Hallucinations?
"5 milligrams of Ice Bee Queen Honey, 12 milligrams of Ginseng Extract...
In a science laboratory in the basement of Sagittarius High School, a tall, thin young man stood hunched over a desk as he messed with various alchemy equipment, trying to accomplish his long-awaited goal.
However, just as his hopes got high, calamity struck, and the furnace he was using regurgitated every medicinal item he used back at him in the form of a thick cloud of smog, almost knocking him out.
"Cough, cough, cough." The boy quickly waved away all of the smoke as he tried to regain control of his lungs and respiratory system.
"I used too much Lava Essence Liquid," the boy mumbled as he pulled out a thick and beaten notepad before he scribbled down his words.
After he finished writing down his thoughts, the boy, instead of going back to his goal, sat down and looked at the time.
It was already 11:59, so even if he did manage to succeed on the next try, he wouldn't do it before the day changed.
So, grabbing his backpack, which wasn't far away, he reached inside and carefully pulled out a small white box, holding it delicately as if it were a family heirloom.
Placing it on the desk next to him, he went into his pocket and pulled out a lighter before opening the small white box and revealing a miniature cake.
The cake wasn't big enough to be a normal cake fit for a family, but it wasn't small enough to be a cupcake. It was, however, just the right size for one person to eat it all by themselves without feeling guilty.
While it was his birthday and it was common to have a whole cake and perhaps even a party with friends, the boy's financial situation laughed at tradition and forced him to get a small cake.
Thankfully, the cake was rather well-made, and it even included his name, Adam.
"Happy birthday to me," Adam listlessly mumbled as he lit the candle and waited for the day to change.
But as he did, he felt melancholy and couldn't help but think about the past, almost 16 years in this cruel world.
It all started 16 years ago, when Adam was living out his past life on Earth as a normal college student.
Yes, this wasn't his first life, but instead, his second.
Previously, he was a college student studying for his entrance exam into the medical school he wanted to attend. Tragically, though, after stepping out of the library after another all-nighter, he forgot to look both ways and was eternally plastered onto the pavement.
However, he didn't truly die that day, as after spending a few hours in what he called a "limbo state," he felt his skull being crushed, and before he could get used to the pain, he was born once again.
Born once again, Adam thought that maybe the Buddhists were the right ones and that reincarnation was indeed the correct path after death, but he quickly realized that his new birth wasn't all that simple.
After he was born, the doctor, instead of slapping him like any normal obstetrician would do, conjured a ball of green energy in their hand before forcing it down his throat!
At first, Adam, as any normal person would do in such a situation, wanted to yell out for help, but before he could, the green ball of energy smoothly went down his throat as if it were a liquid and not a 4-inch-wide ball.
Even more shocking, after he swallowed the green ball, Adam felt as though he had transcended and that his baby body was filled with power.
That was the only good moment of Adam's sad life, as following his birth, Adam's life was tragic, to say the least.
His parents abandoned him without even naming him, and he was then sent to live in one of the many government-funded orphanages around his planet. It was also because of this that Adam was able to gain the same name as in his previous life.
By using a book, he was able to influence the government worker at his orphanage into choosing his previous life's first name. As for getting the worker to give him the same last name without looking too suspicious, it was much harder, but he eventually managed to persuade the caregiver to choose his last name.
Adam would also start to learn that the world he was in was, in fact, not the Earth he knew, or, as a matter of fact, he wasn't even in the same solar system as Earth. Instead, he was now living on an enormous planet, thousands of light years away, in the Sagittarius Arm!
Like some of the shows that were getting popularized on Earth before he died, the new universe that Adam was in now was full of powerful martial artists who could do many things that even Superman himself couldn't.
Traveling the cosmos, picking stars with their hands, and living until the end of time, nothing was out of reach for a powerful enough martial artist.
Finding out that he was reincarnated in such a place, Adam, spurred by newfound youthful confidence, wanted to do all those things and possibly more.
The reason he felt this way was because of the stories he read in the books at the orphanage.
Around 12,000 years ago, Spiritual Qi finally appeared on Earth and allowed the once mortal and weak humans to begin cultivating. And cultivate they did. In less than ten thousand years, humans, who were once only living on one planet confined to one tiny solar system, conquered their entire home galaxy!
Humans would then rename the Milky Way Galaxy the Federation of Humanity.
Why did they choose such a patriotic name?
Simple: While conquering the galaxy, they realized that they weren't alone in the universe.
Galaxies from beyond and even close by were inhabited by other human-like races from the fantasy books they once owned.
Elves, dwarves, and even devils were living well throughout the universe. Moreover, these races had hundreds, if not thousands, more time with Spiritual Qi than the Federation did. The powerhouses of these races were so strong that any one of them could level a small galaxy like the Milky Way within a day.
Thankfully, because of a great deal of negotiations and carefully built connections, the human race managed to create a safety net around them that allowed them to grow stronger year by year, peacefully.
