'Again'

Sebastian observed his physique, noting his well-defined muscles and tall stature. He had lost track of how many times he had been reincarnated. Curiously, he always seemed to come back to life just a few months shy of his 18th birthday.

Catch? He didn’t have clothes on.

'The era must’ve changed yet again.'

After all, a hundred years was a long time. His next rebirth always took place 100 years after he died.

What kept him engaged throughout his endless cycle of life was humanity's advancement. His natural curiosity also played a significant role. Over time, this curiosity evolved into a scientist's obsession, driving him to witness the pinnacle of human achievement.

Sebastian shook his head to get rid of the faint dizziness which always accompanied him after every reincarnation then got up and looked around. It was dark all around, even his better than average eyesight couldn't make out anything. 

'Looks like some sort of cave. There must be an opening somewhere.'

He thought after he extended his hand to get a feel of his surroundings. Sebastian walked around what he thought to be a cave for a minute before he felt something which could get him out of it. 

'Looks like a boulder.'

He thought after putting both his hands on it, moving one of his legs slightly behind the other, he exerted strength on to his hands. 

His perfect posture refined through countless practices allowed him to bring out the maximum force, making the well developed muscles of his arms bulge out slightly. 

The boulder instantly began moving, and a few seconds later, water began rushing in from the top, drenching Sebastian before moving onto the deeper parts of the cave. 

After thinking about something, he abruptly increased the amount of force and pushed the boulder, a few seconds later, the boulder abruptly sank down. 

'I was correct. It's a water body. There isn't much pressure, I must not be too far away from the surface. Still though, had I not pushed the boulder quick enough, the cave would’ve been filled with water.’

The cave he was in was located inside a water body. After exiting, he unhurriedly began swimming upwards in order to get out of the current situation, he was all too well versed on how to deal with unexpected situations after rebirth. 

'I need to find a human settlement first.'

With that in mind, Sebastian began walking in a random direction. Wanting to find where the human settlement would be in the middle of a jungle without any equipment, leads or information would be close to impossible even for him so he chose a direction on random. The night time would just impede his calculations if he attempted one. 

While walking he put together a makeshift cloth from the trees and plants and used it to cover his genital area. Not caring about anything was one thing and having basic human decency was another. 

After walking for thirty minutes, he heard a rustle of bushes from up ahead. Sebastian instantly slowed down his speed and the sound of his movement which was already too less to notice minimized even further. 

'A fight.'

Sebastian noticed after watching the situation in front of him unfold. A group of people were engaging with a large amount of animals.

'They've grown yet again.'

Sebastian thought as he noticed the weapon they were wielding, he had named them as guns when he invented them in the past. He could easily notice a few changes made to the guns to adjust to the different terrains and ranges. 

It was more like a slaughter with how things were going, yet the troops halted after a set number of animals were left. He noticed one of them, with a slightly different uniform than the rest wave in a direction. 

Sebastian followed the direction of his signal and noticed a four wheeled heavily armored vehicle located there. The door of the vehicle opened and a slender leg stepped out of it, followed by a second then the rest of the body. 

Sebastian could judge that she was a fairly healthy individual and a rather well trained one, noticing from how she walked. 

When she was near the troops, the man who had signaled towards the vehicle removed the scabbard attached to his waist and handed it to the lady. 

'They still use cold weapons? Shouldn't they be long out of use now that firearms have been developed? Or are they still rare?'

Sebastian let go of those thoughts and focused on the lady. Her long black hair was tied neatly in a bun, probably to not let it affect her movements. 

She removed the sword from the scabbard and handed the latter to the man. Holding the sword in her hand, she gazed at the various animals as if scanning them and immediately set off running towards one. 

'The weakest one.'

Sebastian noticed as he saw her approaching the heavily injured tiger. The lady had accurately picked out the weakest of the bunch alive.

Judging from her running form, and her hold on the sword, Sebastian guessed that the lady was experienced in fights like these. The surrounding troops having no intention to help just reinforced his guess. 

Sebastian stayed at his spot without making even the slightest sound throughout the duration of the lady's battle with the tiger, not moving even by an inch. 

As he had initially guessed, the lady was experienced in fighting, but he could still spot several flaws in her fighting style. Instead of flaws, it was more like her style wasn't suited to fighting the animals. 

Sebastian who had lived since who knows how long, could come up with various styles to defeat the animals way more efficiently even barehanded. 

