This time, he didn't wait long before he dived into his third life. Engulfed by the feeling of the ordinary was something he had not expected.
The world itself was mundane, perhaps even more than the old Earth. War for resources, scuffles and everything had long been decided in the virtual world.
Technology peaked 200 years ago in the world and no major advancements happened. If one looked at the world from the orbit, they would see a few lights as if they were back in medieval times.
And yet spaceships dozens of kilometers wide were ready to defend it against anything that would try to harm humanity. AI advanced to such a level that calling it something less than a lifeform would be an insult.
Poets and visionaries of the past would look at the future and see utopia and the ideal world. And yet it was as if humans had gone extinct long ago.
Thrill of chasing the opposite sex was turned into an emotionless scuffle, millions of years of evolution destroyed with just a simple procedure.
There was no reason to be anything. Male? Female? You can be both and none at the same time, hormones like dopamine, estrogen, testosterone.
Could be changed in just a snap of a finger. All everyone 'had' was the virtual world. Even his parents had conceived him just because it was required by law to have at least 2 children in order to ensure the survival of humanity.
He was born as a baby and yet in a year he was boosted to a level of an adult with no problem. And so he searched for the reason why humanity became so desolate.
It didn't take long for him to find multiple potential reasons. From confirming that they were, in fact, the only intelligent lifeforms.
To the inevitable end of the universe that would happen in just 500 years. Perhaps sorrow everyone felt and even the ones with the strongest wills gave up when AIs infinitely more powerful than a brain would need at least half a million years to survive the end.
The ever so vibrant world turned grey when exposed to the cruel reality. For years, he had drifted into the world.
DNA has long been cracked, and it was not farfetched that humans achieved immortality. However, the population didn't explode.
In fact, it reached the bare equilibrium. His parents, who brought him into this world before they left, passed away just 10 days after his birth.
Simply put, ending one's life was not in your hands unless you conceive descendants. Therefore, when one wished to go. They had to have two children before the ridiculously advanced technological system would allow them to do so.
Much to his surprise. He was not immune to this feeling, which led him to becoming one of the few existing scientists in the world.
Dozens of years passed as he had seen thousands of colleagues turn into husks of their former shells. From trying to find a way to save the universe to researching ways to upgrade the VR reality, everyone escaped to.
It didn't matter. Each and everyone of them turned into hollow beings. Many times, he would have succumbed before he snapped out of it.
It clicked only when he saw darkness engulf everything in an instant a few hundred years later.
"It doesn't matter how much of anything you have, when the reality itself you reside in is in despair..." He said to himself as he returned into the resting space.
3/100 soon turned into four and five turned into dozens. At first, he was like a melancholic poet trying to understand the world before he cracked.
In his twelfth life, he turned into a madman that enjoyed himself until his twentieth life. Then, instead of understanding and wailing in pleasure, he worked hard.
Thirty lives he spent working hard. Each time he lived a life, he did nothing but strive for greatness. Many times, though, it was not enough.
Be it reincarnators, transmigrators or legends coming back to life. Much less them. One blessed genius of heavens or whatever governed the world was enough to wipe the floor with him.
It was until his fortieth life where he didn't blindly rush to the peak and adhered to the rules of the world.
Although impossible to copy the technology or arts of his past lives as reality was different each time. A copycat he didn't need to be.
First five lives he spent creating an outline of the peak he'd like to reach. The fact that he reincarnated into a world where gods are everywhere and power scaling is high or that he had been born into a mortal world of technology didn't matter.
Even when his outline didn't reach the peak of the world, it could reach the peak in another world. Every life he spent from then on was no longer about chasing the peak, but creating the outline of the peak he wished to reach.
Sometimes it resulted in him reaching the position of an officer and sometimes the emperor. From a harem of millions to a single wife.
He always did his best as he usually did. Still, he was much happier with his progress. No longer did he adhere to the world he appeared.
The goal had long changed as his outline grew more and more abstract, and yet it was much more vivid than in the beginning.
It wasn't about being rich from fighting in the world of the martial arts world. It was about being rich in a million ways in the world of martial arts world.
Sometimes it took just a few years before he progressed further in his goal and other times it took thousands of years as a god or some other mythical being.
Questions changed from. What are they? To do I care?
Still, he slowed down in the last ten lives. He didn't slow down with getting familiar with the specialities of the world in order to lengthen his name.
However, he didn't chase after it, nor did he try to see the peak he outlined. In the first life, he didn't achieve much as he was born very similar to his Earth one.
A different era, though, Pleistocene epoch to be exact. In here, sabertooths ran rampant and winters were much a greater worry than any predator.
Small tribes of humans were ready to give up their lives at any second as they stalked their prey for dozens of kilometers.
He didn't try to accelerate the technological advancement. From the past 90 lives, he became a bit more indifferent.
Maybe it was a coping mechanism. He didn't know, but he followed the tribe and hunted. The cold digging deep into his bones as they huddled together trying to keep warm.
When one died, they didn't mourn and continued to hunt and live another day. Their situation became better when they were blessed by lightning.
Fire, the greatest gift to mankind. Magnus, who decided to not interfere too much. At least kept the fire alive.
Perhaps his perseverance had not reached the level he wished to have, but it was too unbearable. Raw flesh was still fine as he got used to it in the course of his past lives.
But the cold, agonizing cold that followed them everywhere. They were running away from death, each step gave them a few seconds of life.
From a young child, he grew up and soon led the small tribe. He didn't gather other small tribes, as it was impossible to survive with many people.
At age 40, his body began to deteriorate at a rapid speed and he knew it. Instead of burdening the young, he picked a few abled young men as he got ready for his last hunt.
It was a peculiar woolly mammoth, his tribe was recognised as one of the oldest. And since anyone could remember, they had a legend.
Woolly mammoth is incredibly old one and a half size the normal one. With such legend. He had long investigated its truth and found out that such a specimen truly existed.
On a certain peak stood Magnus, with the panting young behind him. He gestured them to watch as they looked at him.
They watched the longest living tribe leader as he slid down and challenged the beast they would be barely able to run from.
However, it was different. His movement as he circled around the gigantic beast were different. Not long after, it fell down.
No large wounds to make it bleed to death. It was a simple and precise strike that struck its brain. With its thick hide, it should have been impossible, however.
One of them went to find others to help use the meat and hide whilst the remaining ones closed Magnus' hollow eyes as perhaps the first ever burial happened. Who knows?
Eighth, seventh and other lives each held different flavours of life. Some were so mundane that one would fall asleep and some that would turn into legends for millions of years.
It was not until the last life that he became a bit melancholic as he went all out. No outline, no peak, just what he wished to do to the very end.
[100th life complete, congratulations!]
[Compressing and processing understandings, comprehensions]
[Repressing memories of the 100 lives and distinguishing them from reality]
[Calculating reward...]