Chapter 12

[I understand your feelings, however, please note that your body has already evolved/transcended for over 300,000 years. With this amount of evolved years, it's not realistically possible to have a significant improvement in just 2 months of evolution/transcendence per second.

However, let me tell you that you have greatly underestimated your current abilities. To give you an idea of your current capabilities, I will put it this way: when I activate "slow motion mode," your movement speed is on par with that of a subsonic bullet, equivalent to 340 m/s. Additionally, you have the strength to lift a car as if it were a large balloon filled with air. Your skin, muscles, and bones are immune to heavy weapons such as RPG missiles, not to mention that you are currently immune to all human diseases.

The only thing that stopped you from using "slow motion mode" to run everywhere before was your own mindset. You considered yourself a mere human and thought it was too tiring to run at that speed, attributing the resistance to the air. I'm not telling you this to scold you but rather to prevent you from imposing unnecessary restrictions on yourself, such as feeling tired from running less than 10 meters at 340 m/s. If you set your mind to it, you could run at that speed without getting tired and even surpass it every day. You set your own limits, and if you continue thinking this way, believing that you are a normal human, one day you will regret it.

But don't get discouraged. Honestly, you have already done thousands of times better than in your past life. However, you can't and shouldn't show that weakness because someone could take advantage of it. You must be strong, bold, full of energy, and confident in yourself. Otherwise, your abilities will decline, and you will spiral into insecurity from which it won't be easy to escape. You could even lose control of your own capabilities and become an ordinary human. Always keep this in mind. It doesn't matter if you fail once or twice or even millions of times. What's important is not to lose your attitude and energy.]

(*Sigh*... thanks for the encouragement, Da Vinci. I will take your words into account), I thought to myself while gazing at the ceiling for a few seconds, feeling that there was still much for me to assimilate. Since I arrived in this world, it has been one surprise after another, without pause, and with such a large information overload that I haven't even had time to look in the mirror and reflect on what I want for this new life.

Not having a specific goal is not the same as not knowing what I want for this life. I have literally infinite possibilities thanks to Da Vinci's help. But I'm still a drifting ship without a course. In other words, even though I don't have a defined goal yet, my goal would be the end of a journey, and upon reaching it, I may have a new one or not. Meanwhile, what I want from my life is the journey itself.

For example, my goal could be to go to Rome. While it may not be a grand objective, it's not a bad one either. But the important thing is how to get to Rome.

I could go as a typical tourist on a plane and fulfill my goal in a simple way, or I could find a way to smuggle myself, going through many places and meeting many people along the way. I could even invent a time machine and travel to the past or the future, experiencing adventures before reaching Rome.

All these ways have the same goal: going to Rome. As they say, "all roads lead to Rome." Even though I don't have a defined goal at the moment, I could choose a path and enjoy it to the fullest until I find a goal.

It doesn't matter if I have to take many detours to achieve this goal. In the end, achieving a goal is more about the process than the fulfillment of the objective itself. After all, I wouldn't want to reach my goal only to realize that I did everything in the wrong way and end up feeling empty. That's why I kept staring at the ceiling, contemplating what I want for myself.

(I really feel lost), I thought to myself, feeling like a person who wakes up on a small boat in the middle of an endless ocean, without direction or destination, simply adrift with the risk of dying if I don't decide on a course. However, now that Da Vinci reminded me of it and I have time to think, I realize the situation I'm in.

The previous metaphor may be true, but there's a serious problem in it. If I stay idle for too long without knowing which direction to take, I could lose my abilities and become a normal person, or at best, my skills could degenerate into common ones. This would be a major problem considering the kind of world I'm in, as I'm sure that in a few years, this world will go to hell in some way, and if I'm not strong, I'll end up losing everything I gain in the future.

Even though I may wake up and regain the attitude to exert the full force of my abilities, I'm sure it will be incredibly difficult, and I will suffer a lot to wake up again. Or, as Da Vinci told me, due to my insufficient mindset, I could degrade myself to the point of no longer wanting to be what I should be, like the story of the sky god Indra and the pigs.

(Note: If you're not familiar with this story, let me summarize it for you. Indra one day saw pigs wallowing in the mud and decided to descend to teach them about the world. He transformed himself into a pig, but Indra became so accustomed to being a pig that he lost his previous identity as the sky god and fully believed himself to be a pig. He even had pig offspring, while the heavens were in chaos due to the lack of their god. Indra didn't awaken until several gods descended and killed his pig wife and children, and only when they killed Indra's pig body did he awaken, frightened by realizing what he had become.)

"All I need right now is time to think," I said to myself as I reached into my pants pocket in search of a coin. However, my pockets were empty.

I could only sigh before lifting my backpack high, with a somewhat lost look on my face, not hesitating for a single second to let go of the backpack even though I knew it contained a bunch of important documents and fragile items.

Luckily, my idea worked. I watched as the backpack started to descend slowly, as if someone was lowering it with an invisible thread at a very slow pace. Although there was clearly no thread holding it, I stepped back and began to walk back and forth, searching for an idea or something that would give me direction.

Feeling the ease with which I walked through the bathroom, I realized how foolish I had been earlier to think that I had set limits. Although I couldn't blame myself too much since at that time, I still considered myself a normal human being.

(Hey, Da Vinci, can you show me or tell me something about the history of my past life?), I thought to myself after spending what felt like an hour thinking and pacing back and forth, trying to find some inspiration to make a decision. But I felt just as lost as at the beginning, so all I could do was seek inspiration from my past life.

[Of course, everything in your past life started on an ordinary day in the year ******** under the regime of...]