Days went by. Specimen-X, or just X as he now referred to himself, was sleeping a restless sleep under one of the rocks. Even for the Eldrich Abomination the local forest was a hostile place: X was thrice eaten, five times attacked, and once entirely ripped to pieces. It turns out his blood and flesh are poisonous - that was how he got his first kills and first EXP. And also, X reaching 0 HP didn't mean that he would die; with time his flesh would knit itself back and his HP recover. Was this immortality of an Eldrich? – nah, not really, he reckoned that something as simple as fire could kill him, or a vat of acid.

Anyway, X was tucked safely under the rock and having a somewhat unpleasant dream.

He was floating in the vast and dark space, the Kosmos. In the great and cold emptiness, there was nothing to touch or feel yet still he wriggled and waved his tentacles as if trying to swim. The space wasn’t entirely empty. Not too far away, a vast, nebulous cloud loomed. That was the place he was trying to swim to.

Perhaps his space swimming was successful, or perhaps it was the cloud which caught up to him; it was hard to tell without a fixed point of reference. The nearby cloud was black, but had that reflective quality, like an obsidian crystal in the sun. Occasionally, a bolt of purple lighting would snake and coil in its core.

But most surprisingly of all, “Hello, Champion,” the cloud spoke directly in X’s mind.

“Hello…” X tried to reply.

“I see you’ve survived, good. And sorry about that body of yours.”

He felt an overwhelming aura, it looked and judged him with tangible pressure, at this point, X figured out who this cloud was. “Are you the Deity which reincarnated me?” He asked just to be sure.

“That is correct, I am Order in Chaos, not to be confused with my twin Chaos in Order, nor with the Primordial Chaos itself – that one is truly dead, we all saw to it.” The lighting flashed inside the cloud. “Ah, I see I’m confusing you, by all means, you can refer to me just as Chaos. After all, I’m still part of it, and by the feel of it the only Chaos deity alive…”

Yup, this cloud sure liked to talk and to confuse people. So is it Chaos or not?

“You see, I was dead too.” The cloud continued. “And then I was not! It took me by surprise you know. I had to muster whatever Divine Energy was given to me by the ritual and then summon you. I gave my all, I swear, but your form… was my best. I’m sorry.” The cloud swirled and twisted, distorting its form. “A once-forgotten deity isn’t exactly powerful you know? So I hope you can forgive me for that flawed body of yours.”

Forgive? There was nothing to forgive. “I was dead too!” X replied. “I died on the battlefield, full of regrets and then lo and behold, I’m alive again. Thank you, Chaos! Even if I’m a mutated octopus now or whatever, I’m just glad to be alive.”

The cloud expanded and flashed a quick light. “Oh? I thought you would be more resentful. Anyway, I guess it worked out in the end, for both of us. However, I must tell you something else.” The cloud shrunk to a quarter of its original size.

“What is it, Chaos? What is it?” X spoke sensing trouble.

“There was a reason I was made forgotten. You see, I was never liked by other Deities, both Deities good and Deitis evil. Surely once they sniff me out, they will try to see me dead again.” It flashed a bolt of angry lightning. “You are my Champion and they’ll send theirs to kill you. Once again, sorry all about this.”

X was no stranger to the ugliness of war. “It’s okay,” he reassured the Deity.

A series of emotional purple lighting bolts flashed in the cloud. “I feel blessed. I truly do. You’re such an understanding champion. Anyway, due to low energy, I couldn't contact you, so the message is a bit late.” The lighting ceased in the cloud completely in turn creating the feeling of suspense. “To survive here you’ll need allies; allies we don’t have. I hate to tell you this, but you’ll have to work with the Demon Lord, or at least his underlings. It’s a big ask, I know, but find it in yourself to forgive them for discarding you.”

Yeah, X didn’t get the best of welcomes in that ceremonial room. “That won’t be a problem. I mean, even I wouldn’t want me, especially in this form.”

