As expected from my supreme and unrivaled talent. The most talented mage on the planet. No doubt that title was created just for me.
However, that potential was not enough for those irritating old men to understand their place as the scum they were.
Those insect bastard motherfuckers didn’t learn s***. On the contrary, driven by their goddamn envy, they dared to… to…
…
…
I do not remember. Yet it does not matter what they did, for such an event does not deserve to be narrated by me. What is relevant about them is the result of their actions since, thanks to those, my next breakthrough came sooner than I had calculated.
I apologize to you, as the consequential years are something I cannot describe because they passed by in a flash for me. From one moment to the next, I turned sixty-three. An age at which my power was so great that I had no reason to bow to anyone but the venerable elder.
The problems generated by those imbeciles were over since there was no way they would ever come to bother me again. However, new worries came into my life.
Due to my sixth rank, I was forced into an unexpected and unwanted competition for the title of vice-rector of the academy, which, until then, had been held by the venerable one.
It annoyed me too much that they wished to impose such a worldly title on me, especially one coming from a coward. From a being who, despite possessing so much power and intelligence, bowed his head to an incompetent king.
Although the overall experience was rather unpleasant, it was not all negative, as a significant change in my life occurred thanks to this event.
This occurred when, midway through the competition, due to my lack of interest, the other competitor, a second six-star mage, took the lead by receiving the support of almost every geezer on campus.
While I did not want to make things easy for him, as that would make me look weak, I was not interested enough in the matter either. So, as an adult, accepting that this would end in my inevitable defeat, I decided it was time to leave that place.
I had determined that this small pond was insufficient to hold someone of my stature.
However, unexpectedly… no, as was to be expected from someone of his level, the older mage was quite clear who was the one who deserved to win. So, after arranging a private meeting, he handed me a worn book with a few words of encouragement.
Heroes or Transcendents, that was the title of that thing.
Interested in what it might contain, I quickly returned to my quarters to read it more comfortably.
How disappointing to discover that the words that narrated such a book were nothing more than mere fantasy tales.
On it was written the story of ancestral beings who came into being by the cross between chance and destiny. Great powers who fought together to end the dominance of the now marginalized races. Absurd monsters capable of creating lakes and mountains in a breath…
The author undoubtedly carried a lot of imagination but not much grace, for although it was mildly amusing to read about such nonsense, it was also dull to deal with his delusions. After all, the world he wrote about was a strange combination of the real and the fake.
Its pages recounted the creation of the famous no-go zones across the continent.
I was particularly attracted to the story about the origin of the Eternal Garden located in the emperor’s castle. Not because it was interesting. No, there was just a part of it that I disliked.
It described how, in the middle of a wedding, in a small village isolated from the world, a disaster occurred that altered the environment by thousands of square meters due to a silly and senseless reason.
Feelings of joy, jubilation, happiness, and love from the bride caused a beautiful garden to grow around the site, filled with flowers of all colors and sizes.
Pure hogwash. Such emotions can’t generate such great power. I would at least have believed such a story a little if it had happened because of massive trauma. Maybe it might be possible if she had witnessed the death and rape of all his relatives, loved ones, and acquaintances, but Joy? Happiness? Those are bullshits.
Anyway, at least the end gave me a slight smile, for that place, as beautiful as it was, had become a tomb for all present except the bride.
Having embodied the desire for that moment to last forever, time inside the garden passed faster than outside. Furthermore, because of her hidden obsession with her future husband, no one could leave unless she wished. And she did? No, such great power took a heavy toll, forcing her to sleep for weeks or months.
A f****** tragedy turned into a wonderful comedy. I would certainly have enjoyed reading it and even forgotten the old man’s disgust at me for giving me such a useless gift if only the rest of the book would tell similar stories.
I cannot deny that, for a few moments, I had fun reading it, but as I progressed, anger and disdain arose in me because that insensate began to describe even greater nonsense than the previous ones.
