---
The child asked again, "Now tell me the three wishes along with the conditions."
Jack thought about the three wishes for a moment, his sixth sense guiding him. After a pause, he said, "My first wish is to have a body that can adapt to everything—physical, mental, or spiritual. It should be able to adapt to anything."
"And the conditions?" asked the little girl, her crimson red eyes staring directly into his soul, as if she were modifying his very existence.
"If I adapt to too many things at once, they shall backlash and harm me—mentally and physically," Jack replied. It was the only condition his sixth sense didn't object to. Somehow, it felt like exactly what the child wanted to hear.
Pleased, the child chuckled. "Interesting. Wish granted."
Jack suddenly felt as though his bones were tearing through his muscles, his muscles ripping through his skin, and his skin tearing itself apart. Though he was in excruciating pain, not a single word escaped his tongue—his sixth sense had warned him that making a sound would bring consequences he couldn't escape.
After two grueling hours that felt like ages, the pain finally ended.
"You're a tough one. State your next wish, and I shall grant it," the little girl with crimson eyes and yellowish-white hair said, her voice devoid of emotion.
Breathless but guided by his sixth sense, Jack didn't hesitate. "My next wish is to have perfect memory—not just photographic memory, but a memory so precise that I can relive every moment exactly as it happened, as if I were experiencing it in real-time." Jack had pondered his wishes during those agonizing two hours, and this was one his sixth sense didn't warn him against.
The child gave a peculiar smile, as if this was the answer she had been waiting for. "And what are the conditions?" she asked again, staring into his soul.
Jack felt his blood run cold once more, a sensation he hoped to never experience again. Yet, maintaining his composure, he responded, "If I overuse this ability, my head should begin to glitch—I'll forget the very thing I was trying to remember, until I recover."
With a cold smile, the child replied, "Granted. State your next wish."
Jack braced himself for pain—but none came. He stood there for about a minute, confused—until suddenly, his brain felt like it was slamming against the inside of his skull.
Bang
Bang
Bang
It felt as though his brain was trying to escape his head. Though in unimaginable pain, Jack kept silent, heeding his sixth sense's warning.
After another two agonizing hours, the pain finally subsided. Jack felt a deep calmness, a peace unlike anything he had ever known—as if all the worries of the world had disappeared.
The child, now wearing a rare and subtle smile, said, "State your next wish, and you shall be reborn in the world of Super Gene."
Without wasting a second, Jack said, "I want a wish every time I max out one of my genes—applicable in all the sanctuaries."
The little girl, now smiling more openly and extending her hands as if to grasp the entire universe, asked in an eerie voice, "And what are the conditions?"
Jack, his voice steady, replied, "If I ask for anything beyond the level of the gene I've maxed out—like requesting a sacred weapon after only maxing out an ordinary gene—I shall die."
The girl's grin stretched unnaturally wide. "Excellent. You're exactly the type of human I wanted."
Even though Jack knew it was a dangerous gamble, after the second wish, his sixth sense had evolved into something more—something capable of warning him about everything. And he trusted it, though he couldn't explain why.
With that, the child—clearly a god-like being—said, "Now, for your system."
She formed a glowing ball out of… nothing. It looked identical to its surroundings, and even with his advanced sixth sense, Jack couldn't identify what it was. The little girl stepped forward and punched the ball of nothingness into his chest.
Agonizing pain erupted through his entire body—more intense than ever before.
His final thought was that she hadn't inflicted the pain of the third wish like she had with the first two…
But he was wrong.
The girl had combined the pain of the first and second wishes with that of the third, and added the torment of the system being implanted—inflicted with just a touch of her finger. Where her fingers met his skin, it turned black. Jack blacked out, not knowing what came next.
---
He opened his eyes.
His surroundings had changed. He was no longer in the void—he was in the First God Sanctuary.
Before he could make sense of the situation, a system window popped up in front of him, and foreign memories began flooding into his mind.
They weren't his memories.
They belonged to someone named Tian Fan.
He was now in the body of a young man named Tian Fan. His family wasn't filthy rich, but they were still quite wealthy. He was the second son of the Fan family.
Jack stood up from the rubble he had awoken in, only to find a wolf-like beast growling in front of him.
_____
End of chapter 2.