Awakening 4: A fishing village on the eastern coast. He uses his knowledge of weather patterns and fish migrations to make the village prosperous. A year later, a passing cultivator Lord, noticing the village's unusual wealth, claims it as his territory and enslaves the populace. Kael is beheaded for insolence when he tries to object.
Awakening 12: The Theocracy of Aeridor. Surrounded by talent and purity. He tries to expose a corrupt priest, using knowledge of his secret dealings. The priest, a master of Light-based illusion arts, frames Kael for the very crimes he sought to reveal. He is "purified" on a Luminite altar, his body disintegrated by holy light.
Awakening 27: The Valerian Empire. He joins the army as a logistics officer. He uses his knowledge to predict enemy movements and supply-line weaknesses, leading to a string of stunning victories for his legion. The Legion Commander, a nobleman with a powerful spiritual root, takes all the credit. Fearing Kael's uncanny foresight, the commander arranges a convenient "accident" during a battle. Kael is trampled to death by his own cavalry.
Awakening 54: The Verdant Maze. He spends a lifetime as a humble apothecary, gathering knowledge of every herb, poison, and symbiotic relationship. He creates a potion that can mimic the effects of Qi for a short time. He is hunted and killed by the Shamanistic orders for creating a "heretical abomination."
Awakening 99: A small, independent city-state. He builds a mercantile empire. He is cautious, subtle, and powerful. He has wealth, allies, and influence. It takes him forty years. When a border war with the Valerian Empire breaks out, a General at the Spirit Core realm incinerates the entire city to make a point. His wealth, his allies, his entire life's work—all turned to ash in an instant. He dies choking on the same dust he knew from his very first life.
Life after life. Failure after failure. Each awakening was a new chapter in an encyclopedia of suffering. The universe, it seemed, was an expert tutor, and its only subject was futility.
The hope he had felt in the jungle died. The cleverness he had attempted in the desert died. The rage that had sustained him for dozens of lives curdled into something else, something colder and heavier. It became a certainty. A resolve as hard and unyielding as the obsidian he had once mined.
The universe was his enemy. Fate was his jailer. The gods, if they existed, were his tormentors. Alliances were temporary. Wealth was flammable. Knowledge was a ghost. There was only one constant in his endless existence.
Himself. The body he awoke in. The mind that held the weight of centuries.
He could not go around the wall of his fate. He could not climb over it with the help of others. He could not scheme his way through a crack in its foundation.
He would have to become the hammer that smashed the wall to pieces. He would have to become the power itself. He would not seek it, earn it, or attach himself to it. He would forge it. From his own bones, his own flesh, his own unbreakable will.
If the world denied him a spiritual root, he would make his own body a vessel superior to any root. If the heavens denied him the ability to cultivate Qi, he would chain the very elements to his will through sheer physical force.
He would become a heresy.