Chapter 121

A Dream Come True 1

-:-

A few hours away from Vermillion City

Cathrige Private Ski Resort

One of the many many things that the movies got horribly wrong was the effect of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) on an individual

For some reason, movies equated PTSD to drinking.

Mind you, this was not false. A portion of those who suffer such a disorder do turn to alcohol to dull the pain.

However, not all PTSD cases were severe and drinking was not the only means to cope with PTSD

Some cases were minor and any complications could be beaten down by the person’s will power.

Others were bad enough to merit professional help and medication.

And then there were those who preferred more ‘traditional methods’ of healing their psyche. Example of such methods were art, music, poetry, alcohol, murder and many others.

In Theo’s case, it was lots and lots of sex to the point of exhaustion. This allowed him to sleep a dreamless sleep, or at least his dreams would be filled with R18 goodness.

As such, he hated the days where his lovable wives were too tired to snuggle with him in the sack.

In these days, the nightmares of children being crushed by massive concrete slabs, the elderly being tortured for some sick blood ritual and the chorus of voices urging Theo to correct this injustice haunted him without fail.

As much as he wanted to avoid these nightmares by all means, he would never subject his wives to smexy times that they could not handle.

He may be a pervy bastard, but he took pride in taking good care to those whom he deemed irreplaceable in his life.

If he had to suffer through nights of restless sleep to ensure his wives get their much needed rest, he saw this as a small price to pay.

However, his current circumstance was not one of those noble times of restraint.

Theo woke up with a violent jerk. His body drenched with sweat and his breathing was all over the place.

But more importantly, he was really really REALLY angry.

The nightmare fed his rage and the desire to inflict absurd amounts of senseless violence was almost unbearable.

Almost.

If Theo was proud of something, it was his self control.

He gently returned to a lying position and began forcefully calming himself down, which took him 30 seconds to pull off.

This wasn't his first time dealing with this level of explosive bloodlust and it won't be his last.

Once he got his head in order, he took a quick scan of the unfamiliar room he woke up in.

In all honesty, he found the ‘room’ quite unnerving.

He was sleeping on a sort of altar that looked eerily similar to human sacrifice altars normally seen in horror movies.

There was an IV attached to his right armed that drained a minute amount of blood from him.

The IV was attached to a large glass case filled with clear liquid which contained a rock the size of a fist.

The weird thing about this rock was that it was fading in and out of existence.

He wasn't sure what exactly it was except its name…. A ‘Soul Stone’

He did receive a basic rundown about it, but his understanding of it was limited by the massive amount of magical mumbo jumbo that was forced down his throat.

There was, however, one very important aspect about it that he understood oh so well.

This Soul Stone was somehow related to the greatest question all practitioners of Alchemy has asked since the very beginning of their practice.

Perfect Immortality.

Jabir ibn Hayyan, Theo’s senior in Midas Alchemy and probably the greatest Alchemist in the world, begrudgingly admitted that his form of immortality was horribly flawed.

Despite being capable of extending his life to infinitum, his original body was clearly growing weaker.

Obviously, Jabir was searching for a way to bypass his bodily degradation, and it seems that his ‘Clone Network’ was somehow the solution to this.

As far as Theo knew, Jabir was still ways off from the goal. But at least, the old alchemist was making a decent stride towards the coveted magnus opus of Alchemist.

On the other hand, Theo embarrassingly made very little progress towards this goal.

While he did get some blood samples from Count Korlo Nosferatu, he struggled horribly with anything magical in nature.

Thanks to Nichola’s help, he was able to make some headway. Unfortunately, the only thing that they discovered were things that everyone already knew off.

Vampirism based immortality was imperfect due to susceptibility to sunlight and the need to devour lifeforce to sustain their immortality.

But most importantly, the cold hard logic of science based powers were incompatible by the chaotic unpredictability of magic.

‘And what of the pure science based immortality?’ you ask?

The few routes that were theoretically possible had massive roadblocks that were currently beyond Theo’s capability to solve.

The most viable route to immortality was the ‘nanomachine controlled cellular growth and decay’

It has been theorized that the sickness called ‘Cancer’ held the answer to the question of eternal life.

Imagine

If it was possible to gain complete control of the cancer cell’s rampant growth and the form it would take, aging could be prevented and even reversed. Regrowing severed limbs was within the realms of possibility.

Unfortunately, the problem was the nanomachines themselves.

The energy and processing power required to control and maintain millions of machines the size of atoms that performed the disgustingly complicated function of controlling each and every individual cancer cell was no laughing matter.

Let’s put it this way.

Remember the external super computer that Theo used to act as the processor for the Seer Analytic Engine that was capable of predicting a few seconds into the future?

That machine was able to last 5 seconds when the nanomachines were in full swing before the hardware began to melt from the sheer heat.

The only reason why it didn't go beyond 5 seconds was because the nanomachines burned through all of its power.

Nanomachine based immortality was definitely possible, but Theo’s tech was still not in the level to make it a reality.

For now, Theo decided to think outside the box and broaden his areas of research.

Thanks to the MKUltra-ish mind control they implemented on Theo’s Reformant units, he had some confidence of inserting a bit of magic based hoopla into his tech.

And thus, his current situation.

While staring blankly at the ‘thing’ inside the Vat, Theo heard a pair of footsteps approaching from behind.

2 individuals walked into the creepy altar room.

First was a familiar face. It was Theo’s good friend, the frog faced doctor in all of his ugly glory

The other one was a child that was about 7-10 years old who was wearing a white business suit for kids. He looked surprisingly adorable.