The cloud sparked to life. “I knew that you’re not exactly happy about your body. Once again I’m…”

X didn’t want to be that person, a person complaining to a Deity who granted him a second life, “No, no. I said it’s fine. I’ll make do,” he interrupted before Chaos could apologise again.

“Right then, once you get stronger, and believe me you will, try to work with them. And I’ll try to contact a few neutral deities and see if I can make a ceasefire. I’ll have to beg for it, you know?”

“Okay, okay, I get it. I’ll work with this Demon Lord.” He wriggled his tentacles.

“Good, that will gain us some allies. She’s liked by a bunch of evil Deities, that I can tell already.”

The conversation fizzed to a momentary pause.

“Is there anything else, Chaos?” X asked.

At his question, the cloud flashed in activity. “There is. I can’t let you go underequiped. I would have given you this at the beginning but… well you know, I was barely awake and aware at that point. Anyway, take this.”

[Congratulations! You’ve learned EvolveMonster]

“EvolveMonster?” X asked unsure about it.

“That’s what Chaos magic does, it’s good for making monsters; all cute and lovely creatures. However, It’s rather costly, but with some trial and error you’ll get something useful, I think.” The cloud didn’t sound too convinced itself. “Probably… It’s very random and unpredictable.”A single vigorous lighting flashed across its surface. “Now-now, don’t look at me like that. There is a trick to it, you see all Champions have DivineSpark in them. It’s the condensed energy of the Deities, something that was used to summon you into this world. Normally, it lays dormant in the champion's body and is released to be claimed upon death, but I’m a bit of a cheater, and you’re a special case anyway. Feel free to use it to boost a suitable monster, it will empower your EvolveMonster and create your first blueprint thus granting you your first set of Minions.”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“Minions?” He asked not too sure about the term.

“A slave, a servant, a familiar, a follower, a companion if you will; there are plenty of words to describe them, different Deities use different terms. Call them whatever, but they’ll be bound to you; If you die so will they. Unless…” The cloud paused but never finished that trail of thought and instead jumped to the other. “Ah! And of course, if you manage to kill an enemy Champion you’ll gain a new DivineSpark to play with. Those will make you strong, they will! You want to get stronger don’t you?”

He did! X was getting very tired of being tossed by the forest monsters, but… “But how am I even supposed to kill a Champion? Just today I was bested by some mutated frog!”

The purple light flashed all across the cloud. “Were you listening? Go and create your first Minion, they’ll give you a hand.” The cloud flashed purple again. “And I’ll use the last of my remaining power to contact my old acquaintances, the ones who wanted me dead the least. Oh, just so you’re aware, I’ll go silent for a while after that. There’s no juice left in this old divine body, you know? Send me a prayer or something when you can.”

“Oka… y.”

X didn’t get to finish, the connection was cut abruptly.

…

For a moment X wondered if he dreamt up the entire thing, but the EvolveMonster skill was there for him to dispel such thoughts.

“So, I met my summoner. The real one…” He recalled the dream. “Seemed like a nice and chatty fellow.” But even then, Chaos could have explained more of how the things worked here. “Magic, huh.” X still struggled to believe it, such things didn’t exist in his old world. “Let’s put it to a test.” He wriggled his tentacle in excitement.

X crawled from under the rock to look for a lucky critter to test his new skill. And he did find plenty of willing and sometimes unwilling test subjects. The results were… chaotic. But most importantly there were a few tidbits the Chaos left out.

Every time X used the skill, he was assaulted with system warnings.

“It tells me I’m sinning against the deities. But aside from that, it doesn’t seem to do anything else.”

X wasn't worried, not at all, because the deities were allegedly already posed against him and the Chaos. He continued to use the skill to further understand how it worked.

The skill boosted but mostly twisted the local wildlife into something… something more monstrous. Rather often the monster would turn on him and try to kill him, no, not just often, most of the time. Soon, he realised that animals and monsters with a temper were a no-go – they all just went berserk; well perhaps he just lacked the fine control for the skill, which would only come with experience.

