I continued to monitor this new species [https://em.wattpad.com/5d0e94c185fa4d715bc5232802f6e6fe153a4e8e/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f72376a307a62576a6f67733249413d3d2d3833313233353530342e313565636535623961343133336631373437303838313637323335372e676966?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]
I continued to monitor this new species.
They were at first incredibly direct and still acted like apes but they became communities that lived and died together in the wild with a keen paranoia.
The people began to take in... spirits? Souls? I had no clue. However, these souls gave true sentience and life to the humans. The idea of the soul was not a new idea for me because creatures before the apes also had them. Albeit much smaller and barely keeping a 'will' together. They also depended on their brains for thought, which was an intriguing idea which I tried to implement for myself, but found the brain to be too chaotic and useless compared to my.... I still don't know what I am.
There were times where the first few courageous ones went out of the tribe to make anew. However, those first few died straight out as they had not developed a defensive mechanism that worked yet. They were still like apes in that they have to have safety in numbers.
But that changed when I stepped in and scared off apex creatures like sabertooth tigers when they were trying to survive. I pushed them into the right direction and they actually developed a religion about me.
This was one of the first few religions and I had no clue how to respond to it as I was mostly just an observer.
So I eventually gave in.
I formed a female body like theirs and told them to depend on themselves using their distinct body language.
They were afraid at first, but quickly took hold of religion like a light in the middle of darkness.
Not that religion towards me even benefitted but it was quite flattering nonetheless.
The tribes grew into cities and cities into countries as their languages and cultures progressed. Humans moved north from africa and north-east during a partial ice age and took the second continent.
I was utterly fascinated as this human culture represented something new to learn from. I knew almost everything about them since every single one of their cells still had my will, thus the humans were part of me in a way.
But this did not stop humans from becoming monsters every now and then. I had grown to know human culture as a paradigm shift that went from black to white, good to evil, accepting to pure exclusivity. They developed other religions and worshiped a variety of everything, sending envy and blame towards unknown beings.
I was definitely not a 'God' in the sense that they originally portrayed me to be so I did not continue the first religion as I only performed to keep humanity afloat from utter destruction. If anything, I was a participant in life alongside them, even if I was immortal and undying.
In fact, I had no clue if God existed or not, so I could not give my input even if I tried.
This did not stop me from stepping in every now and then, taking the form of a female. In fact, I appeared in multiple locations at once to stop several wars that would have killed off a significant number of people and reset the status quo of the early ages.
But during this time, I couldn't help but notice that they humans blatantly destroyed everything they touched when their numbers became too much. This was due to the one percent who thought everything belonged to them.
I am not sure how this fallacy came to be within humans but I tried to stop them. Perhaps this was some leftover problems left from the apes that was not so obvious when they were still primates.
This good-evil complex stayed for the long run and humans began to fear themselves. The evil ones stayed in the dark or they took to the top of the societies and they even engrained themselves into human culture.
In the end, since the human species was still flourishing with its problems, I still supported their quick growth as they came up with new knowledge I haven't gained in the past billions of years even if I was smarter than all of them combined. As it turned out, hiveminds had their problems since they limited culture.
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The humans have lived for a million years now as an apex species. They controlled the earth with an iron fist and cycled through war and peace as often as they ate.
Pharoes lived and died like gods, Kings forced serfs and other humans to do their bidding, and the political machinations to control the world were ever-present.
They had beaten the worst foes and monsters, developed technology that puts them on equal grounds as dangerous beasts and even created methods to farm and ranch.
I had visited humans various times, taking a different role each time. I tried to persuade kings not to be too harsh, 'died' many times, and attempted to age at a 'normal' pace as a peasant.
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I was now near Nazareth with my female avatar.
This was an era of humanity where they lived in slums, cities or castles, but the Romans always took it too far. Even in this city, soldiers were everywhere.
My avatar is average for the looks within the region and I had distant nobility garbs on.
When I reached Roma's gates, I was thoroughly questioned.
The reason I came today was because something different occurred.
A man that was proclaiming to be the son of God came and performed feats. The problem was, this has happened countless times already. I had even talked to several of these people and they gave no definitive answer. I even probed their memories but found nothing too specific.
I was determined to figure out who and what God really was.
But the man named Jesus was both forthright and honest. I probed his memories and came with nothing conclusive. He really could be the son of god or couldn't. It was as if he didn't exist within my ability to probe memories, the man was a blank slate, which was odd.
It was the first time I felt fear since I couldn't control the man. However, I watched from the distance at every event in which he produced miracle after miracle.
I watched in the background as the humans followed their beliefs and removed Jesus from the face of the earth, only to be temporarily surprised by his rising again. I guess he just wanted to make a point that he could transcend the physical.
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Time sure does fly.
500 years later and I also experienced Muhammad's arrival to the Earth. Although his message was different, his actions left a profound impact for the regions near Arabia.
However, every time a new prophet came and left, they knew a little about me. Even if their messages were skewed beyond recognition by other humans, but the prophets seemed to all be from the same faction. What faction that was, I didn't know.
