Dei dove through his memories, chasing the after image of his spiderlike System. Using Knowledge, he tried his best to predict where it would go and cut off his path, but he'd made it too well. It could think faster than him for the purposes of self preservation, and it could scan his soul to discover different paths.

It dove into a memory of him walking to the bus stop in middle school so he cut it off by placing himself on the bus, but it jumped through the window of his friends house and entered a time when he was playing video games at a sleepover. He sought to catch it during the moment of daybreak, but it focused its attention on the console, jumping through the screen and into another time he was playing- now at his own house.

It was an enlightening experience, as he realized it didn't have Knowledge, nor did it have Soulspeak. His soul was unfamiliar to it, so it had to traverse in the same way every other entity did- by connecting memories and crossing the bridges between.

The fragment of his mind it'd taken was utterly repurposed, just as he'd commanded it to be. It had no memories of being Dei, no idea of who he was.

He'd built it… too well.

After observing its behavior, he was now hopeful of success. Rather than Undo, he brought up a Pause command. No longer did he want to destroy it, but perhaps confirm it first, then figure out why it hadn't integrated with him at all.

He'd made it to display information, yet he felt nothing in his mind. He expected the sub-section of his mind dedicated to its task to feed the information to him directly, but that was no longer an option.

He didn't have a good way to corner the thing on his own because it was faster than him despite his mind having more computing power, so he cheated. Calling on Good Samaritan, it…

Didn't respond.

He sighed, as this was the first time he'd tried to use it for a purely selfish endeavor. True, it would destroy any marks left on him if it was for the purpose of helping others, but this was his experiment, and helping him would not save others.

He could still outnumber it though. Calling upon Cycle of Sealing, he got Wild Chains to assist in harrying it, and was finally able to chase it in a direction of his choice.

Dei appeared in his past selves, while Wild Chains kept to its tail; working together, they guided it upwards, into the present and his second life.

He was initially unsure about whether it could cross the Void Blessing within him, the space between his two lives, but it latched onto connection like a lifeline and darted across in a blink.

The entire time it moved, he could feel his own Identify crawling across his soul, used in a way he hadn't expected- it didn't actually need permission. Either it was the fact that it was already in his soul, past his natural defenses, or because it had implied permission with how he created it. Either way, it was not a pleasant sensation.

His real body hopped in place like something had bitten his foot, feeling the System crawl through his organs, while his manifestation watched it refine itself.

The magical construct slowly changed in minor ways, and Dei noted that it was gathering information on his spells in particular, sifting through his knowledge of them. Initially, he wasn't sure what its end goal was, but he eventually recognized how it… smoothed itself. No longer was the entropy tearing at its body as viciously and forcing it to fix its own existence, instead working with it. He saw it direct the energy in certain ways so that it was assisting its movements, the construct becoming faster as it was propelled by its power source.

Until, at last, it breached the surface of his soul and entered the present moment. Immediately, his vision finally filled with its words.

[Patching]

[Preserving]

[Patching]

[Preserving]

Those two words repeated endlessly, interpretations of his two commands. Patching itself was its interpretation of refining its existence, while Preserving was how he'd commanded it to ensure the System was sustainable.

Its limbs spread out over his soul, grabbing at his Presence, but that was precisely its worst move. With a mental flex, the Pause command filled its surroundings, and it… resisted.

Dei recoiled as he felt the System was ensouled.

That was why he couldn't control it anymore, and why he couldn't feel his mind skill within it; that's why it disconnected from him. This wasn't some random construct- in a sense, it could be considered his child.

The strategy in his mind restructured as this was no longer something to study, a monster he'd unwittingly created, one that was surrounded by enemies and attacked at every angle.

He was no Victor Frankenstein, he didn't hate it. Instead, he infused its surroundings with those he'd gleaned from his parents- of Paternal and Maternal love- and of his Kindness. He surrounded it with feelings of warmth and safety, hoping to show he meant no harm, and quickly formed a message out of Meaningful.

"Be still, child, I beg of you. I am your creator. I wish to help you, not hurt you."

Dei realized that, at this point, there wasn't much point to his System. They'd reached Edit, they were almost there. In what, a few days? They would be back in quarantine, but he still blazed forward.

