The next few days were mostly my getting used to living in chateau Hwan. My room was spacious and had an en-suite bathroom. I didn't unpack all the way, but that was part paranoia and part laziness since I had an unlimited inventory. When Sung-Gon approached me about teaching he asked me to show him what I knew first. I demonstrated [Telekinesis (Pyrokinesis)], [Telekinesis], and [Pearl/Holy] and described both the wards I'd installed and my nearly unpracticed scrying ability, saying I didn't really know how easy it was to sense or block. He looked a little put out, and actually scolded me at bit for being so narrowly focused on healing and fighting undead. When he asked me to demonstrate my Illusion Barrier issue I did my best to recreate the process of creating the zombie mall Instant Dungeon (with time-dilation, since I'd only be able to use it without limitations during this Jump), but what I got was actually more of a zombie bunker/prison-complex.
I was starting to become genuinely concerned that I'd done something wrong, since this wasn't at all how the whole Illusion Barrier/Instant Dungeon/protected space thing seemed to work in the comic. He carefully inspected our surroundings, asked a few questions, then started throwing around a freaky red orb spell that just absorbed the zombies big or small. His conclusion was that my ability was simply different from the norm, and that if I wanted to use the surroundings instead of whatever popped into my head I'd have to concentrate on them while I formed the barrier. I was relieved that everything seemed to be normal, but a little annoyed that there was no discernible flaw to fix. He sent me back to my room with several books on magical theory, saying I didn't have all the fundamentals needed for teleportation yet.
Spending my days reading about magic was alternately dull and amazing. Even if been able to use Gamer's Skills to immediately absorb the knowledge in the books (I couldn't, since they were theory), I wouldn't have. I didn't want to alert my host to any abilities other than those he needed to know about. My intelligence went up several points and I learned the skill [Basic Mana Manipulation], which really seemed like something I should have had already. I also learned a ton of things that my Gamer ability utterly failed to quantify, but did help me tweak some spells I'd already created to be more efficient. I understood the fundamentals behind scrying now and was able to fill in some of the gaps in the spell I'd essentially been brute-forcing before. That led to me patching additional holes in my anti-[Scry] ability, which finally became an actual skill under [Modular Spellcasting and Wards]. It was now called [Anti-Divination], and it allowed me to be a lot more thorough and selective about what I was warding against. Of course that also lead to me adjusting the wards on the house and adding more to my room, but Sung-Gon didn't seem to mind.
When I wasn't studying I was poring over the catalogue on the Abyss Auction site. It made bile rise up in the back of my throat to see slaves for sale, but I reasoned that I couldn't possibly buy all of them. Even if I did it would only encourage them to acquire more, which meant more people abducted. I marked books on psionics, mind-magic, warding, ward-breaking, alchemy, enchanting, potion brewing, stealth and concealment, and one on the magic used to keep slaves. Sung-Gon actually refused to order the last one for me and demanded an explanation. When I told him I wanted to figure out how to block or destroy such things he calmed down and said he'd look into it, but he never ordered the actual book.
The next day he started teaching me an actual teleportation spell, which was tedious but ultimately rewarding. When I mastered teleporting around the house and yard he finally brought me to the people who'd agreed to train me if I had potential: the Cheon Bu clan. The interview was quick, since I didn't really remember any martial arts from my first life and hadn't trained them in the Jump-chain. I was tested for strength, endurance, flexibility, and ki control then told I'd have to prove I could handle regular martial arts before they would be willing to teach me the low-level family techniques allowed to outsiders. They offered classes in Taekkyeon and Taekwondo, but could do one-on-one tutoring for few others. I elected to join both classes and asked for training in Tai-Chi if they had anyone who knew it, which they thankfully did.
