In a basement located in the far reaches of a gloomy forest.
"Hahahaha! I've done it! I've god damn done it! It lives!" A middle age man with large spectacles and slightly graying hair that looked almost identical to a mad scientist shouted. Unkempt hair, lab coat, pale skin and a figure relatable to stick insects. His description alomg with the shout guaranteed crazy.
"I, Theodore Lan, have succeeded! Hahaha! You see that Margaret! You idiot, now I shall be a revolutionary leader in the future with this contribution while you can die in your young, handsome new husbands stupid mansion and money." Theodore declared smugly.
His 15 years of streneous work which led to his wife leaving him and his family crumbling, his reputation becoming one of a crazy scientist with no future and constant cuts on his research funds finally bore fruit.
Theodore Lan, a 47 year old researcher for the guild of knowledge also known as Emperor Academy, had been dedicated to pursue artificial life due to its immense usefulness in creating cannon fodder for wars and being living test subjects without rights for experiments.
The closest ever recorded artificial life were mechanized creatures with some slight awareness but it was mostly due to inputed information and never anything genuinely of its own. The spirit was lacking. There were creatures that had spirit but no body or that had both but they were all natural creations.
For the first time ever, or so believed, Theodore Lan had created an aritifical life.
Through the heavy research that was conducted over almost a third of his life. Theodore discovered that slime bodies had an innate ability to hold or contain a spirit. He believed it could house consciousness.
Through repeated tests he finally managed to create an aritificial slime body capable of withstanding a human level of consciousness.
The only issue was getting the consciousness. Theodore had tried multiple ideas such as injecting foreign cells of intelligent creatures, transplanting a brain from an ape and even energytherapy but all lead to failure.
His only redemption was that the body itself became an extremely durable creation due to its inheremt properties and when he succeeds with letting it form a consciousness. The creature will be extremely versatile and strong.
Energy therapy was what Theodore had been doing the last few weeks but he had decided the night before to inject a special energy crystal inside the artificial creatures body.
The crystal was an expensive product used in powering several high level equipment and would of caused a huge stir if people had known what it was used for.
It was injected into the central part of the slime body with its radiation limiter turned off.
He watched for an hour without reaction and had gone to bed as he had done a three day research spree.
Unbeknownst to Theodore, a symbol had appeared in the crystals core that night.
Had Deal been there watching he would have known exactly what it was though he would of most likely called it the epilepsy crystal out of spite.
The energy from the crystal was rapidly absorbed by the symbol before a flash of beautiful blue lights formed within the crystal.
Theodore had slept heavily for almost an entire day before taking care of his daily necessities and heading to his lab.
As he walked towards the slime, he almost stumbled as he saw it wiggling about in an almost panicked state.
Theodores lips were quivering and he repeatedly rubbed his eyes to ensure it was not a hallucination.
" It worked... IT WORKED! HAHAHAHA! The mania in his words could be heard as clear as day.
It just so happened that an extremely exciting result had appeared after his tireless efforts over the course of 15 years.
He was so moved, tears welled up once the exhilaration faded.
" The world shall finally know of me and my work... Margaret... I was right! *Sob* I was right my Margaret. If only... if only it had been sooner." Theodore lost himself in his thoughts as joy, excitement, and sadness mixed together.
His will was much stronger than most as it took a strong will to dedicate so many years to something that repeatedly beat you down and took away more and more from you.
His scientific mind immediately came back and he furiously started researching what had happened.
It was too unique of a situation that Theodore knew he had to discover the reason behind this consciousness forming.
Naturally conscious beings have formed but it took ages for them to develop sentience.
The blog in front of him looked afraid which was an emotion only those with fear knew.
It later became calmer but was still struggling around. It eventually started gurggling to itself for half a day as if in thought.
Theodore was shocked at everything this newly born life was doing. He wanted to research it more thoroughly but fear of ruining a success after 15 years forced him to only observe.