It was strange to think about, but Dei believed his instincts would guide him. Nothing the System said about being a Slaughterer pointed towards a special precognition, but he'd be a fool to assume his honed instincts weren't real just because they didn't appear as words on a screen. He'd been told multiple times, after all, that Achievements oftentimes had hidden effects. When Dei first imagined creating a System, his mind locked onto it like a divine epiphany showed him the way, and he hadn't wavered since. Now, he had it in his clutches, he just needed for it to calm down and work with him.

Thankfully, it was in the one place he didn't have a problem shifting around at will. In his memories that would be ill-advised, but Presence was made to do just that.

Condensing it down as thoroughly as he could, he kept his System in the space about his soul, refusing to let it fall and potentially dive once more. While his Presence wasn't thick enough to chain it, he could keep it on a cloud of sorts.

His words had no effect though, and it continued to thrash. He simply sighed, now regretting that he'd removed all semblance of a personality from it, dedicating it entirely to the task. If he'd known, he would've given it some of his instincts to work off of, perhaps even language?

How was he supposed to know it would split off and gain a soul?! He didn't even know how something was even given a soul! What was the criteria? If it was reincarnation, this person had the shittiest restart ever. What'd they do to have such a heavy karmic debt?

He simply sighed. It would improve, and quickly if its current rate of advancement was any indication, so he wasn't too devastated by its current state. No, this might actually be the secret to how Systems could do so well in the first place.

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After all, since it had a soul, it could gain spells too, streamlining its processes. He always had wondered why the System had a mind. Perhaps something had to have free will to gain a soul, and a soul to have spells.

He definitely believed it had free will. He hadn't left it with many commands other than "Grow" and "Live" which, admittedly, was probably something 99.9% of all life in the universe started with too.

Now he had to decide what to do.

'I'm not made for this,' he thought warily, 'I don't have a way to parent or guide it.'

As he thought that, he realized he did have one way he could help it: by giving it all the tools to succeed.

It was his responsibility now, he'd be a cruel master if he either killed it or tried to make it do what he wanted. Slowly but surely, he let the System down to the main portion of his soul. He hesitated to take the final step, but knew there was no other choice if he wanted it to eventually become smart enough to talk with him.

He let it go, giving it free reign to use his memories and magic as its workshop.

Despite resolving to let it do its own thing though, he wasn't dumb. He gave Wild Chains a standing order to keep watch and stop it from breaking anything, while also dedicating another portion of his mind to observe it and notify him of any strange effects it might have.

Standing up, he set out to find his friends, but avoided teleporting. MP in the area meant it would be practically free compared to what it'd been before, but Void was still a taxing affinity to use because of its complexity, and he didn't know if they were in the middle of a shop, crowd, or city with magic defenses.

When he found them again, they were in the same clearing, where they'd split up previously. Jacob and Thadria were talking happily about their little trip, but Perumah looked mildly annoyed at a nearby blue flower that was suddenly growing from the dead grass. Searching through his memories, he knew it hadn't been there before.

When they saw him descending, their three heads turned to him, and for the second time since they'd met, he saw horror overtake Perumah's face.

"What the fuck did the chaos do to you?!" she screamed, and he couldn't remember a time she'd ever said the word "Fuck," so he took her declaration with deadly seriousness.

"What?" he asked quickly, "Did it leave its mark on me? I thought I'd escaped the effects…"

"W-W…" her jaw slacked, like she couldn't believe what he said. "How do you not know?!"

"What Perumah, spit it out!" he snapped.

"You're pregnant!"

* * *

When he stopped roaring with laughter, he finally got around to explaining that, no, he was not pregnant, and that he'd finally succeeded in creating his own System. Perumah could not sense life, only bundles of emotions, and she said there was a miniature soul which had a passing resemblance to his own mental signature, though far more simplistic.

His ectoplasmic body meant the System was visible in the Physical Realm as well, because it was partially tied to his flesh, giving it the illusion of having a body of its own.

After a few minutes of observing it, she realized it was actually moving around him though, more like a symbiotic lifeform than a child.

While Thadria had the tact to muffle her own amusement, Jacob laughed right alongside Dei. Despite Perumah's utterly unmoving face, Bestial Communication didn't lie.

She was horribly embarrassed, which was a new reaction for Dei. If she could, she would've been red as a tomato by now.

He decided to throw her a bone though, asking about what she'd said before and changing the subject. "You said it has a passing resemblance to me? In what way?"

