Chapter 003: Plunderer's Union

***

Precious chapter recap:-

Luke finished drawing Harry Potter, got it contracted with a newly publishing Studio named Creed Studio, He sold the graphic novel publishing rights for the first book/ collection for 14% royalty.

He also finished drawing The first Terminator Graphic novel, Both using the Manga format, thus it has chapters.

Chapter 3

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Time: 1st of September, 10:01 am, Monday.

Location: 5th Grade classroom in Manhattan elementary school.

***

[Congratulations! You have successfully published your first IP!]

Luke perked up but he continued drawing while the teacher was teaching.

[To celebrate publishing an IP,You may pick one specific card you would like from 'The Harry Potter' Franchise.]

'Interesting…' Luke mused as he got the information that this reward is something he would get from every single franchise he publishes.

Luke decided to wait until he was home to accept this reward, in case of any eye catching reaction from himself or the system.

Luke also had learned, nobody else can see his system, although if that still functions if a random celestial visits him would be something he would like to test In the future.

***

Time: 9pm, 1st of September, 1980, Monday.

Location: Luke's Bedroom.

**

'I guess, I will just pick Dumbledore as I initially intended…' Luke mused as he clicked the character card category.

Luke initially planned to spend 3.5 million IPs to get Dumbledore's card. Due to Dumbledore's potential rank being S rank and along with getting a specific character card costing 1m extra..

Just as he clicked assimilate, the card turned into orange particles as it entered his soul.

Almost immediately, he found himself within what appeared to be a massive hall. He curiously looked around.

It appeared to be ancient yet beautiful with ridges made out of gold and platinum, the walls were made out of firm stones similar to medieval castles. He eventually noticed a door with a label 'Assimilation Room'

But Luke didn't walk there instead he tried to return back to his own reality. He was successful after a couple of attempts.

After returning back to his reality, Luke found himself falling on his bed. He then looked at his alarm clock which still showed 9 pm. He took one last look at the time then firmly desired to return back to that hall.

After exactly one minute of counting, he returned, He looked at the alarm clock and saw only Ten seconds had passed in his reality. 'So I can do za warudo now but I myself can't move physically as it goes limp perhaps because that hall is within my soul.'

Luke then cautiously looked around to see if the ancient one or The TVA had come knocking on- Knock Knock

"Luke, Dinner is Ready, come downstairs" He heard his mom say as he released a sigh of relief. He answered, "Coming, just a few minutes,Mom."

Luke was almost ready to enter back inside that hall. He also felt suspicious about this moment being timed but his future self can worry about that.

After having dinner, he locked his room and revisited the hall, still the same, But this time he did some more tests, He firmly willed to control the hall and he was able to easily.

Luke tried many tests and eventually concluded that 'It's somewhat similar to Rose quartz's room' as he saw a red particle substance replicating what appeared to be Raven from Teen titans yet she appeared completely motionless and lifeless unless he firmly commanded this 'Raven' to do an action.

'It's like trying to control a game character but using your thoughts or firm desire instead of a controller.' Luke concluded as he joked 'Thankfully, I am not a teenager yet or else, I would have probably tried something truly shameful.'

Luke also noticed some other doors with labels such as 'Inspiration Room', 'Training Room' yet most of the doors had a 'NULL:$ERROR' written on it, he couldn't enter any of them except the onces with an actual title.

The inspiration room is where he could brainstorm the best way to implement aspects of a franchise in a format he wants to publish to the public.

He eventually went near the assimilation room as a notification popped up

[Which character would you like to assimilate?] As it showed that the only option was Albus Dumbledore.

Luke selected Dumbledore which caused The door to change into the door's of the headmaster's door from the Harry Potter series. After entering it he saw the room resembling the headmaster's office and at the center he saw a shadowy figure that resembled Dumbledore sitting in the headmaster's chair.

Luke went near the figure , which caused him to see a system prompt.

[What would you like to assimilate?]

He curiously looked through as he gradually realized. He would essentially have to spend IPs to have anything Dumbledore had before being assimilated.

'Capitalistic system… should have noticed when you told me to earn IPs…' Luke jokingly cursed at his system.

'Well, at least It's considerate enough to let me pick one for free' Luke mused as he picked 'Clairvoyant'.

It's a bloodline ability, a concept Luke had implemented to the improvised Harry Potter series, as a way to explain why Harry knows parseltongue.

