Walker leaned back in the computer chair and put the journal down. There was more that he could add, he knew that.

More that he should add, in fact.

But, in the end, he didn't want to overcomplicate things. He wrote up as much as his Awakened mind could produce. He'd pulled memories from everything he could find, and filled the scripture to the brink of every page. For now, he was done, and he'd just have to face the results of what he'd created.

Like always.

It was a tricky thing. He had to give the basics of his old world, without the morality. The idea of a way to live, without a way to worship, or pray. The more he put into the Scripture, the more it felt cemented in his being, like the words etched themselves onto his soul.

Walker closed the cover of the former journal, and it disappeared with a pop. Walker's overlay lit up.

.....Scanning.....

Optional Tasks Updated!

- - -

Primigenial task complete: Write a Holy Scripture:

Volumes Completed: 10/10

Reward for completion: Fertility Modification

Echidna stood up quickly and bounded over on her long legs, her arms outstretched as she caught Walker in a quick and awkward hug from behind. He tried not to flinch as he could hear her coming with his enhanced senses.

"You did it! Congratulations!" She whispered into his ear, "I'm so proud of you Walker."

"Thank you?" He couldn't help but say in a questioning tone. "You know I'm close to forty, right?"

"And I'm over two-hundred sweety. You're still a kid to me." She said with a smile as she moved into his vision. "So, you've written your scripture and codified your beliefs. How are you feeling?"

Rather than respond in a snarky way, as his internal-self truly wanted, Walker looked deeper into what Echidna was saying. How was he feeling? He mentally poked and prodded, noting nothing out of the ordinary aside from a greater sense of energy than he'd had in a long time. Walker's body felt like he was sixteen again, as if an electric current was running under his skin, and the feeling reminded him of what it was like just before a football game. You'd be sitting in the locker room, pads on, and a curious mixture of excitement and anxiety would suddenly burst through you. Only, unlike the feelings he received when preparing for his favorite sport, this one didn't go away. He kept feeling the energy bounce around him from head to toe. Now that she'd pointed it out, he realized he'd been feeling this since just before he had finished the scripture. Almost like each word had built him into something more that would last beyond the writing.

"What's happening to me?"

"You're ready for the next stage." Echidna said with excitement. "You've chosen an oath, you've codified your beliefs, now it's time to reach out and grasp the physical stage. It is time for you to become a true awakened."

Zeus ambled over while she was talking, keeping an eye on them both.

"Have you felt your soul intentionally yet? Not with pure instinct, but with the specific intent of using it."

Walker thought back to when he'd railed at the new primigenials who'd escaped the tree, and his first time pushing on his soul. He nodded and said, "I have."

"Excellent! That's one of the more difficult steps to take, but as a Titan soul, I figured it would be quite natural for you to find your control. Now, here is what I want you to do. Close your eyes and go back to the place where you felt your soul before. I'll wait."

Walker closed his eyes and focused on his just below his chest, scratching around for the invisible muscle he'd found once before. He waited for a moment after he found the dead center of the feeling from before. Then, knowing he had always needed an emotional catalyst to jumpstart his soul power, he began imagining Symphony exploding again, just like the Slicer did before it left.

All of the emotional anguish he'd felt before, he tried to dredge back up. The screaming and rage, the sadness and depression that had tried to take over before. He felt like an emotional rubber band, stretching with the feelings trying to overcome him, before relaxing as his unconscious mind remembered that it hadn't actually happened again. He continued at this for several minutes until he discovered an emotional wavelength that felt like a hyped-up form of tension, while his mind was still relatively clear of any emotions. The moment he grasped that feeling and held it, the vibration in his chest started to hum. He opened his eyes and stared into a beautiful yellow pair across from him.

"Have you found it?" Echidna asked.

Walker nodded, not trusting that speaking wouldn't take him out of this moment he'd fought for.

"Excellent! Now, beforehand I'm sure you just pressed on your soul hard for that flare we saw before, but what you need to do now is much more complicated. Rather than press on your soul, I want you to try to mentally take hold of it. Imagine your mind grasping the edge of it, and stretching it from its current location to just below your collarbone."

Walker nodded again and closed his eyes. He took his invisible muscle and tried to move it. Of course, as this was his first time doing so, he accidentally pressed down and felt a small flare pulse out. Walker heard Echidna fall over and pick herself up, but he continued to focus internally on holding his pseudo-emotional state. The second time he tried to move it, he made a little success, and shifted the muscle from the center of his soul's home, just below the bottom of his sternum, to the bottom just above his pelvis. His soul was relatively small, and he could feel the vibration lessen the further he moved from the center.