She latched onto it immediately, relief spreading through her. "It's like it is composed of the same material as your mind, like its genetic coding goes by your template. I see now that it has no genetic coding though, so perhaps it is simply your own impressions on it."

"It would make sense, especially because I've given up a chunk of my mind to boost the baseline of its own. I thought I'd restructured it completely, but it's… certainly something knowing my touch wasn't utterly removed. Will this force it to become a copy of me or anything?" he asked nervously. He didn't want that for the little guy, he wanted it to do its own thing.

Luckily, she said "No, nothing like that. It's just that I'm detecting the origins of its mind, like it was originally able to transform and integrate back into a piece of your own, but the System has cut that part of itself off, removing that as an option. I suspect that if you were to kill and extract its mind, it would still be doable, but it's simply a vestigial organ on it for now. Although… looking closer… the longer you wait, the harder it'll be. It's quickly learning and changing itself."

He shook his head, "I'm not interested in killing it. I created it, so it's my responsibility, and even if it can't feel emotions right now, I fully believe it will soon. I'll treat it like it is my kid."

"You are pregnant!" she declared.

"No I am not!" he said quickly again, "Just because something is in my soul doesn't make it my kid! Otherwise I'd be the father to every elf, and Wild Chains!"

"But Dei," Jacob jumped in, "You made this thing, it's a young mind, you're using your own body to nourish it… you might be pregn-" he couldn't even get the last word out before breaking into a fit of laughing once more, and Dei could only roll his eyes.

'I should've chosen my words more carefully.'

* * *

Perumah told Dei that she'd- somehow- managed to buy everything from one of the top magical item smiths in the world for everything he had on hand, and they now needed to go pick it up. They were on their way when he felt the portion of his self focusing on the System ping him that it was doing something strange, so he looked inward as he flew, seeing it observing his Knowledge spell.

He'd used some of the spell's structure in the System itself, but apparently it was unhappy with his efforts, and Dei felt slightly embarrassed when he realized the issue was likely that it didn't have a proper way to search through the information Knowledge contained.

He'd put the library of Knowledge in the System, but the spell structure was far too large for him to put entirely, and it was complete, so he'd have to break it either way to attach something else. His solution was to simply remove everything but the bare-bones, and hope the System was able to organize it all with a new way.

Well, he supposed he was getting what he wanted: it was figuring out how to access Knowledge… by giving itself the entire spell.

He shook off his uncertainty, as he'd done the best he could with what he had. It hadn't contained a soul before, so this wasn't previously an option.

His musings came to an abrupt stop though when, instead of copying it like he'd expected, the System reached its grubby little tendrils out and grabbed it, trying to break Knowledge off his soul and take it into itself.

'Ow, fuck!' he yelled in his head, keeping his face as neutral as he could and commanding Wild Chains to stay back. He didn't want to punish it for trying to learn, he simply had to teach it a better way to go about its task.

It failed to get what it wanted of course, as his soul was far too sturdy for such a new soul to break anything, but it still hurt.

Instead of lashing out, he carefully descended in a manifested form, and the System fled a distance. When it saw he wasn't giving chase it stopped and observed him, likely collecting information on a supposed enemy.

He brought out Copy and recreated Knowledge, giving it to it.

The System grabbed at the free spell instantly, attempting to attach it to itself and… predictably failing.

If it were so easy to earn a spell, that's what anyone would do. The System had no claim to Knowledge in its true form, only the fragment it was created with because that was its own. He likened it to the System seeing its own arm, realizing someone else had a better arm and trying to take theirs- no chance in hell would that work.

Instead, he showed it how to sift through the patterns of Knowledge, same as how he'd done with the Earth Primordial to earn such a spell.

It watched him work from a distance, and he pointed out the various similarities to soul shapes and patterns. Again, with the metaphor of its body, he was teaching it how to exercise by telling it how it could earn its own spells.

The System dove deep into itself, following his example by sifting through the Knowledge of its structure, pondering its own existence.

He watched, fascinated, as he felt something reach through him, something he would've missed if it hadn't been within his own body and he was attuned to the same element. Soul, the affinity, touched upon his System to assist its introspection.

The System still hadn't gained Knowledge yet, but it was improving at a terrifyingly fast rate, and he suspected its growth would be exponential. As it learned, it would find more efficient ways to research and study, only fuelling its ascent.

He just hoped it wouldn't bite him again.

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