"Ugh... where the heavens am I?"

"And why can't I see anything? ... First things first, can I feel my body? What's that sound? ... Again. ... Oh, that's my heart beat. Good, that means I'm alive. What else? Right, my name's Jack, Jack Wickerwall, curious with many interests, learner of what interests me, and lots of theoretical knowledge, about both useful and useless things, including prepping (survival preparedness) focused on knowledge, sci-fi, and conspiracy theories. What else? I... I forgot. ... And I'm drifting back to sleep."

I slowly awake to the sound of chirping birds. I have my elbow above my head covering my eyes, and my eyes covered by both sides of my arm, with the palm hanging awkwardly on the pillow. Then I remember. I shot my eyes open, still covered by my hand, and I see darkness and a bit of light.

And I slowly remember who I am.

I died.

I was 30 years old, working as a programmer, when I went to sleep. But after waking up, I was 19 years old, and the world has changed. Still the same body I had back then, still had the memories from back then, and while having all that knowledge would have been useful to get ahead in life, something was telling me that the mere act of being brought back in time meant this new world I found myself in was vastly different from my previous one.

And then, it clicked. I could still see what my 30 years old self was seeing, to a degree. And those visions were fading. Then I remembered some beliefs about rebirth and some stories about reincarnation which I read, heard, and watched in my previous life. And then I happened to watch the news.

"This morning, we made first contact. Not with aliens, but with humans from other universes, from parallel dimensions."

After being figuratively glued to the TV screen for around an hour, I finally understood what was going on. Magic. Those other humans come from a world with magic, in order to search for people with high magical affinity whom to be taught magic and whom to bring that knowledge back to our world, because this world was going to be filled with some kind of etheric energy which changes all beings to be able to use magic, including plants and animals, and if they did not interfere, the chances of this realm (as they call it) falling to the forces of evil was inevitable. So they already started scanning our world, which wasn't the first planet they found in a realm, for people who had affinity for their magic, and the authorities in our world will contact those of us with magic affinity in order to have us go to their world and learn magic, then bring back that magic.

And so, I was one of the last ones to be selected, barely making it into the group of a few thousands of people. And in a televised announcement at which I was present in person, it was announced that most of the people present have strong memories of at least a few days in the future, in a world in which the portal was never opened. It seems the portal caused a split in our world, which took a small part of our souls from that world and propelled that world away from the influence of that etheric energy, and the small part of our soul which made it into this world was empowered by magic to recover into a full soul, although one with no previous lives. Our previous selves would still continue their lives without us and without that etheric energy, and we would get to use that very same etheric energy that world rejected so strongly.

And so, gone were my plans of going to an university and of gaining an advantage in life, and a new university-like place was made to teach us the language of that world, which was really difficult because it was a glyph-based language instead of a alphabet-based language, but thankfully there was one alphabet-based encoding for their words which was used to make us learn that language. And so, after 2 years of learning the language of that world, the culture of the country we would join, and some common knowledge of that world and of that country, we ventured into the unknown, passing though a portal in only underwear, one by one, already having underwear and clothes waiting for us on the other side, because the portal would destroy all clothes not empowered by that very same etheric energy, and the cost of bringing those clothes here would be too much for them to justify.

We passed through the portal one by one, waited one minute for the portal on the other side to be moved to a different room, then the next person passed through. After passing through, we were left naked in a room which had clothes and photos on the screen on how to wear our clothes, in case the shock made us forget what we learned in the last two years about the clothing in that world, and after we put them on we were expected to open a door fashioned in the style of our world, then follow the arrows on the ground and ceiling. And if we had problems with the clothes, there was a big red button which we could press to get some help from someone of our body type. And I mean body type instead of gender or sex, because in that world, many have changed their piping down there, some had no piping down there, some had the piping of the other sex, some had both sets of piping, and the vast majority had the piping of their sex, because the vast majority did not get far enough in integrating that etheric energy into their worlds in order to be able to change their piping down there and did not have the wealth necessary to pay for others to do that to their body and often did not have the trust to let others change their bodies that way. And some were born with the piping of both sexes, as naturally and men and women were born in both worlds.

And so we all started cultivating our aura. The etheric energy in that world could be separated into chi/ki/qi which they called aura in English because they say it's more accurate, and mana for which we do not have any better words. We came from a world without that energy, so we had to use that energy to temper our bodies in order to not have significant health problems. Thankfully, we were brought to a place which has many levels of shielding in order to lower the amount of energy in that area. As we got better and leveled up our bodies, we would be moved to one less layer of shielding, and had to adapt our bodied to a lot more energy, before being moved once again to a layer with less shielding, and the same would be repeated until we got out of the shielding. And we were taught the very basics of aura control and it's uses, aura being the etheric energy filtered and integrated into our bodies, mana control and how to use it, mana being the etheric energy filtered but not integrated into our bodies, with ways to control and use both the mana from our bodies and the mana outside our bodies, some alchemy which uses the aura and mana to create pills, potions, elixirs, and so on, enchanting which requires using runes to have items use etheric energy to empower objects instead of people, and arrays which means combining any of those just mentioned to be used as one with a lot more power.

