Humans have so many weaknesses I mused. The only reason they became the dominant species on earth was their endurance and reasoning capabilities. My species needs those and more. Not knowing about my fellow Formless makes me hesitant to focus on any one advantage. They are already heavily magic and I wonder if that means they will suffer for technology. Why invent the lightbulb when you can just conjure a ball of light. My hope is that giving them curiosity and drive will lead them to explore both. Sway too heavily into one and you may leave glaring weaknesses. I know I will end up leaning heavy on the magic side. It's magic, who doesn't want to turn invisible or shoot lighting out of their hand. I shimmy around the nothingness surrounding me. It doesn't feel like I'm flying, more that I have no weight and can just propel myself around using willpower alone. My strangeness makes itself known again. “I'm not freaking out,” I say to the blackness, I just need to try and come to terms with being just a soul. Though that isn't entirely accurate. Most of what I am is a soul. That side can't be seen though by most. My people wouldn't be able to sense or see me if it was just a soul shell. Not unless they had soul magic or abilities. What is visible is where reality senses my shell and warps everything in the area to spatial debri and light. I try to change my shape pushing at my boundaries, but no matter how hard I strain my mental muscles it just feels like a solid steel prison. I resign myself to being stuck in the Saturnesc ball for now. Back to the task at hand. I need to make bodies, though I doubt it will be any easier than creating a soul. Even with the strain and pressure from creating the soul template gone I ached like the day after a rugby match. I wasn't in danger, probably, just tired and wanted to rest. Not knowing if I was timed or if I would miss opportunities from waiting compelled me to push on. My first thought on a base design, and the one I really wanted to do was make dragons. If I'm going to be thrown into a magical fantasy world why not make dragons if given a choice. I didn't want to just rip them off and plaster down a classic European dragon. I could go dragonborn like from tabletops. Call me biased but I think an upright form is better than quadrupled or hunched. Multiple limbs too if it isn't too hard. First the frame. I feel for what power would help me, not surprising cellular control feels the strongest. Magic control also makes its presence known and I get the feeling I won't be able to keep them stable without it. I begin pulling up images to reference in my mind. Dragons, dinosaurs (specifically the raptors from that one movie series where they kept thinking having an amusement park of dinosaurs was a good idea), spiders and monkeys pop into my thoughts too. The tropical environment for most of the planet I would imagine would mean many trees, rivers, and places where fast movement and climbing would give me a great advantage. I try to blend the images together, the mental image blurs for a bit before producing a monstrosity of flesh. The face and mouth resembled a spider and crab, mandibles skittering and violently moving together. A long neck prevented the stubbed face from being immobilized. Seven bat-like wing hands wrapped around the bulbus body of scales. I quickly attempted to erase the image from my mind. The clacking of its mouth parts and eight spider eyes on stocks twisting around sent a shudder through me. I'm not one to be hung up on looks, but that was one ugly motherfucker. It also wasn't at all what I wanted them to look like. I didn't know what I wanted them to look like beyond a vague image of the raptor dragons swinging from trees, their multiple limbs allowing them to cast as they chased down their prey. A ping from cellular control tells me that with all I want they would need to consume great amounts of food. Not a big problem but I wanted to see if I could lessen it with something else. I need a clearer ideal of what I want from them and the aspects I want to pull from other creatures. Well for obvious reasons I wanted dragons to be a big part of the design. Their physical and magical power are unparalleled in most media. Unbreakable scales, great wings, claws and teeth stronger than most any weapon. In some stories they just breathe fire or an associated element, in others magic comes to them as easily as blinking. Capable of casting complex magic with a wave of their claws. I knew I couldn't even get my race to start with all that. I didn't need them to though. No wings, if this world was going to be how I thought it would be then open skies wouldn't be an issue. Keep the scales, it paired well with my thoughts of dinosaurs. Speaking of dinosaurs and specifically raptors, we speculate they were great runners and jumpers. I should keep their leg shape, knees bent forward and feet shaped to dig into the ground for traction, digitigrade legs I believe they are called. I knew cats and other felines had them too. It could lead to mobility problems in their elderly years, my pseudo medical knowledge informed me. With the right joints and ligaments that could be fixed and with magic to help the problems of aging on a natural body can be alleviated. As much as I like the idea of claws and my people ripping apart the enemy with their bare hands, weaving spells and other tasks that require dexterity would be difficult. The shape of a human hand provides all I need and having claws on them would again make certain tasks harder and unless they could retract I didn't think it would help much. Retractable claws were rarely as sharp or strong as