章 21: Alchemy Shapeshifting
Luckily for Mark, he ended up seeing an open room with another sleeping old man. Mark made the old man blurt out his passwords while he was asleep, and then, taking all of the old man's smart devices, he left the room and went to the floor above the top floor.
The ceiling.
Mark stood near the building's edge. Dona was still slung on his back. His face awash with the golden sun's brilliance, he let her lay down against the wall and looked at the city.
Of course, he still stayed within 5 meters of her. If he moved past 5 meters of Dona, he would be detected by the Will of the Hunter World.
His gaze moved to the hundreds of tall buildings, light matting their windows. It was a sight that left him feeling somewhat foreign, alien.
He felt as if he shouldn't be here.
This was where humans lived. It was not the place for demonic barbarism.
Mark closed his eyes.
He pushed his short hair back with both hands and felt the wind crash against his body.
"Such a profound feeling of self-loathing. Do I resent myself for being a demon? Or is it my compassion for humans talking?"
Did he hate his own demonic self deep down? How silly.
It was mere appearance.
Mark liked to analyze himself sometimes. It made him calmer.
If it could be helped, deep down, he didn't want to kill humans.
It was against his basic instinct that he built up over his past life.
But then, he thought about his desires.
In this life, he didn't want to die as an insignificant speck of dust. He wanted his life to truly matter in the grand scheme of things. No matter who the human he killed was, no matter their desires, it didn't matter if they died or not.
The person he killed might be the most righteous saint who would sacrifice his own life to save another without batting his eyes, maybe he might even be beyond saints. That person might just be a hero of the ages.
So what?
Heroes died, too, when the time came. So did the one the hero saved. Both of their lives mattered little. When the lifespan of the one who was saved ended, they will die... so, wouldn't that make the hero's sacrifice useless?
At most, it would leave behind a happy memory in the minds of the dead.
His ambition was beyond that. It was beyond just a happy memory.
He would one day walk among the stars, see the limits of living existence. If simple humans—who barely lived a mortal life—couldn't be sacrificed for it, his goals meant nothing.
Human existence was like an ant's. They didn't matter more than dogshit when it truly came to it. They all lived for many dreams, to love, to become a millionaire, and to do a lot more. But when they died, they were the same as an ant, nothing more, nothing less.
Both were corpses.
What was the difference of a rich corpse and a poor corpse?
They were both corpses. Yes, they might leave a bigger impact but did that impact matter in the grand scheme of the universe?
When ten years passed, most of that impact would have become empty air. Okay, maybe not, but when five hundred years pass, that impact will surely matter little. Okay, if it still remained, a billion years later, it surely wouldn't.
The existence of a small human being, no matter what their dreams were, didn't matter.
It was the same for Mark's own existence if he failed to achieve his dreams. If he doesn't become an eternal creature with an infinite lifespan, whatever he did, good or bad, wouldn't matter.
Lived, died, got forgotten. It was the fate of all meaningless beings.
In the infinite expanse of time, only eternal things mattered. All others were worthless in the face of time.
Only attaining eternal life could make all his goals real. Only attaining eternal life could make his own soul matter. If a creature was not eternal, it was no different from any other creature.
A bug's life might not seem as grand as a human's but the difference was nothing other than an illusion.
That made him pause. His white hair ruffled in the wind.
It felt as if he had finally seen what he had to do to truly achieve his grand goals.
His desires—
To exist.
To live to the fullest without any regrets.
To matter.
Forever.
—they would be fulfilled as long as he gained Eternal Life.
As long as he would never die, he could do everything else slowly.
And to achieve Eternal Life, he just had to follow his desires.
Every Desire he fulfilled gave his lifespan a boost.
But to follow his desires without any worries, he had to be strong.
So strong, no one would be able to defy him.
He remembered a System message he had seen some days ago.
[There are ten Tiers of existence. Tier 0 is the weakest, while Tier 10 is the strongest. You are of the weakest Tier of Existence among Demons, a 𝐓𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝟎—𝐃𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠.]