With my schedule filled I settled in for the long haul. If I wasn't in martial arts classes I was studying psionics, magic, or one of the many mundane crafting fields I eventually started asking for. I got odd looks for wanting to pick up tailoring, blacksmithing, etching, and cooking but nobody stopped me. The money Sung-Gon had allotted me for the warding wasn't meaningfully affected by any of the expenses so far. I got especially lucky when I came across a section about conjuration in one of the more advanced magic texts. It allowed me to develop a couple of spells for creating and summoning objects. I also knew how to summon people and other beings in theory, but hadn't put it into practice yet. I'd never run out of projectiles for telekinesis or raw materials for crafting again, given how quickly my mana regenerated. That this also saved me money practicing my new craft skills was a nice bonus.
Of course, craft skills were everywhere. There were a ton of them and I would probably never learn them all. Thankfully the Gamer's Skills ability had me covered. With an air of incredible cheatiness it simply combined all of said skills into [Crafting] while I was trying to make a set of fingerless gloves for myself. The description brought back memories of crafting nothing but leather bracers in Skyrim until my smithing skill was maxed out, and I smiled tiredly. My various martial art skills similarly combined into [Weapon Mastery (Unarmed)], and my [Physical Endurance] finally leveled up a few times.
Three months into my classes I was attacked at the edge of Sung-Gon's property. Five physical combatants and two mages were turned to paste by railgun-style telekinesis just before a hail of gunfire from the guards sprayed the area, and Sung-Gon actually had the bodies harvested for ingredients or something when he found out. I didn't ask and decided I was in fact not going to go looking for alchemy or potions ingredients on the Abyss Auction website. I'd stick to plant cuttings, common food ingredients, herbs, and whatever I could conjure for now.
The next attack came only a month later, and was a group of only two people. They looked pretty intimidating but fell to the same attacks as the ones before: bullets and conjured tungsten. When I asked if I was overdoing it with the active defense (one of my "attackers" was smeared across the lawn from where I'd hit him at an odd angle) Sung-Gon sat me down with a couple of his security guys and explained that while I seemed to be extremely effective against people with subpar physical defences that approached from the front, I was woefully inadequate against anyone sneaking up on me or using magic due to my lack of experience in those fields.
I very carefully did not reply to this that my normal senses were stupidly good and by this point I could sense magic and ki being used at quite a distance and with incredible accuracy. That was how I'd killed the attackers before the guards could shoot them so far, but I knew that there were ways to conceal people with magic, ki, and other energies that could counter my current skills. It was only the next day that I got a real taste of what combat could be like in this world.
I was in the yard again (I couldn't stand being cooped up all day) and had created an Instant Dungeon full of ogres to try and gauge how my attacks fared against tougher opponents. Things had been going well: rail-gunning the ogres usually killed them in one shot but fire, earth, and electricity didn't do much until I poured a ton of power into them. I was just considering whether I could suffocate an ogre with aerokinesis when the air at the edge of the yard seemed to shatter like glass and a hooded man wielding a staff calmly stepped into my training area.
He didn't say anything, and my reflexive tungsten-rod-to-the-face attack simply slammed into a previously invisible barrier, causing it to flash with an uneven kind of blue-black color. He raised the staff in my direction, raised himself into the air with some kind of flight spell, then my HP simply started to drop as ki was sucked out of my body toward him in a weird green-mist effect.
I flung lightning and fire at the man to no effect, then raised a wall of earth between us to try and interrupt the spell. I stopped losing health and heard the man curse, which I assumed meant that blocking his line of sight had worked until he flew over the barrier and spat murmured a chant to start draining my health again. I surrounded myself in a barrier of [Pearl/Holy] this time and was rewarded with the life-drain ending once again, but the man switched to using my own techniques against me: with another short chant he started throwing my telekinetic projectiles back at me.
They were considerably slower than when I did it, but the one that hit me still took nearly half my health and hurt like nothing I'd ever felt before. This was getting ridiculous, and I was once again hit by a staggering realization mid-battle. I could die here. Not only that: I was fighting someone who was a real person, and I'd killed several more to defend myself. It was only the Gamer's Mind that allowed me to shove those thoughts to the back of my mind and concentrate on what I was doing, which actually led me to a couple of potential ways to deal with the person attacking me. The way I saw it there were three good possibilities: surrender and attempt to solve the drawback issue, which according to the description could lead to me being enslaved or tortured for the rest of my time here; kill this guy and everyone else who came for increasing rewards at the cost of always having to wonder if any of them were just doing this because they had to; or try to subdue this guy non-lethally to gain more information. That might allow me to play INTO the drawback, rather than ran from it.