their counterparts. Besides I'm not sure if a certain rodent would be happy if I plagiarized them. Though I could improve the design by giving them extra knuckles and a thumb on both sides. To my mind it would help with their casting. I guess it would be due to my love of buildings and the games I played, but I always loved the idea of hermetic magic. The fact that precise shapes and gestures when done in the correct way would call forth whatever magical desire you had made my mind happy. I wanted their multiple limbs to be able to create the actual shapes, their hands twisting into complex patterns as they moved their arms into mystical geometric shapes. Another ping from cellular control tells me this plan has a lot of problems. Not just metabolic, but also injuries could affect their ability to cast. If they lost an arm, could the others make up for it? With the extra movement from more joints and knuckles hyper extension and muscle injuries become greater concerns. Even with magic enhancing them it leaves a glaring weakness my enemies could exploit if they had the same thought process as me. I didn't want to give up on multiple limbs yet though. I could maybe go simple and have it be like a spider's limbs. I scrap the idea quickly. The image I had built began to blur again and I was afraid of seeing another monstrosity like the spider crab again. With me not going with an exosuit type body I got the feeling mixing 3 different species aspects of that extreme would bring me into monster territory. That area felt wrong. I decided to focus on another part for now. Give my mind time to chew on it. I wanted to keep the tail most of my inspirational creatures had. What kind of tail was the question. Should I keep it thick and sturdy? Using it for balance and to quickly stabilize after a sudden change in direction. If I put enough muscles in it and ridges along the back I could use it as a secondary weapon. The thought of an enemy closing in on them, thinking they had the upper hand against spell casters and then my people doing a quick spin. Their great tail whips the enemy across the battlefield. Or should I go nimble? Using it again for balance but this time to help hold them on a branch or hand hold. Keeping all their hands free for fighting. With practice and assuming I made it right they could even use it as a simple hand. Manipulating rope knots when their hands are bound or catching a knife that fell. I really liked the spinning and just bitch slapping someone into a tree with your tail, but the thought of the utility of a prehensile tail would give them really called to me. Before flip flopping too much and getting bogged down in the what ifs I fixed the prehensile tail to the image in my mind. Wanting to keep the arms delima for last I instead focused on the head and neck. Immediately I dismissed a long neck even if the face would remain long. A long swiveling neck made me uneasy and think I was dipping too far into monster territory. Even incomplete I'm sure humans from earth would already consider my species monstrous. There was a difference though, I could feel with my new senses tell me. Some invisible line that if I crossed it in how my people looked, acted, or functioned it would cross that line into a territory outside of humanity. Or whatever the word for it would be when you weren't capable of reason. Sentient? Sapient? Whatever that line was I couldn't cross it or I would lose my species and have to start from scratch. I got the feeling that it could include losing access to the soul I made too. Anyways back to thinking about fantasy race building. Keep the neck human like, but add in a little extra mobility. If their face stays how I currently think of it or close then expressions and emoting with solely their face will lead to confusion for other races. Also with the added movement and stability that comes with it I can justify adding horns. I giggled a little at that. I mean come on if you're going to have a dragon like race then you should have horns or antlers at the very least. No base design I decided for the horns. Let them be random. I did add a few parameters for health and sensibility. Didn't need them growing to puncture their skin, stop them from moving if it curved around their necks, or be detrimental in combat and daily life. With them not having the dragon/dinosaur's tail I didn't want spikes or ridges on the spine either. So their horns and some feather-like hairs for plumage would suffice for some flare. On to the actual shapes of the face I was stuck. My past self and race grimaced at the idea of having an elongated face. Yet when i tried to imagine a human-like face opening their mouth in a roar and gouts of flame or arcs of lightning coming out of soft pink lips I couldn't help but cringe a little. It looked silly, not badass. I realize trying to look badass makes you not badass, but you had to put a little effort into it or it got cringy. Fighting with myself I took a small distraction when I noticed slight pulsing in the corner of my vision. I focused on it and notifications appeared.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

[CONGRATULATIONS: DUE TO THE QUALITY AND CONTROL YOU SHOWED WHEN CREATING YOUR FIRST SOUL YOU HAVE BEEN AWARDED +1 TO CONTROL. CONTINUE TO PUSH YOUR LIMITS FOR MORE STAT INCREASES.

ALERT: DUE TO THE HIGH AMBIENT MAGIC ALL FAILURES DURING THE CREATION OF SOUL, BODY, AND PREDECESSORS WILL RESULT IN A MONSTER RACE BEING BORN FROM THE SCRAPS OF ALL FORMLESS

ALERT: A FORMLESS HAS COMPLETED THEIR FROM SMALL BEGINNINGS QUEST AND HAS TAKEN THE FIRST STEP IN CREATING A CIVILIZATION. WELCOME THE O’ULIN TO THE GRAND STAGE.]