Two more times he accidentally flared the muscle, and he started to feel mentally drained from the effort of holding his emotions in a lock, pushing them forward and rooting them in place. Finally, he gently tried to move it, imagining a small and delicate hand gently grasping the edges of his soul, and slowly dragging it from just above his stomach and toward his collarbone. Once he'd made it a few inches, his soul harshly pulled back and snapped into its original place. The speed of it shocked him, and he fell backward in surprise, landing on the grass of Sonata.

"How are you feeling?" A much too loud voice asked as he lay there with his eyes still closed, somewhat curled into the fetal position.

"Like someone pinched all of my skin and rolled it up into a tube."

"Yesss." She said, dragging out the word. "You've made wonderful progress in a short amount of time Walker. Just wonderful. The second stage requires the Awakened to stretch their soul across their entire body so they can begin to access it for the transformative, or late physical stage. The more you stretch it now, the greater your power will be."

"Why do we have to do this now? I have a lot of work to do." He asked in a pain-filled voice, still unmoving.

"Because now that you've codified your beliefs, your soul will begin to harden to protect itself and the beliefs you hold. The more you stretch it now, while it is still malleable, the more you will be able to do with it later. Now, are you ready to try again?"

Walker shook his head, his body still feeling it was in a great amount of pain, even if he had found nothing wrong after gently patting himself down.

"That pain is your soul growing. It is not a natural process, and I imagine the first Awakened, whoever they were, was quite insane to perform this process without any guidance."

"Bully for him. How long will this last?" He replied in a hiss.

"Not too much longer, it is just your soul expanding itself for the first time. The first is always the worst of course, and the stronger your beliefs, the tougher your soul is to work with."

"Greeeatt." Walker said, continuing to lay there for several minutes as Echidna moved away, leaving him to his pain. Zeus continued to watch him for several more minutes after Echidna left, before leaving himself. It took close to an hour for Walker to finally stop feeling the pain and sit up. He opened his eyes and nothing had changed around him, but he still felt a little sore.

This was something new that, despite the agony of the experience, he knew he'd have to focus on. They still hadn't told him what he'd be able to do once he completed the second stage, but if the results were anything like the first stage, he knew he wanted it.

Walker stretched his arms in the air, then headed over to Virgil and Rimi.

"Hey bud, how's it going here?" He said, tripping for a moment as a flare of pain hit him.

Virgil tinkered with his screen for a few seconds, choosing not to comment on his stumble, before speaking in a low voice to the blue squirrel standing near the evolution chambers. He turned to Walker as his steps reached him, "Just fine, Creator. I believe the gray seal and mountain goat are complete."

Walker looked over at them. The seal looked like a slightly larger and more slick version of the kind Walker was used to from Earth. It did have some weird flippers, very thin and with bulging muscles underneath, but Walker assumed he knew what he was doing. The goat was a different story.

"How tall is that thing going to be?" He asked pointing at it.

"Rimi?"

The blue squirrel looked at his screens before saying, "The Spanish Ibex, modified with gigantism, will stand at over five feet tall." He said in a somewhat monotone similar to Virgils. Walker ignored the tone for now, but made a mental note to ask about it later. Looking it over, he noticed it had massive horns, and just like Rimi had said before, it almost looked like a demon. It's coat and skin were a deep black, and the horns were only slightly lighter. It also had so much muscle that veins protruded off of its body across its hindquarters and legs.

"So these are my first ocean and mountain monsters. I can dig it. How are the tiny humans looking?"

Virgil gestured at the tubes, "They are progressing at a satisfactory rate. I believe we will have our base models complete in the next day or so. The kernels are split, and we're just waiting on the grafts to complete their connection. Grafting into humans is a very meticulous process and has taken the bulk of our time. But, because we're taking it slowly, I believe we'll not only be able to save the modifications for Rimi here to use in the future, but we will also have a satisfactory model for future modifications to base on."

Walker scratched the back of his head, "Man, it's weird to hear you talk about human beings like that."

"Indeed. But, it is reality, and it is always important to accept it, when it arrives."

"Cryptic, but okay." Walker looked in on the baby humans. He noticed both were caucasian and that made him ask an important question, "Are they all going to be white like me?"

Virgil shook his head, "No. We are going to vary the genetics quite widely, while also attempting to skip your particular issues. The disease resistance you requested is complete, and we are not gigantifying them, also as you requested."

"Yeah, it would be super weird to see ten-foot-tall humans. Have you found anything else you're thinking about changing from my standard model?" Walker asked, pointing a finger at himself.

