That day, it was raining.
In a secluded alley, a young man lay on the ground with unfocused eyes, his body covered in wounds. His clothes had long since been soaked through by the rain.
Tap.
Tap.
A set of footsteps rang out.
A figure walked through the water and stopped in front of the young man.
The young man forced his eyes open. Before him stood a man in his early twenties. "Let me guess. You've run into some trouble."
"...Ugh." The young man choked, unable to form a complete sentence.
Chen Ye crouched down and pulled out a bottle of green potion. "Saving a life is worth more than building a seven-story pagoda. Kind people like me are rare."
"Kid, do you want to live?"
Rumble!
Thunder boomed, and lightning streaked across the sky.
The electric light flickered behind Chen Ye as rain struck the young man's face.
He bit down hard on his lip. "I... do."
"Drink it."
Chen Ye tossed down the potion, then turned and left.
Seeing this, the young man struggled to crawl up and picked up the bottle of green liquid.
This color...
Forget it. It didn't matter what it was anymore.
The young man let out a long breath, pulled off the cap, and tipped his head back to drink it.
Gulp, gulp.
"Cough, cough!"
Fishy!
Bitter!
It felt like drinking the slime and bile off a fish!
"Ugh... blegh!"
The young man retched, but nothing came out. Then his body suddenly began to convulse and twist!
"Ugh... what is this?!"
"Argh!!!"
Across the street, beneath an eave.
Chen Ye was using his phone to record something. "Hmm. Judging from its condition, I can confirm that it probably won't kill people."
"Second trial: Deep One mixed with Black Dog Blood. The finished potion is green. After a human drinks it, scales and gills begin to grow. The spine and ribs display varying degrees of bending and growth."
"Other properties unknown. Initial test site: rainy weather."
"Number 002: Deep One."
"Hmm, that's enough for now."
"Sequence 001, watch over our new friend."
With that, Chen Ye slipped his phone into his pocket.
After he left, a Raven on the eave yawned, then flapped its wings and flew into the alley.
"What a pain. I'm not a babysitter."
North Ridge City, inside an old apartment building across from the police station.
Chen Ye pushed open the door and took off his raincoat. "Rainy season is great. I went out to buy cigarettes and picked up a lab rat while I was at it."
After changing into slippers, Chen Ye walked straight into the kitchen.
A Black Double-Eared Pot with Demon Face sat in the kitchen. A few fish scales remained on the cutting board beside it.
Chen Ye took out his phone and started scrolling through it.
"About a month ago, I bought this Double-eared Pot ornament from a street stall. Half a month ago, the parrot I kept fell into the pot and vanished mysteriously."
"When I poured out what was inside the pot, there was only a pool of bloody water."
"No DNA sequence can be detected in this bloody water. From any angle, this thing shouldn't be blood."
"Afterward, I had my pet hamster drink the bloody water. The hamster miraculously grew gray wings and could imitate human speech like a parrot."
"Later, I threw the hamster into the pot. Just like the parrot before it, the hamster became a pool of bloody water."
After that, Chen Ye came up with a bold idea.
First, he tossed a sheep brain, a chameleon, and a silkworm pupa into the pot. Then he mixed in the liquid the hamster had turned into and fed it to the last animal in his home.
The Raven he kept.
After drinking the liquid, the Raven evolved remarkable intelligence.
Its feathers also became smooth, with a texture like a carapace.
But aside from that, the Raven showed no other changes.
Afterward, Chen Ye deliberately began teaching it all kinds of knowledge.
The Raven learned incredibly quickly. It took only seven days to learn human language and converse normally with Chen Ye.
Five more days passed, and something unbelievable happened.
The Raven transformed into Chen Ye!
Yes, it became human!
But it only lasted for a very short time.
At first, Chen Ye found it rather interesting. Until one morning, when he woke up and saw the Raven transformed into him, sitting at the computer and playing games.
From an observer's perspective, its appearance, tone, and mannerisms were exactly the same as Chen Ye's!
The Raven's transformation and imitation ability could already perfectly copy Chen Ye, to the point where it was impossible to tell the fake from the real one!
For the first time, Chen Ye felt fear from the bottom of his heart.
"If the results of an experiment cannot be controlled, then the experiment is a suicidal gamble."
"Unless I become part of the experiment too."
This was Chen Ye's first masterpiece.
Number 001: Mimic.
The reason Chen Ye used a human in his second attempt was to consider the consequences of applying the potion to the human body.
He could not risk his own body directly.
"From the current results, things seem fairly optimistic. At the very least, there hasn't been a single case of death after taking the potion."
"The Raven is still fairly loyal for now. After all, I raised it with my own hands for three years. But if it were an ordinary wild beast, that would be another matter."
"Even so, I still need to prepare for the worst."
"Once the monsters I create lose control, I'll inevitably be the first to suffer the backlash."
Chen Ye pondered for a moment, then created a new document on his phone.
Number 000: God.
"God was never a single entity, but a concept. An existence so powerful it exceeded human understanding, beyond cognition, incomprehensible, indescribable, absolutely powerful."
"I'll take that as my goal. Hopefully, I won't turn myself into some giant octopus beneath the deep sea."
Chen Ye returned to his bedroom and habitually sat down in front of the computer, lighting a cigarette.
"But... why could those things combined together give a Raven the ability to become human? What was the principle?"
"Did it touch upon some kind of concept?"
"Parrot plus hamster, sheep brain plus chameleon plus silkworm pupa."
"Parrots imitate speech, chameleons change color, and silkworm pupae transform and are reborn. Conceptually speaking, could that produce the effect of transformation?"
"Then if I made medicine using bats, could I create vampires?"
"Worth trying..."
"But if it really is as I think, then I can use the Magic Pot to create all kinds of creatures from mythology."
"This hypothesis is very interesting. Since this world has no extraordinary creatures' limbs or materials for making potions, I'll make them myself."
Outside, it was still raining.
A man covered in scales moved through the alleys. His two eyes were round and swollen, nearly bulging from their sockets.
He stared at his slick, mucus-covered skin and the scales on his arms, howling without pause.
"I... I turned into a monster?!"
"A dream. This has to be a dream... It's a dream. It's fake!"
"Fake! It's all fake!"
The man's hands were webbed, his five fingers tipped with sharp, hooked claws. Two pairs of fins protruded from his back.
His huge body no longer resembled a human's. It was broad at the top and narrow at the bottom, and he hunched over.
His ribs had visibly grown a full circle larger, while his spine was bent.
"You're too noisy."
A hoarse voice came from behind him. The Fishman whirled around.
"Who?!"
He turned around, but there was no one behind him. Only a Raven standing in the rain.
"Stop looking. It's me. You and I are the same kind of existence."
As it spoke, the Raven suddenly spread its feathers, and its body continued growing larger. Cracking sounds of bones shifting out of place could be heard!
In the blink of an eye, the Raven had transformed into a young girl in a long black dress.
"I am Mimic, Number 001."
Number 001: Mimic (Raven Mimic)
A warning for those at the front: this story is a monster battle royale. The protagonist will quickly become invincible and sit back to watch the show. This isn't power growth happening too quickly; it's a necessary process.
Also, the protagonist will create many things in the future. Some will form their own factions and slaughter one another. To the protagonist, there is no such thing as gain or loss. No matter what emotions or experiences those minor characters have, none of it has anything to do with him.
(Fighting to the death is nothing more than a game. Of course, only to "It.")
And stop asking for crossover content. The other book that crossed over with this one is already dead.