There were, of course, bad apples in the universe with a strong enough fist, but whether it was through outside assistance or a timely saving from the Federation's strongest powers, the human race always managed to live to see the next day's sun.
Moreover, after every genocidal threat, the originally conflict-hungry and disjointed human race eventually put it all behind them and became one united power.
Racism, bigotry, and xenophobia didn't really have much room in a universe with talking balls of fire and walking trees.
Maybe it would work against other species whose anatomy, body structure, and genetic code were completely different, but to their fellow humans who were all just various shades of wheat and lived just a pond away, it didn't make much sense.
Adam, who read that, also felt the same patriotism toward the founders of the Federation of Humanity. The propaganda the founders left behind for youths to absorb and live around work on Adam, and he immediately felt like he had a duty to help humanity by becoming another strong martial artist.
Sadly, on his 12th birthday, all of his dreams got hit with a cold bucket of water, and Adam was given a harsh lesson about reality.
Becoming a strong martial artist was possible; that wasn't a lie. It also wasn't a lie that the higher-ups in the Federation could do fantastical things with their powers.
However, was it reasonable? No. That was where the lie started.
After his 12th birthday, the orphanage head finally decided to pour a cold bucket of water onto the young Adam.
Previously, Adam had been getting all of his worldly knowledge from the books scattered around the orphanage. However, he didn't know that the orphanage head had left extremely important information out of those books.
Specifically, the fact that only a tiny percentage of the population could even cultivate, and as for the legends that Adam passed his whole future around, not a single human had yet to reach that point, and they were only thought of as legends.
The universe that Adam lived in had something called Spiritual Qi.
Spiritual Qi was the origin of everything, and because of that, everything came from Spiritual Qi. So whenever someone absorbed some of that Qi, it stood to reason that they would become stronger from it.
But humans were an overall weak species, and with countless generations between them and martial artists, they grew increasingly distant from the universal essence. Thus, only a fraction of the population could absorb the Spiritual Qi that the universe created, while conversely, in other races like demons and elves, pretty much every citizen could cultivate to some extent.
Humans who won this genetic lottery were called talent holders.
Talent was, other than Qi, the most important thing in the universe. Without talent, the mystical universe's building block, Spiritual Qi, could only stay mystical.
The one and only required to be able to absorb and use the Spiritual Qi in the universe was a cultivation talent.
Other than the important cultivation talent that everyone needed to cultivate, there were, however, many others.
Talent for alchemy, talents that enhanced the physique in certain ways, i.e., speed, strength, and defense, and most crazily enough, talents that could give their user a way to control elements!
Talents also came in various tiers, with some being worse or better than others. The ranking system that Adam knew about had, from lowest to highest, the ranks of poor, low, middle, high, and the most legendary of them all, supreme.
However, talents only awakened at 12, so when Adam turned that age, the orphanage poured a bucket of cold water onto him before testing his talents.
Anxious couldn't even begin to describe what Adam felt at the talent testing center; thankfully, though, he did awaken a talent for cultivation and started his journey to become a strong martial artist.
That day, he awakened two talents: a middle-grade cultivation talent and a low-grade alchemy talent.
Following his awakening, Adam's life changed very much.
After he awakened, he was forcibly transferred from his middle school and, on a scholarship, was enrolled into his planet's finest cultivation school, a part of the alchemy division.
Alchemy talents were rare in the entire federation, apparently.
The rest of his years were now spent learning about cultivation, alchemy, and cultivation, and while this would've turned any kid his age crazy, it didn't happen to him.
Adam was a medical student in his past life and even held the campus record of staying awake for three and a half days studying.
How could cultivating and learning about medicine in a new world possibly drive him crazy? If anything, it was rather fun!
And that was how he spent the next six odd years of his life—bunkered down in an alchemy lab, trying to make something of himself in this cruel world.
And now, Adam was trying to make a rather low-grade pill named the Body Refining Pill.
The pill's effects were simple yet potent, to the point where they were the staple pill for anyone in his cultivation realm.
However, while simple, they were also wildly expensive, to the point where even if Adam didn't spend a dime for the entire year, he would only be able to buy one and a half Body Refining Pills.
So, knowing this, Adam had been spending the last three months trying to refine the pill himself. After all, he had a low-grade alchemy talent himself, so why couldn't he make a simple pill?
That was three months ago, and at this point, Adam himself wished he could find his younger self and beat the arrogance out of him.
Sadly, only hindsight is 20/20, and now he had already gotten on the tiger, so getting off was impossible. That, along with his youthful pride, made it impossible for him to give up.
'I only need to make one damn Body Refining Pill! Once I do, I can advance to the 9th stage of the Body Refinement Realm, and by then, I will have no problems with the college exam. Other than the monsters at the half-step Martial Apprentice Realm, who can beat me?
With such a train of thought, Adam put down his half-eaten birthday cake and went back to his furnace to attempt another go.
However, as he did, something entered his line of sight, which made him question his sanity.
"Am I seeing things?"
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