Sherlock’s outburst wasn’t exactly hard to understand.
Before transmigrating, he’d been an ordinary person.
Even after acquiring supernatural power, his ambitions hadn’t suddenly expanded to saving the world, protecting humanity, or becoming some shining beacon of justice.
He just wanted to live well.
Preferably quietly.
Preferably with money.
Preferably while everyone else’s apocalypse stayed very far away from his house.
Unfortunately, the Ancient One’s parting words had carried a very obvious implication.
Whatever happened in the future, Sherlock was apparently going to be involved.
Which was bullshit.
Utter bullshit.
He’d been in this world for five whole years.
Five years with supernatural powers.
Five years in Marvel.
And not once had he felt the slightest urge to put on tights and start punching criminals.
At first, Sherlock’s instinct had been to dismiss the Ancient One’s ominous prediction completely.
Then he remembered one tiny detail.
She had the Time Stone.
That made ignoring her a lot harder.
As far as Sherlock knew, his connections to the future Avengers were practically nonexistent.
There was the Ancient One, obviously—the most famous bald head in Marvel.
Beyond her?
His deceased parents had once been senior employees at Stark Industries.
That was about it.
And even that barely counted.
They’d worked there during the awkward transition period after Howard Stark’s death, when Tony had only recently taken control of the massive corporation.
Sherlock seriously doubted his parents had ever had any meaningful relationship with Tony Stark.
He doubted even more that the playboy currently appearing in magazines beside a revolving door of supermodels had ever spared a thought for the child of two former employees who’d died in a plane crash years ago.
Even if that child had been the precious late-in-life son they’d absolutely doted on.
Sherlock spent another minute cursing at the empty space where the Ancient One had vanished.
No portal reopened.
No smug bald head came back to argue with him.
Eventually, he got bored.
“Tch.”
He sighed and turned back toward the Holy Lance of Longinus.
Whatever.
The Ancient One had explicitly said that if he could repair it, it was his.
And that changed things.
Because if Sherlock had to choose between becoming a superhero and sitting comfortably at home with good coffee while studying alchemy and ancient divine artifacts…
There wasn’t even a choice.
This was the life he’d wanted.
Quiet luxury.
Interesting research.
No boss.
No saving civilians while buildings exploded around him.
“Superhero” was just a glamorous way of saying designated fall guy with excellent PR.
Or maybe premium-grade wage slave.
Sherlock wanted absolutely no part of it.
As for the universe-wide Snap coming sometime in the future?
Not his problem.
When the sky fell, there would be taller people around to hold it up.
What did any of that have to do with one humble little alchemist?
Besides…
Sherlock didn’t believe the Infinity Stones could simply turn him into dust.
His hand unconsciously rose to his left eye.
No one else knew what was hidden behind the artificial eye.
A blood-red stone.
His greatest insurance policy in this absurdly dangerous universe.
The Philosopher’s Stone.
The pinnacle of alchemy.
An object capable of disregarding ordinary rules and granting impossible results.
And Sherlock’s wasn’t even the kind that depleted with use.
It had appeared alongside his alchemy grimoire when he’d first arrived in this world.
No fuel.
No limited number of souls.
No running out.
Just an inexhaustible Philosopher’s Stone.
If fate really did have some grand plan for him…
Sherlock smiled faintly.
Then he’d tear that plan apart himself.
Between the Philosopher’s Stone and his alchemy, he refused to believe there was anything called destiny that he couldn’t break.
Nobody was ruining his peaceful life.
Nobody.
Feeling much better after that little internal declaration of war against fate itself, Sherlock happily returned his attention to the lance.
And the deeper he examined it, the more impressed he became with Kamar-Taj’s collection.
The so-called Holy Lance of Longinus was technically a weapon.
But fundamentally?
It was closer to a staff.
A magical focus.
Something in the same general category as the staff Gandalf used whenever he wasn’t beating people over the head with it.
The major difference was that, compared with Gandalf’s glorified wizard club, the thing lying on Sherlock’s desk was terrifyingly sophisticated.
Its core function, as far as he could determine, could be described with two words:
Amplification.
Or perhaps…
Elevation.
Alchemy normally required a transmutation circle.
That was foundational.
An alchemist who had seen Truth could simplify the process dramatically, reducing a full transmutation array to the circle created by bringing their hands together.
Exactly like the protagonists in Fullmetal Alchemist.
That was already about as streamlined as alchemy could normally become.
But the Holy Lance could take it one step further.
It could reduce the circle…
to a point.
In practical terms?
Sherlock wouldn’t even need to clap his hands.
He could simply touch something with the lance and activate alchemy directly through the point of contact.
That alone was ridiculous.
But apparently, it wasn’t the limit.
Judging by the surviving inscriptions carved into the weapon, Sherlock suspected that at full functionality the lance might even allow him to perform transmutations at range.
No physical contact.
No circle.
Possibly no direct setup at all.
Just point.
Activate.
Transmute.
Sherlock’s eyes practically glowed.
That one function alone was enough to justify calling the weapon a divine artifact.
Everything else—following its owner, hovering, flight, recognizing a master, returning when summoned—almost felt like bonus features by comparison.
Of course, those were only the abilities Sherlock could infer from the remaining runes.
Right now, the lance was badly damaged.
The only function it still possessed was hovering.
Sherlock leaned closer, excitement spreading across his face.
“So basically…”
He tapped the desk thoughtfully.
“It’s Doctor Strange’s Cloak of Levitation, except somebody turned it into an overpowered wizard spear?”
The more he studied it, the more thrilled he became.
For one brief moment, an uncomfortable thought surfaced.
Was it perhaps a little shameless to accept something this valuable from the Ancient One?
Sherlock considered the ethical implications carefully.
For approximately three seconds.
Then discarded them.
He was an alchemist.
Expecting him to politely refuse a divine artifact this perfectly suited to his profession was simply unreasonable.
Sherlock nodded solemnly to himself.
“Fine.
We’ll call it payment for all the times she kidnapped Doro for cuddles.”
A flawless argument.
Absolutely airtight.
Having successfully defeated his conscience with the laziest excuse imaginable, Sherlock ran his right hand across his left arm.
The apparently normal flesh split apart.
Panels separated.
Metal unfolded.
In seconds, his ordinary-looking arm transformed into a complex mechanical limb packed with tools and weapons.
Tiny articulated instruments extended from hidden compartments.
Precision manipulators unfolded beside engraved alchemical components.
Mechanisms nested inside mechanisms until the whole thing looked like something Rick Sanchez might have built during an especially productive afternoon.
Except Rick’s gadgets were engineering.
Sherlock’s arm was pure alchemy.
Every component inside it had been designed specifically for transmutation, analysis, engraving, refinement, or artifact construction.
Sherlock flexed the mechanical fingers.
Then looked at the Holy Lance of Longinus.
His grin slowly became downright predatory.
He approached the divine artifact with the expression of a starving man who’d just been handed the keys to an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Repairing this thing wasn’t optional anymore.
Sherlock Flamel was going to restore the Holy Lance of Longinus.
Whatever it took.
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