, however. No, indeed your race stood far above most others, and only a few could even hope to compare:
You are a grand traveler of sorts, your race one which has never been bound to a single world, or even a single universe. Your race has been given billions of names through all reality, and while some particularly enjoy certain ones, there is only one name your race as a whole has accepted to be called:
You are a Cosmicus.
The Cosmicus have no world to call their own, so in the rare events two or more of them decide to spawn, they required a suitable nesting ground. They buried you deep within the very soul of this planet, in a pocket ‘womb’ dimension that could not be accessed easily by outside forces. Even another Cosmicus would still have had some trouble reaching in here. You could still ‘see’ outside this womb to a point, a view which grew clearer and more potent as you grew closer and closer to your eventual birth. You would catch glimpses, feelings, even the dreams of your birth world throughout the thousands of years you eagerly awaited to be born and fully awaken.
As you developed, you could feel the many, many memories and thoughts that your parents had left you with. Most of it was buried and stashed away for you to pick through later in your life, but some of the basics were available to you even now. You knew what you were, you had at least an idea of what you were capable of, and you had a variety of plans and common actions your kind took when they were born.
The source of The Cosmicus’ great powers and place at the top of the multiverse came from two things. The first was their bodies: vast things made of pure, condensed soul to the point of tangibility. Nothing could challenge a Cosmicus’ understanding over souls, and while there were beings of similar power in the multiverse, it was never in the powers of the soul. To challenge a mature Cosmicus in soul combat was akin to a bonfire challenging a sun’s warmth. It would be a long, long time before you reached that level, however.
The second and more important thing was a Cosmicus’ ability to Cultivate. While such practices appeared in other races, none were quite on their level. The Cosmicus did not cultivate magic or divinity or any such thing. No, The Cosmicus cultivated Reality itself. This cultivation took two forms: greater Sovereignties and lesser Authorities. Through these, a Cosmicus was capable of growing their power endlessly.
A Cosmicus was born with a single Sovereignty, yours having been given to you by your parents. Sovereignties were powers over the more primordial aspects of reality, incredibly powerful, and more than that, capable of infinite growth. The Sovereignty gifted to you was the Chaos Sovereignty, the power to influence, warp, and manipulate the primordial chaos that made up reality’s most basic, physical components. It would be a useful power, one you couldn’t wait to be able to play with!
As the time of your birth drew nearer and nearer, you knew you would need a plan on what to do. Even after birth, your body wouldn’t be strong enough to leave this ‘womb’ yet. And even if it was ready, you knew you still probably shouldn’t. You didn’t think the locals of your birthworld would be very friendly towards it, and a newborn Cosmicus was far from strong enough to fight a world. However, you thankfully had a relatively easy solution to that: an Avatar.
Cosmicus were beings of pure soul, but they could craft themselves weaker physical bodies to tether themselves to and remotely inhabit. Your body would be, at least physically, completely normal and indistinguishable from any other inhabitant. You would be able to channel your power through it, though that power would be weakened and considerably diluted compared to your true body. There would be no easy way to truly threaten you through it, and even if your Avatar died you could just make another one after a bit of time. That just left you with one major question: just what should your Avatar be?
You have caught many glimpses of your birthworld and its inhabitants during your wait. Visions of their battles and lives, pulses of their emotions, and flashes of their dreams. Differentiating it all from one another, however, was another matter entirely. This had ultimately left you with something of a mishmashed patchwork of knowledge and trivia about your birthworld. Knowledge that you didn’t entirely know if it was accurate, outdated, or pure fantasy. At the very least, you had enough reliable information to have a list of options for your Avatar. Technically, you could do something like a simple animal or even a plant. But, both would have been very weak even with your power, and honestly, rather boring. You wanted to explore, interact, and experience what your birthworld had to offer. Your birthworld was also home to many more monstrous things, most of which didn’t even really have much of a normal soul of their own from what you could tell. While these creatures were certainly powerful and beautiful to behold, they were again just too limiting for your plans. You wouldn’t be able to experience many of the things the non-monstrous inhabitants had to offer you. They would simply just kill you on sight, regardless of what you did, and would likely try and actively hunt you.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
No, really your options were sadly limited to being a member of the dominant races themselves, which collectively called themselves ‘Mankind.’ Thankfully, there were subspecies that you had to work with and could pick freely from. So you could play around a little bit at least.