We only practiced the basics, but learned about both basic and advanced uses.

And so, I, Jack Wickerwall, together with everyone else, returned to our world after 4 more years of learning there, only to find out that the mere act of us bringing that much energy into our world using our bodies, and there not being any almost any such energy there before, and us being strategically delivered back home, meant that we only had enough time to hug our loved ones, before the world ended, and we, whose bodies were changed, had a few more seconds to live compared to everyone else, and then we understood. Although our aura cultivation was genuine and truthful, the portal which brought us home was part of a magic array used to convert all matter into that etheric energy, and have that energy moved into that world. And although we did not want to end our world, some of us still remembered something they taught us about what happened when one's body is used as a sacrifice in a ritual against their will, but their soul is not: They, or in this case we, could use some of the energy sacrificed to wish for how we wish to be reborn or reincarnated. As everything was fading to black and I was fading out of consciousness, I remembered them saying that effort is also a form of sacrifice, which makes those who made those effort more in control of the sacrifice, so others don't come and steal their benefits after doing none of the work, which would explain why they taught us so much. And I wished for the best things I knew of, to retain my memories of this world in a way which others cannot get to them, and be born in a world where ideally both aura and mana exist in vast amounts, and, as if an afterthought, I wished for all my future lives to remember my previous lives, even if not right after being born. And I would rather use all the sacrifices I could, out of pure spite for those who sacrificed our entire planet. I don't know and I don't care if I'm the only one who makes this wish, I only want for this wish of mine to be granted.

And so, I died again.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

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"Wake up! Wake up! It's time for you to wake up." I hear an old man saying.

I slowly open my eyes and try to raise my head, then it all comes to me, physical and mental pain unlike any I've felt before, my body hurts as if my whole body is full of injuries, and my head hurts from the constant flow of memories coming back to me. I want it to stop, I want it all to stop, and it stops. The memories still come to me, but slower, so I only get a mild headache. First I remember the memories of the body I'm in, then I slowly remember things from my past lives, and then I put a stop to new memories for a while, and I have no idea how, but that works.

When I manage to focus back on the present, I'm in a medical area. An orphan with some aura cultivation talent, who was taken in by a cultivation academy, commonly known in the literature of my previous world as a cultivation sect, and I had some backlash from failing to level up past the first level of cultivation. I somehow know that this is the first time in this life that I remember things from my previous life, and that in order to be accepted into this cultivation academy, someone had to go through my memories to make sure I'm not a spy. The technique to gather energy is the same for most people in the academy, and for leveling up we need to use a different technique which makes our body and aura adapt to a different profession and style. Thankfully, this cultivation academy offers free healing for those who fail to pass the first 2 or 3 levels of cultivation, but for the third level only those who show potential in their cultivation and cannot afford to pay for healing get healed for free more than once. So everyone has one chance to pass the third level of cultivation without having to worry about having enough money to pay for their treatment or having someone else pay for their treatment, and that means most people don't take that chance more than once.

Like most people, the first thing I tried was sword cultivation, which caused the backlash because of my incompatibility with the sword. I originally planned to try the spear then the bow in case I failed, but since my memories from my past lives have started to recover, I realize just how much of a fool I have been. And so I decide that the next thing to try will be alchemy, because everyone needs pills to recover, so even if I don't make much progress with it, I will still have a stable income without fighting. Studying only alchemy could help me level up once or twice, but going any further and the price of the needed tools and consumables will be too high, which is why most people give up on alchemy, but from my memories of this current life, I noticed that there isn't much of a science about it, and it's more feeling-based. Sure, the more one advances the better their senses and memory and the less they need to sleep and the more they can go without eating and drinking, but the improvements are very slow at the beginning. So I have to plan for the future, if I want to get anywhere far in this life. Weapon cultivation is currently not an option, due to the high risk of injury and death. Alchemy will help me for the first few levels, but if I want to progress more, I need to choose something else. Leveling up with more than one technique is possible, but the difficulty increases, but in my previous two lives, in which I remember I liked knowing things from lots of different fields of study, advancing more fields is more difficult but also much more useful, but having to adapt my aura to at least one cultivation technique of each field I dive into is a price I am willing to pay, because I know full well just how useful it is to know things from multiple practical fields. So I decide that after making some money with potions, I will use some of that money to learn enchanting and array making, both of which use runes, the former embedding the runes into an object, and the later either using runes put into multiple objects and/or cultivators or even normal people and having all of those runes work as a single object behaving as a much bigger rune, with that bigger rune being able to move and needing to be stable while moving, because objects and people can move, especially in battle. I decide to follow alchemy with enchanting because this world has aura crystals which can store aura, and runes can be used to more easily control the transfer of aura into and out of the aura crystals, as well as use that aura to affect people and the world. I remember hearing in passing that some alchemists use aura crystals to supplement their aura while refining materials for alchemy, and I have no idea if they use them to help with the making of pills, potions, and so on, but I will definitely try it, since it could give me an advantage over others, and I will definitely try to make something like a chemistry set from my previous lives, if that is feasible, since I have the feeling that it will help my alchemy progress past the alchemy levels of my peers of the same level of talent, and maybe get me closer to the alchemy levels of the alchemy geniuses, even if I end up nowhere near their level. Every bit of help matters, when you're at the bottom of the food chain, and especially so without a family to help you in times of need, or friends, though the bonds of friendship are much weaker than those of family. Not that I have friends, either.