The last would be challenging, but potentially rewarding. I knew there was always at least one empowered guard home to watch over me at all times, so I'd have to subdue my target before he entered the fight since he wouldn't hesitate to kill in order to protect me. I'd already been running on reflex rather than intellect and it had nearly gotten me killed so I needed to work strategically. My first thought was to anchor a force wall barrier to myself, but I had a better option. My opponent seemed to be exclusively trained as a mage, and I had an ability I'd only practiced but should in theory make me essentially invincible to magic. It felt a lot like cheating, but I was basically a wizard now too. And to me, wizards were always defined as "cheating cheaters who cheat at things." Being The Gamer, or at least a Gamer meant I was a cheating wizard.
I activated [Mystical Energy (Void)] and swapped my [Pearl/Holy] barrier for a [Force Wall] shield. [Force Wall] took a bit more active concentration than [Mystical Energy (Void)] but together they left me enough mental flexibility to use martial arts and more importantly [Telekinesis]. If I was right this guy was running a run-of-the-mill barrier to block my projectiles, and since I'd practiced [Telekinesis] to the point it was nearly a subconscious process by now I should be able to pluck him out of the sky into melee range before he could counter it by grabbing him directly or failing that the barrier itself. If I was wrong I'd need to either think of something else or go for a mutual takedown by simply filling the entire Instant Dungeon with fire until the oxygen ran out or he fled.
My priorities set, I focused my attention back on the magic user attacking me. He seemed to have sussed out that I was now immune to both physical projectiles and his life-drain spell, so he'd started slinging elemental spells at me much like I'd tried with him. I reached out with my mind and grabbed the man firmly, shield and all then yanked him toward me with minimal resistance. I considered it something close to a miracle that this actually succeeded, and wasted no time closing to melee range and divesting him of his staff one he was close enough to touch. I pulled him into a grapple and the range of [Mystical Energy (Void)] next, at which he let loose a near-deafening scream. It seemed he'd been using magic for something other than offense, defense, and flight and I'd just disrupted it quite abruptly. Oh. Or he'd run into the [Force Wall] at high speed. I quickly turned that off, since attempting to drag someone through it appeared to be quite painful. I hadn't even been aware I could ignore it.
I didn't know any safe ways to knock him out, but I could easily restrain him with my increased strength and him lacking any form of magic. Scratch that, he tried to life-drain me again but only caused a miniscule tug on my ki that I was able to easily resist. Apparently [Mystical Energy (Void)] was less an absolute anti-magic field and more a suppression field. It still worked though. I maneuvered my opponent so he was face-down on the ground with both arms pinned painfully behind him, then broke the Instant Dungeon with minimal effort. It was my construct, and I'd had quite a bit of practice with them besides. Oh dear Flying-Spaghetti-Monster that was a lot of guns, and all pointed at myself and my captive. This was going to take some explaining.
I was no longer allowed outside without a guard actually standing near me, which made training more difficult. On the bright side, I was actually able to get the mage who'd attacked me to give up the name of his employer. Sung-Gon negotiated for the man's return in return for both a monetary reward and a meeting with the person who wanted me. I prayed to Washu, the Flying-Spaghetti-Monster, Gaia, and any other deity I thought might be watching that this would work. The summary I'd written of the Abyss Gazed Back drawback indicated it wouldn't, but double-checking the drawbacks section of my Jump UI (conveniently folded into the Gamer UI) indicated that it might. The question was whether actually dissuading or working with the person who wanted me was different enough from dissuading the mooks they sent after me to be within the rules. If I succeeded I would have effectively mitigated the drawback, which was well within the rules as a Jumper but not common. If I failed, someone even more powerful and/or stubborn would suddenly want me to some reason.