Well damn I was really hoping to be the first one as I suspected that starting early would grant an unstated advantage. It wouldn't do good to dwell on that fact though. I couldn't be the first, fine, I'll be the best. With renewed fervor I went back to work. The notification gave me an idea and a clue. Yeah it sucked that every failure on any of our parts would lead to some sort of horrible monstrosity in the world to fuck up my plans, the wording is what gave me the idea. It said soul, body, and predecessor. What I'm creating right now is the end goal. What they will be when they hit the human equivalent of homosapien. I wondered briefly how far back they would have us go. Also with that thought how has the O'ulin already started. Wouldn't it take hundreds of thousands of years to get to that point in evolution. “Distractions and procrastination” I admonish myself. I just didn't want to make the choice I knew I would about their face shape. Call me humanist but no matter how cool it looks I couldn't get behind a long and wide snout. I was determined to come up with a more compact version. Besides looks, it also made your head which was already a weak spot for most creatures larger. I started to build the final image of the head. It will be mostly human shaped with the horns and feather-like hairs where a humans eyebrows and hair would be. Their eyes gleamed under the bridge of its sockets. The nose and mouth area elongated slightly, just 2 inches. I felt momentum building. My creation was taking shape. I felt a stirring from my 3 control powers as they began to synergies with the image. An idea for the extra limbs came to my mind. Knowing I need to be quick for this next part I take a nonexistent breath and coalesce the full image of my people. I take the soul I made for them and push it deep inside. For a moment I am memorized by the rapid acceptance of soul and body image. All at once and multiple times skeleton, nerves, muscles, scales, and soul strands flash. I focus, time was short and if I messed up it meant starting over again or continuing with a blueprint I didn't like. I would rather start over and be the last to finish this quest. Just like I gave death an escape valve in my life's soul and vice versa, I give the soul an escape valve for its body. It's what I was missing, the entire form was only showing the life side of its soul. I needed to represent its death side. With a firm image of the arms and hands I grabbed the death side of the soul and pulled. With pain growing in my spirit I carved pathways for the spiritual tendrils to follow. Coming out in the middle of my creations back I made the spiritual exit. Before any instability that a leaking soul could lead to I placed the image I held to the openings. It was simple in theory. My body was essentially a solidified soul. Shaped by means I wasn't sure but that wasn't important. What was important was that a soul can still exist and interact with the world. Since during this entire process the system reacted based on image and desire, I figured I would power all my will into the image of multiple arms and hands. I could feel the drain on my Will. Death wanted to return to its source. To be consumed for its power and join in a great eternal cycle or return to me as its creator. My image was solid and while I didn't have a comparison for how good my Will stat was I was hoping with it being my second highest it meant something. Moments ticked by and my gamble paid off. The image clicked into place, the ghost limbs moving and stretching in an ideal motion the creature had been doing since I started building it. The whole image shuddered and for a moment I was scared I had gone too monstrous and the image would fail. My fears began to be realized. The image began to blur. “No,” I screamed into the void. I couldn't explain it but I needed this to work. They wanted to exist. Even in their half finished state I felt the connection to them. The will to defy and never stop growing. With a start I knew what I could do. My blessing. Quickly I pulled it up from my notifications and selected the controlled mutation of the lifeform. Using the last of my Will I activated the blessing and focused on stabilizing the image. It stabilized with a great heaviness and a split. Another image appeared next to my design. They looked almost the same. The new image was faded and almost translucent. Its legs and tail were gone, a dense smoke flowed from the bottom of the torso. Several arms floated behind it in a macabre halo. While still similar to what i made for their living side, the draconian inspiration made itself more known on the death side by turning the face into a full on dragon head. Sighing I knew it was the best I could hope for. I wanted them to stick around for a bit after death anyways. I wish I had more control over the design but it was stable and solid. I could feel the mental probe of the system prodding me to accept the image or restart. I looked at my lifeform as a whole. They were tall, their stretched out digitigrade legs giving them extra height. Their feet greatly resemble raptors. The tail shifted from around 3 to 4 feet, sometimes it also wrapped around their waist. The torso looked the most human even with the scales covering most of the body. Its real arms were long and even though I didn't remember adding more ligaments to them they seemed more dexterous than they should be. Their hands flexed in odd shapes because of the extra knuckles and thumb. I could just imagine the magic taking shape between the fingers. The death side kept them the same, the detached ones floating around and moving in complex shapes. On the living side the ghost limbs weren't detached. They were invisible until mana started being pushed through them at which point they would appear, intangible and disappearing into the middle of their back. The face looked intimidating, the various horn and plumage shapes taking form. Their scales ranged vastly in color, but were dull and matte. The horns followed the matte color, less diverse in color, they were generally black or grayish. The feather-like plumage and eyes took the opposite route. Bright and vibrant with a rainbow of colors, their plumage mesmerized me as it rustled. Thankfully it seemed like they could lay it flat on their head to avoid the plumage from sticking out when sneaking. Lastly, their eyes glowed slightly with an arcane glow. Marking them as steeped in magic. You could easily tell the gender as while I hadn't consciously picked it, it seemed my unconscious mind made them mammalian in reproduction and features. I shook my form and wondered if certain books or animated videos had any influence over that. I spent days making small tweaks and changes, most of them internal or genetic. Changing them into my perfect creation. After a few months I paused and looked at my creation, my perfect building. After having both forms move around some I gave a mental nod and accepted the form.