Marcus gazed upon the chaotic swirls of multi colored gasses, true chaos, the beginning and end of everything as he came to know. Just being in this place brought knowledge, everything except how he came to be here or where here really was. The chaos sea as he started calling this place was some sort of boundary around reality. It held potential, like all potential for everything that ever was or will be and everything that was imagined or dreamed. Just by being here Marcus had access to that sea of potential a sort of link that when he thought of something, poof there it was in his mind.
After initially waking in this strange realm he had at first freaked the hell out, who wouldn't start screaming their head off upon awaking to find oneself floating in a multicolored sea of some strange gas. It was like he was weightless with nothing to push against and only a slight breezy feeling upon his naked skin. He had flung his arms and legs around for quite a while, almost an hour he estimated until he ran out of steam. The next while, time was hard to track here, he tried everything he could think of to wake up or get help. During said crisis while he was asking himself what the strange gas was he received an answer, knowledge bloomed in his mind and he was weirdly certain that it was correct.
"This is Raw Chaos?" he had said aloud to the swirling mist
He had went on to ask every question he could think of. Chaos gave him answers not understanding though it is like being told the solution to a math problem with no clue how you would even go about getting there yourself. The answers came instantly as soon as he could finish a thought he would then know. It did require him to push for an answer though like reaching out to the void with his will kind of thing. The answers were sort of helpful but at the same time not, he still had no clue how he got here, how he could leave or even how long he had been here it was like time had no meaning in this strange place. He was having trouble even measuring it and he tried he counted in his head but the feeling was strange and he was sure it did not translate out to how it should have at all.
Looking into the distance Marcus continued to reminisce, he had discovered strange floating spheres that seemed to be moving in and out of the swirling chaos, he had asked the sea what that was and had received a perplexing answer.
Realities, as in plural or multiple.
"I guess those multiversal guys had it right? Hmm hey Chaos can I enter those realities? He pushed out the thought to the sea.
… Nothing came back another one of those no clue answers Chaos would have answered in a negative if it knew he had tested that multiple times.
"Ok Chaos… what reality is the one directly in front of me? He again thought out to the shifting multicolored lights.
"OHHMFF!" he let out as a dense stream of information far larger than he had received so far slammed into him like a physical blow. He only caught a small part of it but it was enough to piece together it was some sort of fantasy world with magic and everything he didn't recognize anything about it from the bit he was able to make out, but hell that would be cool as fuck to be able to live there, he had seen wizards doing cool magic stuff there were even dragons and such.
A sudden thought hit him then if these spheres where worlds and this place had like all worlds ever thought of and then some then where his favorite fantasy worlds here? He start furiously thinking at the mist and received an answer.
"Yes! Hells Yeah! There all here all those anime, books, movies and TV show worlds everything!" he shouted into the chaotic swirling gas.
Marcus focused his mind on going to one of the spheres that housed a world he knew.
"that's where I want to be, that's where I will be!" he chanted in his mind and suddenly he was there this had not worked before when he was trying to go home or move but with a clear destination in mind he was finally able to move in this damn place. He pushed out the thought for information on the world in front of him and sure enough he got a huge chunk of knowledge he seemed to be a very in detail description of this reality. The sphere which was the size of a large beach ball somehow contained all the dimensions and universes in the Marval Cinematic Universe he had asked about the comic one just out of curiosity and it exists also but who in their right mind would want to go there. He reached out his hand and touched the sphere and an incredible welcoming feeling came though he almost instinctually felt that he could indeed enter this reality. he could set up when and where and even with what as long as it followed the laws of the sphere it would be accepted. He would need to enter as a soul and either take over a developing fetus or a recently dead body. The first option was not really palatable at all as he would basically be taking the life or future of some unborn child so yeah nope, he probed the sphere on the second option and found that he would have a limited time to find his vessel which would then even be made whole during the process if there was damage it would heal. He brought his hand away from sphere shivering as the feeling of welcoming left him.
Marcus started thinking this seemed to be his only chance and if he was honest with himself it was freaking awesome, even if he could return home with this as an option he would chose this every time. He didn't have any family left back home and with the whole work your whole life to pay of debt from a degree he wasn't even able to use thing that he and everyone else suffred under there wasn't even a choice really. He thought for a moment what would he like to do? Magic was a definite must but what else?
Ok so a sword and sorcery world with monsters and such but not too dangerous, I don't want one of those death worlds where everyone dies all the time.
"Guess that rules out you then Huh?" Marcus said to the sphere that floated beside him.
Maybe somewhere I can met someone and start a life with maybe fairytale? No not really into the whole hero thing and if you go to fairytale world you got to join fairytale or you end up getting wrecked the second that theme song starts playing Marcus thought smiling to himself.
