Bringing life to my new creation could potentially be done in a number of ways. Firstly evolution could be left alone to do its work with no interference. That was something that would happen regardless of whether I meddled or not, but that wasn't all that interesting. I could make my own life but once again that'd mean them having no soul.

This is why I decided that I would go out and find some trees and germs. They would be the minor boost that evolution would need to create life. It could a look into how beings could adapt to life with mystical energies. Besides, it could prove useful for learning how to utilize energies.

The original plan had been to find a secluded area somewhere in the wilderness and absorb the soil and insects of that area. That plan was quickly shot down out of caution. I didn't need someone to accidentally see and record me. This is why I'd ordered some before my travels to Switzerland. Obviously, I didn't order any egregious amount but I still got about a truckload of premium soil.

The drivers had come in their truck and dumped the soil at the back of the chalet. They'd been a bit confused as to why I needed so much soil so high up on a mountain but they didn't pry.

After the arrival of the soil, I went over to town to get some seeds. It hadn't been easy to find ones that were not processed for eating but eventually, it happened.

I wasn't too worried about finding insects or trees and I couldn't be bothered to look for specific ones. They were abundant and no one would miss them. Though caution was still necessary.

Transferring things over had been easy, all I had to do was focus on the object and will it into the fulcrum. The problem arose from the fact that I had to "finalize" my universe before outside objects could be brought in.

It wasn't something that I'd been pleased to hear but it was something that was expected. I could've created all these things myself but the outcome would've still been the same. I'd figured that beings with a soul weren't considered my creation regardless of whether or not they evolved in my universe. The buying of these things had been done more out of want than a need.

Regardless of what actions I took, for souls to be evolved the universe had to be finalized.

So with a reluctant sigh, I finalized it. The difference was immediately obvious. The constant shifting feeling I had once felt was gone. In its place was a feeling of wholeness and newfound awareness of time within the universe. With that awareness came the understanding that I could alter the flow of time.

After transferring over everything to the planet and going out to collect some insects and trees from the surrounding forest I upped the flow to a million years per day. Then I sat down on a chair I created before summoning the book, opening it up and watching as it wrote itself.

Its pages were starting to fill with the activity of everything from the actions of even the littlest insects to the rotation of mighty stars. The book would record everything that existed in the universe, which is why I had to filter it out. I opted for a more general overview of the planet and its progress. At which point I found out that the book was a terribly uninteresting writer. It wrote things as if it was some kind of scientific journal.

So I then opted to watch.

I saw the bacteria spread out throughout a planet empty of them. The trees continued the slow evolution while qi and ether were peddled into the universe like drugs on the streets. Initially, the plants, trees, and insects of the earth had little reaction. Their current state hadn't been evolved to use these energies.

So for the first half a million years consisted of the trees encroaching and covering nearly every inch of the planet. At that time the bacteria had already covered the entirety of the planet. That's when I realized that the bacteria were too small for ki to have any major effects but their small size allowed for it to be affected the quickest. It wasn't an existence of superpowers and crazy abilities but of increased efficiency and duper diseases.

Much of the wildlife that had evolved still had origins of the earth and so they were nearly wiped out. It was only due to the beginnings of ki integration that it wasn't a total wipeout.

In that time no extreme or advanced forms of life evolved. Though somewhere along the line some reptiles, crustaceans, and weird insect birds had evolved. One of the plants brought in whose name I wasn't sure of had evolved to survive in water. They and quickly became this world's equivalent of seaweed.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The insects uncontested by the larger animals and gifted with new space had expanded rapidly expanded outwards. They were the first multicellular organism to start interacting with qi.

They weren't actively using it but their evolution had lead to passive absorption of it. This brought a near-instantaneous rearrangement of the insect hierarchy. All species that hadn't started to absorb qi were no longer major players, their empires were crumpled and new models of life had to be created.

Now, insects don't have souls and because of that, their ability to interact with ether and the spiritual aspect of qi is limited. This still left them the physical aspect of qi the physical. This lead to an explosion in size for many species followed by an increase in durability and general improvements to the insects.

That meant tougher exoskeletons, which meant tougher mandibles capable of ripping through trees.

That meant immensely potent acids and smells that were debilitating.

This meant insects moving at speeds that shouldn't be reasonably feasible. All this from just inefficient absorption of qi.

The following 100,000 years were when the plants caught up. The longevity of trees had a greater effect than expected. The ring-like growth of the trees would act as entrapment for qi and as the trees age, they would have more space to trap qi. This lead to healthier trees capable of growing even more and eventually that lead to absolutely massive trees that towered over skyscrapers. Their evolution wasn't limited to just size though. Their durability and vitality increased by leaps and bounds and eventually even the most efficient insects couldn't just wantonly shred through these trees. They also played a massive role in the ecosystem since they housed thousands and sometimes millions of tiny lifeforms.

