Morning sunlight streamed through the window and landed directly on the teenager sprawled across a massive, ridiculously comfortable bed.
He frowned in his sleep.
Apparently, even unconscious, he had strong opinions about being disturbed before noon.
Unfortunately, the sun won.
His chaotic but wonderful dream dissolved beneath the relentless glare.
The teenager cracked his eyes open, sat up with all the urgency of a dying sloth, then spent several seconds staring blankly into space before rubbing his face and yawning.
The room around him was unmistakably American—spacious, tastefully decorated, and expensive enough that no landlord had ever been involved in its design.
That seemed to finish waking him up.
He stretched, scratched his ass, and shuffled toward the kitchen to grab some water before beginning his sacred morning ritual: sitting on the porcelain throne.
From beginning to end, he radiated the kind of relaxed energy no overworked corporate drone could ever hope to achieve.
The source of that serenity?
The obscenely long number sitting in his bank account.
After cleaning up some leftover trash from the night before, he washed up and glanced into the mirror.
A handsome Eurasian face stared back at him, good-looking enough that Sherlock felt entirely justified in admiring it for a moment.
He nodded approvingly.
Still handsome.
Excellent.
Sherlock brewed himself a cup of coffee, carried it into the study, and settled into his chair.
Then he waved a hand.
A colossal book appeared on the desk.
It was nearly twenty inches tall and almost as thick as his fist.
Embossed neatly across the cover in English were the words:
Alchemy: From Beginner to Six Feet Under.
Yes.
Sherlock was a transmigrator.
In his previous life, he’d been painfully ordinary—just another wage slave getting dragged through brutal twelve-hour workdays six days a week while constantly wondering whether the next round of layoffs would have his name on it.
Then, one perfectly normal morning, while sitting on the toilet, fate had decided he’d suffered enough.
A truck killed him.
Sherlock still couldn’t figure out how the damn thing had managed it.
His apartment had been on the third floor.
Yet somehow, while apparently screaming we’re all doing our best to survive, the legendary Truck-kun had achieved pinpoint accuracy and delivered itself directly into his bathroom.
Physics had presumably filed for resignation shortly afterward.
The process had been absurd.
The result, however, had been fantastic.
Sherlock inherited the body of a teenager who shared his new name.
The boy’s parents were already dead, but between an enormous insurance payout and the fortune they’d left behind, Sherlock achieved something he’d spent his entire previous life dreaming about.
Financial independence.
No boss.
No overtime.
No performance reviews.
No pretending a “team-building exercise” wasn’t just unpaid work with pizza.
He’d won.
And the enormous grimoire sitting in front of him?
That was his cheat ability.
The book contained practically every kind of alchemy Sherlock could imagine.
There was the clap-your-hands-and-rewrite-matter style of transmutation from Fullmetal Alchemist, the artifact-crafting side of alchemy found in Harry Potter, and plenty more besides.
Admittedly, the opening chapter had been somewhat less mystical than expected.
It was literally the periodic table.
Sherlock had stared at it for a long time on his first day.
Five years later, after throwing himself wholeheartedly into studying the book, he could confidently say he’d become an exceptional alchemist.
Learning from it had long since become part of his daily routine.
And why wouldn’t it?
Unlike the miserable studying he’d done in his previous life, this actually produced immediate, tangible results.
Knowledge was power.
With this book, that wasn’t philosophy.
It was a technical specification.
“Hard to believe, Sherlock.
You’re actually awake this early—and sitting here reading, no less.”
A pleasant, almost ethereal woman’s voice suddenly came from behind him.
Sherlock didn’t even flinch.
He calmly closed the grimoire and turned around.
A bald woman stood near one of the cabinets, watching him with an amused smile.
Sherlock sighed.
“Ancient One, does the Sorcerer Supreme seriously have nothing better to do?
This is the third time you’ve appeared in my house unannounced this month.”
The Ancient One looked genuinely surprised.
“I thought the sparks from my portal were rather noticeable.
Surely that counts as announcing myself.”
Sherlock stared at her.
Then rolled his eyes.
…Fair.
Annoyingly fair.
As for how Sherlock had ended up acquainted with one of the biggest problems any Marvel transmigrator could possibly encounter?
Simple.
The Ancient One had shown up on his very first day in this world.
Sherlock had expected interrogation.
Possibly banishment.
Maybe an exorcism.
Instead, she had smiled at him and opened with:
“Would you like to come to Kamar-Taj and become the next Sorcerer Supreme?”
Sherlock’s answer had been immediate.
No.
Absolutely not.
The offer sounded amazing on paper, sure, but Sherlock had no interest in borrowing power from extradimensional entities and potentially owing them his soul afterward.
Besides, he had alchemy.
There was no guarantee his future achievements would be any less impressive than those of Kamar-Taj’s army of melee wizards.
So he’d refused.
The Ancient One hadn’t driven him out.
Instead, she periodically dropped by under the excuse of “monitoring an extradimensional anomaly,” which mostly seemed to involve watching Sherlock perform alchemy and drinking his tea.
After five years of this, calling them friends wasn’t entirely unreasonable.
And after five years, the Ancient One also understood Sherlock’s terminally lazy personality perfectly well.
So his exasperated expression didn’t bother her in the slightest.
Instead, she smiled and asked the same question she’d asked far too many times before.
“Are you certain you won’t reconsider Kamar-Taj?
You would be inheriting the position of Sorcerer Supreme.”
Sherlock’s expression somehow became even flatter.
With another wave, the enormous grimoire vanished.
“You’ve asked me that five thousand, two hundred and thirty-six times over the last five years.”
He pointed at her.
“And my answer is still no.
I’m not signing up for a job where dying might mean my soul spends eternity working for some cosmic monstrosity.”
The Ancient One’s smile didn’t change.
Clearly, they’d had some variation of this conversation many times before.
Her gaze drifted toward Sherlock’s right arm.
She studied it for several seconds before giving him a rather knowing smile.
“And yet you offered yourself to Truth.”
Sherlock groaned.
“Oh, come on.
Don’t tell me the Sorcerer Supreme can’t see the difference between Truth and those things.”
For once, the Ancient One could only sigh.
With a casual gesture, several Chinese breakfast dishes appeared across Sherlock’s desk.
Sherlock immediately stopped arguing and started eating.
Principles were important.
Free breakfast was more important.
“My Truth,” he said around a mouthful of food, “is closer to something like the Dao—the underlying rules of reality.
It has no agenda.
No desires.
No allegiance.
It simply is.”
He swallowed.
“That humanoid shape you saw wasn’t an actual person.
It was just Truth presenting an abstract concept in a form your mind could understand.”
The Ancient One regarded him for a moment.
“So you attempted forbidden human transmutation, sacrificed an arm and an eye, and crossed the Gate of Truth…”
Her eyebrows rose.
“…just so you could make yourself a pet?”
Sherlock froze.
Before he could answer, a tiny portal snapped open nearby.
Something small and pink shot through it at full speed, sprinting in a posture so ridiculous it looked like reality itself had lost track of the animation budget.
The creature launched itself straight into Sherlock’s arms.
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