AN: Hey all. This was the FIRST story I ever wrote back in 2020. It's rough as all hell and uses older content, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.
As you can see, this is a rewrite of the original version. I can't say the story is perfect, there are plenty of choices I made that I would do differently now, but I am trying to stay close to my source material and improve it a bit.
I accidentally updated this chapter to the beginning of the OLD version, just ignore that.
Story Warnings: This is a GARY STU multiverse fic! AU Warnings for Harry Potter, Danmachi, and basic Greek Mythology. There are three pairings. One from HP, two from crossovers.
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Disclaimer: I do not own any source material.
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Prologue: Magus E. Mor
"Well, it was a fun life." Magus muttered to himself as he looked around at the beautiful scenery.
The lush green landscape vibrated with vitality; the warmth of the sunlight kissed his tanned skin, and everything seemed just so coherent. The sky filled with pockets of white clouds stretching for miles. The trees looking like silhouettes in the glorious expanse. You could hear the chorus of songbirds, their calls stretching into the distance.
The scent of the forest around him, the feel of the light breeze rattling the branches around him as it gently caressed his face like the absent touch of a mother he never knew.
It was like a painting, a scenery he could gaze into for years.
But time waited for no man, and the sun began to set, dying the sky in a blazing scarlet of color. From the corner of his vision, an ethereal clock counted down its last few minutes.
Magus could feel the strength begin to leave his limbs. They say a man knows when it was their time, but he never expected things to be so literal.
Magus E. Mor. That was the name left on his basket as he arrived at an orphanage as a baby.
His childhood was average. From a young age, he enjoyed learning things. If his face wasn't in a book, he was asking the matrons of his orphanage questions while helping them with chores.
They were kind to him, patient with him, and answered his endless curiosity as best they could. By age ten, he was already considered a small genius by those who knew him.
Such attention gathered bullies, and the bullies taught him that fighting was necessary in life to be left alone. So, he took to learning how to fight like he learned anything else and found his genius extended there as well. He learned to defend himself, and the bullying stopped.
But in the process, he learned to love the act of fighting. Being in control while the adrenaline pumped through him like his blood was boiling and his heartbeat in his ears.
His curiosity and desire pushed him on; he wanted to learn more. As an orphan, he didn't have the money or time to spend learning like he wished to, books cost money, and people needed to spend time working to make money, so with a mindset far different from an average child, he took to reading and learning about how money was made.
The orphanage had a public computer, and the internet was an endless source of knowledge. Reliable or not. But he wasn't a rising genius for nothing.
It took him a year of focused study and testing, but he learned how stocks worked. He took the hundred dollars he 'collected' from various people on the street and made it a thousand using fake account names. And he took that thousand and made more.
Contrary to his success, Magus felt weird about it. It felt too easy, like somehow whatever he invested in, despite his research, just seemed to be profitable for him.
He could never prove it, so he just learned to ride the wave, so to speak. With time and money, he could study more, and study he did. At the age of twelve, he tested out of middle school. At the age of sixteen, he tested out of high school.
Thanks to showing his intellect, he got permission from the orphanage to get an apartment with occasional checkups from one of the matrons and earn his freedom.
And using the money he was making, he enrolled in martial art schools and studied religiously. He didn't spend time with friends, he didn't goof off or play games, he studied or trained. All because he found it addicting. Like playing an RPG, he just wanted to keep leveling up.
Languages, cooking, programming, survival skills, psychology, and more. Magnus wasn't a master at anything but more of a jack of all trades, learning key elements of various areas. And physically, he found more of a connection to specific martial styles and weapon forms. Every hot-blooded young guy found swinging a blade around to be cool, and he was no different.
The only thing he did to unwind between studying was read fantasy stories. Light novels, books, fanfiction, and so on. They were soothing 'turn your brain off' activities he appreciated. And he often found that reading fantasy helped to expand his imagination beyond the sort of black-and-white look on life most people had.
His life continued at that pace, with the two years until he turned eighteen being purely dedicated to whatever he wanted to study with his freedom.
And then, with his legal freedom and the money he had from investing and making a few successful phone apps, he traveled the world.
All his knowledge was made into practical wisdom as he applied things he learned in real time. He even made some real friends while traveling. People who came from different lives but had similar views on living life without hurting yourself to have fun.
Although, without drugs or alcohol, even progressive people had to find sources for fun. And those sources came through high-adrenaline sports like skydiving, bungee jumping, snowboarding, etc.
Magus was a true adrenaline junkie and had no shame in admitting it. He spent years doing crazy stunts until he finally began to mellow out in his mid-twenties. That was when things started to turn paranormal for him.
For one, he felt….comfortable…. in the shadows. It was strange to say and slightly emo to think about, but he always felt relaxed when he was in the shadows for some reason. When he meditated in the shade, it was like he was being hugged, and he often found himself drifting off into sleep when it happened.
For a second, and probably more importantly, on his twenty-fifth birthday, an ethereal clock appeared in the corner of his vision, counting down from one year in days, hours, minutes, and seconds.
What it was counting down to, he didn't know, but that year wasn't fun for him. Health issues cropped up out of nowhere one after the other. Eventually leading to a scan that showed a rare heart disease forming.
The doctors tried to advise him to sign up for the list of donor organs, but Magus ultimately denied it. He lived a full life, had no family to care for, and had no interest in spending years in and out of a hospital. He didn't feel right taking an organ from someone else who might need it.
Thankfully, with his years of physical and mental training, he was able to continue with life and push past the pain. And as the year passed, he realized that whatever the timer was, it's ending probably meant one thing.
He had moments of despair, but he pushed past it with time and accepted things. He formed a will and set all his resources to go to the matrons who cared for him and the orphanage he grew up in. An added lawyer was tagged on to ensure the funds went where they were supposed to with periodic checkups.
And then he kept traveling. At a slow and steady pace, as he became freer in spirit with every day he accepted what was.
And then came the final question. What way did he wish to go out?
He could choose from thousands of ideas, but in the end, he decided to return to a place stuck in his memory. A place of natural beauty in the wild he came across in his travels.
Using the experience from all his adrenaline-fueled sports, he put together a long cord between two nearby natural stone walls and formed what base jumpers knew as a spider's net, albeit a small one-person one.
And as the final hour came by, he sat elevated six hundred feet in the air, watching the horizon by his lonesomeness as the world seemed to give him a final farewell with the scarlet sky.
Surprisingly, there was no pain at that point. Only a numbing cold spreading through his limbs like liquid metal flowing through his veins. He felt heavy, tired, and laid back against the hammock of cords in a daze.
A phone to his side playing a Skyrim soundtrack, something he found soothing to listen to, gave him a send-off he could be satisfied with.
And as the sun fell and night came, he felt himself be embraced once more by that almost loving shadow.
The weight of his veins vanished, the sound of music turned distant, and he felt like he was flying as he closed his eyes for the final time, watching through closed lids as the ethereal clock ticked down to zero.
And as his body grew still and cold, as his soul left his body for a place beyond, the world rejoiced as the shadows welcomed home its son.
Chapter end.
AN: To returning readers, hope you'll enjoy this blast from the past, revamped. The story will be updated gradually depending on reader response, unless it wins my pat vote for the month, then it will get my full attention.
Links to my Pat and Discord are on my profile.
Be sure to check out my other works.