"Let me get this right — I get to pick three templates? And as long as the person is below multiversal, it's possible?" a young man asked, looking at the being before him. It wasn't a god, not truly — just a supervisor of a world, though the weight of his presence suggested he was far more than ordinary.
"That's correct. That's the limit of my capability. I can't reach into realities that contain beings at the multiversal tier. But below that, I can do it without issue. On top of that, I'm offering you three extra cheats. So, please," the man said, leaving the young man momentarily speechless, his mind racing to process the sheer scope of what was being laid before him.
"All I have to do is protect your world?" he asked, making sure he understood the terms clearly. Again, the man nodded, though there was a quiet desperation behind the gesture.
"I will take you back in time, as far as I can, before the darkness of my world grew to a level that can no longer be controlled. The hero of my world isn't enough for the task, so I had no choice but to seek someone capable," he said, a growing panic slipping into his voice at how the young man before him still hadn't accepted.
"One more question — how do you know I'm capable?" the young man asked with a raised eyebrow. To this, the man conjured a screen before him, displaying a long list of humans from Earth, each entry showing their stats and potential. The young man's eyes scanned the list until they landed on his own name — and the rank beside it read UR, sending a jolt of shock through him.
"Anything below SSS+ can't save my world. You are my only hope. With your talent, plus the three templates and the three extra cheats, I'm sure you can do it," he said, his tone slipping into something pleading, almost fragile.
"One more thing before I pick. What is your world like? I need to make sure I pick the best templates, after all," he said, to which the man nodded instantly, eager to provide whatever information might tip the scales toward acceptance.
"It's a world of mages, wizards, powerful clans, swordsmen, and more. There is a leveling system, which you would gain once you go through your awakening. The awakening would unlock everything — your bloodline abilities, the templates I give you, plus the extra cheats. It also grants the power to wield magical energy, and if you're lucky, an additional ability on top of all that," he explained, his words flowing quickly as though he'd rehearsed this pitch a thousand times. The young man listened carefully, nodding slowly as the picture took shape in his mind.
"Okay. In that case, I shouldn't hold back," he said with a smile, a spark of excitement finally lighting behind his eyes.
"By the way, I can only reach into each world twice. You can't pick more than two templates from a single world. Some individuals are also off-limits, due to my inability to perfectly recreate their abilities. I don't want you to end up with something you weren't expecting," he added, which made the young man frown briefly before nodding in understanding.
"My first template is—" Again, the young man was forced to stop mid-sentence.
"I'm sorry, I can't just give it to you like that. It's... a bit random," the man said with a light blush creeping across his face, making the young man stare at him with a completely blank expression. This guy had made it sound like he could simply name a template and receive it — and now he was changing the rules.
Awkwardly, the man raised his hand and summoned a seemingly endless sea of cards that filled the world around them, stretching in every direction as far as the eye could see. Every single card looked identical to the last, indistinguishable from one another.
"Pick three cards. The only thing I can guarantee you is the three cheats," he said, deliberately avoiding eye contact, as he had lied.
The young man ignored the man's embarrassment entirely, rising to his feet and stepping forward into the vast sea of cards. Behind him, the man sat back, fingers crossed tightly together as he prayed silently that the young man would draw something overpowered.
'What is this feeling?' he thought, walking through the ocean of floating cards. Something stirred within him — a strange, instinctive sense that allowed him to feel which cards held power and which ones were worthless. He closed his eyes, shutting out the visual noise, and tried to see if he could locate the strongest card through feeling alone.
Slowly, his mind locked onto something. The card felt as though it were right in front of him, hovering just within arm's reach, with all other cards around him disappearing. So he extended his hand without opening his eyes. The card, which had been drifting elsewhere entirely, came flying through the air and landed perfectly into his palm just as his fingers closed around it.
[You have gained the Iihiko Shishime Template]
'Oh, I remember him. Isn't this the guy who defeated that one girl with the billions of abilities? I never looked too deeply into his powers, but he should be more than capable.' He watched as the card broke apart into glowing fragments that sank into his soul, settling somewhere deep within him.
He closed his eyes once again, reaching out with that same instinct to sense the most overpowered card in the sea. Once more, a card found its way into his outstretched hand the moment he reached for it.
[You have gained the Hanten Shiranui Template]
As the card broke apart and fused into his soul, all he could manage was a look of pure confusion — he had no idea who that was. But he shrugged once again, he closed his eyes and focused.
