It was boring.

That was the reason.

It was boring.

So what then? I was sealed in this dimension of nothing. There wasn’t a void to consume me. There weren’t monsters that made my heart throb. And there weren’t humans.

Humans.

Humans.

Why was I referring to them as I would an alien species?

Even if I were to integrate myself back into society again, it would all be the same pretentious stuff.

What use was power when there was no philosophy? Where was the motive? Eternity isn’t my prerogative. It never was a priority. And yet why must I be cursed with this damned heart? Why do so many seek what I have?

Strip away the fantasy, the magic, the oceans, and what you are left with is the same old, same old; but in a different format.

Those in power rose. Then their corruptness would culminate into their eventual downfall. And thus, another power rose. And their corruptness would rival that of their predecessor. The cycle would continue on inevitably, with occasional goodness from time to time, but with corruptness at every step.

Democracy, Communism, Dictatorship, Monarchy, whichever it was, strip away the idealized concepts and what you are left with at the core was the corruption of a group of people. The corruptness never belonged to any single individual, for there were always backstabbers more corrupt, raring for any chance at your throat.

And now, in my contemplation, I found myself thinking, “If only I were more like him.”

That cluelessness wasn’t an ideology at all, it was merely indecisiveness. Thoughts of his undirected perfectionism still astound me even now, seeping through my aged soul. It’s been at least a millennia, and I have yet to find another specimen quite like him. In a sense, I suppose it takes an utter maniac of a creature to be a true friend.

The way he thought was not at all human. But with the centuries, I have found myself relating and understanding him more and more. It was a battle between my centuries of experience living in this disgusting world against that person’s casual inquiries. And somehow, he was right. All of it.

The memories of a millennium were all stored in my head, but the measly decade I spent as his companion echoed the deepest nostalgia.

I would even find myself thinking, “Maybe it wasn’t so bad to have stayed in that world.”

If it meant spending more time with him, maybe I would find the true direction.

I still remember when I used to scoff at his cynical nihilism. Nihilism, as I naively thought before, was stupid.

I believed nihilism to be the epitome of pessimism. It was the first step to suicide. And only idiots were nihilists.

I thought that for a long time.

And it wasn’t till recently that I recognized my mistake.

Nihilism wasn’t that. It wasn’t pessimism. It couldn’t be dismissed with a mere retort such as: “If life is so meaningless, then why don’t you go kill yourself?”

Something that could be dismissed as such wasn’t nihilism.

That was misconstruing the idea completely. It was a disservice if anything. A popular myth that many failed to understand.

Why?

Because no one searched for perfection as he did. He wanted to find the perfect truth.

But everywhere he looked, he saw flaws. There were flaws in every ideal no matter how grand or how perverse. There were flaws in all creatures. And he even accepted that his way of thinking was flawed.

At that time, I took it as that. I also thought he was stupid. And it would take me a long time to understand the differentiation between flawed thinking and stupidity.

Out of all the wizards and wisemen I knew, he, a teenager at that time, was still the wisest. Had his wealth of knowledge not been doomed to that body, the people would see past him and admire his grand deconstructions for what they were.

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Genius.

I spent a good few centuries battling for my ideals. I naively thought, “If I have all the power, then I will have the freedom to fix everything.” But in doing so, I became the “evil,” the corrupt.

Most people had an irrefutable good and bad; the pleasant, and the corrupt. Then there was the minority that thought the two terms were interchangeable depending on perspective. And then there was him, who would probably say something along the lines of, “Who cares?” It wasn’t that he was ignorant—he was more than aware of the numerous interpretations of morality out there. And it was because he was aware, that he was indecisive. That was his answer. In the grand scheme of things, you shouldn’t think too deeply about it, was what he was trying to proclaim.

And as that subtle realization came to me even though I knew it was stupid before from his mentions—no, the falsities struck me harder exactly because he predicted my eventual downfall.

And it was then that I realized I had become just like him. Enlightened on the absurdly irrational parts of the world. What took him less than a decade to comprehend on Earth took me centuries.

