1 Sleeping and Dying are quiet similar no?

Life, Death, sun, moon, jumping, falling, all things have their opposites, death is just part of life as it is for life to be part of death. Marcus has experienced it first-hand multiple times, different from poets, philosophers, or self-proclaimed enlightened monks ranting about the yin, the yang, life, and death, Marcus did not derive his enlightenment from thinking in seclusion or from some ancient mantras, it came from the experience multiple lives had offered him, it just came so natural and firmly attached into his belief unknowingly, after seeing the vicissitudes of life. Contrasting from those great thinkers, the feeling of the nihilistic self-existential crisis was embraced and accepted by Marcus, while others ignore and forget it. Through it, Marcus was able to transcend human emotions and become a true pragmatist, a human slave to none, and someone whose life he himself deem pathetic and unnecessary.

This, however, has not been an obstacle in Marcus' daily life, in fact, this characteristic itself had proven itself to be terribly useful in his life, providing opportunities and evading unnecessary complications.

His time as an animal has shown the effectiveness of the trait, by considering himself to be both one of the chess pieces in a chessboard and the chess player, Marcus was easily able to see the bigger picture of things and act to get the best position.

Marcus' goals are unknown, even he himself does not know why he would rather continue grinding rather than lay back and relax. Instinct perhaps? or maybe a leftover desire? He has not come up with an answer himself, and thinking of it would probably do him more harm than good. Marcus would rather think it over slowly across many lifetimes than ponder over it and waste a significant amount of time.

Marcus' life right now began with being born from a bipedal mother's birth chambers, It had 2 large antennas sensitive to its surroundings, it can smell, hear, and feel everything in a small radius. The creature he was reincarnated into is very intelligent, with its 6 long fingers in 4 hands, it was able to build a society far surpassing human technological advancements in the twenty-first century. Similar to humans, it was greedy and was engulfed in war for decades, 4 factions wanted to control all 4 solar systems that were occupied. Marcus however, at that time was already able to secure enough resources and connections to evade military conscription. He lived peacefully for the next decades.

Alas, everything has its end, and the end of Marcus' existence is drawing near. Old age has crept in and mother death has come with her crutches on her left and collected his life with a black basket on another. Her eyes perpetually lifeless and tired as her stable hands held the basket and ventured forward to others that needed reaping.

It started with Marcus' antennas drooping down slowly, his organs started to slow down and his flesh relaxed. Like being drowsy and slowly walk into the comforting embrace of sleep. Marcus was put to eternal rest.

Marcus woke up and instinctively opened his newfound eyes. His green eyes observed a blue-eyed ape in white carry him.

pak*

A light slap landed on his buttcheeks, however, Marcus did not cry. He experienced more painful ways of physical abuse and torture. Instead, he stared directly at the ape holding him.

Then it suddenly struck him, did this ape wanted him to cry? It suddenly remembered the instance he saw an ape give birth to a small ape, the small ape was crying wretchedly like it was subjected to some torture. Does this ape want him to cry also?

I guess I should give it a shot

Mustering most of his vocal cords, Marcus cried as wretched and as loud as the other apes.

UWAAAAA*

A cheer then erupted after his cry, however, Marcus did not stop and continued to cry for another minute, by then his throat was hoarse.

Only then did Marcus scrutinized the ape.

The people around him had two legs and two arms with 5 fingers each, they had hair, and the 4 sensing organs in their heads thus Marcus was able to infer that they were indeed apes, albeit having less bodily hair and being more civilized.

And the one who carried him, according to ape customs should be his new mother.

At this point, Marcus still has not remembered his origins, being separated from his homeland for 10,000 years has dulled his otherwise sharp memory.

The woman had a relatively pleasant face which had a light red hue

Her blue eyes staring intently, trying to sear his face in her mind.

Then with a small muffled cry, her eyes watered.

"Hi little guy, I'm sorry for not letting you see your father but you don't need that man"

"I got it! I will name you after my late grandfather, Marcus"

The woman lovingly caressed the baby as gently as she can as she whispered these words. The words however held a different meaning for Marcus.

Marcus. Marcus.. Marcus... Marcus!

The realization froze Marcus, he delved deep into his memories, trying to recollect.

That's right!

My name is Marcus! not because this woman gave me this name, but because my mother from another lifetime named me this! That was my first life!

The coincidence!

However, I didn't have any wife back then, so she and my I in my past life must be unrelated.

3 years passed

My father left my mother when she was pregnant with me 4 years ago. Fortunately, Elena (the mother), was able to get by because of the support from her friends. She currently works as a manager of a small restaurant, earning about $45,000 annually after taxes and save only about $5,000 every year. Living in a big city while taking care of an infant is pretty stress-inducing for a solo mother.

In return, whenever she hires her friends to take care of me, I tend to be very quiet and behaved. Play with the caretaker if I have to, sleep early, eat all the food they give. Such that Elena would not be worried about me, this also creates a foundation of trust, so that in the years to come, I would not have a nanny watching over me, hopefully.

Fortunately, the energy technique that I acquired in my past lives can be used in this world. Only a small handful of lives were able to practise the technique, it had no relation to one's talents because even a literal ant can practise it. However, it had something to do with world energy.

Sometimes, the world would produce great amounts of energy that can be converted into internal power under the influence of energy techniques. This not only ables the person to harness and use energy to affect physical or ethereal matter, but also use it to improve the genes and get rid of imperfections, such that diseases and physical harm would not be able to affect the person and also increase a person's brain functionality.

Surprisingly, the earth where he first came from actually also produces this kind of energy, making it viable to train energy arts.

With it, for the past 3 years, starting since birth, Marcus was able to continuously increase his body, ridding of imperfections, dirt, and unnecessary genes. This caused Marcus to have more pronounced features such as whiter and smoother skin, darker green eyes and have an overall more attractive appearance.

Marcus likes being handsome, not because he likes to be beautiful, but because being handsome grants far better opportunities in life than not being one.

With that said, one of the bad effects of being handsome is -

"Wahhh, Marcus why do you look so cute!"

The one who said that was my nanny. A friend of Elena who was looking for a job, Natalie. An African American with an afro hair, a bundle of joy really, it is just that she is very random.

Woman, just play with your damn laptop don't disturb me while I'm practising my energy technique! Marcus wanted to yell at her, however as heartless as he may be, she hadn't done anything terribly wrong, that warrant being yelled at and aside from that, she has also been greatly helpful to Elena and I. So the same as the thousand other cases, he just let her be.

Natalie is actually quite rich because her family owns some restaurants and one of those restaurants is where Elena works.

Talk about having a lot of time in their hands.

Resuming my practice, I pretended to sleep, so she won't disturb me.

2 year later

I now have the strength to carry 1 ton of weight without a sweat. Apart from that, I now also started going to school. It was a waste of time really, so I just slept (practiced) through all of it, if they ask me to do something I would do it. I am rather behaved and can answer their questions rather easily so the teachers do not find fault if I sleep in their lessons. But during lunchtime, things get messy, immature apes circle around me and ask questions, the ruckus would always annoy and impede my cultivation so I just gave up entirely during that time, that said, I ignore the little apes.

After that, Natalie fetched me from school

It was wholly uneventful, I wanted to skip grades but decided against it. Marcus's pragmatic side acted up, if he were to skip classes, Marcus might miss the opportunities to socialize and expand his connections, if he were to directly jump over to higher levels, he might be left out and bullied by the other kids, which would affect his reputation. After a couple of calculations, Marcus decided against jumping grades, it's best to interact with people in the same age and generation after all.