Essentially it meant a wizard ancestor in the past doing experiments with their own genetics, thus gaining a supernatural ability that would typically be found within a magical beast.

The skill card turned into a mixture of red and orange particles as he felt a sense of restructuring within himself while he gradually unlocked new senses, the most prominent one being the mild electrical sparks around himself; he felt a mild vibration as if he was alert.

This 'clairvoyant' in particular, worked similar to spider sense. If Luke had to compare it then it would be that spiderman 3 scene where the green goblin awakened and Peter zoned out, sensing that Aunt May might be in danger.

Luke could also put a Spector mark on another individual, which allowed him to monitor the movements of another person unless they had the means like Occlumency.

Dumbledore's Ability was a way to explain why he was so cautious around some yet welcoming towards other certain characters along with how he kept track of what Harry did in this new improvised version. and of course also to have a way to gain more powers.

His Clairvoyant had a C+ Potential with a Mastery rank of Apprentice currently. He could Increase both but he would need an upgrade coupon for the former and IPs for the latter.

He felt this should at least keep him alive by letting him escape a dangerous situation before he earns enough IPs for other abilities Dumbledore owned.

Afterwards Luke did some tests in the training room, where he saw how he perceived an electrical sensation from the direction a danger may harm him. He could at max sense five dangerous indications at the same time right now.

Satisfied, He returned to his reality to test the Spector marks which Luke decided to put one on His Grandpa, Dad, Mom and Tony, since he could only mark people he can see physically.

There was a tiny transparent dot at the center of his vision now, which if he focused into then it would open a screen that showed four icons each having a small photo of the respective target. He could zoom in if he wanted to see what each target was doing and along with his new danger sense, he would be alerted if any of them were in any danger.

***

Time: 1st of October, 12:01m,1980, Wednesday

Location: Luke's Bedroom

***

Luke stared at the system message in front of him with sleepy eyes as he venomously said 'I would die due to insomnia before Thanos finishes snapping.'

Luke always went to sleep at 11pm even in his previous life and The system was not really silent when it wanted to pop up as a message.

But nonetheless he sat down as he clicked the [New Notification!] Icon.

[Congratulations! your 'Harry Potter' Franchise has earned you 3,639,549 IPs In Its first Month!]

Luke grumbly said 'That would have been considered a lot if everything wasn't so costly…' as he looked at the wheels, while he could do 3 franchise Gacha spins now but he felt he should become stronger first before worrying about earning more IPs

So he lazily entered the newly titled 'Hall of Desires.' and visited the stickman Dumbledore.

After contemplating for some time, Luke opted to select M-Gene, a concept he introduced in the lore of the Harry Potter series, as a way to explain why certain people can use magic while others can't.

Luke felt himself yet again being reconstructed from within but this time it took a bit longer.

While he could still learn the spells and such using the system but he wouldn't be a proper wizard then and along with it being helpful when it came to using spells since it gave a massive buff, He felt it was worth it.

Luke compared it to feeling like he was learning how to swim before when he used clairvoyant to now swimming like a fast fish in the ocean.

He chalked it up to having Dumbledore's potential in magic, which the system surprisingly only rated it as A-Rank and along with selecting adept Rank in Mastery, It cost him 1.5m IPs.

Luke spended another 500k to have Dumbledore's Wand with B rank in potential and Adept rank in mastery. Which appeared more as a spiritual stand from Jojo than an actual wand.

This was yet another change he has introduced, while the physical wand was cool, he felt it was too limiting and disadvantageous. Especially considering he was gonna have to draw powers from this verse, he might as well make it broken as he can.

Thus he shamelessly got 'Inspired' by a manhua he had once read called Soul land and introduced awakening ceremonies where 11 year old kids visit a place called ollivander's ritual store, who using materials like phoenix core awakened The Kid's M-Gene.

He still opted to add wands since why would he miss a chance for an easy to produce merchandise. But he did introduce variants like Gloves, earrings etc. So Ron would get Gloves while Hermione would get earrings.

While he would still need to spend IPs if he wanted to get more things Dumbledore had, like spells, he could now at least use the Newbie rank mastery of all the Harry Potter spells he introduced in the improvised version.

He also decided to get Occlumency at Expert rank for 1m IPs , as he had seen news related to a frost corporation in the real estate market.