Being an orphan without a family, I have to take the family name given to outer disciples without a family. My given name is Sipher, which is the phonetical translation of the name of some historical figure from some other language into the language of this world, and prior to becoming an orphan my friends called me Sip, which is a nice nickname. The orphans not born from inner disciples get the family name Filk, from the Filk Mountain, while the orphans born from inner disciples get the family name Torec, from the Torec Academy of Aura. That makes me Sipher (Sip) Filk, in this life.

After getting everything in order in my mind, and after my wounds had time to heal, I can finally leave the bed, I say my thanks to those who treated me, and after leaving the hospital for outer disciples, which is called the Torec Outer Healing Peak, I start walking towards the library, which is called the Torec Outer Knowledge Peak. And I did all that on autopilot, still heavily in my thoughts. And so, I venture into this new world with newfound memories of my past two lives.

And so, I start walking awkwardly towards the library, because I still have some injuries which have yet to heal, but the medicine given to me will slowly heal them over the course of the next few days, which is the perfect time for me to read the alchemy book I will buy form the library.

"Shit! Money!", I whisper to myself. "I have 301 Flows, and I still need to use 24 Flows for food for today, because I'm injured, which leaves me with 277 Flows. I will probably need a few more days of food, to make sure I get properly healed, so for 3 days off rest I get left with 229 Flows, and with those money I need to buy an alchemy book, some alchemy ingredients, and an alchemy cauldron. Shit! I'm really cutting it close."

Doing menial work for the academy gets paid very little, so after subtracting the cost of food needed after working that much, I get left with 18-19, maybe up to 26 if I'm lucky, Flows per week. Well, the official name of the currency is called Aural Coins, or AC for short. I remember that poor alchemists practice with weeds which have some aura in them, so I can do the same to get good enough to not completely waste proper materials. Using a simple cooking pot is out of the case, because the material of the cooking pot interferes with the alchemic materials, and while someone at the third or higher level of alchemy could do that and still get a good pill, the pill is worse than if using a proper alchemical cauldron, and I'm nowhere near that level right now. Thankfully, this world has enamelware, which uses a glass coating molten over a rough metal surface to make a copper cookware not poison people and iron cookware to not rust, and the same technique is used to coat cheaper alchemical cauldrons for the poorer people, with the 3 layers being the base metal, an alloy made by mixing glass, powdered aura crystals, and the metal the mixture is supposed to adhere to, and a mixture of glass and powdered aura crystal. The two outer coatings using aura crystals are very thin because of how expensive the aura crystals are. If I remember well, a small alchemical cauldron goes for around 50 to 100 Flows, and it's barely large enough for one small pill, and even if bigger cauldrons might be cheaper I will still not have enough aura to use them so I can only buy a small cauldron even if it costs more, but I also have to make sure I'm getting a good product, which means a product which still has defects, for that price range, but none of the defects is too bad.

That leaves me with 129 flows for an alchemical book and some alchemical ingredients. Much less if I get a cultivation technique for sensors, which is used for appraising the value of items by observing and interacting with the aura of different objects. Most fighters don't bother with it, and most people end up as fighters, so the prices of non-fighting cultivation techniques of the lowest 2 to 3 levels are much lower, thankfully. As much as I hate to admit it to myself, I am really taking a big gamble with alchemy, and an aura sensing technique would really help with that being much less of a gamble in terms of success and much more of a gamble in terms of running out of money before I can make a profit with alchemy. Now I only have to find the price of those books, the price of herbs, and to find a good-enough cheap small alchemical cauldron, before deciding if I have to do menial works for the academy for a few more weeks before starting to train in alchemy, and who knows how much more before I actually end up making money with alchemy.

But I cannot get stuck in a loop, doing the same things forever. I need a goal, a big goal which will take me many years, heavens, maybe even multiple lifetimes if my wish was granted. And I know just the thing which could work. I'm going to try making a system like in a game, or like in those magic and cultivation manga I read, anime I watched, games I played, and stories I read and listened to in my previous lives. And by the time I got that done, I should be able to find more things to do.

"Well, shit!", I say to myself disappointed at how much work I have to do in order to be able to relax, and excited at how much I could make possible.