CHAPTER 100

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After the Ancient One left, I opened the book she had given me with curiosity. After all, why would the book of Cagliostro answer all of my questions?

Page by page, I started to understand what she had meant by the book would answer all of my questions. The book spoke of theories, spells never fully finished that would in theory allow me to witness the pass itself.

But the spells themselves needed two things, a magical catalyst and a theoretical point to cast the spell.

The theoretical point was nothing more than a location connected to the event you wished to witness, according to the book.

The magical catalyst, well, apparently you had but one of two options, reaching a level of mana never seen before, or have something connected to the flow of time itself.

In this case, the Time Stone.

But why would the Ancient One give me the book if she will never allow me to get the stone?

Unless she intends to make an exception.

Shaking my head, I continued to read the book, with the ten following pages elaborating in-depth about the dangers these spells had.

Apparently, this was not time travel perse, it was more like my dungeons, meaning the time stone alongside the spells would create a pocket dimension to live out the point in time you wanted to see, leaving your physical body in a meditative state, while your astral form would take hold of an NPC that belonged to the story, one that alongside the pocket dimension had been created for the sole purpose of filling every little box. 

It basically operated like my dungeons, but with more narrative and such, also, unlike my dungeons, here I would not be me, I would simply be commanding an NPC, and here laid the danger of this.

If I died there, I would die for real. 

My powers would be limited to what the story wanted me to have, meaning if the NPC had the power of a human, I would be fucked.

Now, this would be okay, if like my dungeons I had the option to escape, but that was not the case, with this time dimensional adventure, I had no other choice but to live the movie, from start to finish, and survive.

The question now was, would the Ancient One really give me the stone for this, and more importantly, would I really risk it?

I guess that when it came to dangers, doing this or going on my way to space to find out would be equally dangerous. Most of the targets I had to investigate were quite above my league, and more than not asking questions about such things leads to confrontations with the groups that follow said names.

Perhaps I was rushing into this, perhaps it would be best to wait, I did after all had time, time to prepare, to get stronger, time I could use to better myself before looking into the abyss.

"Ok," I sighed, closing the book, the idea of being an NPC whose power was bound to the events of that time, and the role he played was not to my liking at all, with my luck, I would get connected to someone weaker, a mere guy that had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"How's the book?" Bucky asked as he came into my office on the second floor of my house, it was a new addition to my house, since Thor fucked the ceiling, I decided to redecorate and rebuild some parts of the house, like the second floor, that now had an office.

"It's…" I paused, "enlightening," I chuckled.

"That bad?" Bucky snorted.

"Well, in theory, the book and the stone could give me the answers I am looking for, and fast, but the dangers are as high as the rewards," I replied eyeing the book, "I think I first need to prepare more, so to speak."

"I know nothing about magic, but more than not sounds like a double-edged sword," Bucky smiled, taking a seat.

"It is when you enter the realm of universal manipulation, like time travel, or such, other than that, magic is quite useful and has almost no drawbacks," I nodded, he had a point, but magic wasn't that bad when you played under the rules of the universe.

"Want my advice?" Bucky asked, tossing me a beer I had just now noticed he had on his hand. 

"Sure," I nodded.

"Find the answers you are looking for by your own means, follow your gut, if you feel something will go wrong on this path, it means something will GO wrong," Bucky replied, taking a sip of his beer. "Sometimes it's best to stick to our guns,"

He had a point, risking my life for answers that could kill me if I made a mistake was not the way to go, for now, I would wait.

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Resolving not to take on the magical path for answers, I started to formulate another plan, one with more chances of success, plan one had been traveling around the cosmos, looking for answers, which in hindsight was stupid, the universe was very big, and it would take me a long time to traverse it.

Plan two had been using magic to get my answers, this plan while faster, was immensely more dangerous. So, with that said, plan three had come to life, which was basically plan one, but on steroids.

For the time being, I would focus on leveling up, my goal? Being able to use the space tone freely, with it, I would assume the universe would open to me, I would know where every planet is, every star, for all, in reality, exists within space.

I mean, this idea was more sound than the others, all I had to do was get forty-nine levels, and I would be able to use the Space Stone, it certainly had fewer risks than the other two plans.

"Time to grind, like a fucking no life," I said, cracking my neck.