04 - Pseudo-Magic
The Magus gazed deeply at the mirror hanging down from the other side of the room.
Unlike in the mindscape dimension purgatory hell thing, which for convenience's sake would now be referred to as the Dreamland, Johan still had his fake face on.
He strolled forward, walking closer to the mirror in order to check his reflection and make sure that nothing had gone wrong.
Even with the fake face, there were still traces of exhaustion and fatigue. His eyebags were dark and droopy, stress waning them down.
This fake face... actually, it wasn't called the fake face, it was known as the Masquerade, but in practice, it really was just a fake face.
He reached up and touched the smooth surface of the Masquerade. Although it was visually indistinguishable from a normal face, it didn't feel like skin, but more like rubber in texture.
Feeling the Magical Energy in the Masquerade, he dispersed it, the fake face becoming undone as the surface peeled off and rapidly disintegrated into clear blue particles.
With the Gobbler Ring in hand, there was now no longer a need to have a fake face.
Johan gazed at the new reflection, his real reflection.
...Were it not for facial recognition technology, I don't think I would even need a fake face. The Magus thought to himself in silence as he appraised his comparatively plain features.
It was like the face of an extra in an action film, yeah, that seemed accurate.
They were far from ugly, but actually quite attractive. Yet it was also the type that wouldn't really stand out in a crowd...
Due to the nature of Magical Energy, most Magi were inexplicably attractive, the only exception would be those who exposed themselves to harmful chemicals and miasmas for their research.
Even then, most of the no-name Magi scholars in Clocktower had his kind of face, not particularly unique, yet simultaneously attractive.
Brownish hazel eyes, check. Ear-length black hair, check. Average nose, check. Slightly yellowish teeth, check. Seems like the Dreamland hasn't mutated me just yet...
Johan sighed as he considered what to do.
Regarding the Potions... well, he would never know their effects until he made one, right?
As for the one he will choose to make? Judging by their names, the Potions that would be most useful for a Noble Magus like him should either be the Reader Potion or Secrets Supplicant Potion.
However, as for the level of difficulty, the Sailor Potion was definitely the easiest to make as its Main Ingredient wasn't too exotic...
Murlocs were native to the British Isle, and they were an especially common type of Phantasmal Species in Wales, living in mostly swamps and boglands. He'd just have to find one and rip out its bladder.
Moreover, the other ingredients were also quite easy to acquire.
Flying Fish Roe was a cuisine that Johan could probably just buy in a fish market somewhere, and Magical Beast Ink was plenty to be found in Clocktower due to all the documents that needed to be manually processed.
...However, that should be left for tomorrow, or maybe the day after that. Johan's current highest priority was returning to Clocktower to get in touch with the Lawrence and report his success in acquiring the Gobbler Ring.
A faint rumble erupted from the Magus's belly, earning an embarrassed flush from Johan as he touched his abdominal area with a complicated expression.
Right, I should probably a catch a bite first.
Johan opened the fridge, expecting to find only leftovers inside but was then met with a surprising sight.
There was a frozen bread bowl soup in the fridge, as well as some 2 days-old french fries...
He had eaten them yesterday for dinner, so how in the hell did they come back?
...It felt weird, not quite at the level of being unsettling, but definitely a bit weird.
Sometimes, he would find nothing in the fridge but then close it only to open it again after a few seconds, hoping that the food would somehow regenerate or something. It seemed to have actually happened by itself this time around...
Deciding not to think about it too much, he quickly grabbed the bread bowl and the french fries before tossing them into the nearby microwave.
After setting the time to defrost, Johan turned towards the pantry and retrieved some pancake mix powders as well as a porcelain white chicken egg.
Flopping a bowl onto the nearby table, he poured in the pancake mix and cracked open the egg with his reinforced barehand, letting the juices fall onto the bowl.
The Magus then turned on the sink and poured the appropriate amount of tap water into the mix before he stirred with a laddle.
Making sure the batter was smooth enough, he then prepared the pan over the heated stove.
Finally, he poured some of the batter onto the pan and started cooking...
"...Ah, this is better than therapy." Johan muttered with a serene smile as the pancakes began to take proper shape.
Admittedly, he had never gone to an actual therapist before, but it probably couldn't compare to the spontaneous magic of culinary preparation.
...It was one of the things Johan used to enjoy doing with his Mother.
The small fire produced from the stove vanished as he lifted off the pan and tossed the pancakes onto a plate.
With the freshly-prepared pancakes in hand, he opened the microwave and retrieved the bread bowl-french fries combo.
Breakfast was ready... no one got to join him this time though.
Johan calmly placed the plates on the dining table as he pulled a chair and sat atop it.
"Time to dig in!" Honestly, he didn't even know why he was talking to himself, but it was comforting in a way.
The first to be thrown into his mouth was a piece of pancake sliced open by a fork. It had a fragrant smell, and even though he didn't have any maple syrup to flavour it, the pancake was already delicious by itself.
