Microscopic Transfiguration, Ultimate Being

Immortality—the difficulty of walking this path to its end was beyond what ordinary people could imagine.

Even the sun, which had illuminated the earth for countless eons, would one day go out. Even the universe would reach heat death.

For a mere human to seek immortality...

Roger was not ignorant of his own limits. In his view, as long as there was even the slightest possibility, then even if that possibility was infinitely close to zero, immortality was still worth pursuing with his entire life.

Now, he would begin his journey toward immortality with Transfiguration!

...As for how to use Transfiguration to extend one's lifespan, wizards had researched it in the distant ancient era.

In that age, wizards had not yet divided themselves into groups along Muggle national borders as they did now, with organizations such as the Ministry of Magic or magical congresses coordinating matters for each group.

Back then, wizards operated independently. Some allied with various Muggle powers and became court wizards or imperial advisors. Others secluded themselves in the mountains and forests, establishing their own sects or hermit orders. They were far from friendly with one another.

Wizards often passed knowledge down through masters, disciples, and sects, and their prejudice toward outsiders was extremely severe. Ancient wizards had no right to be like modern Hogwarts students, able to learn whatever spells they wanted while most magical knowledge was openly bought and sold.

Usually, whatever a master knew was all his disciple could learn.

If the master only excelled at Potions, then the disciple could only excel at Potions as well.

A private magical library? Only top-tier wizards on Merlin's level deserved one!

Thus, although some people knew that alchemy, bloodline modification, Horcruxes, and other methods were better at prolonging life, they could only use the little magic they knew to extend their lifespan.

The book Professor McGonagall had given Roger, "Bloodline Magic and Transfiguration: Speculations on Future Eras," was the work of an ancient wizard who had wanted to cultivate both bloodline modification and Transfiguration-based modification.

His method of extending his life was simple: strip skin, extract bones, replace organs! When his skin wrinkled, he used Transfiguration to make it taut again.

When his bones became brittle, he made them sturdier.

When his organs aged, he replaced them with organs in a youthful state.

Like the legendary Ship of Theseus, he constantly used new parts to replace the decayed parts of his body.

The old wizard spent many years overcoming countless technical challenges, eventually turning his body into an ageless vessel that retained its youth forever... at least, that was how it appeared on the surface.

But his ageless body had three core flaws!

First, even if he replaced nearly every part of himself like Adam Smasher from Cyberpunk 2077, he could not replace his brain!

He did not know soul magic. His thoughts and will could not attach themselves to his soul and exist independently of his brain. Even if all his other organs were new, his brain continued to decay.

Second, once his body had been replaced, it was made of Transfiguration products—and magic, too, would fade over time. Thus, whenever the Transfiguration on a certain component failed, the old wizard had to immediately perform "maintenance" on himself.

The more complex an organ was, the harder it was to maintain. In an era when medicine had not entered the modern age, resolving rejection reactions and ensuring that all the organs could connect properly, perform their respective functions, and work together was no simple matter. That period would become the old wizard's fatal window of weakness.

The third flaw shared something of the same origin as the second.

As everyone knew, aside from The Three Unforgivable Curses, nearly every spell had a counter-spell that could dispel its magical effects.

There were even universal counter-spells like Immobulus and Finite Incantatem.

Therefore, once the old wizard was struck by spells like the Restoring Charm or Finite Incantatem, he could be said to die instantly!

Wanting to overcome these flaws, the old wizard switched midway to studying Magical Creature bloodline fusion after mastering Transfiguration. Yet he lacked any relevant knowledge and could only conduct experiments on Magical Creatures, slowly starting from scratch.

In the end, he failed to outrun the limits of his lifespan and died of brain aging.

All he left behind was "Bloodline Magic and Transfiguration: Speculations on Future Eras," which recorded his ideas and his endless regrets before death.

Naturally, Roger would not follow the old wizard's path completely, trading a thicker health pool for two or three hundred years of continued existence.

Those who came before recorded the paths they had walked so that those who came after could learn from their mistakes, stand on the shoulders of giants, and set out toward greater heights.

If later generations kept retracing the wrong paths of their predecessors over and over, what would be the point of leaving historical records behind?

The path Roger was taking was conceptually derived from that old wizard's, but technically, he had adopted innovations of his own.

In ancient times, people knew far too little about how the world and the human body functioned, so they could only employ deeply flawed "piecemeal Transfiguration."

But Roger, having received a modern scientific education, knew about cells, DNA, atoms, and molecules.

So...

"Use my own cells as the base material for Transfiguration. That way, even if I'm struck by a counter-spell and the creation reverts, it won't harm me in any way."

If he used other materials, it could lead to something like turning a wooden block into a cake, only for the cake to revert into a wooden block after being eaten and rupture the stomach and intestines.

If red blood cells transformed into something else and then reverted to red blood cells, there would be no problem.

"Don't replace my old components. Instead, make them my 'handles.'" Roger had watched some movies and played some games in his previous life.

Roger remembered a movie where the protagonist had nanotech robots inside his body. Those robots, smaller than cells, could not only grant him strength but also repair his injured body.

There was also a game called "Prototype," featuring a zombie virus called the Blacklight Virus that had similar effects.

"According to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration, the integrity of a transfigured object cannot be divided during Transfiguration." Wizards could not use Transfiguration to create food because human cells could not break transfigured food down into nutrients.

"But the effects caused by a transfigured item will not disappear when the Transfiguration is lifted." It was like transfiguring a knife and killing someone with it—the person would not come back to life just because the blade turned back into a baguette.

Therefore...

The best application of Transfiguration in the field of longevity was microscopic Transfiguration: creating, like the Blacklight Virus, a "manipulator" between the human will and the structure of the body, a key that opened a human version of World Modulation Mode!

How my cells, my DNA, and the atoms and molecules composing my body arranged themselves would be decided by my own will! And because there would be no magical interference during the process of change, with only the "tool of change" being a magical creation, no counter-spell could counter it.

Once Roger's magic was fully completed...

He would be able to absorb every advantage possessed by every living creature in the world. No, he would not even need to study other creatures. He could design brain and body structures that the rules of the world permitted to exist but that could never emerge under natural conditions! He would cast off the shackles of carbon-based life and become a true Ultimate Being! Of course, Roger was still extremely far from that goal, and even a true Ultimate Being was far from capable of bearing the heavy words "immortality."

Immortality was not an achievement that could be attained through Transfiguration alone.

"Sigh..." Once he truly began his magical experiments, Roger quickly encountered his first problem.

"If only I'd been a scientist in my previous life."