"His father's been arrested. If we keep him here, we'll be arrested with him." The voice outside the door was tight and urgent, like a wire pulled too far.
"But his father founded this organization. This manor was secretly purchased by him. It's his family's property." That reply carried frustration, but underneath it was doubt.
"This is the organization's headquarters. The moment he used it as headquarters, it stopped being private property." Another voice cut in, colder, more decisive.
"I think we should send him away. He hasn't even awakened his powers yet. His father's in custody—his identity as a mutant must already be exposed." There was fear there now, poorly hidden.
"We can't let him drag all of us down. I agree. Send him away." The agreement came quickly.
"I agree. Give him some cash and a car at most."
"His father wouldn't want the organization destroyed because of him. Let's vote."
…
Richard woke slowly to the muffled argument outside his bedroom door. The voices were sharp and tense, layered with something dangerously close to panic. Even through the heavy wood and thick carpeted hallway, the hostility carried clearly enough to yank him out of sleep.
He opened his eyes with a scowl, irritation rising immediately. Being dragged out of bed by people who couldn't keep their tempers in check would have annoyed anyone. He was about to sit up and tell the idiots outside to take their drama somewhere else when something felt off.
The quilt beneath his fingers was thick and expensive, the fabric soft in a way that screamed custom-made. The mattress didn't sag or creak. It supported him evenly, like it had been engineered for comfort. Above him, the ceiling stretched high and wide, detailed with carved molding that caught the morning light.
He froze.
This wasn't his cramped college dorm. The bed alone was bigger than his entire old sleeping space. Sunlight filtered through tall windows draped in heavy curtains, painting warm gold across polished wood floors. Everything about the room radiated wealth.
Where am I?
He pushed himself upright slowly, scanning the unfamiliar bedroom. Dark hardwood gleamed under the chandelier's glass crystals. Oil paintings in gilded frames lined the walls, landscapes and portraits rendered in old-world styles. The air carried a faint scent of polish and something subtler—old money, preserved and carefully maintained.
Confusion hit first, sharp and disorienting. Then unease crept in.
Before he could swing his legs off the bed, a violent spike of pain detonated behind his eyes. It felt like something had driven a red-hot spike straight through his skull.
"Damn it—!"
He grabbed his head as the world tilted sideways. His vision blurred, colors smearing into streaks. His body trembled uncontrollably as wave after wave of agony crashed through him. The pain wasn't dull or throbbing. It was invasive, invasive and surgical, as if something were forcefully carving space inside his brain.
Then the images came.
Scenes flashed by too quickly to process. A childhood spent inside this manor. Private tutors. Combat training sessions in a reinforced underground facility. Men and women in black tactical gear speaking in code. Strategy meetings around long tables. A stern, composed father explaining mutant rights, survival, and the necessity of strength in a world that feared them.
The torrent continued without pause, unfamiliar memories forcing themselves into his mind until there was no space left for resistance.
Then, abruptly, it stopped.
The pain vanished as suddenly as it had begun.
Richard sat on the bed, breathing hard, sweat dampening his back and soaking the collar of his shirt. His pulse hammered in his ears, but clarity settled in behind his eyes.
The memories weren't his.
But they were now.
Transmigration.
More specifically, he had transmigrated into the body of a mutant named Richard Wesley in the Marvel Universe.
In his previous life, he had been an ordinary college student. He binge-read web novels late into the night and laughed at ridiculous power fantasies. He'd debated overpowered protagonists and mocked contrived plot armor. He had never once imagined becoming the protagonist himself.
Calm down.
He forced a slow breath in, then another out.
This isn't cosmic horror. You didn't summon an ancient god. You just crossed over. That's it. People do it in fiction every day.
His throat felt dry as he swallowed.
It's fine. It's manageable.
He'd read enough transmigration stories to know the patterns. The shock came first. Then the realization. After that, the opportunity.
In those stories, transmigrators didn't stay weak for long. They rose. They adapted. They conquered.
Excitement slowly pushed back the lingering fear.
If he was truly in the Marvel Universe, and he was a mutant on top of that, then this wasn't a death sentence. It was a launchpad. This world was filled with danger, yes, but it was also filled with unimaginable potential.
After stabilizing his breathing, he focused inward.
Every transmigrator had one thing in common.
A cheat.
A system.
He centered his thoughts on that expectation, almost experimentally.
If there was something bound to him, now would be the time to show up.
The instant the thought solidified, a translucent holographic panel materialized in front of him.
[Host: Richard][Race: Human (Beta-Level Mutant)][Current Template: Sephiroth (Fusion Rate 5%)][Exclusive Weapon: Masamune][Skills: Octaslash (Lv.1 0/100), Hell's Gate (Lv.1 0/100), Heaven's Light (Lv.1 0/100), Heartless Angel (Lv.1 0/100), Iai Slash (Lv.1 0/100)][Magic: 30][X-Gene Ability: Plunder][Task: None][Storage Space: Activated]
The moment the interface appeared, understanding flowed into his mind as if it had always been there.
Template System.
A system that allowed him to load character templates and acquire their abilities. Not temporarily, not as a single-use copy, but as an integrated fusion. Even more outrageous, multiple templates could be equipped simultaneously.
That meant stacked abilities. Layered power sets. Compounded evolution.
His pulse quickened despite himself.
The first template was Sephiroth.
Anyone even remotely familiar with Final Fantasy VII knew that name. The iconic silver-haired antagonist. The final boss whose presence defined the story's scale. Elegant, terrifying, overwhelmingly powerful.
And now that template was his.
He dismissed the interface with a thought and raised his left hand instead.
Sephiroth was left-hand dominant.
If he wanted to increase the fusion rate, he needed to align his habits with the template. That information felt instinctive, embedded alongside the system's data.
He focused.
A pale green flash shimmered in the air, and a blade materialized in his grip.
The Masamune.
His first thought was blunt and immediate.
It's absurdly long.
The blade stretched nearly two and a half meters, slender and gleaming like polished silver. The handle itself was close to half a meter. The blade was narrow, almost impossibly thin, catching the light like a line drawn by a razor.
In his previous life, he doubted he could have wielded a standard katana without looking clumsy. Now, the instant his fingers closed around the hilt, familiarity surged through him.
It felt natural.
Not learned, not practiced, but ingrained.
As though he had trained with it for decades.
He rose smoothly from the bed, the oversized weapon balanced effortlessly in his left hand. The bedroom was massive, easily sixty square meters with a ceiling that soared nearly five meters high. There was more than enough room to test movement without destroying the furniture.
He stepped forward and drew the blade through the air.
A straight slash.
A horizontal cut.
A diagonal arc.
A precise forward thrust.
An upward sweep.
Each motion flowed seamlessly into the next. There was no hesitation in his muscles, no stiffness in his joints. His body responded like a machine calibrated specifically for this weapon. The blade hummed faintly as it parted empty air, the sound thin and sharp.
These were only foundational forms, basic sequences drilled into muscle memory. Yet even at this early stage, the movements carried lethal precision and a strange, restrained elegance.
After cycling through several combinations, his gaze sharpened.
Time to test something beyond the basics.
He inhaled slowly, instinctively gathering the magic indicated on the interface. The sensation was subtle but tangible, like pulling invisible threads inward and compressing them along his arm.
Octaslash.
His body moved before conscious thought could interfere.
One slash.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
The strikes came so quickly they blurred together, overlapping into a single, devastating sequence. Afterimages lingered faintly in the air, ghostly lines tracing the path of the blade.
The final cut completed as smoothly as the first.
A faint chime echoed inside his mind.
"Octaslash proficiency +1."