This skewed message between humans created the terror that was the crusades and the Popes, whom I choose not to talk about. The corrupt leaders managed to use religion as a socio-political tool to manipulate the masses with almost no repercussions.
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It is the year 1520 and I have noticed something sinister in the human ranks. Vampires who overwrote my spirit mark arose to power behind some countries. The vampires have managed to keep their blood-culling of humans quiet. Their stories were not even written into books or spoken between peasants.
I could not figure out how they even appeared, coming like a banshee in the night and suddenly people could drink blood and die through the sun. At the very least they could not beat the limits of physics but they were fast compared to humans.
These vampires were the first 'supernatural' creatures that I had seen on Earth as they followed a system that was partially breaking energy conservation and 'nutrients' were not a thing that they directly needed.
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They ruled small regions with an iron fist and kept to themselves, except when they required blood.
I had even tried to replicate how they work, but I couldn't even figure it out. Perhaps it had something to do with the Spirit marks that were erased when humans were converted.
My best guess was that some evil god, demon or devil managed to bring vampires here as there was no biological reason for their existence. I kept them around and didn't kill them because they had something I wanted: the ability to break common sense of this realm by using powers that defied the conservation of energy.
The vampires kept quiet until the 1800s where a fictional book was published about vampires, their abilities and terror. It did bring some attention towards them but they managed to sneak out of any 'hunters'.
It was towards the 1880s that they were actively hunted. Coincidentally, this was around when Hitler was born. I didn't know about the events that would soon transpire, but I wished I had stepped in as the number of cells I lost was staggering.
Some Austrian Archduke got killed and the first World War was kicked off. I watched as the many powers, including vampires, worked in secret to manipulate the world in ways that would cause normal people to shiver.
Hitler was finally picked up by a vampire in 1919s as a servant and he began his tirade to cause a second World War for blood and mayhem. This Vampire was actually opposed to a Jewish vampire so he wanted a convenient reason to attack it. Of course, the vampire didn't realize that the second World War would blow up the way that it did and that Hitler would go so far but he just shrugged.
This was the first time that I stepped out from the shadows to remove a vampire from existence. It was too late for me to stop the second war but I could only remove a truly vile individual. I learned many things from this vampire's body that I couldn't from the lesser ones I found, such as how they convert blood into 'Vitality' through a roundabout way with 'Spirit.'
I also found out that older vampires were the closest thing to undying besides me. Their spirits could regenerate their bodies incredibly quickly just using vitality.
However, they couldn't actually make vitality or blood. Their bodies were somehow alive, yet not. Especially the ones that were starved as punishment, I saw them become almost cold and corpse-like.
I have fought them occasionally to see what the older ones were capable of. The bodies that I used performed feats combatting vampires and were less human than they were. The perfect weapon in the shape of a human.
This went as a warning to vampires and they tried everything to figure out what I was, from bribes to torture ending with my persona becoming a living legend in the vampire community. A foreign and immortal entity which was stronger than they were.
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I saw the success of humans as they developed technology that were impossible in my mind: Electronics, Computers, Robots, and Rockets.
In fact, when humans discovered how to use lightning and performed experiments with it, I did the same, albeit in a more insane, yet leisurely manner. I had already seen the phenomenon known as electricity as early as Electric Eels but I never really used it to my advantage.
Yet humans still beat me to technologies I couldn't dream of.
The development of transistors was in its infancy during World War 2, but it slowly left the ground and became a soaring phoenix. Albeit a very fat and arrogant one as the politics of 'big business' was not to be taken lightly.
Probably the biggest eye-opener was the fact that space did not rotate around the Earth and that the stars were actually other suns. This realm was huge.
The big problem I found was that our sun had a lifespan and that I only had about 4-5 billion more years to live on earth before it went big.
I guess sometimes being an immortal undying does not matter in some situations and it clouds your judgement as to what is possible. I was the progenitor to these humans, yet they discovered and created things far more complicated than I could.
However, humanity had nothing on automating DNA genetics, as that was my bread and butter. They couldn't even breed new life from simple cells. But perhaps that is just a matter of time.
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I grew some cells and planted them on myriad human rockets into space. Through this, I managed to get onto the moon and mars, titan, and several other planets that had human landers crash. I spread myself throughout every livable area in the solar system that I could without humanity finding out. However, that was easy since humans don't know that their cells are a part of me.
In the end though, the cells that stayed in a vacuum or truly inhospitable places went into hibernation since there was no energy and nutrients to survive off of. However, places like titan were entirely possible since there was methane in the atmosphere and even though the sun was incredibly distant my cells could repeat the "Great Oxygenation Event" except with the cold methane oceans here. Earth in the past was actually quite like Titan, except the water was well... Water, not the liquid methane here. As a bonus, I could even slowly build up my own rockets as liquid methane is a great fuel and I could convert it into oxygen via the incredibly slow photosynthesis.