He had lived through the times when humans relied on killing animals to make their living. Naturally, the techniques they had developed and perfected in that era couldn't be reproduced this easily. 

Just when the fight was about to end, a leopard broke out from the enclosure and ran away in the direction where Sebastian was hiding. 

The surrounding troops made no movements to block the animal which tried to escape from the battle. They had been standing there motionless from the moment the lady had begun fighting. They would've anyway let free the rest of the animals since the lady was done having her fight. 

Sebastian swiftly thought about various situations and immediately settled upon confronting the animal. 

He stood up from his spot, briefly surprising the leopard along with everyone, and quickly pushed down on its forehead

Taking advantage of its inertia, he did nothing but move his hand a little upward, allowing the leopard to slide below his hand and without any delay, swiftly executed a one inch punch on its neck.

SNAP!

The sound of its neck breaking was extremely clear in the quiet forest. The lady visibly flinched at the voice before she narrowed her eyes at him. 

The entire process of his battle was still fresh in everyone's memories—from his unhurried movement disrupting the leopard's motion, to his clever use of its initial momentum to let the neck slide under his lifted hand, before swiftly executing a perfect one-inch punch. This move—something many experts take as long as a minute to prepare for—resulted in a swift demise for the leopard.

The entire process from pushing the forehead to snapping its neck didn't even take a second if one counted literally. 

The troops which hadn't moved throughout the battle and even when the leopard ran out, quickly pointed their weapons at him. 

Walking over the dead corpse of the leopard, Sebastian moved into the open area without showing any reaction to the guns being pointed at him and said, 

"My name is Sebastian Walker. I have lost my way in this jungle after losing all my equipment. I also discarded the clothes since they were torn apart too badly, could you please give me a set of clothes and show me a way out?"

He had a smile on his face the entire time plus his body posture didn't betray even a single ounce of nervousness. 

The lady's entire body was covered in clothes, exposing not even an inch of skin. Just her face was partially covered in a mask. The upper portion of the face was out in the open, showing her fair skin, and her almond shaped brown eyes. 

After a moment of tense silence, she opened her mouth and said, 

"Twenty three kilometers to the west from here is Clinton city. You should be able to find your way out from there."

She immediately turned around and began walking towards the armored vehicle after she answered, her sword leaving behind a trail of blood. 

One of the men on standby handed him a pair of clothes and quickly retreated to their vehicles, preparing to leave. 

Sebastian loudly thanked her before he turned west, opposite to where her vehicle was parked and began walking.

The differently dressed man signaled his men to put down their firearms and follow him back to their vehicles. 

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When the lady entered her own armored vehicle and started it, the rest of the vehicles around her went into gear one after another, positioned themselves around her and soon left the area. 

"Captain, why didn't you let us shoot?"

"Check your gun closely."

The person who had asked closely inspected his gun and soon broke out in cold sweat. 

"You noticed? I noticed mine a little late too. If we had shot our guns after being blocked like that, it's very likely we might have injured our hands, or worse shot ourselves."

Hearing that, every person checked their guns and noticed a small barely noticeable stone stuck in a core part of their gun, making everyone go quiet.

"When?"

"No idea."

*****

'Clinton city huh? They didn't change the name. I suppose I could get some information if my laboratory there isn't destroyed.'

Sebastian thought while walking leisurely. A while later he thought, 

'An academy doesn't seem to be a bad idea. It's been several lifetimes since I attended one. Guess I'll attend one this life.'

Soon he picked up pace and left the area, returning the scene of battle to its usual calm, the various corpses of different animals painting an eerie scene in the calm of night. 

After walking for around thirty minutes Sebastian was finally able to get out of a forest. What greeted him was a wide road with a smooth surface, unlike the rough ones of the old times. 

Not displaying any trace of irregularity, he walked alongside the road for around five minutes before he was able to start seeing some buildings around. 

'The city starts from here on out huh?'

He thought while observing the people nearby.

'Nothing looks familiar'

It was Sebastian's first thought after he entirely entered the city.

'It's going to be difficult to find my laboratory.'

It was obvious, how could he find his laboratory when everything around it has been changed? He had laboratories and bases all around the world. 

Even if he could remember where every single one was, he still couldn't pinpoint the exact location where they were, at least not without finding at least one. Once he found one, he could easily pinpoint where the others were. 

Thinking of something, Sebastian put on a smile and approached a person who was walking with a slight sway with airpods in her ears, most likely listening to music. 