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"Yes, now that you mention it. I believe we can improve the...hygiene...of human beings. As well as taper some of the issues that form as you grow older."

"Like what?"

"Rimi and I", Virgil said with a nod to the smaller squirrel, "Believe we can make your body odor not quite as pungent. It still serves a purpose, being pheromone signaling to your species, but we plan to reduce the strength of the smell."

Walker gave a thumbs up, "Sweet. No more smelly people!"

Zeus laughed in the background, "You won't have that issue anymore yourself, Creator."

Why is everyone calling me Creator all of a sudden? He thought to himself.

"Very much so." Virgil said with a nod, ignoring the comment. "We're also removing the appendix, tonsils, wisdom teeth, your formerly useful tailbone known as the coccyx, as well as other unnecessary issues. It will also massively increase the survival rate of human beings as they will not have to worry about impacted teeth or appendicitis, among other problems." Virgil looked at his screens for a moment, before saying, "The larger issue is, we are not sure how to reduce maternal mortality during childbirth. I believe you will want to add the fertility modification when you can."

"Not on every human." Zeus rumbled again from the side.

"Why not?" Walker asked as he turned to look at him. The other Primigenials were grouping up as well, except Dionysus who was still napping on the Tree of the Gods.

"Because human beings can only manage one bloodline. They can mix, as was done with Heracles, but that is quite rare and we were not able to reproduce it." Echidna said, then glared at Zeus. "Although some of us just kept on trying."

Zeus shrugged.

"As I was saying", Echidna continued, "Bloodlines in our world were quite rare. There was always a chance that a human child would gain a primigenial bloodline, but the odds were very small. For you to have the ability to place a bloodline independently is...what is the word you would use...overpowered. Yes, overpowered." She nodded to herself. "Zeus is saying you shouldn't place the fertility modification onto every human woman, because it will inherently cause issues moving forward as you add other bloodlines to the male population."

"Ah." Walker said in acknowledgement as he understood what she was getting at.

"What?" Rimi asked.

"If I give the fertility modification to every human woman, and humans can only take on one modification at a time, I'm creating a society where women could potentially be viewed only as mothers, and not anything else. That isn't to say it would happen, but the optics aren't great, and I don't like the idea of it myself in the least." He tried not to think about the powerful women he'd dated in his life, and what their reactions would've been hearing this conversation.

Zeus suddenly spoke up with similar thoughts, "If my wife heard that I approved or in any way instigated the fertility modification as a requirement for every human female, she would leave me in less than a moment."

"Didn't you cheat on her a lot? Like, historically?" Walker couldn't help but ask.

"No, we don't view sex and progeny the way you do. Inherently, spreading the primigenial bloodline is considered a sacred duty."

"Uh-huh." Walker said, not believing it for a moment. "And did she ever try to spread her primigenial bloodline?"

Zeus's eyes started shifting left and right, but he didn't find anyone else saying anything, "Well, no, but.."

"Exactly. Okay," Walker clapped his hands together, "so we spread it out evenly. Virgil, is there a limit to how many people I can give bloodlines to?"

"No, Walker. None that I can see."

"Great, let me know when you have a base model done, and we'll hop on it. Thank you for the help everyone." Walker said with a wave, dismissing the primigenials as politely as he could manage. He really was trying to be nicer. Plus, Echidna and Minos had never done him any wrongs. It was odd to see Athena be so quiet, but as the "Virgin Goddess", he guessed she didn't have much input on bloodlines overall. Zeus would be the professional in that conversation.

Once they'd all walked away, Zeus looking strained as Athena spoke to him quietly but with a stern mask on her face, Walker looked over at Virgil. "What do you know about the temporal task I have?"

"It....It i....T...." Virgil said, starting and stopping several times as he tried to get the words out.

"Restricted information again?" Walker asked.

"Indeed. I am sorry, Walker." Virgil said with a defeated look on his face.

Walker put a hand on his furry shoulder, "not your fault buddy. Don't worry about it, I guess I'll just muddle through.....hrmm. I don't want to cause any issues here, so I think I'll just do my experiments on my new exoplanets." Walker pulled up the monitor and zoomed over to one of them. "You know, we never named these, be right back." Leaving the monitor in place, he stepped into the Cosmic Genesis System and quickly named the two planets, already having an idea of what he wanted to do.

As Walker stepped back out, Virgil said, "Romulus and Remus? Why name them that? Historically and from your memories I can see what you are thinking, but not the specifics of it."

