Alchemy was still Rald's passion, or else, why would he have spent three reincarnations worth of life doing the same thing?

[…]

-Success!

Rald heard a delighted shout.

But he didn’t even bother to take a look.

From the smell alone, he already knew what the other alchemist did. Rald already knew what he was experimenting on days ago, and it probably didn’t change since.

[…]

-I need more resources.

[…]

Time to go to do some shopping!

Rald entered the toilets.

He then took a bottle from a bag he always carried with him.

He put a little piece of brain on the side of his actual brain.

Rald now had a new ability. He could fly!

[…]

Rald was seeing his life passing before his eyes…

No.

Not his life, his lives.

His life and the lives of all of the brains he collected…

Wait, he was not Rald?

Was he Rald at some point?

Will he be Rald?

Who was Rald?

He didn't know.

He only knew one thing, he was afraid of heights.

[…]

Loneliness…

That was loneliness.

He knew fear and loneliness…

A big, empty emptiness…

He remembered now…

[…]

God MUST have miscalculated something while creating him, his brush MUST have slipped, what was his utility, what was the worth of his life?

He thought he was useful for a while, as that person he met needed him. But then, the person died.

And he started to ponder again.

Why was I born?

What was my reason to exist?

[…]

He was not able to learn much? He was not even able to put on clothes himself?

It didn’t matter!

He was going to learn… He was going to live! In his own way…

He remembered now…

The name he was given by that person…

Shem!

------------------------------

Rald was focused.

Focused on not falling from the sky, and focused on what to buy.

He had a headache.

A big, huge headache.

The main problem with emotions is that it affects your way of handling problems.

The last time he had feelings…

It was in his last life.

As he had no feeling, he didn't even notice that he didn't have them anymore… But now that he had some, he felt… like a new man… a barely better new man.

Like some cake in the trash that was burned. It’s way cleanier, but it isn’t much better.

His emotional state was still trash, but at least he had what it takes to be considered human now!

Rald continued to fly, and didn't notice that his eyeballs were rolling, seemingly reacting to his previous thoughts. That was a huge event, the real owner, Shem, now possesses a fourth emotion:

Exasperation.

It was like a killing spree, it started quickly, but the higher the count went, the slower he got emotions, as he struggled with handling the previous ones.

But strangely enough, he was sure that this particular spree wouldn't break.

He FELT like it.

[…]

Rald was shopping.

He said he needed materials, but what he was looking at right now were high-end tools. He was strongly hesitating between a high-temperature Xtrem Runicoven and a low-temperature Ztrem Alchepro…

They are both alchemic ovens. While Xtrem and Ztrem are technically concurrent, they still have two different specialties. One is specialized in low-temperature ovens while the other is specialized in high-temperature ovens.

Both did make runic ovens still, yet they didn't step into each others' specialty because of the strong animosity between the frost and flame worlds, and their branches in the cultivator world: the Absolute Ice sect, and the Absolute Flame sect.

How Rald knew about them was not a difficult question. He simply saw them in an advertisement. And about where he saw advertisements in this without-screen world, it's not difficult too, but surprising.

Even though he acts like an expert, Rald saw the advertisement just before entering the market! Even in his life as Merlin, he was using a simple cauldron with nothing but an ordinary fire to heat various mixtures he could need in various experiments. In modern terms, you could say he was never good with hardware and preferred software.

As for why alchemists need to heat anything in the first place when they use transmutation formulas which famously did not require any of that, it was because of the low purity of the material of this world. Even simple iron was full of impurities.

Taking mathematics as an example, it was as if at every calculation you did a digit was randomly changed in the result. You might as well do as much arithmetic as you wanted, it’d never have any real-world practical application, and you wouldn’t be able to prove it has any as well.

This is why purity mattered, especially in the conception phases. And no one knew about purity more than the alchemists themselves, which is why they liked to have their own ovens to do it themselves.

His eyeballs rolled towards the right by themselves for a split moment, and a decision popped in his head.

Rald had a hard time choosing but finally settled for one of the ovens.

It was not the Xtrem one, nor the Ztrem one.

It was a simple cooking oven.

But something managed to make Rald take this oven.

The moment his sight fell onto it, he fell in love.

It was love at the first sight!

What Rald didn’t know is that at the moment Rald saw the oven, not only did a little brain the size of a soap bubble make his eyes move but also sent a mysterious signal to his brain…

What is shamelessness?

The brain absolutely DIDN'T want Rald to use a shitty oven in that split moment.

He also DIDN'T forget that he can directly order Rald's brain.

The little brain just discovered its dao… The dao of love!

While Rald is looking at his new oven with love and the little brain is occupied lying to itself with its brand new dao, a little voice spit a few words, or rather, signals, in a low voice:

-Shameless!

That voice came from the little part of brain that gave Rald the ability to fly…