It was a warm summer morning. The sun was shining through the trees, birds singing, and everything seemed to be peaceful.
ROAR!
The sudden roar from a wild beast interrupted the former calm and relaxing environment as a giant lizard several meters long and tall crawled into the opening of the forest.
A few birds did not manage to react in time and were quickly swallowed by the giant lizard as it bit down on them, taking a few branches from the tree they were sitting on with them.
ROAR!
Roaring in satisfaction upon getting a free snack the lizard soon moved deeper into the forest and soon disappeared in between the thick trees.
'What was that?' A small lizard cautiously moved out from a small hole in the ground and looked fearfully in the direction that the larger lizard had moved in.
'And where on earth am I?' Looking around itself, the small lizard failed to comprehend where it was.
Thinking about it a little more, the small lizard finally remembered its last memories before ending up where it currently was.
'I was reincarnated… And as a lizard nonetheless!'
…
Countless floating orbs were all around me, all moving in different directions. The orbs in front were also moving and then I also soon found out that I was a floating orb myself, so I decided to continue moving together with my fellow floating orbs.
Time passed, what was time? I honestly had no clue; my memory seemed all foggy and incomprehensible. For now, I just continued to float on ahead, wondering what would happen when I finally managed to reach the end.
After even more time passed, a swirling thing suddenly appeared in of me front of it and all the orbs that entered it disappeared to somewhere unknown.
I stopped and watched the orbs enter, never to be seen again.
Feeling a great amount of fear towards the swirling thing, I also felt a great amount of curiosity, where would the swirling thing lead me? Maybe I can finally get answers to where I am.
With newfound courage, I entered the swirling thing together with the other orbs and soon found myself in front of something new, something that was not an orb like me and all the other orbs.
"Race, Human. Age of death, 21. Karma, 17."
The strange creature floating in front of me said slowly as I slowly began observing it.
The thing was not a thing, but more like a human with wings on the back, but waaay taller than a human, what was a human anyways?
Ah, I think I was a human before ending up here? The creature did mention human earlier...
"No need to try and remember, you won't be able to remember your past life no matter how much you try as it has already been purged from your soul upon entering the nether world. Now we will proceed with your reincarnation in accordance to the rules..."
The winged human said, as I slowly began to form an understanding of the current situation.
'Reincarnation?' I tried to ask, but no voice came out, of my mouth. Well, I am a floating orb...
"Yes, now let us proceed. The screen in front of you will show what you will reincarnate as and will allow you to change things how you want. You will use karma to gain abilities or change your reincarnation however you want."
The winged human explained as it seemed to be able to understand what I wanted to ask and soon enough a screen popped up in front of me.
[Choose Race]
[Human: 20 Karma]
[Elf: 50 Karma]
[Dwarf: 35 Karma]
[Dragon: 1500 Karma]
[Snake: +60 Karma]
[…]
[Karma: 17]
Looking at the races, the realization that my karma was way too low to be anything human or even close to humanoid in the first place dawned upon me.
Feeling a little sad, as the chance of becoming human would not be possible, I decided to continue looking through the list of different races that continued to go on forever.
There were even several races that gave karma instead of costing karma, some of those races were house fly + 1000 karma and beetle + 350 karma. Most of them were some sort of weak and small animals.
Continuing to look through the list for what felt like an eternity until coming upon one I thought had the most potential, dungeon lizard + 150 karma.
If I could not become something like a human, why not try and become a dragon instead? All the novels I could barely remember with a person reincarnating. Dragons were always strong and long living. But could a lizard even become a dragon in the place that-
"Yes, you can evolve into a dragon. The world you are reincarnating into has magic and dragons present. I recommend choosing a dragon bloodline to increase your chances of being able to evolve into a dragon in the future.
Hearing the tall, winged human as it interrupted my chain of thoughts, I did not hesitate any longer and decided to become a lizard.
I would definitely evolve to become a dragon in the future!
[Choose Gender]
[Male: 5 Karma]
[Female: 5 Karma]
[Random: + 5 karma]
A new screen appeared soon after. Gender… I could not remember what gender I was as a human, so I just chose random for the extra karma.