"For quite a few reasons. Symphony and Sonata are linked together. This world, and the attached moonlet, will be about harmony." He began pacing back and forth, "However, I have other plans for Romulus and Remus. I need places of disharmony. You said not too many people get the chance to build solar systems, so I'm going for broke. I'm going to create completely unique planets for battles. Where entire wars can be fought without ever touching Symphony's soil. If you want to fight a war, go to one of the planets, don't do it here. If you do, I step in and things get solved. Permanently." He clenched a fist as he stopped speaking.

"I would like to be honest with you Walker. You spoke before about what kind of Creator you wanted to be, and in my opinion, you are quickly becoming a dictator. Maybe even a tyrannical dictator at that."

"How so?" Walker asked, appreciating his candor.

"You spoke before of how you wanted a world where anyone can be anything they want to be, where they can explore and choose their own routes in life, good and bad. Now, you are saying that if anyone does not do what you want them to do, you will eliminate them. Why the sudden change?"

Walker was stumped, as he could definitely see what Virgil was getting at. "Umm, I don't know. Maybe I'm overcompensating for something and taking it a little too far." His soul pulsed for a moment in agreement with what he was saying, and that settled it. "So, what, I'm just supposed to let wars be fought on Symphony? Because that's what fits my oath?" Another pulse. "Well shit."

"I am guessing that your soul-oath is agreeing with me?" Virgil asked.

"Yep, according to my oath I can't do this. I wonder what would've happened if I'd forced it."

"You'd be paralyzed until you decided to change your mind!" Athena yelled out from by the tree.

Walker's hands slapped his thighs, "Man, what is the point of asking them to stand over by the tree if they can hear me anyways."

"That's what we were wondering!" Zeus yelled back.

"Whatever."

"So I take it you won't be making a war world?" Virgil asked, bringing him back on topic.

"No, I will. I'll just have to find a way to give some benefits to those who follow the procedure, rather than tearing up their own world. Anyways, the point of using Romulus and Remus was because of the myth of the two brothers. Two brothers found a city, one kills the other and names it after himself. Rome." Walker slammed a fist into his palm. "Rome was a great city and began one of the most powerful empires in the history of my home world."

"It also started and ended with a war from within." Virgil reminded him.

"Yes." Walker said, nodding and agreeing with him, "That it did. But, subsystem assistants can't rebel against me, correct?"

"Correct."

"Then there we go. Before we work our time magic..."

"Temporal displacement."

"Whatever. Before we work our time magic, we need to cool the planets down a bit. What do you suggest?"

"Hrmm." Virgil hummed to himself as he looked at his screens. "I suggest you manually remove large portions of the magmatic lakes on the planet you decide to use, and gradually add water to the surface. The biggest issue is the speed of the planet. It is moving at an incredibly slow pace compared to us, so once time starts to catch up, there will be negative chain reactions. You will have to absolutely remove a large amount of the surface heat before placing the water down."

"Remove and add, okay." Walker looked at his resources for the first time since the second battle, and found a truly massive amount of water. It seems Crratch was holding onto all of the water for something, but Walker would never know what that was. He began the laborious process of removing any lava he found, lava being magma that had reached the surface of the planet, and diving deeper to scoop out magma as well. He added small amounts of water as he went, and kept an eye on everything as Virgil warned sudden shifts in temperature could have drastic effects on the planet. Like planet breaking earthquakes.

All told, it took about two days. The size of Remus, the planet he chose to test his time theories on, was quite a bit bigger than Symphony. As in, almost as large as the Earth itself. Before he'd started working on it, the entire planet was just rock and heat, now it at least had some water and was mostly cooler. About two hours into the ordeal, Virgil had suggested speeding it up for a week so they could see it in real-time. Something about relativity. Walker wasn't paying as much attention to him as he should've due to suffering another soul rebound. Echidna was right, it was much less painful the second time, but it still hurt like crazy. Once they sped it up, Walker could see the steam exploding into the atmosphere from all of the water he'd placed cooling and burning off at once. He continued to do so, but in much smaller patches as he was worried about cracking the planet.

Once he finished, Walker took a break and spent some time with Cagna coming up with more milestones. She really wanted to know everything he could tell her about growing up and what the process was like mentally. He broke it down for her as best as he could, which was pretty outstanding with his memory. Then he suffered another soul rebound, this time gaining a lot more traction in his pulling, showing his progress overall. Echidna was excited, saying he was making faster progress than she'd thought he would. All told, Walker was very busy and hadn't had a lot of fun. That was about to change.

"It's time to fuck with time!" He unoriginally said, looking at a barren wasteland of a planet. Remus would be pretty when he was done with it, but they weren't there yet.

"What are you going to do?" Cagna asked. She'd been sticking with him more and more as the days passed by.

