Chapter 1 – No Tutorial Woods.

Tom was walking home from his job at a pizzeria, cleanly washed hands bitten by the cold spring air in the afternoon. People were driving home with similar thoughts to Tom about finally being done with work, however on his way home a pressure washer worker was fiddling with the nozzle after the previous one broke with the replacement being attached but not fully screwed on, resulting in Tom being reincarnated when the nozzle cap nut with a hole width of 15mm flew off with a sprinkle of water, hitting the back of Toms head.

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Tom awoke to a terrible itch in his mouth, no it was something else, his maw hurt with a most dreadful itch in this darkness, but luckily out of the two problems the darkness became an antique white colour after a long amount of time and through the thoughts occupying Toms mind of where he was a sudden urge filled him. Tom had begun to scratch the itch on the barrier until a loud crack reverberated on the inside and a moment of pure white blindness hit the debatably unfortunate person, a new world with new possibilities but who is in control. The momentary pause was followed by a blurry vision of green grass and brown bark of a large tree that looked monolithic compared to the tiny lizard crawling out of its shell with soft scales and covered in egg white mucus giving him away as fresh meat. Instincts took over with the nimble hatchling running under the shade of a nearby tree and soon after into the undergrowth of the deciduous forest filled with trees similar to Oak, Birch, Maple and even a scant few evergreen trees, except things were slightly different in how the trees exuded an aura.

"It's the second day of my new life and it's not like Manga with a bright and showy system that gives me the ability to teleport things into a pocket dimension or allows me to spit out fireballs"

*Crash

And I am off running into a bush from my basking spot on a rock, climbing the twisting branches around the main trunk of the still budding bush to get a height advantage over whatever my instincts are afraid of and at this point I am not going to complain. The first Night was terrifying with sounds from a horror movie sounding out around me, screeches were a common one with loud flapping wings scaring me which was compounded by my new sense of smell, and now my tongue is slinking out of my mouth to taste my surrounding as though I had licked everything around me in a 1 metre radius. I can do nothing to my enemies especially since me shouting system or status yesterday did nothing except for creating a weak *screech and attracting a fox that had longer legs that it used to almost snatch me up from a tree that I ran up to survive. As I sit in the bush raking my itching tooth against a branch I see a human walk by, a full leather equipped rogue with potions on a sash out front and a short sword with daggers on his sides comes from seemingly no where into the clearing and leaves the same way as he came, disappearing backwards into the bushes with what must be magic or something because he wasn't fully behind it when he just vanished. Then there is a small and soft *thud and an iron taste fills my mouth as I realise that my egg tooth has fallen out leaving me with no defences in this hostile world.

'It has been a week and I already feel myself growing into my body,' with Tom looking into a slowly running stream of water at his own little lizard reflection looking cuter than most bearded dragons but not quite at a puppy level of cuteness. 'I have since learnt not to speak out loud as it draws unnecessary attention in the form of animals bigger than me with a common predator being the large fox on long legs, the bright side is that I can hide really well but the future looks bleak since I feel like I am beginning to reach my age of maturity as such a small lizard and I don't think I will be becoming a dragon anytime soon.' The reflection shows a little grey lizard face with a horn similar to a Rhino growing out of the snout with a further 2 smaller horns just behind the head that twist slightly giving the little lizard a cute appearance rather than a fearsome look that the 3 horns are supposed to impose, well it might not look scary for creatures as large as humans but it would be terrifying for a field mouse to come across a 3 horned lizard that is 10 times its size, has 3 horns with rows of razor sharp serrated teeth pointing into the mouth that once they pierce a creatures skin do not let go with a second row of palatal teeth for grinding up prey, and finally the piercing green eyes that have slits create a terrifying visage. 'The food has been relatively good, in the context of a lizard some creatures that I eat are very juicy and taste like berries with a common one being a blue beetle that tastes similarly to apples with another being a Cicada that comes out of the ground regularly right now with a taste of chicken but with a crunchy exterior, as I have said it is relatively good as some of the insects that I ate must have been dung beetles or something because of their vile taste that is hard to put into words but it is what I would have assumed deer poop to taste like, all a learning experience and knowing edible food will be important later in a season like winter.'