Swish~
A small wheel appeared and began spinning for a short moment before finally coming to a stop on [Female]. Following which a new screen soon replaced it.
[Choose Skills (last step, remember to use karma)]
[Fire Magic lvl 1: 10 karma]
[Running lvl 1: 5 karma]
[Fire Magic lvl 7: 70 karma]
[…]
[Karma: 177]
The skills continued on and on, just like the races… Just who came up with this?
"I can help limit the skills to ones that will be useful if you want to become a dragon."
The ever-helpful winged humanoid creature said from the side.
The skill list soon started shining for a moment before a much smaller list appeared in front of the floating orb.
'Hah… Guess even if it's limited, there is still a lot to look through.
…
Time passed and soon the floating orb managed to find some skills that the winged angel said would be useful for her journey to become a dragon.
[Dragon Bloodline lvl 1: 50 karma]
A given if I wanted to become a dragon.
[Flight lvl 1: 10 karma]
I did not want to suddenly be a dragon and not being able to fly...
With that reason in mind, the future dungeon lizard decided to get the flight skill.
[Water Magic lvl 6: 60 karma]
The winged human said that when evolving into a dragon. The magic that one was proficient in, would determine what kind of dragon she would become. The reason she chose Water magic was that she liked water and the idea of being a water dragon felt more suitable for her... At least more so than an earth, fire, and wind dragon.
Being able to live in a lake or sea also seemed rather enjoyable, being completely carefree as one drifted above the surface of the water~
There were also other things like space magic, life magic, time magic and death magic, but all of the were really expensive and the cheapest was already more than 200 karma!
[Access to status(non-humanoid): 50 karma]
This was not really a skill but was something that the winged human said she would need if she wanted to evolve into a dragon. Apparently only humanoid creatures had access to the status and could choose a path for themselves in the world that she was going to reincarnate into! How unfair!
[Strong Magic: 5 karma]
The last was something she also chose because the winged human said it would be wasteful not to use the rest of her karma and it would be useful for using magic.
Feeling satisfied with the choices, the winged humanoid creature seemed to have sensed that the future dungeon lizard was done as it spoke.
"Done? Ah, you will be reincarnated with what memories you have left according to the rules. Farewell mortal soul, may you live long! You being able to retain part of your memories is testament to the strength of your soul. Maybe we will meet again in the future...
With that final sentence everything turned black as I unknowingly disappeared from the room with the winged humanoid creature.
…
Back to the little lizard, who was indeed me that had just reincarnated.
'What was a dungeon lizard? And what was that big lizard from earlier? Would I grow that big as well in the future?'
Suddenly, an influx of new information entered the small lizard's head as she managed to get a general understanding of the current situation that she now found herself in.
She was a normal lizard inside of a dungeon. She could evolve and grow stronger by killing other monsters, animals, humans and so on. She had the ability unique to humans, dwarves, and other humanoid races, viewing her own status and choosing a class. Just instead of choosing a class, she could choose an evolution path instead.
Taking some time to go over the sudden information that she had just gotten, she tried to call out her status for the first time since reincarnating.
Name: ???
Race: Lizard
Level: 1
STR: 1 |VIT: 1 | DEX: 2 | MP:11
Skills: [Dragon Bloodline lvl 1], [Flight lvl 1], [Water Magic lvl 6]
Strong magic had done what the winged human had said, and her magic was indeed stronger than what would be for a normal lizard.
Now the only thing left to do was get a name, being 3 question marks did not feel so good after all.
'Scaly, my name henceforth will be Scaly!'
Thinking so as a cute smile appeared on the little lizard's face, the 3 question marks being replaced with the word Scaly.
Scaly, because a dragon had a lot of dragon scales according to what Scaly could remember and as a future dragon Scaly would be fitting name!
In the future, she would have strong and beautiful scales covering her entire body!
With all things now sorted out, Scaly jumped out from the hole in the ground and made her way deeper into the forest.
For now, there was only one thing left to do, Hunt!
From what she had just found out during the influx of information, killing other creatures like itself would allow it to grow stronger and evolve!