Eight years passed in the blink of an eye.
Kez Merlin sat behind the counter of the Arcana Cabana, having just seen off another customer who had come in for a divination.
Eight years ago, he had awakened inside this street-front building with nothing but a document envelope waiting beside him.
The papers inside contained his new identity, informing him that his name in this world was Kez Merlin, along with the deed to the building, which had somehow already been transferred into his name.
As for how he had ended up here, that part was still painfully clear.
He had just bought a physical copy of Lord of Mysteries and was heading home while scrolling through the latest news about Avengers 5 on his phone.
Then, without the slightest warning, a Dayun truck had gone sailing off an overpass and come straight at him.
“Seriously? Truck-kun got me from an overpass?”
Kez shook his head as the television reported that Tony Stark—Stark Industries’ chairman, CEO, and chief engineer—had gone missing.
“What a goddamn world.”
He had been awake in this world for eight years now.
Aside from a system that had spent most of that time stubbornly stuck on a loading screen, Kez had learned more than enough to understand what kind of place he had landed in.
This was primarily the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but “primarily” was the important part.
The Dragon Ring on his finger and the enormous Encantus nearby made it painfully obvious that Marvel wasn’t the only franchise involved.
Elements from other movie universes had been mixed into this world as well.
When Kez had first awakened, he hadn’t thought much of the strange ring around his finger or even the occult shop around him.
What finally made him realize something was wrong was the enormous book he discovered inside the building.
The Encantus contained relatively few practical spells, but its record of magical history was remarkably comprehensive.
It covered everything from Merlin’s life and death to the history of the magical world and the fate of Merlin’s apprentice, Balthazar Blake.
There were still several useful spells among its pages, and Kez had managed to learn the basics of drawing upon and controlling magical energy.
Eventually, he had also discovered the Grimlock containing Balthazar and Maxim Horvath, with images of both men appearing on its surface.
Unfortunately, everything he had learned about the enchantment made one thing clear: the Grimlock’s seal was absolute.
It would automatically release its prisoners after ten years, but there was no way to open it early.
Smashing the vessel wouldn’t free anyone either; it would simply destroy the sealed space inside, causing both the prisoners and the magical prison itself to disappear.
That left Kez with no way to rescue Balthazar.
All he could do was wait until the ten-year seal expired.
At first, Kez had assumed that he had simply transmigrated into The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and somehow taken the protagonist’s place.
That theory lasted until he discovered that this world also had a Captain America museum exhibit, Stark Industries, Pym Technologies, and plenty of other things that had absolutely nothing to do with Balthazar’s story.
That was when he realized he was actually living in a Marvel universe.
Then, one week ago, the system inside him had finally finished loading and presented him with two potions.
One was the Sequence 9 Seer potion of the Fool Pathway, one of the infamous Cowardly Trio.
The other was the Sequence 9 Spectator potion of the Visionary Pathway.
Truthfully, Kez had always been interested in the Mystery Pryer Pathway as well.
Over the years, he had accumulated an enormous amount of occult knowledge, fairy-tale lore, and genuine magic, so he suspected he would have had very little trouble digesting a Mystery Pryer potion.
Even obtaining Mythical Creature blood for a future advancement ritual probably wouldn’t have been particularly difficult in a world like this.
Unfortunately, the system hadn’t given him that option.
Kez placed the two potions he had retrieved from the system on the table and considered Spectator and Seer.
The decision didn’t take long.
After running a divination shop for years, choosing the Seer Pathway—one of the Cowardly Trio—felt almost inevitable.
If the more personally suitable Mystery Pryer Pathway wasn’t available, then survival came first.
He picked up the Seer potion and drank it in one go.
The liquid slipped smoothly down his throat, and almost as soon as it reached his stomach, the sensation accompanying the potion settled completely.
Kez blinked.
“Did I just… fully digest it?”
Before he could examine the change more carefully, the golden retriever that had been lying beside his feet stood up and planted both front paws on the edge of the table, staring curiously at the remaining potion.
“Anger, you want some too?”
Kez looked down at his dog.
Anger was an ordinary golden retriever he had bought three years earlier, not some magical creature.
Even so, the dog had already lived through a surprisingly eventful life with him.
Kez had taken Anger along when he witnessed the destruction and eventual rebuilding of the New York Continental, and naturally, he had also encountered John Wick—the man who had slaughtered an entire criminal organization after they killed his dog.
“Woof!”
At Anger’s eager bark, Kez immediately thought of Susie from Lord of Mysteries and laughed.
“You really want it? Fine. I’ll give you one shot, but you’d better not turn into a monster.”
He poured the Spectator potion into Anger’s food bowl.
The golden retriever bounded over excitedly and lapped up every last drop.
Kez waited.
Nothing happened.
Or rather, none of the catastrophic loss of control he had been half expecting happened.
After finishing the potion, Anger simply wandered back and settled beside Kez’s feet again as though he hadn’t just become something fundamentally different from an ordinary dog.
“You actually became a Beyonder creature. That’s… pretty damn interesting.”
Kez scratched his chin, amused.
“Looks like I’m raising my own Susie now. Maybe I’ll even find you a maid to test potions on someday.”
After teasing the dog, Kez finally turned his attention back to the cheat that had brought all of this about.
His system was fairly simple.
There were no mandatory missions, no constant notifications, and no punishment for refusing to do what it wanted.
It had merely explained its purpose and provided him with the information he needed.
When the system arrived in this world eight years ago, the journey had consumed enormous amounts of energy.
For that and several other unusual reasons, most of the Beyonder Characteristics it had been carrying were scattered across the planet when Kez descended into this universe.
His job was to recover them.
Because this world operated under different laws, the supplementary ingredients normally required for potions couldn’t simply be reproduced directly.
Instead, the system needed to absorb mystical energy native to this universe as fuel.
Using that energy together with recovered Beyonder Characteristics, it could manufacture potions for him.
There was one other important feature.
Now that its host had become a Sequence 9 Seer of the Fool Pathway, the system had transformed the Sefirah it carried into the one best suited to him: Sefirah Castle.
Had Kez chosen the Visionary Pathway instead, the system would have transformed it into the Chaos Sea.
The system had also finally explained why this world contained so many things that didn’t belong in the standard Marvel Cinematic Universe.
It wasn’t solely because multiple fictional universes had somehow been merged together.
Some of the stranger phenomena had been caused by the Beyonder Characteristics scattered across the world eight years ago.
A full week had passed since Kez became a Seer.
This time, rather than heading for the bathroom, he returned to his bedroom.
He performed the familiar four-step counterclockwise ritual, and his consciousness immediately rose toward Sefirah Castle.
A strange weightlessness came over him as the world around him fell utterly silent.
When Kez opened his eyes again, endless gray fog filled his vision.
It flowed around him like water, while crimson stars of varying sizes dotted the vast expanse.
Some floated near the surface, while others remained hidden deep within the fog.
“So it really is exactly like Klein’s.”
Kez looked around for a moment before smiling.
“In that case, this place could use some redecorating.”
He snapped his fingers.
Towering stone pillars rose one after another beneath a vast domed ceiling, transforming the empty space into a magnificent hall that looked as though it had once belonged to a race of giants.
A massive bronze table appeared at its center, with ten high-backed chairs arranged along either side and matching seats positioned at both ends.
Kez studied the result and nodded in satisfaction.
“Much better.”
His gaze then shifted toward the crimson stars suspended throughout the gray fog.
“Now, let’s see who in this world has already come into contact with those Beyonder Characteristics.”
Kez Merlin reached out and touched the crimson stars.