2 months later. 'It has been weird experiencing all of puberty in a span of a couple of months but that is just the life of creatures that crawl on the ground, everything works on a different time scale here and its not something that I am proud of as I am starting to lose myself. The instincts feel as though they were always there now even before I was even a lizard, but I know that to be false and yet what a weird feeling it is to live without a voice of reason to tell me to hide or to sniff for competition in my territory.' Currently Tom is basking under the dimming orange light of evening while on a sunny rock proudly displaying his fully grown horns, and yet a smaller and more audacious grey lizard dares to step into his clearing, "begone fly or I will feed you to the foxes."

Outside noises *Screeeee

More outside noises *Scree

I lunge at the little crap that is clearly questioning my authority, and I absolutely body the intruder from my superior vantage point landing a head-butt on the interlopers right side, sending the lizard sprawling on the ground. I quickly follow up by biting at its neck just behind its horns and tasting iron as it tries to gouge out my eyes with the two back horn to get me to let go of it, I keep my tail away from the lizards mouth without any worry for the oppositions counter to my attack as the horns bounce between my nose horn and its skin is too taunt to move the head back resulting in me keeping control of the situation as the lizard squirms. The squirming proved to be effective as I didn't think to use my claws to restrain its movements resulting in it breaking free but not without me being left with a few small scales and my opponent bleeding now, this will be my victory after such a successful first strike but my opponent doesn't back down yet so it looks like I will now have to brawl.

There is a flash of movement and the next thing that I know is that I see black socks on long orange legs, my opponent can't react as it soon has a maw over its entire body with a spray of blood coming out of its mouth coming with a loud crunching silence that breaks my adrenaline fuelled rage and I run. 'I must run like the little lizard that I am as my fellow grey lizards brown eyes lose all of their colour,' past the field of grass and past bushes to avoid a directly following predator but to also break line of sight of any flying creature that might want to take advantage of my full attention focused on the ground behind me as I run, not feeling the need to test out whether my tail can disconnect from my body or not I do not stop running until I am exhausted and begin to climb a tree only for a past scenario to reoccur again. I see a blur in my vision from the right and scramble left on the tree trunk to the other side as there is a loud *snap and a *growl, that is soon followed by a blur on the right following me but by that point I am already high up on the trunk even if I know what is to come so I flex my tail lifting it up just as there is another *Snap and I feel the air being displace behind me. I feel like my heart is about to leave its body as I hide in the tree's branches with an angry and dissatisfied *growl my fear leaves me and I am left thankful to be left alive for another day in such a scary world.

3 months later. 'Summer is now almost over and yet I have an irrational fear of letting my instincts free right now, it is all because it wants to make noise on my rock but I don't want to attract the attention of the long legged foxes or the hawk like sounding birds that I always hear every now and then but usually are not bothered by them as I am usually hunting in the undergrowth most of the day, and definitely not hiding because this growing little lizard is not about to be malnourished, with me spending minimal amounts of time in the morning and evening basking at my rock.' A while back I also spotted what I would have classified in my past life as a monster's because the green humanoid's were the size of a 14 year old and had dark green skin wearing tribal outfits of animal leather like the foxes and a couple others with one wearing a war bonnet similar to native Americans, however their real intentions or party size were not my problem so I ignored them for the most part since I could not make them my underlings or fully comprehend their position in this ecosystem as a small lizard who was on the hunt for juicy bug's, that I hoped would still be around during winter since the cicada had stopped appearing last week abruptly as though they never existed with not even an exoskeleton left in the ecosystem.

'Knowing all the typical reincarnation tropes it might be worth seeking help from a higher power and since being a tiny lizard is not much fun or good for my really long lifespan that I know of for sure I am destined to live,' so I breath in and shout out, " If a God of Dragons exists then please make me into a Dragonkin or something so that I don't have to live my life as a small and insignificant lizard but so that I can finally show my true potential and finally shout without worry of being eaten making everyone fear my might and power like never before and blessing be to your day."