Alex found himself in a tight dark space which confused him since the last thing he remembered was crossing the street and suddenly hearing the sound of a truck horn then darkness. 'i'm dead huh?' he thought not really that bothered by the revelation. alex was homeless and horribly depressed with life at the time of his death so he considered it a release from his life that was going straight to hell with no signs of stopping. ' well i guess i aught to stretch out and make myself comfortable if this is my afterlife.' he thought as he stretched only to feel a soft rubbery feeling under his hand.

'Odd , i wonder if i could stretch this space out?' alex wondered as he pushed against the rubbery wall as hard as he could only for it to snap and light to pour in. alex knew something strange was going on at this point and began to struggle against the hole he made in his container. the hole grew bigger and bigger until alex could finally slip out and what he saw stunned him. his "hands" were in fact thin reptilian claws with fat finger parts and he could see a scaled snout in front of his face.

'The fuck? am i a gods damn lizard?!' alex raged mentally and pulled the rest of himself out of his container which he now discovered was an egg. looking over himself alex had a dark expression as he found that he was indeed a lizard , specifically some sort of black gecko. 'i need to figure out if i'm safe baby geckos are super vulnerable to predators.' he thought as he looked around only to tilt his head in confusion as he seemed to be inside a persons room with all sorts of papers with various diagrams on them scattered about everywhere.

*SYSTEM INTIALIZED.... WELCOME HOST THE THE CUSTOM MONSTER SYSTEM*

Alex blinked when this text appeared right in front of him and didn't vanish despite him blinking or looking around. 'well at least i have a system so that's reassuring.' he thought before trying all of the ways he could think of to activate the system. it turned out that simply commanding it with the word status opened up the system and gave him another prompt. the prompt basically just said that his first customization was free as a starter gift.

In the center of the system was a full image of what he assumed to be him as it showed a black gecko that had red eyes and a red star shaped patch of scales between his eyes. apparently the system was a drawing based thing as he had a paintbrush looking thing. he also noticed the add folder option and three tabs marked dynamic , special and item. right off the rip alex wanted to abuse his starter gift and transform into a mighty dragon. it took him all of five minutes to realize that he couldn't figure out how to increase his size directly and focus on improving his current form.

The first thing alex changed was his heads shape in the system to look less derpy and more like a fantasy dragons with little nub horns and an angular design. it was clear that alex wasn't very artistically skilled as he had to redo his work twenty four times before he was satisfied. after that alex changed his thick burdensome tail into a thin much longer whip like thing with a serrated bone spike at the tip to use as a weapon. alex didn't take that long for the tail and moved his attention to his body.

Alex thickened the limbs with more muscle and armored his skin with thicker scales while raising bone spikes from his spine just enough to look cool. once alex was done he was left with an image that honestly looked like a tiny black dragon. something alex figured out was that he could focus his attention on something and mentally type in a description for it. he used this to actually make his tail into a viable weapon by adding the description of its usability and strength.

Unfortunately alex had to save his current work before he could see what the other options did which he found out also made the changes permanent. after confirming he wanted to save with the system alex froze and he rolled around 'FUCK! IT ITCHES IT ITCHES SO MUCH OHMYGODMAKEITSTOP!' he mentally screamed as his actual body underwent drastic changes to match his saved image. it took close to two minutes for the changes to end and alex to pass out from the intense exhaustion that came from the huge upgrade his body underwent. he didn't know how long he slept but he eventually woke up grumpily as he heard as female voice speaking excitedly while something poked him in various places.