It had a golden, slightly crisp edge and a tender sweetness that seemed to melt against his tongue.
Next was the french fries, and for this one, he tore the bread bowl open, revealing the soupy inside.
Johan dipped a few of the fries onto the creamy soup, mixed it with the vegetables, and took a bite.
It wasn't as tasty as he had originally anticipated, but it definitely wasn't bad.
The creamy texture interwoven with the crispness of the french fry wasn't something he had experienced in conjunction with one another, so it felt quite reinvigorating.
But no, that's not right, it wasn't his first time tasting this, yet that was what his body told him...
That was really weird.
"This..." He realized something.
"...Wait, don't tell me..." Johan made a hypothesis, but he couldn't believe it would be true even if given emperical evidence.
The Magus didn't bother with calendars and such, but there was always the TV.
He searched for the remote, but couldn't find it anywhere, so he willed the ambient Mana in the shape of a Magic Circle and the remote came flying into his hand from somewhere obscure.
Johan turned on the TV.
"The weather is going to be looking great today—" He focused on the date displayed on the right lower corner.
The date... it was the date that was supposed to have been yesterday.
Johan dropped the remote as his jaw fell considerably, shock pulsating through his pupils.
This...
This was not Magecraft anymore, it couldn't be replicated by any Spell taught in Clocktower...
It was Time Travel, a True Miracle, a...
A True Magic.
"...So my ancestors weren't full of shit, after all." Johan muttered with barely contained trepidation as his hands were visibly shaking due to this drastic revelation.
True Magic, what actually was True Magic?
In simple terms, True Magic was something that human civilization couldn't replicate with its technology, there wasn't even the potential for it.
A Fire Spell's firepower could be replicated with the use of a flamethrower, this was an example of the relation between Magecraft and Science.
But technology couldn't resurrect the dead without an intact corpse, it couldn't travel through time linearly, and it could never create something out of nothing.
That was the realm of possibility reserved only for True Magic.
The Gobbler Ring had actually transported him back in time, everything started to make sense now...
No one had helped him get back to his room, because he had woken up just like this yesterday, Johan only returned onto that point in time.
"Isn't this too similliar to the 2nd Magic?" The Magus muttered to himself before another realization struck. "No, this isn't nearly enough for me to be called a Magician."
After all, he was dependent on a mysterious artefact and not by his own power. Johan also did not even slightly comprehend how this Time Travel ability worked and how he could use it.
It had happened when he had been unconsious, how was he even supposed to learn anything...
"I guess, it should be called Pseudo-Magic, or maybe Half-True Magic...?" Johan considered with an uncertain expression.
In the end, he was left with even more questions than answers...
Even still, this was amazing, Johan could barely suppress the urge to start jumping in joy like a little boy.
He finished his meal first, doing so as fast as possible to the point that it could even make a professional competitive eater raise an eyebrow or two.
Stuffing his notes into a small leather bag, he quickly got ready and put on his usual attire, fancy suit and all the adornments.
Adjusting his monocle into place, Johan ran down the stairs and quickly left the apartment building.
"Dogshit!" Once again, his feet accidentally stomped down on a half-eaten ice cream. "How is this even here!? It was night when it happened back then!"
A few weird looks were directed his way as Johan cursed every deity known in human mythology.
After scraping off the ice cream, the Magus then called for the nearest cab.
"Hey, it's you again...!" He shouted as he saw the driver from last night... or, well, this night?
"Me... again? Uh, do we know eachother?" The driver looked pretty confused as he took out the Malboro cigarette that he had been smoking.
"Nevermind that, Taxi Guy. Could you take me to the British Museum, I kind of work there and I'm about to be late..." Johan quickly made up a lie and pulled out some cash.
"Of course, just hop right in!" Taxi Guy nodded with a bright smile as soon as he saw the cold hard cash.
He even said a similiar line...! Johan lampooned internally as he chuckled and got comfortable in the backseat.
"So you work in the British Museum? That's pretty amazing, man..." Taxi Guy said as the car got moving, initiating small talk.
"Well, not really." Johan shook his head with a smile. "...I'm just a janitor."
"Oh..."
As Johan peered out from inside the car, he couldn't help but flutter his eyebrows at the sky.
...Wasn't it supposed to be raining by now?
In the initial 'timeline', there was a vicious storm that had already started before Johan had even woke up.
But now, the news anchors seemed to have predicted the weather correctly as the only thing that could be called a'storm' in the sky was just a few dark-ish clouds, not even any rain.
Could it be because the Gobbler Ring isn't under the London Bridge anymore...? But...
Johan didn't know how him having the Gobbler Ring could correlate with a change in the weather.
"Hey, man. Just because you're a janitor doesn't mean it's not impressive." Taxi Guy broke the silence as he turned to rearview mirror. "I'm just a taxi driver, but I'm pretty... happy... with that... huh?"
Once again, the Magus had vanished from his seat, leaving an open window as the only hint of his escape route.