He just had to become a Tier 10 Demon, the strongest.
Who could defy the strongest Demon?
Who could defy him becoming an Eternal Being after that?
There was no reason to pity the humans he would kill on his path. So what if he killed them, what if he didn't? Wouldn't they die anyway?
If he didn't kill them, time would kill them.
He might as well make them be useful to him in his own dreams of defying time. If they could kill him to achieve their own dreams, he wouldn't make a fuss either.
If life was like a river, they were drowning in meaninglessness, and Mark wanted to swim to the top and breathe the air of reality. If the only way to reach the top was by stepping on others ruthlessly, he would do that, unblinking from now.
I need a lot of strength to become Eternal, a lot of strength that no one would dare defy my desires.
Just as he thought of strength, the three students came back to his mind again. Mark had heard their names while they were stunned and calling out for each other in panic when he had just walked out of that Portal.
Shiden, Fulan, Maki.
Each of them had amazing abilities, but the ability that the thin young man, Shiden, had. That ability made Mark want it badly.
He also had a way to take it for himself.
The Seal of Destiny that he had received from the Will of the Demon World. It could help him steal any one ability, and Shiden seemed like a really good candidate to steal from.
Shiden's ability would help him in almost all situations he could think of.
_
[Alchemy Shapeshifting]
[The ability to transmute anything one touches. You can touch steel and make it into gold as long as you know how gold works.
[This ability can change anything from one form to any other form as long as the total mass doesn't change—it can even change the shape to anything you desire. You can even change the shape of living beings that you touch.]
_
Mark clenched his hand and opened his golden eyes. They were full of excitement.
"What could be more overpowered than that?"
He wanted it!
Maybe there were better abilities than that out there, but Mark was fine with that.
He had received one Seal of Destiny from the Demon World, and he could get more Seals if he conquered a Nation. If he was strong enough, conquering a Nation didn't sound impossible.
This ability would never lose value.
It was broken.
He would regret it if he lost it.
Just think of it. He could take a big stone and shape it into a weapon with a thought. He could change his own appearance to infiltrate anywhere he wanted to. He could think of a thousand ways to use the power.
Anyway.
Mark wanted it badly, and he didn't mind killing for that. It could become a foundation upon which he built himself up.
What would Shiden do with it at most?
To play the hero of this world and save it from invading Demons?
Mark despised such a thing.
Meaningless.
At most, Shiden would leave long-lasting effects on this world, but in the end, as long as Shiden's ambition was limited to worldly things—money, having a family, living happily, or even saving the world and becoming its ruler, it won't matter in the end who wielded the power.
Shiden would just be a chess piece of sorts in a huge arena with infinite pieces. He would die and become ash, and years later, someone would take on the same cycle.
When enough time passes, even this world might die.
"Humans, demons, there is no difference. Their race doesn't matter, nor does anything else. I will kill them all if they stand in my path. There is no stopping me from reaching the best version of myself. No stopping me from becoming meaningful."
Shaking his head, he looked at the thousands of humans prowling the world. Cars, Jobs, Business. From his sight, they seemed so miserable.
What were most of them doing?
Weren't they the same as him before he died in his first life?
They lived for no particular reason, no different from a bug, and when their lifespans ended, they died.
No idea or power to defy their fate.
No. Some of them were not weak.
Some of them had some powers.
What were those people? How did their powers work?
Was it also a bloodline like Demons? Could they eat souls to grow stronger?
Then, there was the fact that cameras were all around the Portal even before the portal appeared.
What was that about? Was there something going on in that school other than his own entry?
Mark took the old man's mobile phone and began searching.
Indeed, this world was crazily similar to Earth—to the point it seemed uncanny. Boogle search, Me Tube, it had his head bursting at how mirror-like it all was.
Thankfully, the language blessing from the Will of the Demon World had made everything he read basically the same as English. It sure was convenient.
What were these people with superpowers called in this world?
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