“They say that Evolution is the Natural Selection of adaptation of a situation and Time passed enacting the adaptation.”

“They say that Evolution is performed by being born with traits adapted to survive in a situation.”

“They say that Evolution is pure luck, as the traits you are born with are allocated randomly to you.”

“That, my friends, is what I call pure… BULSHIT. Evolution ain’t random.”

“It never was, and it never will be.”

“Now, you might ask yourself, if Evolution is not pure luck and neither is it natural selection, then what is it?”

“The Truth, my friends, is simple. Evolution is the Will to Live no matter the sacrifice or circumstances.”

“Evolution is the choke point of History, where an individual life form said I am hungry. I will go Eat That, instead of That, and live long enough to pass on that new resource acquisition skill.”

“ Therefore Evolution is Chaos, enacted through an Individual’s Will to Live.”

*

Dream Realm - ???

POP

That's what I felt when my tiny little Dream Realm finished the first step of its restructuring process.

I had no control over this part of the process aside from pressing the big red button in my incorporeal mind to start it all.

The process was automatic for a reason. I did not trust myself I would not fuck it up for some strange reason that would only ever be relevant in the distant future.

The process was simple.

The First Step was the initial draw. Its purpose was to destabilize everything and have everything return to its initial form.

The question was, what was the initial form of a Realm or anything in this case?

The answer was in my memories.

Specifically, the wisdom was found in the initial moments of the Dream Craze I had experienced.

When I was under the Dream Craze, I learned how Dreams function.

What they were, what their purpose was, and how they came into being.

After that, questions regarding Consciousness were the key.

What they were, what their purpose was, and how they came into being.

The answer was simple.

Everything is Chaos. To Chaos, you return, and from Chaos, you exist.

The problem was Chaos is unfathomable and immeasurable.

Chaos has no form or substance.

It is nothingness before something gives it something.

And now I have returned to this nothingness, well… almost nothingness.

Because of its properties, it is impossible to wield Chaos, but where there is Will, there is an answer.

If you can't wield something, because of its comprehensibility, then make it understandable. Take a chunk of Chaos, and downgrade it by giving it purpose and shape while retaining its core principle.

The answer is Potential Chaos.

Potential Chaos has the potential of everything and nothing but moldable to your desires.

By destabilizing everything from its shape, I reverted almost everything that I am and the Dream Realm into Potential Chaos.

After the suction effect had done its job, all I was left were two spheres.

The Core is in the center of my Realm where Alexander and I, resided currently.

The First layer was the outside of the Core, or what previously was the Savannah of my Dream Realm.

Now that everything had ended, I projected my awareness into it. Yet, what I expected to perceive was not what I imagined.

I had imagined that there would be nothing between the barrier of the Core and the barrier of the First Layer that marked the end of the Dream Realm, but I was mistaken.

There was something, and that something threw me off the loop.

I perceived three things.

The Potential Chaos. Formless energy permeates the First Layer, and the moment my awareness touched it, I knew I could do wonders with it. Yet, I ignored the amount of Potential Chaos that was exceeding my estimates.

The second was a golden-colored flame. I defied everything that I knew of Flames. There was no tinder to burn as fuel, and neither did I notice anything else that it consumed at the moment.

The third was the physical matter found in the First Layer.

This matter had come from outside my Dream Realm.

This matter had somehow integrated itself with the Golden Flame.

This matter appeared like tiny stars inside the Golden Flame to my awareness.

Tilting my incorporeal mind left and right, I had an idea. I left the Core and sent my awareness into the First Layer.

Once I did, I began interacting with the Potential Chaos. It was a strange feeling and touching this energy with my Consciousness. It was both familiar and unfamiliar to me.

The unfamiliarity came from the fact that Life Essence is a diluted form of Potential Chaos, attuned to the physical state, in order to facilitate the growth of one's Consciousness.

I knew and understood why it was so. Now that I was interacting with it, I felt it would take but one errant thought to be subsumed into it and lose my individuality.

That being the case, I steadied my thoughts as much as possible.

However, it was the familiarity that was off-putting. I knew not from where it came and why it was there, but it felt like seeing and interacting with an old friend.

That being the case, I interacted with this energy for a few moments. Yet, no matter how friendly we were in the past, I was careful not to play too much so as to not waste it, even if I had gained more than I expected.

After I had a tiny chunk of this energy change into different shapes and purposes, an errant thought came to me.

Enacting upon that thought, I used the Potential Chaos and pointed it at the Golden Flame and the physical matter that found itself in my Dream Realm.

With a thought, I tried to see if I could understand more of both, and I did.

Three different Intents were inlaid inside the Golden Flame. Destruction, Transformation, and Creation.

It displayed the quality of Potential Chaos, only it was far more materialistic in purpose. As if it was a form of Chaos specifically designed to alter Reality.

It kind of makes sense.

Turning my attention to the physical matter that shone like tiny stars infused into the Golden Flame, I surprised myself with what I sensed.