"Hmm what else?" He hummed
Game of thrones… Nope to dirty and everyone dies kind of depressing really. Elder Scrolls? No that's another death world the gods there like to fuck with your mind and soul and stuff and I know I'm not even close to good enough to mess with millennia old monsters that scheme and manipulate mortals all day long.
Danmachi…? Sort of a dangerous place with Evilus, the Dungeon and Giant Dragon and all but damn it checks all the boxes especially with the gorgeous women there. Hmm… adventure and so forth and really I can explore and experience the danger stuff on my own terms for the most part. If I don't mess of the plot to much I can even predict all the dangerous stuff right?
"Welp! I have convinced myself Hahah! For the cute girls… I mean adventure I am totally going to go to Danmachi!" Marcus said waving away the Marval Sphere.
As he focused on his new destination a new sphere identical to the last zoomed Infront of him or did he move to it? Shaking his head Marcus reached out and placed his hand on the sphere and sure enough this was Danmachi.
"Ok so everything checks out same as before the whole enter as a soul thing. Hmm… can't become a god they don't die but I can be a monster that's a no go there totally defeats the purpose and I'd be public enemy number one."
"Only three magics per soul but there is a lot of wiggle room. What about space magic? Yep looks good there some sort of healing? Ohh what's this flesh magic. Sounds kind of dark but manipulating the living tissues in a body would be a top tier healing power." Marcus spoke to himself while conversing with the sphere.
It was strange how these things gave impressions it was not really saying anything but if he thought about something same as the chaos sea, the sphere would confirm, deny or offer examples back to him.
Magic was categorized into two types, Congenital which you would have to be born with and Acquired which was usually given by the gods via Falna. The sphere agreed with this conclusion but since magic was tied to the soul of a person and he was going to enter as a soul he could totally break what was normal. The sphere would not let him become all powerful he still had to follow the three magics rule but if you instead focused on manipulation of say an element you could do so much more with it than a simple spell. Say he chose temperature manipulation he could start fires and such but he could also cool things down to insane temperatures. He wouldn't be able to for instance through a fireball or an ice lance or something but the scope would be some much more. He could also set up a sort of path for his development abilities or at least make certain ones more likely. These depended a bit more on Falna and actions taken after acquiring said blessing but he could push his alignment closer to say this nifty little ability that would allow him to enchant his magics into things.
Marcus pondered his options for magic. So Astromancy for the teleport and inventory space, Corpomancy which sounded dark as all get out but was basically manipulation of living tissue for healing and such, it would also allow him to change his looks and make him biologically immortal which ended but being reason he chose it over the different holy options. His last slot took the longest he went back and forth over some kind explosion magic that sounded over powered as hell but didn't really offer much else besides destruction. This realization brought him up short on what he really was going to focus on going forward. Combat was ok and all but he wanted to be a sort of Crafter-Builder-Mage that could still go to the dungeon to kick ass if he wanted. He browsed through his options with the sphere offering what was possible and shutting down most of his off the wall ideas like summoning was apparently a nope zone. He came back to the manipulation magics since Astro and Corpo where both so versatile maybe one of these would be good. Earth caught his attention with the shear range of what he could do, from molding stone and dirt to even filtering out elements. Since metals and such where part of this generalization he could even manipulate metals to a degree. He got the impression though that if he tried to dig through the floors in the dungeon to deep something bad would happen so he dismissed that thought. The idea of being able to just build himself a castle in the dungeon though didn't get the same response so he could build structures there just not damage the floors to much. He really caught on to the pulling gold out of the ground.
"Infinite money maker ha!" He laughed
So funds and after looking a little more he could form spikes or even a hand out of the ground to attack his enemies as long as it was still connected to the earth and he was touching said earth he could manipulate it. Water and such would be a problem but really what could be better for a earth mage than being underground during a fight right?
Marcus then tried to set up what Developmental Abilities he would be able to have during his level ups but this was more or less dependent on his actions after joining a familia. He was sort of able to choose the one about enchanting but again it depended on if he grew in that direction.
"Welp guess that's that. Now since I'm outside of time or something I need to choose when I enter." Marcus mused
Knowing that plot would give him a sort of divination of the future as long as he didn't change to much so he would need to enter prior to Bell arriving in big old Oreo town. He didn't want to be in Orario during the Evilus attacks but with his abilities could he heal Alfia?
"Probably not till Iv leveled up more." he thought
After going through his memories and getting the impressions from the sphere he decided to enter during the end of the dark age. Which would be seven years before Bell entered Orario. He made the decision after thinking about how he was going to get a body to inhabit and as morbid as it was there would be plenty of death during the seven day war or whatever it was called.
Making his choices Marcus took a final look at surrounding Chaos Sea and with a tip of his imaginary hat he pushed into the sphere.