*Mercury POV*
*Date: June 22nd, 2000*
*Location: London, England*
Once I was finished with that whole thought process, I got up and stretched my leg, taking a good whiff of myself for the first time in two days. Yes, it was as bad as most people would think it was, and I needed a change of clothes.
"Wonder if this place has any clothes, well that and basic toiletries, also a washer and dryer because I don't think I have any money."
"Which is going to be a problem in the long run, but for now, I think getting my bearings in this world, understanding it from the perspective of an everyday person."
"Well, it'd be interesting enough if the local capes get into any fights, be a good chance to see the shards in work for myself."
.....
Good news all around as this place did have a washer/dryer alongside the basic toiletries for a human being. The bad news was that this place only stocked one outfit, which included underwear and socks. So gonna need to figure something out there in the future when I have a more stable income of any kind. Either way, the water pressure in this place was...fine, maybe it needed a little work, but for right now it was ok.
Either way, I smelled tremendously better than before, that was for sure, and I made sure to gently place my dirty clothing in the hamper. I was also going to have to figure out how to properly clean that as well, alongside the fact that it probably required a good old-fashioned ironing every now and again. Now that I think about it, how well would it go if I tried trading currency back and forth between worlds? Would I then need to keep an eye on it and help out in that world since I technically took potential away from it, or would it be more consequence-free?
Either way, it was something to explore further in the future because if the potential stolen could've been something that saved the world, pruning timelines would be easy enough for beings like Alaya. This would lead to their complete and utter destruction. Now, did all worlds come to an end like this? Probably not, but in most timelines, being cut off by the Counter Force was all that awaited them.
Anyway, today would be my first day out in this new world, and it would be a good idea to find some shops for materials. Sure, the jewelcraft portion of the magecraft fields I have chosen would need to wait, but some simple chalk and other basic materials would be easy to procure legally. I mean, I picked the identity portion, so odds were I had something all set up in this new reality, alongside perhaps some disposable income thanks to the money item I picked in the CYOA, so fingers crossed.
Now I just needed to find the exit to this place, because I'm guessing a labyrinth didn't have crystal clear directions. Didn't matter if you were the owner; nope, you would still suffer at the wrath of the maze.
I swear to god, as I was thinking of ways I could potentially improve my spells or weave them together. For example, I was thinking of messing with my own time axis to decrease the time it takes for the gate spell to move/teleport me. Either that, or perhaps increase the speed of physical weapons, making them deadlier. Well, that's where experimentation comes in and fine tuning, sure, if this body were on auto-pilot this whole time, it made sense that while it was learning a vast variety of spells/researching.
Meaning that while it could learn all these skills and give me an assortment of tools to work with, it couldn't think outside the box. It couldn't come up with new ideas and would only continue learning and learning until I popped in. My crest, being of an ancient variety, meant it had a vast assortment of spells, research, and other goodies in it.
The Second True Magic, however, was different from it, though; no, it was more instinctual than anything else. I knew how to operate it and use it, but like all things, the advanced applications or potential advanced applications would need to be worked on.
Anyway, all this thinking did make me remember something, one of the scenarios I picked, "phantasmal species," meant a return of mystical creatures to the modern era. Did that mean a return of mystery and mana to the modern era, or was it simply the reverse side of the world revealing itself, believing humanity was ending so it wished to enroach on Gaia once more?
Well, that's something that would need some thorough exploring as well in the future, as the return of mystery/mana in the air means something different as well. The return of the age of gods' magic, which involved a vast variety of spells only accessible to beings like servants who are recorded in the throne of heroes.
Some prominent examples being Medea of Colchis, or Morgan Le Fay, beings like that who came from before the end of that age. Either way, those were the thoughts going through my head as I finally found the stairs out of this place. It was a long twisting staircase leading upward, honestly, the way it was set up was extremmly impressive just based on its physical properties, if I added in a bounded field alongside a few magical traps to disorient the place.
That would be for another time, though. Right, this was me interacting with the outside world wearing extremmly odd clothing, admittedly. Going up the stairs, I was able to see just how massive this place was. I mean, I think I could see the center of this place, but that was mostly guesswork.
As I got up, I finally saw the building I was living in, where my workshop was located and buried. Honestly, I think this body had a few memories I could access, which had led me to believe it was more like a golem than an actual person. Menaing it had formed no meaningful connections, no friends or family to speak of, a blank person people ignored.
As I finally got up, I was greeted with...a surprisingly small apartment that had a basic kitchen and bedroom in one. The cheap kind of apartment you could find if you were desperate.
Besides that, though there was a small safe in the room, I saw it was a standard-issue combination lock. As my hand loomed over it, I instinctively popped in the code, my muscle memory doing all the work. Looking inside my jaw nearly dropped to the ground as I saw that I had a couple dozen hundred-dollar bills alongside a couple of stacks of singles and twenties, I mean it was probably at least one hundred thousand if I had to guess.
I tried to force my jaw to go back up, but I could feel my body fighting against it. darting my head back and forth like I was a common robber, I quickly took a couple of twenties/singles and stuffed them into my pockets. I then shut the safe so fast I think I nearly destroyed the latch. Getting up I dusted my hands off grabbed a wallet that I assumed was mine, seeing as it had my ID on it alongside a few coupons, classic stuff like that.
"Alright lets see what i'm workign with in this world."