Pain. That was the first thing I knew. Not the dull ache of a gym workout, but the raw, searing pain of existence being forced upon a body too small for its own organs.
I opened my eyes. The world was a mosaic of green and brown; giant blades of grass stretched above me like cathedral pillars. My stomach burned with hunger and something else. My heart—a tiny, frantic drum—pounded against ribs that felt like toothpicks.
I tried to scream. A tiny, pathetic squeak came out.
What the hell?
I looked down. Five tiny, greenish-brown toes splayed out on a… claw. A lizard's claw. My arm was a scaled twig. I was lying in a shallow depression of dried leaves and… other things. Eggshells. I was lying in a pile of broken eggshells.
Then I saw the others. A dozen other lizards, each no bigger than my thumb, were scrabbling over each other, already fighting, biting, and shoving. A primal instinct, older than thought, washed over me.
Survive.
My human memories—a cramped apartment, a dead-end IT job, the screech of truck tires and a car accident—felt like a faded dream. This was brutally real.
A massive shadow fell over the nest. A creature—a lizard the size of a large house cat, with mottled brown scales and a lazy, reptilian eye—lowered its head. It sniffed the pile of hatchlings. Then it opened its jaws.
It wasn't feeding us. It was culling us. It grabbed three of my siblings at once and crunched them like popcorn. The others scattered. My body moved before my brain did.
I ran.
[Gene Upgrade Panel Activated.]
[New Host Detected. Synchronizing…]
[Name: Ren]
[Species: Forest Lizard (Juvenile). Required 20 Gene Points to become adult-sized Forest Lizard.]
[Total Available Gene Points: 0]
A translucent screen flickered in the corner of my vision. I ignored it. A giant tongue lashed out, snatching another sibling two inches from my tail. I dove into a crack in the dirt, small enough that the adult lizard couldn't follow.
I huddled there, shaking, as the sounds of crunching and hissing faded.
I was a lizard. A tiny, edible, palm-sized lizard. And I had a video game menu in my head. Great.
I ran for more than twenty minutes, crossing trees and sticking only to the edges and gaps, moving through the narrowest spaces where my tiny body could squeeze but larger predators could not follow. My heart—that frantic little drum—pounded against my ribs with every leap. Every shadow made me flinch. Every rustle of leaves sent me diving for cover. But slowly, carefully, I put distance between myself and the nest where most of my siblings had already become food.
When I finally stopped, hidden beneath the overhang of a mossy root, I allowed myself to breathe. That was when I saw it.
A large black beetle.
For some reason, it appeared to my lizard vision as a fat and juicy meal. My human eyes would have seen a common insect, barely worth notice. But my new reptilian senses painted it differently—a dark silhouette against the leaf litter, its shell gleaming like polished obsidian, its body plump and round. My spirit energized at the sight of a possible hunting meal. Saliva flooded my tiny mouth. Hunger, raw and primal, overrode every cautious thought.
I slowly approached its location, creeping forward with my belly scraping the dirt, each step deliberate. But as I drew closer, doubt crept in. I looked at my lizard body and found only soft claws—translucent little nubs that bent when I pressed them against a leaf. My skin was tiny scales, thin as paper, offering no protection. And my teeth? I ran my tongue over them. Undeveloped. Half-formed. Newborn ridges that would barely dent a worm, let alone crack chitin.
This is suicide, I realized. That black beetle's shell was armor. My body was a wet paper bag. One snap of those mandibles and I'd be the meal, not the hunter.
I backed away, swallowing my pride along with my saliva. The beetle continued on its way, oblivious to the tiny predator that had almost made a fatal mistake.
Defeated, I turned and crept in another direction. The hunger was getting worse now—a hollow ache that made my thoughts fuzzy.
Then the smell hit me. Thick and musky, with a sweetly rotten undertone.
I followed it to a small clearing where a pile of animal dung steamed gently in the afternoon shade. Some large herbivore had passed through recently, leaving behind a mound of fibrous waste. And crawling all over it were bugs. Not the hard-shelled black beetle from before. These were small, round-bodied creatures with dull brown shells and stubby legs. Dung beetles. A whole cluster of them—eleven, I counted—rolling their little balls or burrowing into the pile with single-minded focus.
My stomach growled.
