Canon Fodder

START OF BOOK 3 CHAPTER 202 PLANNING SESSION

I was in the Junction once more. The notification made it more obvious why Daniel had been unaffected when I killed his Pokemon. I still felt bad about it, but that Wigglytuff could have put me to sleep in an instant. I would have been at the guy’s mercy then. It was sad that I felt worse about killing the Pokemon than my opponent. 

Daniel had made it obvious that he was planning on winning. Anything but fighting to the death was not an option. I couldn’t help but wonder what he had gone through. He had only Generation 1 Pokemon. So whatever changes had been done to the story hadn’t gone much past that. He had been through Black Clover but didn’t use magic. It appeared that his main plan had been to use the Death Note. 

How had he ended the canon? Outing Light Yagami right away? Or perhaps taking Light’s place after killing L, Mello, and Near. There were too many possibilities. I kind of wanted to find the world since it would be a quick challenger slot, but could I even warm Challenger Slots from doors that weren’t in the main rooms? I decided to leave it for now.

No, my mind was stuck on Black Clover. In the world of the manga everyone received a grimoire when they came of age. The grimoire would attune to an element you were able to use. If he beat the world that meant he was strong with it. The story was just as worthy as Naruto for length and difficulty. So why hadn’t Daniel used the grimoire?

The only thing I could think of was his body. In Black Clover I remembered that mana was used to cast the spells from a grimoire. I was sure that the human bodies had mana, but also that mana in the ambient air was used. He must not have had enough mana in his body to utilize his spells. He would have gotten bigger and stronger spells that required more mana to use. 

I ended up on the solution that not only do I need to worry about my own physical body. I had to pick worlds that had power systems that I could scale up and down with power. I couldn’t do any worlds that required exterior assistance. It had to all be me. Luckily I didn’t think any of the main worlds I had chosen used outside assistance. They were all based off of the body. So I should be safe. 

I mentally went through the fight again. Going over what had been done right or wrong. It appeared that worlds you conquered were listed before a fight. So I might need to be careful on which doorways I closed. Otherwise people would get a hint on what I could do prior to the fight. 

I had done well with Kame mode. Reinvigorating myself whenever I could. But it took a full 15 seconds to shift into Kame mode. I needed to try to shorten that time. It could mean the difference between life and death. 

I had a lot of failings in the fight though. I still hadn’t wrapped my head around my quirk evolution fully yet. I could reflect damage, but when I was stabbed in the arm I hadn’t thought about it. I had never even tried to reflect a blade. Absorbing the kinetic energy was still out of reach as well, so I needed to head to MHA and try to figure out what I was missing about my quirk evolution. Maybe I could meet with people that knew Muscular to understand what exactly his quirk had been. My only clue was ‘strength’ but I felt that there was more to it. 

There were a lot of items I had to work on. It might be good to go to another hallway to practice with my base strength. Get used to fighting with this weak body before I went to the next challenge. Suddenly a new pop-up appeared. 

“Ah,” I said. I hadn’t received the Weakness Eliminator or Search Quirk. My other reward was a Challenger Bonus Slot but that could be used in all Halls, so it made sense. I considered my current plan. 

“Back to Manga,” I decided on. I walked to the door and opened it. My status screen updated with the old and new skills as pins and needles forced their way into my body. Pain coursing through me I ignored it as muscles bulged under the Gantz Armor. 

Scanning my screen the items that would travel with me to the other hallways was now bold. I guessed that was because I finally picked the Challenger Slots. I would have to remember to pick my new Bonus Challenger Slot before my next challenge, but by then I hoped to have more. 

Because I had 2 Weakness Eliminators I really needed to plan what to do with them. I still felt a strong pull to go to One Punch Man. The world was tougher than most, and I had been receiving nice rewards, but I had to think long term. So I touched Weakness Eliminator. 

The fact that Person was there meant that I could use it on other people. I wasn’t too sure why I would want to use it on someone else, but then again the notification had mentioned Summons being healed. Maybe there was a way to summon people from these worlds to fight with me? I pushed that out of my thoughts for now. 

“Berserker Mode,” I said. 

“Fuck,” I mumbled. There really was a link to me and the girls. “Freaking cheap ass item.” That meant I had to use 3 more Weakness Eliminators to get rid of my draw to Aiko, Setsuko, and Jun. I was feeling it less because I was in another world, but it was there. I didn’t feel like wasting my last one though. I wanted to save a Weakness Eliminator for other powers. 

I clicked Rage Episodes. Thus I hopefully wouldn’t have to worry about blacking out if my anger got too high. I felt a little better knowing I was safe from that at least. I looked through my screen again. I had just used a World Choice, but maybe the World ID was useful. I was currently in the hallway leading to the Manga room. I couldn’t bring the World ID out to other halls unless I wanted to waste a challenger slot on it. That didn’t sound too appealing. 

