/Author's Note

ElPsyKongroo28 here, This is chapter 2. This explains the history and workings of the universe that Scott will be assimilated into. Sorry, no plot yet. I promise, it's coming. I hope you enjoy the chapter.

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To the inhabitants of this universe, everything in existence was created by the god that they respectively worshipped.

One group believed that the universe was created by the earth, sun, and moon gods.

Another believed there were as many gods as there were natural occurrences.

One thought the universe was planned and built by one god.

However, some believed that there were no gods and the universe created itself through natural processes.

The residents of this world were all incorrect.

However each of the groups had a piece of the puzzle.

Each had gained a fragment of the truth without being able to understand the true significance.

The closest of all the groups were the last two mentioned.

The true origin of the universe was that a single “being”, an instance from outside the universes which could be considered to be an all-powerful god, had exploded.

This event was the big bang that created this universe.

Due to the characteristics of this instance the explosion created the unique matter of this universe and wrote the natural laws.

This new universe was 99.99% identical to the universe Scott came from.

All the matter and all the natural laws were identical save for one really small, extremely important, difference.

This difference was, in one word, magic.

A natural phenomenon that did not exist in the other universe.

However, like all other matter and natural processes magic did not happen for no reason.

There are mechanisms and laws inherent in magic.

The function of magic in this new universe was to bend the other laws of the universe.

One inherent property of magic was that it required stimulus in order to be used.

Without direction magic was inert, not able to do anything.

In most cases the stimulus required to actually use magic was a will.

This meant that normally in order for magic to be used there first needed to be life.

However, in the early universe, there was an exception.

Alongside the matter created from the big bang there was magic.

As the universe expanded and planets, stars, and other bodies formed, magic began to form something as well.

The initial stimulus from the big bang caused magic to interact among itself clustering and interacting in various ways with other magic.

Once these clusters became large enough the magic forms a continuous reaction of mutual exertions.

These clusters became the first “life” in the universe.

The clusters were the first of a type of life that was called gods.

A god is nothing more than a life form made of magic instead of regular matter.

These early gods had no will or consciousness, they didn’t even have instincts.

They lived passively drifting through space, attracting and repelling matter and absorbing any other gods that ran into them.

Once these passive gods gained enough magic they reached a critical state where they began to compress.

Once the cluster compresses to a single point it forms a magic singularity, much like a black hole, that begins to generate gravitational force and produce new magic.

The gravitational force, however, could not be compared to that of a black hole.

It was only enough to draw nearby matter around it.

These magic emitting gods gathered matter and formed planets.

The magic from the singularity then permeates through the planet.

Earth, in this universe, was a planet that had a magic singularity in the center.

The early development of earth proceeded like the development of earth in the other universe.

The planet went through many environmental and physical changes.

The development of land features and environments, the oceans and the atmosphere.

Magic has no impact on these early stages of development.

It isn’t till the advent of life that magic reveals its first real effects.

Once life arises magic is revealed to have the property of accelerating evolution.

Every organism absorbs at least a little magic from its surrounding area.

These early organisms were very similar in function to the early gods, no will or instincts.

These organisms survive by repeating certain actions over and over.

The magic absorbed by these organisms is released when they perform these actions.

Depending on the environment they find themselves in the magic effects their composition and allows them to adapt better.

These early effects simply increased the adaptability of life and sped up the development of evolution.

This slight effect changed with the advent of the brain.

In this universe nerve cells evolved with an additional function the storage and release of magic.

When the nerves were fired in a certain way they would release magic causing a change in the world.

Because of this, when an organism with a brain that had absorbed magic became endangered they had a chance to use magic to overcome it.

However, because this was simply a response to an instinct the effects were random and could be beneficial or detrimental.

This allowed animals to directly manipulate their genes in order to have a better chance of surviving.

This causes evolution to speed up considerably and in the course of a few thousand years the first humanoid race came into being.

These humanoids were the first to have a certain special ability, to use conscious thought in order to use magic.

Because these humanoids had the intelligence to create tools and clothes magical evolution stopped applying to them.

Instead of overcoming trials with instinctual magic they overcame it with knowledge and tools.

As the humanoids multiplied and started to create cultures a new form of magic began to exert itself.

It turns out that any strong thoughts and ingrained beliefs unconsciously released magic.

This magic was like regular magical evolution in that it directly changed the DNA of the humanoids.

This caused the humanoid cultures to become the driving factor behind this second wave of evolution.

This magical evolution by design created the various humanoid races.

A culture of ingenuity and versatility became the human race, a sort of jack of all trades race. Having potential to succeed in various different areas.

A culture valuing hunting and the ability to make use of nature above all else became the beastmen race absorbing genetic characteristics from nature around them.

A culture that valued craftsmanship became the dwarves.

A culture that valued reason and efficiency became the elves.

A culture that valued surviving in the harshest environments became the titans.

These first five cultures became the largest and oldest of the races. Other races formed over history, but are generally less in number.

After the advent of humanoid culture, religions started to form in order to explain the universe.

This development caused the birth of a race that would be more problematic than any other.

Religions would for the most part gather in areas with high magic levels.

Just like cultural ideas caused the forming of the different races, religious ideas caused the evolution of gods.

Large concentrations of magic when bombarded with magic released by the ideas of the humanoids of a religion caused the magic to cluster and interact with the initial idea as a catalyst.

This created the conscious gods.

One religion who believed in a god of fire caused a magic cluster to form into a god with the aspect of fire.

These gods, unlike the ancient gods, had been created by human consciousness and developed their own will.

However, they were limited by the ideas that created them.

A similar phenomenon occurred in the organisms that were non humanoid.

When an animal experienced an extraordinarily strong instinct there was a chance that magic would create a reaction that would cause the animal to become consumed by that instinct and to rapidly evolve to serve that instinct.

Once this occurs in an animal, or in some rare cases, humans, these beings become known as demons.

This is not to be confused with monsters. Monsters are simply a type of animal that evolved in a harsh environment with high magic density.