I crept toward them slowly, positioning myself opposite the nearest dung beetle. It was facing away from me, its rear legs pushing a small dung ball, completely unaware of my presence. I opened my mouth and launched my lizard tongue toward it.
The tongue shot forward like a pink whip, wrapping around the beetle's body before it could react. I retracted it quickly, dragging the struggling insect toward my mouth. It tumbled through the air and landed inside, and immediately the battle began. The beetle wiggled and struggled against my jaws, its legs scrabbling against my cheeks, its round body bumping against my palate. Tiny claws hooked into my gums, searching for escape. I pushed it deeper into my mouth, ignoring the panic, and began grinding its flesh with my tiny teeth and gums.
The shell cracked. Green, gooey flesh spurted from its body, flooding my mouth with a bitter, earthy taste. The beetle stopped moving. I chewed again, grinding the pieces smaller and smaller until they became a thick paste. Then I swallowed it piece by piece. Some chunks slid down smoothly. Others scratched my throat with tiny shell fragments.
A notification appeared in my mind:
[Consumed an Ordinary Dung Beetle - Obtained 0.2 Gene Points.]
Understanding flashed through my mind. The panel wasn't just a display—it was a Gene Bank. Every creature I consumed added to my total Gene Points. The currency of my evolution. Slowly, bite by bite, I could become something more than a helpless hatchling.
I looked at the other dung beetles. They were still rolling their balls, still burrowing into the excrement. Not one had stopped. Not one had looked up. They were completely oblivious to their fellow's death.
So I targeted another. And another. One by one, carefully, I worked through them. Tongue, wrap, drag. Struggle, grind, swallow. Each time, the same brutal rhythm. My jaw ached. My gums grew raw. Green goo coated my mouth, mixing with the thin trickle of blood from where their claws had scratched me. But I didn't stop.
By the seventh beetle, exhaustion screamed through my body. By the ninth, my jaw was trembling with every chew. But the panel kept updating, the numbers climbing, and the hunger kept driving me forward.
The tenth and eleventh came together—mating, locked end to end, unable to separate. My tongue wrapped around both at once. They struggled together, a tangle of legs and shells and panicked energy. One bit the inside of my cheek. The other stabbed its leg into the roof of my mouth. Pain exploded in two places at once. I ground them both together; their green goo mixed and doubled, flooding my throat like a bitter waterfall. I swallowed twice. Never thought killing mere dung beetles would be this hard.
Silence fell over the dung pile. No more movement. No more tiny legs pushing balls of waste.
I had consumed all eleven dung beetles.
I sat back on my haunches, belly swollen, mouth dripping green and red.
I focused my mind to see what kind of cheat I got after reincarnation.
Gene Upgrade Panel
[Name: Ren]
[Species: Forest Lizard (Juvenile). Required 20 Gene Points to become adult-sized Forest Lizard.]
[Available Gene Points: 2.2]
[New abilities detected…]
- Clawed Strike - Required 2 Gene Points to develop the ability.
- Grip Jaw - Required 3 Gene Points to develop the ability.
So this is my cheat to survive this fantasy world. Nice. Hmm… Gene Upgrade Panel… it means I need to obtain Gene Points to evolve. It says I need 20 Gene Points to become an adult-sized Forest Lizard, but I only have 2.2 right now, so that's a no for now. Then what about Clawed Strike and Grip Jaw? I suppose a Forest Lizard naturally grows these abilities over months or years of hunting and instinct, but the Gene Upgrade Panel is giving them to me early, at the juvenile stage. Nice.
Since I only had 2.2 Gene Points, I chose Clawed Strike.
I gave the command to the panel: "Develop Clawed Strike Ability."
And then the Gene Points in his panel dropped from 2.2 to 0.2. His claws itched with a warm, tingling heat. As he watched, his short claws became razor sharp. Now they could cut leaves and other small bugs with ease, like a small razor blade cutting through paper.
I rested myself that night, knowing more predators would roam the forest after dark.
I dragged myself into a hollow beneath the roots, curling into a tight ball. The sun was setting. Shadows stretched across the forest floor. Somewhere out there, the mottled brown, house-cat-sized lizard was preying on other small creatures, still untouchable.
Not for long, you brown big lizard. You will face my wrath once I reach my adult size, I thought, as sleep pulled me under.
End of chapter 1
To be continued in chapter 2