While it could be a normal corporation with the frost surname but it could also be the hint that the X-Men exist in this timeline, So he might as well get the mind condoms while he can against mind rapists.

But he will find that out when he releases The Ninja Turtles, afterall the bald rapist will probably get erected when he sees mutants being mentioned in a recent hopefully popular series.

Either way that was for the future him to worry about. For now he focused on testing the different first to third year spells As while he can use magic now but his body still is 10 years old. So it could only use spells up to a certain point.

***

Time: 11am, 1st of October, 1980, Wednesday

Location: Creed Studio, Sullivan's Office.

***

Sullivan was pleasantly surprised as he looked at the reports, The first Harry Potter collection had completely sold out within a single month.

Which amounted to exactly 150,000 copies and that's only counting the entire collection. Individual copies for each volume had sold 100k.

The collection itself cost $14.99 while the 3 different volumes were sold for $4.89 each. that amounted to $3,715,500 of profit excluding everything else like cost of production, Luke's royalty percentage and promotion.

And this was merely the first month. Sullivan felt blessed and very pleased as his new endeavor to be a publishing company turned out to be a success.

He readily decided to make 300,000 more copies for the collection and 200k copies for each volume while he himself decided to visit the Spencer family along with his Grandson Alex this weekend.

***

Time: 4th of October, 1980, Saturday.

Location: Spencer household, Living Room.

***

Luke was curiously looking at the elusive future chaos butterfly Alexander Creed, who was also doing the same. To the bystanders it looked like an owl was looking at the mirror.

Luke didn't understand why but he felt an unique sense of kinship with Alex, perhaps because they both proclaimed to be chaos butterflies or perhaps because they were both plunderers. Only fate knows.

Alex was also curious but mostly because his grandpa had talked about Luke to him. He had just turned 5 this year, far from the future enigmatic Creed of the Creed store.

"So, Do you like drawing?" Luke curiously asked for the first time, although Alex was a bit startled but he still answered with an affirmative nod while saying "Yeah! I help mom when she is drawing!" With a proud look on his face.

Luke was tempted to reply how he does with Tony but refrained in case little Alex gets upset. Afterall Alex was still a kid. "Wanna check out my drawings?" Luke asked while internally thinking 'I definitely don't sound like a suspicious uncle with candies…'

"Uhm, sure?" Alex answered uncertainty then he continued saying"Oh right! grandpa said you drew a comic book, uhm, can I see that too?" Alex curiously asked.

"Sure, let's go upstairs" Luke smiled while trying to make sure it wasn't more awkward than he feels right now.

While Luke knew how to talk to adults, when it came to kids, he was always clueless on how to talk to them. At least to Him, Alex felt more smarter than the usual 5 year olds. Not that he knew any besides the depiction of kids on popular shows.

After going upstairs, the curious Alex seemed to have felt more comfortable around Luke, as he started asking more questions about many things, usually about drawing and the MachinStark Luke has.

Later Alex started reading Harry Potter while asking Luke questions about certain scenes and why etc characters did certain things, Gradually yet unknowingly becoming a little fan of this series.

Meanwhile Sullivan was having a heated discussion with another fellow Grandpa about their respective grandsons and how they would become in the future.

It would have gone for days just like the Philosophers in Rome if lunch wasn't near.

After lunch, Sullivan had a discussion with Luke and His family about how much they had earned this month, which pleasantly surprised and pleased the parents.

As they were proud of their son for making such a popular story. Later Luke talked about His Intention to Publish 'Terminator: Genesis' and 'Ninja Turtles: Mutagen Mayhem' via Creed Studio while also revealing he had finished working on the second collection for the Harry Potter book.

Sullivan was impressed by his dedication to making stories but he was a bit worried among the others that Luke might be overworking himself but Luke reassured that he wasn't as his routine had mostly stayed the same.

After some discussion, Sullivan readily agreed to a 18% Royalty for each of these graphic novels, more so because he wanted to gradually foster a relationship with this family than his usual business savvy nature.

***

Word count: 2490

Author's section:-

Interestingly the initial plan was to make a Naruto fanfic with Ramenlord where we would release chapters while the other rested for a day.

But then I randomly got this fanfic idea and went 'Fuck it we ball' after I coinfliped to decide if I should stay committed to that plan or follow my heart on this.

Oh btw, Marvel plot probably won't start at least until he is 13, When he is more powerful and has a more solid foundation. Probably the X-Men related plot first.