"Well, I had an idea when Virgil told me I should slow the planet down to our speed. It'll be like this for another five days, but I should be able to get it figured out pretty quick. I plan to pick one tiny spot in a mountain area, and speed it up. Then, see what happens after that." Walker looked at one of his oldest and incomplete tasks. He was hopeful that what he was about to do would complete the task and let him move on to the second part.

Temporal task given: Build a localized temporal anomaly: Part 1

Growth can take time and the alpha protocol understands this. Contrary to what many believe, time is fluid and can be shifted forwards and backward at the need of the creator. Build a localized anomaly and use it to further grow your world.

Localized anomalies built: 0

Resources allocated for completion: 50 years

Reward for completion: The System Link ability

"Okay, good luck!" Cagna said with optimism.

Walker nodded, then clicked Time. He moved the monitor over to a mountainous region and zoomed in a little so it was just underneath the rock. Then he clicked a spot and sped up time by 1 minute. He figured it was better to start out as slow as possible, just in case things didn't go the way he wanted them to.

A tear in space formed in the exact spot he picked, and water started gushing out of it. He rotated his view, but couldn't see what was within the rift due to all of the water coming out. It wasn't exactly what he thought would happen, so he waited to see if his overlay would light up.......

It did not.

"Just gotta do it again." He said to himself quietly and did another speed up, but this time for five minutes. Another tear formed, this time with nothing coming out of it. Walker angled his monitor to look inside and saw only darkness. At least nothing came out of it.

"So, this isn't a temporal anomaly."

"Correct." Virgil said, sneaking up beside him and looking at the monitor.

"Good lord! I hate when you guys sneak up on me."

"I apologize, I will try not to do that in the future." The brown squirrel said. "You are correct that this is not a temporal anomaly."

"Can you tell me anything else?' Walker asked with a bit of blunted hope.

"I cannot."

"Figures. Well, this one was set for five minutes, so I can do exactly this." Walker said, and on the spot that he sped up, he added another slow down to create a triple layer.

A ten-foot tall tear opened up, and dozens more opened beside them. As Walker watched, his overlay updated and several other things happened at once. A massive, muscular leg of...something fell through the rift. It was purple and quite hairy. An eyeball came through, went to look at the rift, touched it, and fell to pieces, cut in half by how sharp the rift's edges were. A million tiny insects crossed over in an orderly line, each several feet long if Walker had to guess, and immediately spread out across the planet. And a dozen other things that were still happening as he watched. Monsters, walking trees, just...an impossible amount of creatures and moments.

Walker tried to focus on a few. He noticed a large chunk of metal was slowly coming through, with branding on the side of it, and found another with miniature asteroids bursting through the rift and detonating on the ground. He said the only thing he could think of.

"Well fuck."

"Indeed. What I was trying to say earlier was, it is a trap. Sometimes the protocol puts traps into the tasks."

"Fucking why?"

"Because, if they give you a unique problem, it forces you to find a unique solution. That is still growth and creativity. I am sorry Walker. You can look at it on the bright side."

"What's the bright side?"

"You most certainly have a war world now. Just be wary of any of those creatures trying to come over to Symphony. You may also want to give up on Romulus as those insects spread quite fast across the different cosmos. They're called inhabitor beetles, and they're quite carnivorous."

"Double fuck." Walker replied with a sigh. "Can you start working on a monster that will eat them please. I'd rather have that monster on Remus than the beatles."

Virgil nodded, "Well thought. I will get started right away, and that gives me a chance to look at the Combiner ability as you requested. Please excuse me." He started to walk away, before quickly turning around, "Ah! I forgot to mention. The new ability you just received is quite useful, but be sure you know what you're doing before you make your decision." After having said so, he spun around again and walked back to the evolution chambers.

Walker just nodded as he continued to watch Remus spit out different entities from across the multiverse. "War world indeed." Walker said in a quiet voice. He didn't panic like he did when the Slicer tore apart Symphony. He'd take that as a victory and a sign of emotional progress. Walker looked at his notifications.

.....Scanning.....

Task updated!

Temporal task complete: Build a localized temporal anomaly: Part 1

Localized anomalies built: 1

Reward for completion: The System Link ability

...

Temporal task given: Create a static temporal zone: Part 2

You've built a localized temporal anomaly and grasped just the beginning of what the temporal subsystem can do. Now, create a temporal zone that constantly slows down time, or speeds it up, without heavily draining your resources.

Localized temporal zone built: 0

Resources allocated for completion: 100 years

Reward for completion: Temporal subsystem Upgrade

"Why do I feel like I can cheat this?' Walker asked his overlay, as new thoughts started to come to fruition.