Anyway, through experimentation, which stretched to weeks now, he found that prey animals were the most suitable: rabbits, frogs, squirrels, hedgehogs and other cowards brought the best results. It was rather depressing, but at least this selection didn’t try to kill him, so he experimented further.

Used on animals EvolveMonster skill turned them into monsters, granting the changed creatures a Monster tag. And if used on monsters, it just made them even more twisted and nastier. Currently, he had a bunch of monster rabbits, monster frogs and monster squirrels running around. With the boosted stats they were less of a prey now, but still, they were rather useless at the moment.

It turned out that he could repeatedly use the EvolveMonster on a single individual to refine their features. He was getting them somewhere he wanted them to be: almost bipedal and with opposable thumbs. However, neither of them followed any of his commands. The intelligence was just not there, and his ability as a tamer was clearly lacking.

“Perhaps it’s time to use the DivineSpark and create my first Minion?” From what the Deity told him, X gathered that then the monster would be more intelligent and more willing to follow his commands.

It was a hard pick, but eventually, he settled on a rabbit.

“Rabbits are lucky, no?”

Yes, they were! That and considering their boosted stats, X struggled to catch his lucky volunteer, but catch he did.

“Aha! Got you!” He wrapped his tentacle tightly around the rabbit.

The rabbit screamed and kicked fiercely at him, struggling against his grip.

“This is your lucky day, rabbit.” He wriggled the spare tentacles in excitement. “[EvolveMonster: DivineSpark]!” He commanded.

[Warning! You’re committing the act against the Deities], it warned but X pushed past the message.

The rabbit shone in brilliant purple light, blinding X’s many eyes. All he could see were the messages:

[Warning! You’ve gained Taboo +1]

[Congratulations! You’ve learned EvolveMonster: DemiRabbit], it was a subskill for his skill, a monster blueprint Chaos mentioned.

The light dimmed revealing now more humanoid form of the rabbit. Actually, it was very human, no doubt all thanks to the DivineSpark.

Yet still. “Success!” X celebrated hosting the small DemiRabbit and pumping his tentacles into the air.

As if to spite his jovial mood the sky opened to an unexpected heavy shower to quickly drench him and the feshly evolved monster. The rabbit was fast asleep, so he had to drag her somewhere to dry, but more importantly somewhere safe and out of sight of predatory monsters; he knew just a place. Well, a nest in a cranny by a river wasn’t exactly safe but it was better than sleeping in the open. While at it, he was worried that one or the other monster would come and snatch this delicious snack from him. However, it never happened; X attributed it to the Lucky perk the rabbit had.

“Indeed, rabbits are lucky.” He smiled with all of his mouths.

X stayed to guard the rabbit until she woke. There was no sign of rain clouds going away, perhaps it was for the better; if anything the rain masked their smell from more predatory monsters. Later, the rabbit stirred and opened her eyes. She sat up and blinked blearily a few times, then she turned to look directly at one of X’s eyes. Worried that the previous EvolveMonster failures might repeat he did a quick Inspect on the rabbit. Good! She was neither afflicted with Terror nor tagged as Enraged. But more surprisingly…

“Hello.” The rabbit spoke.

“YoU CaN SpEAk?” He was genuinely surprised.

“I’m sorry. I can’t understand you.” She blinked. “But who are you and who am I?” She asked tilting her head sideways.

A rather philosophical question, and how was he supposed to tell her if he still struggled to control these eldrich mouths of his?

He pointed at himself with a tentacle. “X” Then he pointed at the rabbit. “RaBBiT.” The mouths spoke but never in unison.

The rabbits’ ears turned and twitched at the distorted sounds.

“Master,” she pointed at him. “Minion.” She pointed at herself.

How? How could she get this so wrong?! He flailed his tentacles in exasperation.