Subject Darwin closed their eyes and felt everything around it change. It opened its eyes to see a huge amount of display panels and massive amounts of glowing buttons.
Like a child, it began inspecting the buttons and randomly pressing them without concern for their effects.
As he pressed them, he saw on the monitors the world he was in began slowing down, quickening. He saw as natural disasters manifested and disappeared, as the black sludge was born at the coordinates of his choosing.
Given the intelligence that he was born with, he immediately realized what this thing was, this was the thing that was controlling his world.
As he was fascinated by the changes he could make to his world, I began appraising him and… oh my god.
Over two hundred intrinsic skills, it makes sense considering he is essentially a genetic archive for an entire world so I guess it makes sense.
"Is this what you used to control my world?"
I snapped out of my contemplation, "Yes why, are you upset?"
"Yes, were we… just experiments to you?"
I looked at him for a couple seconds, "Yes. I apologise if that's not the answer that you wanted but that is simply the truth."
"You're… very honest. Was I what you wanted?"
"No, you have far surpassed what was meant to come from this experiment. Honestly, I am exceptionally impressed by the ingenuity of this civilization."
Suddenly the door burst open with a bang, "Hello master! We brought candy!" Yuura burst through the door with Kevin carrying massive bags of candy.
But they both paused to look at the figure that I was talking too, they were in so much confusion regarding the figure that I could literally smoke coming from their heads.
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" So you're the culmination of hundreds of species in one?" Kevin reiterated the explanation they were given.
" Yes, what do you think I should name him?" I was pacing up and down.
Yuura looked at me in confusion, " Why not name him after the project directive? You know, Darwin."
I stopped pacing and began looking at Yuura for a few seconds, lamenting over my own stupidity.
I turned to the nameless subject and asked him, "Are you ok with that name?"
"I'm fine with that name but I sense there is a special implications to that name?"
"There was once a man who named Charles Darwin who made a revolutionary conjecture. The theory of evolution that would allow us to understand how species change overtime. You are, in my view, the greatest success of evolution."
The subject looked at me with intrigue, "Is Charles Darwin someone from your old world?"
" Yeah- wait how'd you know I was from another world?" I looked at him with suspicion.
" While you were explaining to… Kevin and Yuura?" Both of them nodded in confirmation, "…I allowed myself to your digital library."
" How did you access that?!"
" I hacked it while you were talking." The nameless subject looked at me as if it were obvious.
I was utterly astounded and flabbergasted. This creature had been alive for not evens a day and yet it had already hacked my tech.
Something that took the founding nation of technology, Dwargon, 50 years to decide my technology and they still failed, and that was much more primitive tech in comparison. And now this creature that was a couple hours old in real time learnt how to hack my tech in a couple minutes.
The only thing that I could attribute to him doing it so fast was the fact I made this control room in a couple seconds and didn't bother with encryption.
"Fine then, your name will now be Darwin." The magicules left my body at a rapid rate. I was surprised because the amount that left my body was about 2% of my overall amount.
It might not seem like much but that was equivalent to naming a special-s class meaning that Darwin is already a demon lord seed.
"Ok, next agenda. Kevin, I want you to spar with him."
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After the spar, Kevin and Yuura were very eager to give Darwin a tour of Eden.
"You two really have taken quite the liking to Darwin." I said while looking at the two.
Yuura's eyes sparkled while pinching Darwin's cheeks, "Why wouldn't we, he's so adorable!"
The action caused Darwin to blush, his blackened face gaining a bit more colour.
"You know only just realized, he's still naked." Kevin said causing all of us to examine his body and realize the error we made. Especially considering that hanging member that stuck out way too much.
Our staring made him evens more embarrassed and to save him, I snapped my fingers and some clothes appeared on him.
He was now wearing a crisp white, long-sleeved button-down shirt made from linen, a mid length swim shorts and flipflops. He was wearing what men would probably have at the beach.
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We had ended up in the astral clocktower where I prepared a room for him.
We had shown him all around Eden and then some. I had introduced him to all eight of my Lords.
Needless to say that the creation of Darwin had made Nyx both frustrated and jealous. Darwin was the dream of any geneticist and yet I created him in such record time.
Undoubtedly, the appearance of Necrozma and Amanises had made him feel more at home, the presence of other monsters made him realize that his presence wasn't so different.
But there was still something that he wanted to know, " Simon, what did you want from me? You showed me all this but I don't know what you want?"
"What I want from you? I want to give you a choice."
"A choice? How so."
"What do you want to do with your life? I want to know, then maybe I can help you get settled into that setting."
Darwin started thinking about the decision. The enticing offer to be free… with interest.
But when he was about to ask to be set free into the world, his mind began remembering the events that had just transpired. The mature care of Nyx and Necrozma, the unconditional kindness of Yuura and Amanises that was invasive but warming, the reliability and dependibility of Kevin and Orion and the friendliness of Nox.
It had all imprinted on him deeply, he wanted to be free but not exactly leave.
" You don't want to leave, do you?" Seeing his expression, it was pretty easy to read his mind.
" I don't know. I don't want my freedom to be taken away… but I can't think of a single being that would give this up."
I looked at him very thoughtfully, " How about an alternative, you become my ninth lord. In essence you will forever serve me, whenever I want something from you, you will respond."
Listening to the proposal, Darwin's face darkened… pun intended, "How is that not having my freedom restricted?"
"Because when I don't give you an order, you are free to do anything you want however you want. You've seen seven out of eight of my Lords today, do any of their movements look restricted to you?"
Darwin wanted to find something to refute but then he remembered everyone he met today. Necrozma had given birth to children and began a dragon civilisation, Amanises was training different combatants and Nyx was doing experiments.
They all had responsibilities but those were their own choice.
He had even learnt of the eighth lord, the Reaper Gehrman, and how he was in charge of an on-site organisation named Andromeda.
He had questioned why he would allow himself to be forced to do something like that but it had been explained that it was his own idea and choice to do so.
Thinking of all this, his thoughts went to the man Infront of him who is giving him a choice. He not only approved of his idea but he also layed the groundwork for it to be established.
In fact, this man didn't act like a king or a god but rather like a father. He happily mingled with his servants and treated them like equals, he placated whenever they became angry with him.
He couldn't think of this man in a bad light at all, with all that, he had made a decision. He walked closer to the man and kneeled before him, "I shall faithfully serve you for eternity… on the stipulation that you grant me my actions free reign."
"No problem, just don't cause massive political problems in the future." I teased him though I knew that he wouldn't do that. I had gotten a feeling for his overall personality, despite being a monster on the battlefield, in general, he was very shy, timid, easily flustered and overall didn't really have a high opinion of himself… and I wanted to change that.