Some of the trees had even started to transfer the qi from themselves to the fruits that grew on them. The fruits were usually vibrant in color and seemingly delicious to all life.

Which is when the trope of the beast guarding the treasure popped up. Individual animals and sometimes species would guard those trees with fruits and attack all that approached. Fascinatingly this became how territories were formed by most if not all of life.

While this had been taken place a battle was being fought by qi and ether. Qi due to the abundant amount of use was slowly pushing the ether away from the planet. The possible developments of this in the future would be interesting but for now, all it meant was that ether was scarce on this planet.

Finally, the mammals, crustaceans, reptiles, and newly evolved fish began to adapt to the qi in the atmosphere. While they all got the standard boost of durability and strength they managed to get some interesting abilities. Some of them had gained a 6th sense in the form of mana sense, which led to migrations to mana-rich areas.

A whole new source of conflict in the animal world was the ownership of these dense mana areas. Conflicts that ended up being rather brutal and directly led to the extinction of some species.

As more years passed by and evolution continued on its endless march of progress. The beasts started to become more fantastical. The shapes of their bodies were different, the noises they made were different, and the hierarchy of life seen on earth was nonexistent.

The process of evolution here was fundamentally different than back home. As this process continued to go further and further, one race took advantage of the abundance of qi consciously. While the trees were masters of absorbing and keeping qi, due to their lack of a mind they couldn't take advantage of that abundance of it.

However, one rather unlikely candidate managed to discover the fine art of cultivation. They were lizards about the size of small dogs. Their skin was usually green to brown to blend in better with their environment.

One of these lizards that I now called wood lizards had somehow managed to use qi to purposefully refine its body. This brought into play the Titles. See over this time of evolution there had been quite a few beings with titles but they hadn't been smart enough or powerful enough for it to make much of a difference.

This lizard on the other was also not smart enough to use a title to its advantage.

However, its title of [Progneiter of Body Refinment] made any action regarding cultivation that much easier. That was how it managed to stumble the path of body refinement. The lizards while not humanely smart were still the most intelligent beings on the planet at the time. This little lizard knew it was different so it behaved the part.

It conquered more territory and despite being solitary creatures it subjugated some of its own species to act as guards. In twenty years after it had started to cultivate it had amassed a strange reptilian empire.Somewhere along this journey though it had entered a war with a different species of lizard. Those lizards never made it.

So it was granted the additional title of [Species Exterminator]. This was a title that had popped up once or twice before, its current arrival signaled the dominance of the lizards in that region.

Later on, during its life, the lizard became a father and in one of the most peculiar scenes ever it somehow taught its children the art of body refinement. This was by no means a process that went smoothly or quickly but sometime around its 5th batch of children it managed to teach two of them how to refine their bodies.

This process over the next thousand years led to the emergence of primitive society with the wood lizards.

The second race to actively use qi inhabited the oceans. They were crab-like crustaceans that had two long retractable antennae-like protrusions that they used to see. Those protrusions apparently housed most of its senses including sight, touch, mana sense, and echolocation. It was due to those protrusions that they managed to get their abilities.

While the lizards had evolved refinement via absorption this little crab had acquired biological immortality. These things like lobsters simply kept growing the longer they lived until they either died from the pain of molting or were killed. This was changed when one of the crabs, during a painful molting process had seen the process via its antennas and had used them to manipulate mana. This was possible since its mana sense relied on the filtration of mana in the water via antennas which give it a bit of a boost when it came to manipulation.

It's use of qi was a bit shocking, the actual process revovled around scorching itself in superheated qi. This would stop it from expanding but also lead to it refining its body. It hadn't earned a title for some reason but that didn't stop its potential at all.

This thing couldn't die from old age, all it would do was continuously molt and refine its body. If it lived long enough...

Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be able to teach it's bretheren so for now it would remain the only being capable of biological immortality.

Soon after many many races also started to utilize qi but in less impressive manners. They couldn't cultivate like the two others but they could use qi actively.

Finally, 100,000 years later the first soul was created. It wasn't instantaneous as it didn't just pop into existence, 'there is no soul, now there is one' didn't happen. Rather it had been a gradual process that I for some reason couldn't fully observe. For that reason, I didn't understand how it came to existence but I knew that evolution was vital along with the rise of self-awareness.

By now the world was teeming with life of all sorts. Now it was time.

Time to drop the humans in.