I had sent several Avatars into Universities to figure out how physics, mathematics and engineering work from a more 'human' perspective. Said avatars borrowed my massive network and became top figures that literally came from nowhere.
Humans definitely had a special ability to probe the insanity that were the laws of this universe.
They even created the internet, one of the biggest breakthroughs on Earth. A hivemind that doesn't even realize it is a hivemind with anonymous participation.
It slowly grew and became the hallmark of mankind, controlling countries and ideas without borders and helped expose corruption when politicians didn't want to be exposed.
I have to admit though, that multiplayer games were fun. I could play and react in a virtual universe where I cannot use my impossible reaction times as an advantage against other humans. However, I had to simulate the games and directly connect to the internet since I had considered computers to be too slow.
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It was all fun and games until 2060, where Earth became a trash sphere. They threw it away, at least temporarily, since it was almost impossible to breathe in.
They couldn't adapt, as they had created yet another extinction event on Earth. Try as I might, armed with the epitome of human information, it was too late.
They left and rebuilt a colony on Mars, Europa and a few other promising moons in the solar system, forever fragmented and solely dependent on quantum tunneled internet to communicate. Oxygen and water were a premium offworld now and had to be manufactured using lasers and biological life.
For these events, I had to finally give a helping hand.
Earth's atmosphere partially reverted back to what it was before the 'Great Oxygenation Event' and became a frozen hellscape. My plethora of trees were doing fine, but 'natural' species had already died off.
Humans still existed off of my plants that I redesigned for the new land that barely had any sun. The survivors who lived on this earth were striving to survive just as hard as the ones who voluntarily irradiated themselves to leave the earth's influence.
My creatures roamed the land and carried water (blood) here and there in the last minute before survivors died, like a shining beacon that kept the survivors alive by 'luck.'
I had learned that although humanity was a fast species, they also burn like a candle. Once their flame burnt out, the species would have to open their eyes. Anything that I could do was difficult as biology doesn't allow for living in sandy conditions. I would have to repeat events from the past and have moss regrow the soil, like two billion years ago. Too long.
No. I will finally step out. Even if they do not want it, I must revive this species as they are the first intelligence to exist from this world. It had become apparent that there was not a god that would save them here, even if I had evidence from previous messiahs that actual Gods probably did exist, just not in this dimension where he rarely used his power.
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The world was still covered in fallout.
I walked with my female avatar in many locations around the globe, with the most neutral face that I could give.
Radiation does not affect me, since I do not have DNA. However, it does randomly break the atoms in my cells, but that was easy to manage in low doses. I could walk through fairly radioactive areas for a period of time, so I navigated my way towards the major settlements.
There were about 2,000 cities that still had a fraction of its population and countless villages that survived with no ability to go offworld. I visited every village and major faction simultaneously, making it my rather inappropriate debut. Most thought that this event was rather odd but not unusual, since most villages and cities couldn't really communicate quickly.
"Humans," I said aloud through every node, "I come as your progenitor."
'...'
"I come not to berate you for your terrible choices, but to give you encouragement. I have lived for four billion years and you have still moved to inspire you as the first species to gain intelligence on Earth."
"Bullshit!" I heard as a response, along with a plethora of sexist slurs. This first statement actually caused many bandit tribes to make an attempt on my avatar's life. There were about as successful as the spine sharks a billion years ago.
"Where were you when my husband died!" came out a random cry from various locations.
This was hard.
I was not used to dealing with so many, placating a species was something entirely new to me. In a way, I was a terrible parent.
"Now now," I said simultaneously, "Although I have tried my hardest to keep humanity alive, women and children were still hurt. Grown adults became true monsters and the rich left Earth for their space havens. I can see them now, shivering on the desolate worlds of Mars and Europa, even remote space stations in the belts."
I was cursed yet again by the masses and they seemed quite irate. Meanwhile, some of my avatars were in a fight they were built to win.
"Face it," I said, "humanity lost control of itself and abandoned Earth. However, earth always survives."
The harassment went on even with my encouraging words. Military grade missiles were fired at my avatars and nukes were dropped after a time. Some blew up, slowly crawling back together showing what I knew from vampires. Heck, vampires even got in on the action revealing their monster bodies to humanity.
I smiled with my best 'I'm a harmless Gaia' impression, "for the few that want to continue on, say I."
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Suffice it to say that my global debut did not go well in some 'countries'.
Even if I proved myself with martial prowess in a godlike display, my claim was absolutely assurd.
The silver lining was that I had finally earned my 'deity' title as many helpless individuals went into my care. I made several 'bases' which could not be easily overwhelmed by humans unless they used nuclear bombs. My countless university studies in fission and fusion helped here as I created several fusion reactors near the shore lines that converts water into Deuterium to act as fuel. It is quite easy to make fusion occur when you have nearly infinite resources.
I branched out and humanity could finally relax. However, since I moved, I couldn't really depend on humanity for new ideas as they would depend on me as their 'God' now.
My name was finally given: 'Phyris'.