'I want the most overpowered being. Come on, Bleach — I know someone from that world can hear me. Reiō!' he called out within his mind, and slowly, cards from across the endless sea began drifting toward one another, merging and fusing until they formed a single, radiant card that flew directly into his waiting hands. If he had known such a thing could be done from the start, he would have cursed himself for not trying it sooner — he could have been even more overpowered than he already was.
[You have gained the Soul King Template]
'Yes!' he thought, a grin breaking across his face as the card shattered and its essence fused with him.
"...Alright. What three cheats do you want? It can be anything — such as picking an ability from any anime world with a few limitations, or creating your own ability with a few limitations," the man said softly, hope flickering in his expression as he noticed the young man's smile, praying that whatever he'd drawn was good.
"Anything... The End?" he asked, curiosity sharpening his voice. The End allowed one to copy anything and everything, then master it to one hundred and twenty percent. An ability like that — he wanted it badly.
"Sadly, that's too powerful," the man said with a sigh. After all, if he could grant abilities of that magnitude, he wouldn't have needed to find someone with UR-tier potential in the first place.
"God Hand: Twelve Labors... but I want it to be better than the original. In the sense that I can earn more lives, and the defense it provides improves as I grow stronger," the young man said after a moment of thought. The man paused, visibly weighing the request in his mind, before finally giving a slow nod of approval.
"But it would start off with just one life, and the defense it offers would scale to your current capability," he said, to which the young man frowned.
"How would the defense scale to my capability?" he asked softly.
"It would be like using the Kaio-Ken, only in this case, it's applied to your defensive capability. Pretty much, your defensive capability would be many times greater," he explained, and Vector instantly nodded, visibly impressed by the concept.
"I want an eye ability... but I should go with Holopsicon," he said softly, almost to himself. But to his disappointment, the man shook his head — that was far too overpowering for him to grant.
'...What do I need?' he thought, turning inward as he considered what he already had. The Soul King possessed four pupils, so it was safe to assume he would also have 4 pupil in each eyeball.. With that in mind, what would happen if he also had the Sharingan? Would he end up with four Sharingan in each eyeball?
But then came the next problem — how would he evolve the Sharingan into the Rinnegan? He could simply request the Rinnegan outright, but wouldn't that draw immediate attention the moment anyone saw his eyes? What would the people of that world think if he suddenly appeared with such strange, otherworldly eyes from the very beginning?
"I want Itachi's Sharingan. I want it to come with the weapons and everything associated with it. At the same time, I want the Sharingan and the spiritual weapons to be perfected," he said, his tone firm and decisive. The man nodded in response, but then paused for a moment, as if something had occurred to him.
"I can do better... How about I fuse it with the Six Eyes? It would give you perfect energy control, granting you access to an almost endless amount of energy to draw upon, thanks to the overwhelming level of energy control it would give," he said, and the offer immediately impressed the young man, his eyes widening at the sheer potential of such a fusion.
"I can do stuff like that?" he asked, to which the man nodded.
"Then in that case, can I go back to my first request and have Mahoraga's adaptation capability fused with the God Hand?" he asked, to which the man hesitated for a long moment, clearly weighing the implications.
"It can be done, but I can only have his adaptation capability fuse with the adaptation capability that God Hand already possesses. Anything more is beyond my power," the man said.
"Cool with me," he said with a satisfied smile, already moving on to the final piece of his build.
"For my last ability — the Death-Dealing. I want it fused with the ability Disaster, King's ability from Seven Deadly Sins... It would be cool if they could also grow alongside me as I get stronger. I'm hoping the fusion would remove the need for me to drink blood," he said, and the request left the man's mouth hanging wide open at the sheer absurdity of how broken that fusion would be in practice.
"Okay..." the man said, visibly collecting himself before moving on. "You can pick what race you want to reincarnate into. There are elves, humans, dwarves, and many others," he said, still clearly reeling from the monstrous combination of abilities he had just granted the young man before him. If he had known what templates the young man had drawn from those cards... yeah, he wouldn't have offered him any cheats at all.
"Can I pick a dragon race fused with another race?" he asked, to which the man waved his hand, conjuring a detailed list of individuals who would be born with the dragon bloodline flowing through their veins.
"This one says dragon, demon, phoenix, human, and elf bloodline... is that right?" the young man asked, his brow furrowing in confusion at the sheer number of bloodlines packed into a single existence.
"Yes. That person you're looking at will most likely be born in the Zenith Empire. The Dragoon royal family, I believe," he said with a slight nod. Well — was there anything else that needed to be said? The young man had made his pick.