Humans were the most common and, quite frankly, the most boring of the subspecies. They were balanced, stubborn, and adaptive. Their lack of natural strengths lead to them specializing in artificial strength, and through that they had clawed their way to their current dominant position upon your birthworld. Boring as they were, you found that perhaps that made their accomplishments all the more admirable.
Oni were the strongest of the subspecies. Appearing similar to humans but with a variety of different styles of horns, Oni were the tallest of the species and bulkest. They had a natural affinity for physical combat and activity, and had flourished under cultures of strength and brutality. An Oni Avatar would be a powerful combinant indeed, their physical capabilities combined with your soul-based ones.
Elves were the safest option for you, for one simple reason. They appeared human, but tended to be slender and graceful with sharp, refined features. Their most defining trait, however, was their pointed ears. They were the most versed in the soul and your birthworld's common techniques and abilities. You Avatar would be seen as just an inherently talented Elf. Safest, and yet also the most dangerous, as they would likely be the ones interested in your Avatar’s unique abilities and the ones with the best chance at discovering anything about your true nature.
Thyria were an interesting subspecies. They were the most adaptive of them when it came to the world. Appearing as shorter humans with a variety of animal traits that differed from individual to individual, they were survivalists. Elusive, with a variety of tricks and traits at their disposal, despite being the poorest of Mankind’s subspecies; they were the ones who refused to die, and always found a way to persevere and thrive in situations where that shouldn’t have been possible. This was also quite admirable, you found.
Four choices, four options that would likely have far more impact on your experiences upon your brithworld than you could even hope to imagine at this point. It should have been a major decision for you, yet, you found it incredibly easy. Thyrians, well honestly, you found them cute. It was a petty reason, yes, but undeniably the main one. A more practical reason, if still entirely selfish, was the fact they had the best senses of all the subspecies, which would let you experience the most of your birthworld.
With that choice made, you could begin your preparations. You hardly wanted your Avatar to be totally helpless, after all! You had your Chaos Sovereignty, a powerful tool, but you could get a bit more. Specifically, you planned to unlock your first Authorities! How exciting.
Authorities were weaker than Sovereignties by far, but were also far more focused and easier to grow. There were many ways to acquire Authorities, this one would be the most simple and common way. New Authorities could be ‘discovered’ and unlocked through many ways, and your choice of Avatar and your Chaos Sovereignty had given you a few options. However, you hadn’t formed these Authorities yet. They were just concepts, blueprints, waiting for you to structure them in your soul. To do this, however, you needed something. In this case, you only had one thing for it: Quintessence.
Quintessence, or simple QES, was the most valuable thing in reality besides souls and could be considered to be reality’s standard currency. It was the concentrated energy of souls, forged through experience and other such developments. And unlike souls, which came in a wide, wide variety of sizes and qualities, QES came in only one form and a consistent ‘value.’ Cosmicus, due to their understanding of the soul also had a great understanding of QES and its many uses and applications. This was one such use: the formation of new Authorities.
Your parents had been kind of enough to leave you with a small bounty of QES to start off with. Three hundred, to be precise. To begin with, you spent fifty of it to form two new Authorities that would aid your Avatar: the Flesh Authority and the Beast Authority. With these and your Chaos Sovereignty, your Avatar should be at least somewhat strong and able to survive upon your birthworld against its most common threats.
Decisions made and first steps taken, you spent your remaining time until your birth designing your Avatar. It would be a Thyria. Biologically male, a little below five feet tall, and appearing to be in their final years of adolescence. Your Avatar was on the slender side, but still fit and muscular; with pale skin, eyes that were a bright orange color, and long, wild red hair. Your Thyria traits were those of a fox, and came in the form of a large pair of fluffy ears atop your head, a large bushy tail, and slightly stronger and sharper nails. You felt quite proud of this design you had come up with, and looked forward to using it.
And then, at long last, you felt it. Awareness. Your true body twitched, the countless tendrils that made it up writhing within the ocean-like womb you had grown within. Eyes opened and looked around for the first time, mouths thrashed and chomped, and at long last, you were born.