If I had a physical face, I would be wide-eyed at what I was sensing. To be sure, I checked a few more times, and the results were undeniable.

Now I am stumped. What do I do with a body that was ripped into individual cells? Mmmm, can I reconstruct it back into its true form?

Wondering if that was a possibility, I used Potential Chaos to seek an answer.

It was weird doing it like this. Of all the things it could do and become, I used it for Divination purposes, and yet, the way I used it felt natural to me as if I had done this before.

Every Divination used up a bit of it, but that beat the alternative of giving it shape and form. The expenditure was exponentially lower if used to poke and understand stuff instead of building with it.

Moments passed. I investigated how to reconstitute Alexander’s Body, but I always returned to the same problem.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

The Divination manifested visions of The Golden Flame interrupting everything every time I tried. That being the case, I investigated a different angle. My next Divinations were about separating the Golden Flame from the scattered cells of Alexander's body.

Another dead end closed with closed doors. The visions showed any cell that left the influence of the Golden Flame would instantly lose its integrity and cease to exist. That left me with no choice but to include it in the reconstruction process.

More visions down the line, I had to admit the truth that a miracle had occurred.

The infusion of the Golden Flame kept everything in a state of stasis.

Without the Flame, the physical matter would turn into ash. Without physical matter, the Flame would cease to exist.

Stupid paradox! It seems like Alexander will have to sleep for a while longer.

Still, that does leave me on what to do now.

Everything I had done so far was part of the First Step of deconstructing my Dream Realm.

The second part was construction, and that part I dreaded the most as I initiated all this.

I could just reform my Dream Realm and make it better. I could give it a new form and purpose.

I could have the Realm be of any other intangible Concept. Everything was possible at this point, like Death and Destiny.

I could even go with emotions like Desire or Vengeance or any other emotions I was willing to take.

There are so many options to choose from, I hate having so many choices.

As I was building everything for the First Step, I pondered on this very question and came to a stunning conclusion that only affirmed my actions at that point.

However, all that was before I came to this point.

There was no greater detriment than being showered with countless choices in one moment and only having one path forward. The sheer debilitating option of numerous choices stuns most people into ineptitude in choosing the correct choice, out of them all.

Usually, when people are stuck in such a situation, they depend upon their previous experiences to ground them before a stupid choice was made.

I had minimal grounding at this moment.

Previously, Alexander was my grounding line. Now he was sleeping inside the Core. His body was shattered into millions upon millions of tiny cells and would probably stay that way for now.

With Alexander out of the current picture and my total experience pool being as little as it was, it was time to seek advice from a different place.

How do I gain the Inheritance without meeting the requirements? Mmmm, there probably is a way, but who knows of the consequences? Maybe I will lose it all if I try to cheat my way to it.

That being the case, how do I meet the requirements for it? The Honey Badger Dream Body Construct I manifested previously probably isn't the best idea. If I make a new body with the Potential Chaos, I might as well use it all up, with nothing left to improve my Realm.

Worst of all, I have no idea how a Soul fits into this whole picture.

All this left me with no option but to think outside the box.

A few times, I tried to Divine what would happen if I forced my way to the Inheritance. The results were not in my favor. Any forceful attempt would initiate a purge of information.

That being the case, I was back at the starting point unless I allowed a particular thought of mine to nudge me into a certain path. It was a path I tried to avoid thinking of, yet it always came to me as the most obvious and most treacherous.

A few times, my awareness traveled over the physical matter infused into the Golden Flame that shone like tiny stars to my existing cognition.

When I finally exhausted all the possibilities I could think of, I had to admit it. I had no choice but to try.

With a brief mental glance inside the Core and the Consciousness sleeping inside it, I apologize for non-verbally to my buddy.

With a path forward, it was time to find a way to reconstruct the physical body Alexander had used in his past life and make it mine.

With Potential Chaos at my fingertips, I began Divining a way forward with myself at the center of it all.

Even then, I still came upon the problem of the Golden Flame. The Flame kept the cells in their current state of stasis, but every change I envision upon them sees everything fall apart.

My next thought was to see if I could transform the Flame into something else.

The answer came with a big fat NOPE.

Any change in its very makeup will destroy the cells during the process.

I hate this paradoxical situation. If I can't remove one from the other and I can't change one or the other, is there a way to delay the mutual destruction?

With that line of thinking, I began to investigate a new solution, and then it just came to me.

The solution was obvious as hell, I just refused to see it.

Well… it is obvious now, in hindsight, after I exhausted the other possibilities.

Shaking my incorporeal head, I reviewed the solution that relied on the basics of Life Essence and its generation.

Consciousness is the magnet attracting Chaos.

The biological cells are the sponge that absorbs and transforms Chaos into Life Essence.

Why not just integrate the two into one? Is that not what Synchronicity of Body and Consciousness is all about? For there to not be any distinction between each other?

Nodding my head at the conclusion, I wondered how to make it so.