However, Theo saw him not as an adorable cosplaying brat, but a very old man with the financial might of nations and a wealth of experience that stretched for hundreds of years.

This child was named Johnann Weishaupt.

Born in mid 1716, died in late 1753, then born-died again and again numerous times over the centuries under different names.

His current name was Lee Hyun Kim, son of a now dead defector from totalitarian country of North Gugga.

It was the perfect untraceable cover thanks to North Gugga block any attempts from the outside world to perform an accurate census on its citizens. This was manly to hide the many human rights violations the ruling class has been subjecting their citizens to.

To Theo however, Johnann/ Lee was the Lord of Vermilion.

“Are you alright Lorne? You were trashing quite a bit in your sleep.” said Lord as he and the doctor walked towards him.

“Just a little PTSD. Nothing special” replied Theo

“It’s been, what, almost 2 years since then? I’m honestly surprised that you haven't gotten over it.” said the Doctor.

“You know how it is with us Superhero types. A little trauma makes us sexy.” replied Theo

“Just so you know, you no longer fit the Superhero label.” said Lord

“Ugh…. Touche.” replied Theo. “Anyways, can you explain this ‘Soulstone’ of yours? In layman’s terms please. That document you sent me yesterday had to much magical jargon. I kind of understood it but I kinda didnt”

“Yeah! I’ve been through this crap myself, and I still don't understand how it works!” inserted the Doctor

“Really? I could have sworn I explained it to you a few times in the past.” said Lord in confusion.

“Terms like ‘Akashic Records’, ‘Winds of Magic’’ and the ‘Power of Faith’ are alien to us science guys” replied the Doctor with Theo nodding in agreement

“Hmm… While those 3 are extremely important to the explanation, I’ll focus on the Soul Stone for now. Hmm… how do I do this...” said Lord as he paced back and forth for a bit. “Ah! I got it. Let’s do a simple video game analogy.”

This greatly confused Theo and the doctor

“In modern video games, there is a function called an ‘Auto-Save’ at certain points of great importance. Though the function is drastically different, the Soul Stone is this reality’s auto-save function” said Lord

“Then the ‘Akashic Records’ is where all the data is saved?” asked Theo

“Huh? I thought you didn't understand the whole magical jargon” inserted the Doctor

“Context clues man. There’s a word ‘Records’ in Akashic Records.” replied Theo

“Hahaha! Right you are, Lorne.” said the pleased Lord. “The Soul Stone is the book and the Akashic Record is the library. And just like any decent library, they have a very strict screening process”

“What do you mean?” asked the Doctor

“It should be obvious by now, but nearly all living things in existence have no Soul Stone. The main goal of magic based immortality is to forcefully plant a soul stone into the Akashic Records.” replied Lord. “My one and only ‘power’ so to speak, is the knowledge of creating a soul stone. Mind you, there are other ways to make a soul stone, but my power is the least lethal. However, it does take so much longer to pull off initially.”

“How long exactly?” asked Theo

“Initially, it takes around 30 years to form a working soul stone”

“Holy shit! That’s a hell of a long time!” replied Theo in surprise.

“Well, yeah. This is immortality we’re talking about. No way in hell does it come easy or cheap.” said Lord. “And besides, after the initial 30 years, the subsequent rebirths will take almost no time at all. That is assuming the next body you will be dwelling in is already prepared.”

“I see…. So I just don't have to die… How boring.” replied Theo.

“Just out of curiosity, what is the common route to immortality in the magic scene?” asked the Doctor.

“There are many routes. The safer, or more accurately, more lethal means compared to my own are the magic infusions and alchemical transmutations. Since both will be messing around with one’s body and soul, the odds of touching something you shouldn't be touching may lead to either a painless death or a violent explosion that would kill the brave soul and everyone within the vicinity.” replied Lord. “Just to be clear though. These 2 are not the most common routes to immortality, simply because these 2 fields require exceptionally high knowledge and intellect on the subject matter. Even I cant pull off the stuff they’re messing with.”

“Then what is the most common route?” asked Theo

“Given both of you are familiar with the 1953 MKULTRA experiments, I assume you 2 understand how magic works. Am I correct?” asked Lord, to which both the doctor and Theo nodded in response. “Very good. Since magic is the effect of the collective consciousness, aka faith/belief, on the infinite and ever present mana, the best way to anchor your existence is to pull off something that will cause you to be remembered by all sentient being for all time.”

“In short?” asked Theo

“Immortality through infamy. Those who are evil are easier to remember compared to those who do good. Hence the massive amounts of bad guys in our world” replied Lord with a grim face.

A tense silence spread quickly among the group. This particular route to immortality was something none of them found appealing.

“Has anyone ever pulled it off?” asked Theo

For a millisecond, a facade of intense rage appeared and disappeared on Lord’s face.

It seemed that this was a particularly painful subject for the 300+ year old kid

“Yeah… There was one… Ungrateful bastard....” said Lord in a calm voice that was steadily getting louder with rage. “I took him in when he was barely staying alive being an ‘artist’ who specialized in drawing postcards. Who was the one who took pity when you got injured in the first war?! Who was the one pulled the strings to get you into politics?! Who taught you a bit of magic?! And what thanks to do I get?! You tried to destroy my means of resurrection and started the largest war to date! I hope the demons of hell is giving you an eternal anal fuck, you filthy ingrate!”

It took Lord a few seconds before his calm returned.

Quite an interesting outburst to say the least.

“Err... This guy seems to be bad news. Anyone I know of?” asked Theo

“Of course you know him. No one in the Commonwealth hasn't heard of Adolf Hitler.” replied Lord.

“....Holy shit...”