To keep the mage subdued I warded a room with my [Mystical Energy (Void)] ability and locked him in with a couple of guards armed with automatic weapons. I also kept the jerk's staff, which turned out to be a mana-cost reducing item that I was determined to pick apart. The meeting was made for that very evening. I wondered if it was because I was open to negotiations, the mage I'd captured was really valuable, or the person who wanted me just had that time slot available. It didn't matter to me in the end, since I'd be getting paid and get a chance to break the drawback. Sung-Gon was with me now, and without his ring on he felt a lot more powerful than he had before. Coincidentally, petting a fire-breathing cerberus was really cool. It made me miss Ember, but I wasn't sure it was safe to bring her out this jump given my lowered power, hunted status, and the secrets I was keeping from both my host and everyone else. If the meeting went well I'd consider it.
When the time came Sung-Gon and I were waiting in his office with a single guard. A few minutes later a middle-aged woman in a dark top and long skirt entered the room, revealing more of Sung-Gon's guards and a couple of other figures outside that I didn't get a chance to study before the door closed. I stood by the window behind the desk, Sung-Gon was seated behind the desk, and the woman took the seat in front of it. She started off by sliding a briefcase full of won to Sung-Gon, who inspected it briefly before handing it to the guard to be counted. As we'd agreed beforehand, I addressed our guest next.
"What exactly do you want me for? I do commission work and wouldn't be opposed to a longer term deal as long as I was guaranteed safety for the duration." The woman looked annoyed, but responded patiently.
"One of the seers working for me predicted your arrival and that you could provide a near-infinite source of mana. As a broker, that was just too good to pass up. You certainly weren't going to be taken willingly given the effort you went through to hide yourself, so I sent capture squads. It's the way of the business."
I quirked and eyebrow and did my best not to let the loathing I had for this woman and everyone who did that sort of business show. This was slavery, and probably pretty brutal slavery at that. I hadn't liked the sensation of having my ki ripped away at all, and I was sure mana wouldn't be any more pleasant to forcibly lose. Sung-Gon snorted, having seen how quickly my mana regenerated when I worked for him and over the course of the time I'd stayed so far. What I'd showed was hardly infinite, but he didn't know all my secrets.
"I'll admit that I do regenerate mana very quickly, and even that I have a theory or two of how to store it such that it's not wasted when I hit my cap. I'd hardly call that near-infinite, and if I did have that kind of power I'd have remotely cursed you for even trying. What made you think this was a good idea, and why didn't you approach me to see if I'd be willing to charge things without being forced?"
Washu's voice popped into my head at this point, which I'd half been expecting. What I didn't expect was for time to freeze and for her to actually appear in front of me (in her kid-scientist form, as usual).
"Well, you're on the razor's edge rule-wise. Watching you try and break the drawback is more interesting than watching you become increasingly powerful to keep from being taken, but it's also counter to the main goal of the experiment. You're going to have to convince me before I decide how to call the rules here," she said in annoyance.
"Um..it's nice to see you, and I'd be happy to explain my strategy if you haven't already worked it out," I replied. She made a motion indicating I should continue.
"While I do get experience and substantial amounts of health and mana… err, HP and MP if you want to be technical, I seem to be getting the most use out of honing my skills. If I can mitigate the danger of being constantly attacked I can potentially get good enough that the Cheon Bu clan allow me to use their time-compressed Illusion Barrier/Instant Dungeon thing. That would get me a more consistent amount of experience than randomly being attacked with less risk and more skill growth in addition to the levels."
Washu looked pleased, but not totally convinced just yet. I was pretty sure she actually was, but wanted to hear more of my explanation. Either way I continued. Better safe than sorry, after all.
"This has the added benefit of meeting Han Jee-Han and introducing myself as player two. Since I have no idea of the plot beyond this point, I was hoping that I'd be able to guide him into a slightly more well-rounded character and do a power swap. He could teach me what he's been learning and possibly provide a front for me to sell things to the Cheon Bu clan without alerting them or Sung-Gon to my Gamer's Loot ability. Being trusted by him would in turn make it much more likely I'd get access to advanced Cheon Bu techniques and their training area if I hadn't already managed that."
