"Huh… where the fuck am I?"
Jackson slowly opened his eyes, his vision blurred and swimming. A dull ache throbbed behind his forehead as he tried to sit up. What greeted him was a cramped, unfamiliar room—barely large enough for a man to stretch his legs.
Cold stone walls pressed in from all sides, damp and cracked, as if they hadn't seen sunlight in decades. The floor beneath him was filthy, layered with grime and dark stains he didn't want to think about. In one corner sat a wooden bucket filled nearly to the brim with human waste, flies buzzing lazily above it. The stench alone was enough to make his stomach churn.
A rusted tap jutted out of the wall, dripping slowly. Each drop splashed onto the floor with a soft plop, the liquid unnaturally dark—almost black. And then there were the bars.
Thick iron bars stood firmly in front of him, sealing him inside like an animal in a cage.
"…A jail?" he muttered hoarsely. "How the hell did I land in this shithole?"
He looked down at himself, and his breath caught.
His body was wrong.
He had always been lean, sure—but this? His arms were little more than bone wrapped in skin, veins standing out sharply. His ribs pressed visibly against his chest, and his hands trembled as he lifted them. His skin was coated in layers of filth, sticky and sour, as if he hadn't bathed in months… no, longer. A year, maybe more.
The smell in the air was unbearable—sweat, rot, feces, and something else beneath it all. Something sickly sweet.
"…That operation," he whispered.
Fragments of memory surfaced.
He remembered lying on a hospital bed. The sterile white ceiling. The steady beep of machines. The doctor's grave face.
A brain tumor.
Inoperable, they said. On the brink of metastasis. Time was running out.
And he had nothing—no money, no insurance, no hope.
Until an NGO contacted him.
They had promised treatment. Free of cost. Experimental, yes—but effective. They told him if the tumor was removed before it turned malignant, he could live.
He had cried that day. Genuine tears of gratitude. It felt like divine intervention.
So he signed the papers.
And that was when everything went wrong.
Instead of a hospital, he was transferred to a facility that felt more like a bunker. Cold metal corridors. No windows. Too many security doors. His instincts had screamed at him—but it was too late.
Sedation had taken him quickly… but not quickly enough.
Through the haze, he remembered voices.
"Tumor successfully removed. Preparing to imprint Factor X into the target's brain."
"I hope it works. If it doesn't, even the failure will be historic. I'll surpass Einstein—become the new Universal Genius."
"And if it does work?"
A pause.
"We kill him. After a few tests. An enhanced brain in the hands of an ordinary man is too dangerous to leave alive."
Those were the last words he heard before darkness swallowed him whole.
Jackson's fists clenched.
"Those fucking bastards…" he growled. "They dumped me in this shithole."
His gaze drifted back to the bucket. Flies buzzed louder as he leaned closer, bile rising in his throat.
"Whose shit is that?!" he snapped, gagging.
He staggered to his feet and approached the bars. Beyond them stretched a narrow, dimly lit hallway lined with identical cells. Shadows moved behind iron grates. He could hear voices—screaming, sobbing, manic laughter. Some pleaded. Others babbled nonsense. Most sounded completely unhinged.
"Hey!" he shouted. "Anyone here?! Get me out of here! I'll sue the fuck out of you!"
He slammed his hand against the bars. The metal rang loudly, echoing down the corridor.
No response.
Only laughter. Wild. Broken. Inhuman.
"HEY! YOU FUCKERS! LET ME OUT!"
"Veric…"
The voice was weak. Old. Cracked like dry leaves.
"You finally lost it too?"
Jackson froze.
"You… you know my name?" he asked, heart pounding. "Who are you?"
A tired sigh came from the neighboring cell.
"So it's worse than I thought," the voice said quietly. "I'm your father."
Jackson's brow furrowed sharply.
"Shut up," the man continued. "Or they'll beat you to death. Please… don't shout, son."
"…Father?"
The word tasted foreign.
"What the fuck is happening?" Jackson muttered, panic rising.
Suddenly, a burning pain exploded inside his skull. A shrill ringing pierced his ears, sharp and relentless. His vision blurred as pressure crushed his thoughts.
"Ahhh—!" he screamed, collapsing to the floor, clutching his head.
"Son?! What's happening? Are you hurt?!" the old man cried out desperately.
But Jackson couldn't respond.