I can't just smash them together and expect them to work like good buddies, who knew each other their whole life. Unless… a common ground is found on which to work, or better said, a glue that will bind them together.

The puzzle pieces came together. A whole picture manifested.

The biological body becomes the anchor for Reality. Consciousness becomes the anchor for Chaos, and the Soul becomes the glue between the two.

Now, I have no Soul, but I am willing to bet the Flame will act as a substitute.

Motivated like never before, I indulge everything I have in this idea.

Divination after Divination, I searched for the best possible combination.

Every Divination painted a part of the picture I needed.

Most of the Divinations got spent on the ratios of Consciousness/ biological cells/amount of the Golden Flame acting as glue.

To be honest, the closer the picture came to completion, the closer I realized the unreasonable demand for this method.

The solution is remarkable and straightforward in theory. However, achieving it was ridiculously hard, and the number of requirements was phenomenal. The only reason I could even come this far was that I had all this Potential Chaos enabling me to Divine the solution ahead of time.

That was when an errant thought hit me again.

If I had eyes, I would be blinking at the sheer stupidity of it all, and if I had a forehead, I would slap myself as well.

Stopping my current endeavor, I spread my awareness through the whole Realm and the Potential Chaos inside it. With a thought, I Divined this errant thought, only this Divination was not of a possible future but the past.

The moment I did, It was like seeing the world flow backward.

My current situation began to reverse itself. My Dream Realm returned to its previous state. Alexander was on his deathbed, and then he was not, as the two humanoid Golden Lions vanished and the reverse of everything that happened in Alexander's eyes replayed itself.

Year by year, I brushed into the past. Every decision flowed by me, and soon everything returned to that initial moment. I began to ponder on what to do with the little badger that had eaten my ghostly balls.

At that moment, everything stood still, as if I had to influence something.

Understanding what it was. I did what I had to and sent a tiny nudge to my old self’s thoughts.

The moment I did, the reversing picture continued.

Soon I found myself inside a metal Cage.

Inside that cage, I saw a tiny ball of something. Beside the cage, I saw a giant spider biting into a giant black rock-like fish. With another realization, I knew what I had to do, but on this one, I waited for a moment.

Curiosity came to me, so I spent a tiny bit of Potential Chaos, and the image of the giant spider became transparent and a little girl of maybe 11 manifested. The pure joy on her face displayed the eager and innocent individual she was and from which I had run away.

Mentally shrugging my nonexistent shoulders, I did what I had to do. I nudged the tiny ball in the cage and sent it on the proper path forward.

Again the picture started flowing backward, and from that point, everything became more and more bizarre.

First, I followed the fishing line into this black-purplish watery thing.

Creature after creature and monster after monster, the line with the ball of me attached to it traveled through that sea, probably. Until there came a point where the fishing line and the ball Me separated.

Another moment of intervention appeared. Once more, I spent some chaos to enable the Destined moment. After that, however, the ball traveled through this black-purplish sea without anything interfering or trying to snack on.

I was unsure how much time passed, but it had to stop eventually.

Observing it, I knew not what happened, when the ball disappeared.

There was nothing to do or for me to react to.

Unless this is the initial moment that determined everything? Let's try it.

Once more, I spent Potential Chaos with the intent of summoning myself from wherever I had come from, and voila, it happened.

The ball Me appeared. My awareness got snapped back to the current me attempting to make a body for myself.

Even though I had no physical body to experience disorientation, I felt it. Mentally imagining shaking myself, the disorientation left me. With clarity returning, I examined myself and everything around me as best as possible.

Oh… that explains the extra Potential Chaos. I fucking collapsed my own timestream.

Shaking my nonexistent head, I returned to my current endeavor when another errant thought came to me.

They say that every river has an origin and an end. Can it be the same for a timestream?

Being far more familiar with the process, I initiated another movie, only this one sent me into the future.

What followed was a future in which no humanoid Golden Lions came to kill Alexander, but it is also the future in which Alexander earned his Scourge of Li’On Title.

I observed his possible future where he strangles more and more Lion cubs, yet that was not what intrigued me the most.

After successfully killing so many Lion cubs, he switched to adolescent ones, and after them came the Lionesses and finally even the big male Lions. There simply was no stopping him as every kill had somehow empowered him more and more until there came a critical point.

Vengeance had seeped so hard into his psyche and body that it triggered a transformation of both body and mind.

Alexander increased in size and mental prowess, but what was left behind was a husk as a demonic-looking version of Alexander took the stage.

A Demonic Honey Badger specialized in killing and consuming.

What followed was a bloody massacre of everything that his eyes could find.

A massacre followed as Alexander began roaming, and he met settlements of some kind.

Those became the ropes that strangled him as with their massacre, he became enemy number one.

No matter how his Devouring Ability helped, at that point, it was but a matter of time for him to be killed.

The moment came, Alexander died, and I snapped to my current self.

Damn, that was a dark future for Alexander. Not that it matters, now that it's pruned.

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Or was it?