Washu's grin spread as I spoke, and she actually came over and gave me a hug. My feelings at this point were a mixture of awkwardness and awe, before she stepped back and wiped an imaginary tear from her eye. Her shoulder puppets popped up, and those feelings quickly changed to annoyance and amusement in equal measures. This was always funny in the show, but also kind of irritating.
"They grow up so fast!" Washu wailed theatrically. The puppet on her left shoulder produced a handkerchief from somewhere and handed it to her so she could messily blow her nose, while the puppet on her right shoulder gave her a very cheerful look and said "you must be so proud! You're the greatest, Washu! Even your lab rats are great!"
That last bit made me twitch a bit, but I was genuinely grateful for the chance I'd been given. I missed my old boring life a little, but I really wanted to share my new powers with my wife and gush over whatever she'd gotten at some point. The things I'd been involved with over the last almost twelve years (part of which was a montage) were experiences I'd never have gotten without Washu's assistance. Once I became powerful enough to start stomping holes in the plot and problems of whatever world I was dropped into this would become a lot less stressful and a lot more fun and rewarding, since I'd also be able to help people. I'd come to accept it without even realizing I needed to.
"Does this mean you're ruling in my favor, Miss Washu?"
"Oh definitely," she replied with an enthusiastic nod, her cheering section going back to wherever they normally hid. "I liked your strategy before or I would have said something instead of just randomly supplying you with zubats to keep you on your toes." My eyebrow twitched at that. "You seem much more sensible than many of the other people who've been put through similar trials. I also appreciate you leaving the numbers to me for the most part. You may not have noticed but I've been tweaking things in the background to make them more compatible with future jumps. I've even adapted Gamer's Inventory so you can pull things out of pockets and other containers with it now."
That caught my attention, as it would be useful in concealing my unlimited inventory in worlds where hammer-space (see Ranma ½ and various other anime fandoms) and similar techniques weren't a thing. I was still running through the possible uses of it when she continued.
"Since you seem to be coming along well with magic but are keeping a good physical progression going too I have a few recommendations," she said and waited for my nod to continue. "You seem to lean much more heavily toward pen-and-paper gaming than video-gaming. The video-games you've played are mostly role-playing types with lots of options and at least a few alternate ways to resolve things. I'd like to see more of that, and as such I'm going to let you make shorter jumps if you achieve the objectives you set before you start them. The leftover time you will then be able to spend in other jumps or training your abilities in the Warehouse. I'll add a training room that will act like an Instant Dungeon you've made, but allow you to use the extra time you've accumulated." She gave me a very serious look here, but was still smiling a little.
"In exchange I want to see you really cut loose here, so I'm going to add another drawback that you stayed away from for safety. Anime Attack will give you targets without souls that you can kill guilt-free. You will of course be able to spend the points you'd gain from the new drawback, even though they technically go over the Jump Doc limit. Consider it a favor. This should eventually shut down the home branch of the Abyss Auction here in Seoul, which I know you feel strongly about. I'd buy whatever you can from them within the next year or two, since they'll be the first place hit."
I was nearly salivating at this point. I was still a little sick to my stomach about having killed the people sent to capture me earlier, and even if I knew it would be necessary at some point I didn't want to ever get to the point where I was completely comfortable with the practice. I sought clarification to ensure I understood exactly what was going to happen.
"So I'm going to be allowed to convince this woman," I gestured at the one frozen in front of the desk, "to leave me alone, thus breaking the Abyss Gazed Back drawback. You'll then add Anime Attack which will trigger in one year unless something happens to accelerate it, allowing me to spend the additional choice points and train as hard as possible before they get here. Is that correct, and is there anything else I need to know?" Washu nodded along until I got to the end.