He tapped softly on her shoulder, making her turn around. Sebastian could see she was a beauty but unfazed about it, he asked, 

"Could you recommend to me some famous tourist attraction places around the city?"

Raelyn was a student at the Quintessential academy. She was on her way to the academy for her overtime project work when she felt someone tapping her shoulder, turning around, she was surprised when her gaze fell upon his visage. 

It was a young man standing there smiling at her. Handsome would be an understatement to describe him, his 6 '3 height along with lean cut build from what she could see just added to the overall charm. 

Not to mention the messy black hair which suited her type. The problem? His eyes looked dead despite the smile on his face. The deep blue eyes had no noticeable expression she could make out despite being a psychology major. 

"Yea yea, there is the Lake of Wisdom, the Clock tower, Ancient chimney, Statue of Trust and The Quintessential academy."

Raelyn said after gathering herself, by now she had pretty much calmed herself down and was able to hold a normal conversation with the handsome stranger in front of her. At the end of it, she bid him goodbye with a smile and went her way. 

'They've renamed it to the Clock tower? Maybe I should go check it out so that I can confirm if it is indeed the one.'

He remembered there was a tall tower east to his base in this Clinton city. But from what the young women had said, it was a long distance away from his current location. He looked upwards to see the full moon and thought, 

'The humans wouldn't be much active during this time. There would hardly be any transport services available, maybe I should run over there or steal something. I have plenty of energy left, so I won't be sleeping anyway.'

As soon as he decided that, Sebastian gradually picked up pace, from walking to jogging to running, all the while keeping note of anything he could find useful to travel. 

A few seconds later, he found a bicycle left out in the open just outside a store, steering his direction, he ran over to the bicycle and quickly peddled it away. 

Morals? What were those? Almost everything had faded away with the passage of time, apart from a few memories which had been with him for as long as he could remember. Problem? He didn't know their origin. 

Around one hour later he was finally able to reach the tower's location after riding the bicycle at its top speed and he found out it was indeed the same tower near his lab. 

For the next half an hour, he traveled in circles around the tower to find his lab and finally found it. No one other than him would have been able to find it. 

There was a tree in the distance with one of its branch showing a bit of silver hue at the end of it, genetically modified by him to, it was so faint that people would rarely notice it and more often than not just chalk it up to their hallucination, adding on to the fact that it was only visible at night, it became even more difficult to find. 

Approaching the ordinary looking tree, he touched a point at exactly three meters from the ground. As soon as he did that, he waited exactly three seconds before he abruptly said, 

"Authorize access: Sebastian Walker 695278"

It was playing in his favor that it was the night time or else people might have looked at him weirdly for talking to a tree, not that he would have cared. 

Just after he was done, he broke into a sprint in the direction of the unique branch and stood upright. 

Precisely after thirty seconds had passed since the authorization access, the ground rumbled, enough for him to notice. He stomped once, twice, thrice and it finally caved in. 'Fuck, they keep increasing their base without fixing the below one.'

The cement, the blocks, the mortar, everything caved in, and a hole opened up enough for his body to completely fall. The hole closed as soon as the last hair passed below the ground level. 

Sebastian felt himself sliding through endless darkness before he finally stopped three seconds later. As soon as he stood up, he counted to three seconds and abruptly said, 

"Authorization access: Sebastian Walker 695278"

A square shaped neon colored keypad suddenly began glowing as soon as he said that, illuminating the surroundings. The keypad was attached to a wide expanse of white wall extending as far as the light allows you to see. 

Exactly thirty seconds after the keypad illuminated, Sebastian put in the password in under three seconds. 

Finally, the door opened, allowing Sebastian entry before it abruptly closed. The lights of the lab turned on simultaneously as soon as he stepped inside, giving one a clear view of the laboratory. 

The laboratory was approximately of dimension 105m x 68m, the size of a professional football field, with varying degree of height of ceiling throughout the lab. 

One could see various high end devices and equipment, making one wonder how much hard work must one have needed to single handedly research and make all the things. 

To compare things from a grand perspective, it would be like a single person being ahead of the era of technology which the whole of humanity developed together. Although he had a head start, it was still impressive. 

Sebastian approached the nearest device and activated it after putting in the password again. There were several layers of security for everything as there were many confidential things hidden, some might even throw the world in chaos. Plus he personally had no interest in interfering with the development of humanity.  

A cyan colored holographic screen floated in front of him, covering his vision. One could see various dots spread across what looked like a map of the planet. 