“I don’t want any more World IDs as rewards,” I said aloud. Speaking or thinking about things had helped in the past. “Not in the Manga worlds anyway. Keep them coming when I leave.” I didn’t get an answer. 

I clicked the World ID and walked to the door that was by itself. I opened the door, finding a good 50 more doors inside. “There are my rejected worlds,” I said. I went to the first door. Opening it there were 9 doors. The one in the middle had another 11 doors. And the last, nearest the manga door only had 4 doors. 

I wasn’t sure where to start. I had seen the world list. There were Rejected worlds for the main room, a bunch of names I didn’t recognize, then also a bunch of smut doors. From harem to tentacle porn. So one of these most likely held some conglomeration of all the hentai out there. It sounded like a fun weekend, but for now I needed to get stronger. 

I used the World ID on the door closest to the Manga Door. 

“Of course,” I said. The room had 4 doors. So that meant Pokemon, Monster Rancher, Digimon, and…Medabots maybe. I didn’t think any of those were manga first. Maybe they were brought in by popular demand. I had lost my memory, maybe they explained why Fighting Pals had its own door in the Manga Hall. 

The Pokemon had been helpful to Daniel. They distracted me, but he had admitted to spending too much time in the world. In the Pokemon game you could beat it in a day. But these were real monsters. I doubted that they leveled easily. You would have to train them instead of training yourself…unless you trained with your pets.

“No, stop,” I said. “No Pokemon. Gotta finish my other worlds. Focus on myself.” I tore my hand away from the door and walked into manga. I studied the room. I had been to all of them. Berserk, Hunter x Hunter, Demon Slayer, Attack on Titan, and DBZ were the worlds I had spent the least amount of time on. 

“Alrighty,” I said, staring at the doors. I turned to DBZ. “You would easily make me the strongest. But that takes time. Time I’m not sure I have. Yamcha and Krillin could easily kick my ass. I am on the trail of Yamcha. He could point me to places I could get stronger, but also he could help me become stronger. So what would he want to train me? Money,” I said. Yamcha was probably the only person that money worked on. “I can get money.” I turned to the Berserk door. “Gold is the currency there. I could get a boat load. Take it to DBZ, and pay Yamcha to train me. But…time is my enemy.”

I thought about the DBZ world. There was the increased gravity machine, but that wouldn’t be available until after Vegeta and Nappa. “Hyperbolic Time Chamber,” I said. “Yeah, that’s it. Go to DBZ. Pay Yamcha. Get to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber after finessing Kame a little. He could train me for a year, but it could only be 1 in world day. Thus speed running me.” 

There were a million things that could go wrong of course. But it was a solid plan. “I would get stronger, but I would have to finish a quest to be able to use Chi outside of the world. So would I need to help with Raditz? Help kill Goku maybe? Ugh…too many unknowns. I could potentially get strong, then again it could take me the whole year of training to learn how to use Chi. Then I would need a quest to use it outside, and all my time would have been wasted.” 

“No, I need to get stronger. Need more challenger slots. Fuck, I would need a spare Challenger Skill Slot to even be able to use Chi during a challenge. No, I need a new plan for now. Something that could make me stronger more quickly. One with a guaranteed quest…” I turned to Hunter x Hunter. 

“I have a quest to get my hunter license which would give me a Challenger Bonus Slot,” I said. “After getting the license I could learn nen.” Nen was the power system in Hunter x Hunter. I wasn’t exactly sure how it worked since it was so confusing, but it had to be useful. “I could find Gon’s trainer and learn how to use nen. Then leave, go back to my other worlds.”

I turned to Naruto, One Piece, and MHA. They were the ones closest to finishing, and would give me Challenger Slots. “I could practice my new Search Quirk in Hunter x Hunter. When I’m confident with it I can go to Naruto. Save the girls, and wrap up that story. Or go to One Piece. Now that I know these worlds are real I feel a little less weird about making kids and getting married. I have to iron out my relationship with Nami and Robin. Hancock is my wife, and that could be a deal breaker for them. I need to keep them as mine. Also I could get a devil fruit. I have plenty of money and a Weakness Eliminator. Find a Devil Fruit to buy through the store, get rid of the swimming weakness. Making me even stronger. Then My Hero Academia. With Nen, I could be stronger and more confident to fight the top heroes there as well.” 

The plan was coming together. I felt the tug from One Punch Man, to be with my girls, but it was dulled. I might get sucked into there just to feel them once more. “No, I can’t go or I won’t leave,” I said. I had been stuck there way longer than I had meant to be. “No, get them out of your mind.” 

It was all coming together. Hunter x Hunter, then decide from there if I wanted One Piece, Naruto, or MHA. I couldn’t worry about when the next challenge was coming. I had to immerse myself in the worlds and hope I was ready for the next challenge when it came. Taking a breath I moved to the Hunter x Hunter door and entered.