"That's right. Just remember that you'll only get unlimited time compression this Jump, and you probably need some extra training to avoid death when Anime Attack kicks in. You're probably going to be attacked in public at some point too. Keep in mind that you do have a drawback that punishes you heavily for using supernatural powers in public, and since we're going rules-as-written you can't easily mitigate it or push the bad luck involved onto your enemies. You'll basically have to run or make it look like whatever happened they did it. Teleporting away and creating illusion barriers will be your best bet, with illusion barriers actually helping to lessen the impact of any other rule-breaking you may do in Gaia's proverbial eyes. Also: taking points in luck when you leveled up was a good idea, but it won't save you completely."
My eyes widened at the hint, and I pulled up the relevant prompt then reviewed the wording of Disproportionate Retribution. The penalty for using powers in public was "massive amounts of bad luck" for me, but if I had supernaturally good luck already that could be reduced to merely average human luck. Maybe. Drawbacks did trump perks after all, so it might just be crazy luck both good and bad. Washu had also pointed me to the Anchored Barrier perk, which would have saved me a little time initially. She smirked and disappeared before I could ask her how much to invest in luck, so I went back to my spot against the wall and waited for time to restart while mentally reviewing where I was in the conversation.
A little while later I got a dialog box telling me to spend my points, and introduced my palm to my face. Of course. I'd really wanted the Abyss Library for my warehouse before I left here, since it would do me the most good if it accumulated lore from every jump starting now instead of whenever I was able to afford it. It also cost the same four-hundred choice points that Anime Attack granted me, so the decision was between that and Illusion Technician, which would give me a significant head start on customizing my Instant Dungeons. Since I hoped to have access to the same benefits on my own, I decided to grab the library. Time restarted as soon as I'd finalized the purchase, and I waited for the woman to respond to my question about her motives. She seemed uncertain for a moment.
"I'm not actually sure why I went along with it. I can feel your power and it's not terribly impressive, but why did I go along with such a stupid prediction in the first place? It's ridiculous...and I don't remember which seer made it! Someone's messed with my head!"
By the end she was yelling, and the guards from outside the door had burst in to see what was going on. She refocused on me and the look on her face made me want to hide. Someone was going to pay for this, and I was pretty sure it wasn't Washu. Hopefully there would be less innocent loss of life than if she'd continued to send people after me, but I wasn't sure anyone in the mercenary business or the slave trade could really be considered innocent other than the slaves themselves. I briefly considered changing my skin color to a darker hue for a future jump to expand my life experiences, but decided that it was probably both disrespectful and potentially awful. I also didn't want anyone getting offended if I ever wrote about my time jumping. Best to leave that subject alone, then. Racism was a topic best avoided for anyone who'd ever been white, and I was pale as hell. Also, the woman had briefly talked to Sung-Gon about why someone would target me then left. He'd been quietly staring at me for who-knew how long while I was zoned out.
"Sorry, my mind was in a completely different place. I was trying to figure out who wanted me dead, but couldn't think of anyone other than my mother if she ever finds out I'm still alive and didn't even leave a note. Or that I stopped going to my college classes when you found me. This started before that."
He nodded, but looked extremely disapproving. Not leaving a note was apparently more than just rude, and I got the feeling he was going to force me into facing my mother at some point so I went ahead and headed him off there.
"Yes, I'll meet or talk to her if you think it can be done safely. Someone pointed that woman in my direction, and I hoped that by leaving without saying anything my mother would be at least a little safer for it. Even if she wasn't, I was. It would also allow her to assume I was dead and move on with her life. We weren't terribly close anyway."
His face softened a bit, but only just. We talked for a while and came to an agreement about both the monetary reward for returning my attacker and calling my mother. He actually guilted me into doing to right there in his office while he watched. That made getting yelled at by my clearly crying mother even more difficult than it already had been, but made it easier to explain the situation when I could hand over the phone to someone highly connected and good at sounding official that could vouch for my being attacked several times already. When he handed the phone back to me I said my goodbyes to my only known in-Jump relative, indicating that it would probably be for the final time. I felt horrible.