Sebastian studied the map for around thirty seconds before coming to a conclusion. 

'Thirteen of my bases have been destroyed. I was correct to put up the security.'

The bases had self destruction programs set into them even if a single thing went wrong while accessing it. 

For example, the delay margin of error for saying the passwords out loud was two seconds after the initial 3 seconds, so if Sebastian  had said the password at even 5.1th second instead of 5th second, the base would blow itself up. Loss? Nope, all data would be backed up in other labs. 

He then moved across various devices, keeping some in pocket, wearing some, hiding some in clothes, and injecting some into his body before he finally came back to the holographic screen. 

For the next thirty minutes, Sebastian was busy browsing various pieces of news across the planet. He even hacked a few information servers, but there was no valuable information, everything was going just as he had predicted. 

'Another boring lifetime. But there’s one peculiarity, it has only been 90 years since I last died. How? I’ve always reincarnated 100 years after dying, this is new. Maybe I’ll make some progress this lifetime. Academy should be a nice passtime for the meantime, hope it entertains me.'

Now fully equipped, Sebastian powered down all the devices in his lab. He left the lab and made his way to the open socket that had transported him below via the slide. After entering the password, he was propelled back to the surface where he skillfully controlled his descent and landed gracefully.

He covered the open spot with a replacement tile he brought from the lab which he could remove instead of stomping everytime.

'So, to the academy we go. The Quintessential academy is perfect to start my life. But, a room to live in first, at least to keep up the disguise even if I would be spending my time in laboratories.'

Sebastian had already made fake ids back at the lab, so there was no problem of identity in the current world. He leisurely picked up the bicycle he had casually left at the side of the road and rode his way towards the academy. Better to find a room near it. 

'There are so many questions I still have to find answers for, the majority of them revolving around myself. When will I be able to solve them? Is there some requirement I haven't met yet? Is there something I am supposed to do? 

I always start my lives at a few months before 18 years. I don't remember anything before that, why is that? Is there some supernatural power at play? Could it be—'

BOOM!

The wall beside him was smashed, with his extraordinary reflexes Sebastian was able to dodge the debris flying his way. 

He had jumped backwards the moment he sensed changes in the wall beside him, leaving the bicycle going forward due to inertia, unfortunately, it was smashed apart by a figure which had instead been smashed through the wall. 

Sebastian soundlessly moved across the street and occupied a place behind a wall. He then deployed a few tiny drones which had cameras around him, efficiently allowing him to spectate the situation from different angles through the spectacles he just put on. 

By this time another figure walked out from the wall, staring ahead at the previous figure which had already stood up. 

'I don't see any weapons on them? Did he blast the other person through the wall with bare hands? Hmmm interesting.'

Sebastian thought as he continued monitoring the two people, from their figures, it seemed both were males.

What followed was just a staredown between the two figures before the second one raised his hand, …and abruptly waved it in the direction where Sebastian was hiding. 

Sebastian was a person who had lived for countless years, without panicking, he maintained his calm and soundlessly ran away while maintaining his cover. It wasn't bad to be cautious. 

He had already looked into his specs to find that the portion of the wall he had been hiding behind had been blown to smithereens. 

'Humans have already grown to this point? But I didn't see any such information on the internet. The figure didn't even use any weapons according to the footage captured by my drones.'

But before he could think further, he saw that the second figure had already run in his direction and closed the distance between them. 

'No use running away, he seems to have an exceptional physique. And looks like he wants to silence me.'

Sebastian instantly turned around, and took out his daggers from the pocket. Planting one foot in the ground, he forcefully pushed it down in order to lunge at the incoming figure. 

SLASH!

The figure was able to react at the last moment, but it was only to the extent of blocking the blade with his bare hand as there wasn't enough time to dodge. The unknown person in front of him had abruptly changed his course of direction and even attacked at the weakest spot, as if a master of combat. 

Sebastian didn't stop at that, he stabbed at the person's neck which was deflected by his hands through pure reflex before moving to lunge at him, which he aptly dodged before jumping backwards. 

In the rare moment of peace, Sebastian noticed that his opponent was encased in some kind of extremely thin armor. Although it was still damaged by his daggers, the armor was still able to protect the person's arm beneath it. Plus the figure seemed to have exceptional reaction speed on top of their physique. 

Only the eyes of the figure were exposed, confirming Sebastian's guess that they were indeed humans. 