Darkness claimed him once more.
He didn't know how long he remained unconscious.
When he finally opened his eyes again, he was still in the cell.
The bucket was empty now.
At his feet lay a small piece of hard bread, wrapped in yellowed paper.
His stomach growled violently, the sound loud in the oppressive silence of the cell. It was the kind of hunger that came from prolonged starvation, as if he hadn't eaten a proper meal in an entire month. A sharp ache twisted in his gut, and without conscious thought, his thin, trembling hand moved toward the piece of hard bread lying near his feet.
Just as his fingers brushed against it—
Something changed.
His thoughts snapped into focus.
The haze that had clouded his mind vanished instantly, as if a heavy veil had been torn away. The air around him felt different—still, unnaturally quiet—yet at the same time, his senses expanded outward.
His mind began to move.
Not faster.
Exponentially faster.
Thoughts aligned with terrifying precision, calculations forming and resolving before he could even acknowledge them. It felt as if his brain was operating at a hundred times its previous capacity, smooth and effortless.
Sounds flooded in.
From somewhere far down the corridor, he could hear the faint, broken moaning of a woman. A man's laughter echoed intermittently—sharp, erratic, and hollow. From the cell beside his own came the soft, constant mumbling of the old man, his words indistinct but heavy with despair.
He hadn't been able to hear any of this before.
And then—
Memories surged.
Not fragments.
Not flashes.
Entire lifetimes poured into his consciousness, overlapping yet perfectly organized. The sensation was overwhelming but strangely painless, like opening a door that had always been there.
Strange… yet familiar.
It took nearly five full minutes before he truly became aware of his surroundings again.
When he did, he found himself sitting perfectly still, his breathing steady, his heartbeat calm. The clarity remained. His mind felt razor-sharp—clean, composed, frighteningly efficient.
But something was different.
There were memories in his head that did not belong to him.
"…Transmigration," he muttered slowly.
The word slipped from his mouth naturally, as if he had always known it.
"This isn't my world," he said, voice low. "It's different. And my brain… it's like I can access everything at once. Clearly. Completely."
Shock rippled through him, but it didn't spiral into panic. His enhanced mind analyzed the situation instead, calmly assembling the truth piece by piece.
According to these newly integrated memories, he was no longer on Earth.
This world was called Aborratha.
A land saturated with strange energies—mystical forces that people here simply called magic.
In this life, he had been a farmer, just like his father. They had lived quietly on the outskirts of a small settlement, surviving off the land. That peace had ended one night when the Dark Cavalry arrived.
They had been arrested without explanation.
Dragged away in chains.
Thrown into this place.
That had been nearly a year ago.
Since then, he had lived inside this very cell.
Because he possessed no magical talent, he had been deemed useless for anything important and sent to hard labor instead. Day after day, he was forced deep underground to mine Blackstone—a dense, unyielding material used for construction and fortifications.
It broke bodies.
And spirits.
Slowly, memories from his previous life on Earth resurfaced alongside these new ones—just as vivid, just as organized.
An average college student.
Parents killed in an accident.
No money. No safety net.
A terminal diagnosis.
Cancer.
A brain tumor, spreading rapidly.
And a strange, almost pathetic addiction to the internet—endless scrolling, meaningless videos, forgotten moments.
"My mind…" he whispered. "It's clean. Calm. Strong."
Realization struck him.
"It must be because of Factor X."
Images from the laboratory surfaced—monitor readouts, scrolling data, blurred figures in white coats. Conversations he hadn't consciously remembered now replayed with perfect clarity, word for word.
It wasn't just intelligence.
It was something beyond that.
Perfect recall.
Total mental control.
An eidetic memory paired with a vastly enhanced processing ability.
Veric swallowed hard.
Slowly, he raised his head and stared at the iron bars again. His eyes moved to the lock fixed at the center of the door.
A sudden memory surfaced.
An old internet video.
He had been lying in bed, scrolling mindlessly through his phone, when he'd stumbled across a short clip about lock-picking. He hadn't paid attention. Had forgotten it seconds later, just like every other pointless video he'd consumed.
Except now…
Now his mind replayed it flawlessly.
Every angle.
Every movement.
Every weakness.
In less than a second, he analyzed the lock in front of him and reached a conclusion.
"…This is the easiest lock to break," he murmured.