The lake began to shake violently, waves rising and falling all over the place.

It looked quite terrifying, if anyone was superstitious, they would have thought some sea god was angry. But just when the waves were reaching a crescendo, they suddenly stopped. All waves falling back down and bringing peace back to the lake.

‘It is time.’

Within 2 seconds the lake soon reached perfect stillness, even with the strange tree still ferociously growing. Quite the strange sight to say the least.

But then something hundreds of times more shocking happened.

The lake itself also began leaking copious amounts of the Laws of Life, the liquid water even changing colour and becoming a very faint green.

The lake… had become a [ Spring of Life ]!

A [ Spring of Life ] was a body of water that had fulfilled 2 steps to evolve.

Step 1, was to make contact with a treasure with at least the life element. This gave the Water the ability to slowly absorb it over time. But at most, it would only become water filled with dense essence. Half of the time it didn’t even take on the element of life.

Step 2, was to actually not absorb the essence of life from the treasure, but to enter a symbiotic relationship with it. The stronger the treasure grew, the stronger the [ Spring of Life ] became, and the stronger the [ Spring of Life ] became, the more nourishment it could provide the treasure.

Normally, it was exceedingly difficult for a body of water and a treasure of life to enter a symbiotic relationship, it was simply because 95% of the time, neither of them had any sort of consciousness to speak of, so how could they be capable of asking for a partnership?

Even in this situation, neither the lake or the abnormal tree had a consciousness. However… How can Eridel not know?

Being a World, who’s most creative ability was the one to create contracts… Would Eridel ever need to fret? Never! Being a prior genius human, he had boundless ideas rolling through his non-existent head.

So naturally, he was able to find a way to help other beings create contracts without involving him.

And that is exactly what is happening now.

‘I must say, for a Spring of Life to enter a symbiotic relationship with my… special tree, it must be the most talented Spring of Life in existence. Well, what could you expect from the great me, haaahahaha……haa... What is that?’

Something universally WRONG began to take place that even Eridel couldn’t predict it.

The Lake began to change again. This time, it began accumulating the Laws of Water and the Laws of Creation, further changing the colour of the water from the faint green it should have forever remained at into a very vibrant emerald green.

But while extremely dizzying, it was not the end.

Something else began to accumulate, something that made Eridel flabbergasted.

It was a soul.

“A SOOOUUULLL?!” Eridel’s mighty voice boomed throughout the forest.

Eridel couldn’t believe what was occurring right in front of his ‘eyes’. That his creation had just developed a consciousness right in front of him without his input.

While it wasn’t impossible for a natural treasure to develop a consciousness, it was extremely rare, it would only ever be primitive, it wouldn’t pick up a couple of Laws like they were cabbages and they certainly shouldn’t be having the kind of infant thoughts that he could sense coming from the Spring of Life.

And just as he was about to come back to his senses, he noticed that the Lake’s attention had snapped to a… very lucky Elk.

The crippled one from earlier that seemed as dumbstruck as he was.

‘I know right? Bro, we’re watching something cra-’

BOOOOM!

Laws of Life, Water and Creation slammed into the Elk like a blue, green and golden coloured avalanche, endlessly and seamlessly soaking in like this damn mammal was a sponge.

Naturally it began to evolve.

It began to grow (everything just seems to be growing here), becoming larger and larger as it’s evolution took place. It’s fur also began to fall off like sand on a hill, as did it’s antlers. But new replacements took place soon after.

Fur as white and bright as the stars began to grow out slowly. Antlers that looked like they were carved from ice, irrationally started to grow out of its skull with the Law essence of Water swirling around them.

It’s eyes that were previously a mundane brown became a frigid sky blue that glowed domineeringly.

It’s hooves also broke apart like it was made from glass, causing the poor Elk a greater amount of pain than what it was already enduring.

“Ooer...” It groaned.

Soon enough though, new hooves took place. Made from the same material as it’s Antlers. And while it’s antlers had the same effects that the special dragon hatchlings had on their horns. Portraying it’s perfect affinity with Water, specifically the branch [ Law of Ice ] - It’s hooves took on a different effect. Releasing a small amount of ice mist that was extremely cold.

It’s body stopped growing at 6 metres tall, courtesy of the Laws of Life which was to be expected. With the Laws of Life, how could it not gain a behemoth body, filled with endless vitality?

Eridel could even see that the mind of the previously primitive Elk was not left out of the evolution, stopping at a point where it was as smart as an ordinary Human.

He could also see that it had inherited memories from it’s obvious benefactor; the Spring of Life. Something that should be impossible, given the fact that the thing was literally minutes old.

BOOOM!