Lies after lies were written there, as it was stated that those great beings, after getting tired of the fight, began to divide the continent according to the power they wielded, giving rise to the birth of the human kings and emperors.
Complete garbage. I don’t know how I could even continue to read that damned royal propaganda. I guess I did it because of the little respect I had for that old man, one that was fading little by little.
That night, while holding the book in one hand with the other, I was preparing my belongings to leave the academy the next day. Besides, it was clear in my mind that when I finished reading, I must burn that piece of trash of a book.
I should have stopped earlier. I should not have continued with that thing. I should have burned it, destroyed it, smashed it to pieces, and incinerated it on the spot. However, because of the old f*****, I read the most blasphemous words a thinking being can write.
Ironic, comical, and stupid. Someone who praised the highest heavens so much by magnifying their grace bestowed on the beings under them afterward dared to blaspheme against their divine will.
Death, pain, and torture without end. That man, woman, or child must suffer all the punishments and plagues of the world, and even if by some means he has managed to escape the judgment of the heavens, the time will come when I will fall upon him, his family, and his lands.
An insect that dares to challenge the divine path I walk deserves the most horrible death imaginable. I will never forgive a scum who, blinded by greed, praises beasts as gods while denigrating true heroes and champions as insignificant mistakes, as failed products that will never see the absolute heights of power.
Power, power, magnificent power, stupid bastard, now I have it, now I am the strongest, I still can’t, I still shouldn’t, but I will do it, I will prove it, I will finish with the self-proclaimed gods, and I will rise as the only holy emperor of the continent.
Praises to my name, knees bow before my presence, the earth splits, the seas open, and the heavens sing, that day will come, that moment is near, and, though from death I must take him, that puny being will witness my ascent.
Such a time will surely come, and in the history books of the one who witnesses this record, my legacy, my story will be narrated… anyway, yes… I must finish writing it.
As repulsive as it was for me to continue reading such blasphemies, the last section of that book addressed an interesting topic.
Artificial Transcendents… That doesn’t exist. It can’t exist. However, it was worth checking.
It’s a pity that the only valuable thing among all that pile of garbage has been described so little. Although, of course, it was all pure fantasy. But a little inspiration would have been helpful.
Well, in fact, the fool’s words would have been no more valuable than all my years of experience, so even if he had written more about it, it wouldn’t have changed the result of the experiment.
A clear and convincing failure, which, unfortunately, I would not realize until several years later, so at that time, with my motivation at its peak, I decided to stay at the academy to make my work easier.
The difficulty in the research was incomparable to anything I had studied before, as even if we ignore that creating fairy tale beings might be impossible, the testing on such a subject was something to be done clandestinely.
So, with the money I had saved over the decades to travel to other kingdoms in search of new knowledge, I built a secret laboratory on the outskirts of the academy. Although it might have been better to set it up on a mountain or in a forest, the money I was getting for raising worms was still needed.
Besides, it was problematic to get a merchant who met my requirements. However, in the end, I managed to find a greedy bastard, but with a good head on his shoulders.
The years in research… there is too much I could describe about it. Joys, disappointments, annoyances, anger, disinterest… all kinds of emotions and experiences went through me back then.
After much effort, I got a few results, but I was still far from what I wanted. I needed more time. I needed more money. I needed more test subjects.
Despite the problems that arose in between, it was gratifying to know that my actions were not entirely futile since only ten years after starting the investigation, I managed to ascend to the seventh star. However, that was the light that the insects needed to find me.
Perhaps my actions were too suspicious in their lowly eyes, for at the height of my experiments, my concern about the academy was practically nil. I didn’t care how I dressed or acted in that place, so it was no wonder they were hesitant. However, I was still in the highest position, only below the eighth-rank mage who had not yet retired. Therefore, they did not dare to show their fangs in my presence.
But seeing my accelerated improvement was too much for the simpletons, and even that old jerk’s attention was focused on me, so it was only a matter of time before they discovered my secret.