'Could it be some government experiment again? They've never stopped at them after all. I should just kill them and take back their bodies for research.'

From the brief fight just now, Sebastian could conclude that the person in front of him just had a top class physique, similar to him, or even better, but just that. 

He was relying on his reflexes and pure physique to battle him all this while, add to it that thin armor. He hardly had any skills at all, not to mention any battle sense, there were several instances where Sebastian could have outright killed him if not for him wanting to test the waters first. 

'He doesn't seem to have any intention of using the power again.'

He thought. He had never seen the government succeed with gaining a way to create superpowers in humans, maybe they did this time? 

He had succeeded in the past but those were all unstable results, he was thankful to the fact that the body of the previous life doesn't carry over to the next one.

The figure abruptly moved again, seemingly strengthening his resolve to kill him, but the latter just skillfully controlled his body to evade the charge before piercing a few paralyzing darts on its armor. 

Seeing that his upper body was paralyzed, Sebastian quickly slashed at his neck from behind, killing the person. But without paying attention, he moved out of the wall and shot at the second person who was tending to their wound. 

Due to seeing the gun at the end moment, the figure couldn’t fully dodge, the bullet only grazing past its shoulder. Seeing that something had gone wrong, it quickly began running without a second thought. 

Not willing to leave the second one alive either, he quickly ran after it while shooting several shots, mixing even a few paralyzing bullets so that it would slow down the person even if it just happened to graze past it. 

After a chase of around twenty seconds, Sebastian finally got an opportunity as the figure had slowed down before he took out his dagger and threw at a breakneck speed. 

The form was so immaculate it would have made for a good image or even teaching material but here it just made the dagger throw more deadly. 

Just when the dagger was about to pierce the armor, Sebastian noticed a faint spark at the figure's fingertips, which grew to a size of two meters in no time, zapping the dagger into powder before moving towards him. 

Sebastian had extraordinary reflexes sure, but not to the point of being able to avoid a literal lightning coming at him. He could just barely tilt his body, making it hit his arm. 

"Mmph"

Letting out a muffled groan, Sebastian fell to the ground. Realizing his body's condition, he quickly thought of a few measures and commanded, 

"Activate healing protocol - I and begin de-electrification process"

'The voltage of that strike won't kill me but it might have crippled me if not for quick healing.'

Sebastian thought while twitching. Luckily the specs could detect his thoughts and act accordingly. 

'It needs to be finished soon, I can't take too much time here. It's about to be morning again.'

Not caring about the energy consumption, he quickly added, 

"Activate healing protocol - II"

There were several drones around his twitching body, working with a variety of tools and cooperating with the nanomachines in his body, all looking extremely delicate but high class and expensive. 

'So they DID after all develop a superpower huh? Is it just one? Or are there multiple? Is there some kind of restriction or cooldown? There probably is. No other reason why the first figure wouldn't use it then.

‘Although it's regretful I didn't get to see it, I am thankful he couldn't use it. Just one move was almost close to crippling even a top class physique. No wonder I didn't get any information online, it's probably heavily guarded or wasn't even uploaded online in the first place.'

Around half an hour later Sebastian could already move again, but he could see that more than half of the equipment he had brought from the base had already turned useless. 

He quickly picked up the scraps and walked up to the area where the first corpse was supposed to be but found nothing there. 

'It disappears on its own? Or does the armor fly it away after discovering no life signs? If that is the case, it's obvious the government wouldn't want anyone to be able to get their hands on it. It might have even had a self-destruct function.'

Sebastian wasn't very curious, he simply checked the recording of drones and noticed that the armor began disintegrating along with the body, taking only ten minutes before nothing was on the spot anymore. 

Just the appearance of such things was enough to keep him occupied for a long time. It didn't matter that they did nothing to him, everyone was a research object to him now that he had seen his ‘own’ hope. Hope of knowing answers to the memories in his brain, possibly answering the questions to his peculiar situation.

He could keep dying and coming back to life, effectively cutting off any hope at being able to 'silence' him. He had seen hope this time, hope to many questions of his. 

‘Maybe I should first check around where these abilities originated or how they were made or how did those humans get it. No need to antagonize the ruling bodies if I can peacefully get my hands on it. Maybe there are already academies specialized for such purposes?’

That electricity attack was close to perfection and extremely stable from what he had seen. He had to get his hands on it no matter what. Not many of his past results on superpowers could compare to just one tiny attack of that person. And with this…

Sebastian now had a new goal.