Prologue: Immortality
Immortality. To put it simply, not aging and not dying. Surely, anyone—no matter who they are—has wished for it at least once in their life. I did too, desperately yearning for it with death staring me in the face.
Yet it's also something no one can ever obtain. Even Qin Shi Huang, who conquered the entire world, couldn't achieve immortality. But here's the irony. Everyone longs for it so fervently, and I was no different. Now that it's mine, though, I can't think of anything more utterly pointless.
I still vaguely remember those distant days from long ago. I was afflicted with an incurable disease of unknown origin, living each day in agony. No matter how many precise tests they ran, the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with my body. My condition simply weakened bit by bit as time passed.
When the symptoms first appeared around age ten, it wasn't so bad. A few more nightmares than usual, some loss of stamina, a slight dullness in my movements—nothing major. So both I and my parents brushed it off as me just being a bit frail. But the illness worsened day by day.
A few years later, I started staggering with every step, and even writing became a struggle. That's when we realized it was a disease. Still, all the doctors could say was they didn't know the cause. Every test result came back normal. Yet contrary to those results, my body grew frailer by the day. I had to drop out of middle school, let alone attend high school.
Three years after that, I couldn't even walk anymore, and sitting in a wheelchair became too much. Breathing on my own was a challenge, so oxygen masks became routine. And yet, absurdly, my physical exam rated me as Grade 3—fit enough for service. I barely managed an exemption, but in my short life, nothing had ever felt so ridiculous. I still remember it vividly even now.
Part of me even thought that if I could've been healthy enough to enlist, that would've been fine. But just a few more years passed. Lying down alone made me gasp for air; I was hooked to an oxygen tank around the clock. Eating was impossible, so I survived on IV drips. By then, I was little more than a corpse that still drew breath.
I could feel it myself, clear as day yet creeping in so slowly: death tightening around my throat. It was pure terror. My only consolation was the desperate hope that death might finally end the pain. And one day, alone in the ICU, I breathed my last. I can't even recall how old I was.
When I closed my eyes in pain and opened them again, everything had changed. For one, I'd shrunk. My black hair had turned white. And most shockingly, my gender had reversed.
It was a bewildering situation in every way, but back then, I was just relieved to be free of the suffering. I wasn't fully free—more like a lab rat on parole—but I didn't dwell on it. After some twists and turns, and surviving a major ordeal, I finally gained true freedom.
From there, I lived as I pleased. I went to university, made plenty of friends, trained hard in sports. Magic studies? Something my old world never had—I dove in so deep I got dragged through grad school a few times, but I had no complaints. Time was no object.
Romance, though? My body and mind clashed too much; it just didn't work. Let's say I became a body that wasn't drawn to either side. It's like the post-nut clarity of a sage, stretched out indefinitely.
But those good times didn't last. Eras of chaos came and went, claiming countless lives. That's when I truly grasped that I didn't die. Severed limbs or a pierced heart? Trivial scratches. Dismembered body? Regenerated in seconds. Even atomic disintegration? My body reformed like nothing happened, whether I wanted it or not.
A new era dawned before long, and I began wandering the world. That's when I, a mere mortal in strength, started building power. Companions came. They died soon after. More came. They died. Again and again. Everyone but me.
By then, I realized a single lifetime was far too short for me. After that, I avoided close bonds like companionship. Sometimes I'd adventure; other times, I'd pick up disciples and raise them.
Sending off the kids I'd nurtured from childhood hurt, at least once. But I grew accustomed. It was nice seeing them grow up healthy—something I'd never known. And so, I lived on.
Yes, for truly long ages. "Long" is relative, after all. Folks call old Hans in the village, at 100, long-lived. But tell an elf you've lived a century, and it's a blink to them.
Time isn't equal to all. Orcs get 50 years, humans 80, dwarves 200. Elves around 2,000. Dragons might hit 10,000—a century's nothing to them. But I've outlasted them all, enough that anyone would call it long.
Of course. No one in this world has lived longer than I have.