I was completely wrong about it all.

For I had become a nihilist.

Whether I liked it or not, that had consumed me, as it did with him.

But I didn’t want to kill myself. I didn’t truly believe that life was meaningless. But I also didn’t believe that there was meaning to be found. I have lived for so long, and if there were meaning, I would know.

Nihilism.

It wasn’t the belief of nothingness—it was the state of indecisiveness from knowing too much and wanting too much. It was punishment for attempting to sway Lady Truth, for no human could ever court such an incomprehensible being. After all, women were hard to get as they were.

And the solution to this despair was simple.

Like he said, “Who cares?”

That was why, instead of endlessly living my eternal life in this pit and letting my mind corrode to mush, I forcefully reincarnated myself.

I could have done it sooner, but I had no objective. I didn’t care for anything.

But that moment of inspiration would bring about an impetus for change.

What was this inspiration, you ask?

Simple.

If being hit by a truck while simultaneously being summoned to this world was what brought my soul here, then who’s to say, I can’t bring him here as well? My comprehension of spatial and temporal magic wasn’t that great, but if a court of formation wizards could summon me to this world, I’ll place my bets that I could do it too.

And the crazy thing?

It was a success.

All it took was the creation of an artificial device that attached itself to the soul and would provide the necessities needed to nurture said soul. And to make it simpler to understand, I modeled it like a game system. But it wasn’t without its share of flaws.

It still required energy to be maintained because spatial and temporal magic was necessary to create and steal items like books and potions. It also wasn’t necessary for daily living at all outside of the initial state of affairs which helped secure the transportation of a soul from another dimension.

As for the last criteria for bringing him to this world, the answer was simple. Through a bit of experimentation with spatial and temporal magic as well as applying a little theoretical framework to draw inspiration from, I was able to produce a perfect clone of my body. The only downside was the body’s power and magic were reduced back to their initial state, separating it from mine. But to my estimates, the system should be able to account for that and nurture his soul, as I designed it to.

And so, when I finally finished with the project, I decided to take a break and scout out the world first, because upon reincarnation, I was stuck in a meager village in the middle of bum fuck nowhere. And like I thought, it was a great idea to familiarize myself with the modern world since a lot had changed. Modern technology was fueled by mana crystals which was a pretty revolutionary idea if you asked me. As for the inventions, I was surprised that most of them were creations that looked identical to the ones on Earth. Could it have been from the blueprints I wrote when I was teaching Melly about science?

Anyway, the political affairs of things were peaceful at first glance.

So when I returned to the village, you better believed that I was confused as heck—like, where the hell was the village? Why the hell was there a giant crater? Did a meteorite obliterate the village or something? Last I checked, there weren’t any dinosaurs roaming about…

But upon checking up with the system, my worries disappeared as I could tell that Sung-in’s soul was safe and sound. It was dangerous for me to tamper with the system after it was already activated since my presence being recognized by the system was an issue, not to mention that interacting with it in any way could cause major reactions. Though, I would have done it again given a second chance because if he died with the current state of his soul, no amount of magic could stop his soul from dissipating. That was why for a growing soul, the system was specifically designed with adaptation and survival in mind.

It took me a while to track him down, but to think he had become a student at some academy for the nobility in the short time when I was searching for him was shocking. Was it plot armor? If it was, then I needed to get one myself… Should I make a system for—nah, I shouldn’t think like that. Creating one of those damn devices already had me pulling all-nighters left and right—not that I needed to sleep, but sleep did grant a sense of humanity. And besides, does anyone even appreciate how much hard work I put into creating it? It was a damn device that attached itself to the soul! The soul! Do you know how hard it is to weld two intangible and abstract things together!? Not to mention the process of creating it!?

Anyway, was this supposed to be a tournament ar—ah, I almost said the forbidden words. My bad.

So this was some sort of exam, huh?

Interesting...

Very well, I guess I’ll go ahead and assert my dominance!