Not only had I abandoned my mother in this Jump; I couldn't recall a single time I'd called, texted, or otherwise contacted my mother in the previous one. She'd never attended my graduation because she never knew I'd graduated. The only way she'd known I was still alive was probably by contacting Sabrina. Maybe she'd been at one or more of the ceremonies and I just didn't talk to her? How much of an ass had I been without even realizing it? And why didn't I care more?
I examined the feelings closely as I returned to my room, and came to a few conclusions. One: while my memories of everything after the first jump started until it ended were perfect they also lacked emotional context. I wasn't forming real attachments to the people I had theoretical backgrounds with because I was by nature introverted to the point of being freakishly antisocial. Two: even if my memory was "perfect," I wouldn't remember something I never thought about or looked for. My train of thought simply wouldn't "stop there." Three: this was both not entirely my fault and not entirely a bad thing. I should have put more effort into cutting those connections with minimal emotional damage, but at the same time they needed to be cut since I had a limited amount of time in each world. There was also safety to consider. At least in this world knowing me was dangerous, and my mother didn't have any real way to defend herself. Four: I needed to choose drop-in or do my best not to hurt people any more than necessary in the future when I did need to end relationships. Finally, five: I should probably take Washu's (and by proxy my wife's) advice from before I started the Pokémon jump and try to live a little instead of just accumulating power.
So my next jump should be somewhere I could make friends and hopefully do good without risking my life too much. Two of my planned jumps came immediately to mind, one of them significantly more dangerous than the last: Ranma ½ and Naruto. While Ranma would allow me to make friends and learn a lot, Naruto would allow me to do more good and gain more power doing it. If I thought I was powerful enough at the end of this jump I would pick Naruto, since the skill and powers I'd gain there would make Ranma significantly easier to manage. At some point I wanted to visit a couple of other old anime favorites like Sailor Moon and Tenchi Muyo. I could do a lot of good for the world of Sailor Moon if I had enough power, and I could do a lot of good for a couple of people in Tenchi. Both would allow me to make friends, but Tenchi might be a problem depending on how my Washu handled it. Giggling and snorting in my head alerted me that a Tenchi jump would at least be interesting.
What would I do after that, though? My ultimate goals and the goals Washu had set for the experiment required me to be the best shapeshifter I'd ever seen, a stupidly powerful magic user, and eventually a god more powerful than baseline Washu. How was I supposed to become a god, and how could I elevate that to multi-dimensional entity more powerful than a creator? It struck me that there were only a couple of options I knew to become a god, and only two things I knew of that would allow me to become as powerful as I was supposed to. Okami would allow me to become a minor god, Black and White and/or its sequel would allow me to do the same in a completely different way and should provide me with both immortality and the ability to exist without a body at all. Was there a Jump Doc for that? Washu would know. Both would require me to have worshippers to use more powerful abilities, but that was where my second set of possibilities came in. If I could become the Master of Death from the Harry Potter-verse it would technically give me power over an entity that at least equalled a creator deity, and if I could somehow become, absorb, replace, or gain mastery over one of the Endless from the DC-Verse I would gain a similar status. I hated the idea of slavery, so I'd see if Washu could arrange a situation that would allow me to become or replace one of the entities in question. If that didn't work out I'd have to try and manually gain enough power as a god to create my own multiverse then advance from there.
How did one going about collecting worship from multiple universes anyway? It was probably an innate godly ability to gain power from the universe they were in, but how- I stopped. It didn't matter right now. I was in much less danger than I had been, but I needed to get much stronger very quickly. I also needed to find a way to protect myself more effectively from magic and ki, and more importantly protect my soul against tampering. I knew of at least two anime that involved people with the ability to rip out or damage souls, and one of them was mentioned explicitly in the Anime Attack drawback. Uchiha Madara was a character from Naruto, which I planned to tromp around in at some point anyway. It was time to pay my benefactor a visit and see how far his knowledge of necromancy really went, and whether it could help me protect myself from what was coming.