The Laws of Ice blasted out of the body of the now valiantly standing Elk, signifying its advance into the first re- never mind, the SECOND realm. Skipping the 9 Magic Beast stages entirely and becoming a Stage 1 Spiritual Beast.

‘Unbelievable...’ Eridel muttered

It had even used the essence of Ice to form it’s Mana.

Feeling the boundless power rapidly rising in its body, the Elk screamed his heart out.

“OOOOOOOERRR!!!”

Having vented, it turned its gratitude filled eyes to its incomprehensible patron. The Spring of Life.

The lake was obviously paying attention. But it soon did something that shocked Eridel again.

“Good” it spoke in a delicate yet melodious voice.

‘The fuck?!’ Eridel, this mighty existence that performed miracle after miracle wondered if he was dreaming.

Even the ceaselessly rising Tree that was at centre of all this seemed to have pause- nope never mind, just my imagination, it’s still growing, keep it up buddy.

SWOOSH!

A large portion of the lake abruptly raised up before floating in the sky and rapidly condensing into the shape of a human. A very cute human that looked about 10 years old with twin tails.

Although half transparent and green.

If that wasn’t enough to make Eridel stunned, the fact that it looked at his viewpoint and called out

“Daddy!” sure did

Eridel metaphorically blinked.

The Elk also blinked. From his inherited memories, he knew what a ‘daddy’ was, but he wondered why his benefactor wasn’t speaking to anyone in specific. He also wondered… Why didn’t he have a daddy?

As he began to think, an extremely intimidating and cold voice nearly made him jump out of his skin.

“Who are you?”

Who else but Eridel could sound so mighty?

But the little lake girl didn’t seem to appreciate it. In fact, she began to tear up, which in itself was a surprising sight, taking into consideration that she was made of liquid herself.

“Sniff! Sniff! Daddy doesn’t like me? Waaaaa!”

Eridel felt stumped, feeling a migraine coming for the first time in 2000 years.

“Hey, heyy, relax~ Don’t cry, okay?” Eridel coaxed

“Sniff! Sniff! Okay…” the little girl snivelled

“Can you explain to me why you have memories already? And why you are capable of creating a contract?”

Because that was certainly what happened between the Lake and the Elk. A contract was initiated by the Lake and the Elk agreed. Eridel was actually able to supernaturally read the wordless contract, and knew it’s contents.

It went like this: IN EXCHANGE FOR ME GIVING YOU POWER. YOU WILL PROTECT ME FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.

As simple as that.

Now they were both bound by the contract, or rather the Elk was. The lake had already completed her side of the deal. The Elk would never ‘complete’ his. That’s how powerful a contract could be.

“Sniff! I don’t know, but when daddy created me and helped me make a contract with tree-tree, I was born with this ability that only a World should have. Ah! I also have some of daddy’s memories, hehe!”

!!!

If Eridel still had legs, they would have given way by now. But ‘unfortunately’ that was not he case anymore.

‘What an anomaly, this is something that should never have happened, and yet...’

“Ahem, okaaaay~ so why are you a girl then? Shouldn’t you be a boy?”

Eridel couldn’t comprehend why a soul packed with his own memories shouldn’t be a nigh carbon copy of him.

“Because daddy likes girls!”

“...”

The World began shaking

“Aaah! Daddy calm down, are you upset? Sniff! Do you not want me anymore?”

‘So embarrassing!’

Eridel was mortified, finding out that his ‘daughter’ knew of his strong desire for women. Even taking the form of a girl just so that he would ‘like’ her more.

A stupid reason. As a father, how could he differentiate between a boy and girl if it was his child? The ONLY difference would be him telling one how to get girls, and telling the other how to stay away from boys. Hmph!

Eridel didn’t realize that he was already thinking quite strangely.

“Daddddyyyy-”

“Aaah, sorry, sorry, I was just shocked…” Eridel muttered.

“Does daddy like me then?” the little girl said with a trembling voice.

“...Ah, yes? Yes, of course I do. How can I not love my own child? In fact, I should give you a name now”

“Yayyyyy!”

“Your name is now Ciera Domicus” Eridel said with majesty in his voice, a strange way to speak to his own daughter but whatever works.

“Hehe! I am Ciera! But daddy, I thought you don’t like the Domicus family” Ciera said, while tilting her head.

“Cute… cough, that isn’t really true, the rea- nevermind, we’ll talk another time, the [ Tree of Life ] is about to finish growing”

“Ah! Okay!”

‘How troublesome, hopefully there’ll be no more anomalies like this...’

Eridel decided to put the matter of Ciera to the back of his mind. He couldn't for the life of him comprehend how these things happened, nor could he do anything about it unless he wanted to destroy her, which he didn't, so he would just ignore the matter altogether for now.

'Anyways, something like that shouldn't be happening again.'

If only he knew...