There was a saying I once heard—absurd, ridiculous, and yet strangely convincing in the way desperate ideas often are.
If a man died a virgin at thirty, he would be reborn as a Sage. At forty, a Great Sage. At fifty, perhaps a Grand Sage. Sixty elevated one to something akin to a Divine Sage.
And seventy… well, seventy supposedly granted the status of a Supreme Sage.
A foolish rumor, no doubt. The kind that would make any rational person scoff and walk away without a second thought.
Unfortunately, I was not that rational person.
I had lived what could generously be described as a terrible life. Nothing ever quite worked out. Opportunities slipped through my fingers like sand, relationships never took root, and the future felt less like a promise and more like a looming sentence. So when I came across that rumor, absurd as it was, I clung to it.
Not because it made sense. But because it offered hope.
And so, in what I can now only describe as a monument to my own stupidity, I made a decision. If remaining a virgin was the key to gaining an advantage in the next life, then so be it. I would endure it. I would commit to it. I would see it through, no matter how long it took.
Years passed. Then decades followed. Thirty came and went. Then forty. And eventually… fifty.
Each milestone was not just a birthday to me. It was a ritual.
On the night of each transition—twenty-nine to thirty, thirty-nine to forty, forty-nine to fifty—I performed what I believed to be a sacred rite. A carefully constructed process, born from fragments of superstition, half-understood folklore, and my own imagination. I convinced myself that if I died during those pivotal ages, the reward would be guaranteed.
Looking back now, it's painfully clear how ridiculous it all was.
But back then, I didn't see it that way. I was both ignorant and desperate.
And above all, I was selfish enough to believe that the world—or whatever lay beyond it—owed me something better.
The night I turned fifty was the culmination of everything.
I had prepared meticulously. Every ingredient I believed necessary had been gathered earlier that day. Contrary to what some might assume, there were no human parts involved—nothing grotesque of that nature. Even in my delusion, I had my limits.
Instead, I relied on animal components, choosing them based on symbolic significance.
A tortoise, representing longevity.
An elephant, embodying dominance and strength. Truly, nature must have shown mercy in making such creatures herbivores. If they weren't, the world would be far more terrifying than it already is.
Alongside those were various non-living items—objects I had convinced myself held mystical properties. I won't pretend I remember exactly how I sourced all of them. What mattered at the time was that I had them.
Everything was in place. The mixture was prepared. And the ritual began.
I even created my own incantations. Words that had no meaning in any language, strung together with the confidence of someone who had fully committed to their madness. It wasn't my first time, either. I had done this twice before, at the previous milestones, following the exact same process.
This was simply the third. And, as it turned out, the last.
I had just begun chanting when it happened.
There was no warning. No dramatic sign. No ominous feeling creeping up my spine.
One moment I was standing there, fully immersed in the ritual, and the next… my legs gave out. Just like that.
The strength vanished from my body as if it had never been there to begin with. My vision blurred, my balance failed me, and before I could even comprehend what was happening, I fell.
What followed next was... Nothing. Death, it seems, is far less theatrical than one might expect.
At least, that's what I thought. Because things only got stranger from there.
At first, there was darkness. Not the kind you experience when you close your eyes. It was deeper and heavier than that.
Then came the voices.
Faint at first, like distant echoes carried on the wind. Indistinct murmurs that I couldn't quite make sense of. They grew louder, overlapping, chaotic, as though multiple people were speaking at once.
Before i knew it, i was awake.
My eyes snapped open, and the world that greeted me was the complete opposite of where I had died.
Gone was the dim, suffocating room.
In its place stood a vibrant, almost surreal landscape.
Light poured in from above, illuminating everything in rich, vivid colors. The air felt… alive, in a way I couldn't quite describe. The sheer contrast was enough to disorient me, my mind struggling to process the sudden shift.
Reincarnation. The thought came almost immediately, uninvited yet undeniable.
But I stopped myself. No jumping to conclusions.
Excitement bubbled up inside me, but I forced it down, choosing instead to observe. To analyze and to understand.
The environment around me was unmistakably a forest. But not one I recognized.
The trees were taller, fuller, their leaves glowing with a kind of unnatural brilliance. The colors were too rich, too perfect. It didn't resemble any forest I had seen back on Earth.
Still, I held back. No assumptions and definitely no premature celebration.
"Stay calm," I muttered to myself, a small chuckle escaping my lips despite my efforts.
If I had truly been reincarnated, there would be time to confirm it.
Next came the question of my own body.
I glanced down at myself, taking in what I could.
Short hair. The color was hard to determine without a proper reflection, though I assumed it hadn't changed much from the brown I once had.
My build… well, I'd like to say I looked muscular, but that would be a blatant lie.
My beard was gone—though, if I were being honest, I never had one to begin with.
All things considered, I looked the same as I always had. Average. Unremarkable. Just a regular man.
There was, however, one detail that bothered me.
Something felt… off.
I couldn't quite put my finger on it at first, but there was an undeniable sense of wrongness about my current state. A strange lightness. An unnatural fragility.
And then it hit me. Transparency was what it was.
I didn't look solid, didn't even feel solid.
My form seemed faint, almost as if I could disappear at any moment.
"…No way," I murmured, my suspicion growing stronger by the second.
Shaking my head, I raised my hands, examining them closely. They looked normal at a glance, but the more I focused, the more I noticed the subtle lack of substance.
To confirm my doubts, I decided to test it.
There was a tree nearby. Simple enough.
I took a step forward, then another, each movement cautious yet deliberate.
"This won't work," I muttered under my breath. "Of course it won't. There's no way—"
I reached out. To my daunting surprise, my hand passed straight through the tree.
"…Huh?"
For a brief moment, my brain refused to process what had just happened.
Then the rest of my body followed.
I walked—no, slid—right through the tree as if it wasn't there at all, only to stumble and fall face-first onto the ground on the other side.
Silence. I remained there, unmoving, staring blankly ahead.
"What just happened?" I finally said, my voice tinged with disbelief.
Slowly, I pushed myself up and turned back toward the tree.
"No. No, no, no. That didn't just happen."
There had to be an explanation. There had to be.
Determined, I tried again. Step forward. Reach out. Pass through. Same result.
I stood there for a moment, processing it all. Then, finally, I laughed.
A dry, unhinged sound that echoed through the forest.
Understanding dawned on me, piece by piece, until there was no denying it anymore.
"I did it," I muttered, a grin spreading across my face. "I actually did it."
Reincarnation. It had worked.
All those years of effort, all that dedication—it had paid off.
But as the realization settled in, another truth followed close behind. One that wiped the grin clean off my face.
"…You've got to be kidding me."
I looked down at myself again, at my transparent form, at the way my body seemed to lack any real presence.
A ghost. Out of everything I could have become… this was it.
"I reincarnated…" I said slowly, my voice hollow. Then I let out a sharp, incredulous laugh. "As a ghost. Damn it!"