Prolouge

Chapter-1

"What the fuck?" 

I looked at my own self in the mirror. What I saw was not the usual 18-year-old having an existential crisis after graduating.

But in the mirror was me, just a bit younger, possibly by a year or two.

"How am I young again?" I asked while touching my own face. I had some pimples and a few strands of beard which looked like they just started to grow.

"I can still feel things….. So is this a dream?" I asked myself while touching my body. They were a bit muscular, similar to what I had when I used to work out.

"No, before that, where am I?" I looked around the room I was in. 

"What kind of inception shit is this?"

It was dimly lit, but I easily recognised that it was indeed my room. But lots of things were different, like the different colour lamp and the absence of my precious S24 Ultra that I bought just a few days ago.

"What is happening? Was my whole life just a dream?" I got off my bed and left my room to search for my parents.

*Clink* A sound of a glass clinking game from my pocket.

I put my hand inside my pocket to take out whatever made the sound, and to my surprise, it was a small vial of some liquid inside.

The moment I put my eyes on the vial, I felt something was wrong.

I can feel it. 

Something far beyond my understanding was going on and I had no idea what it was.

I inspected the vial and found a note attached to the side of it. I pulled it out and read what was written on it.

'Drink it to know'

"What does this even mean?" I was confused, what the hell did it mean by that.

"Is it even safe to drink?" I mulled over that thought.

While it really felt like a bad idea to drink it, at the same time I felt like some invisible force was guiding my hands to gulp down the vial. Or I was just going crazy.

Honestly it could have been either of these.

"Should I just sleep and hope that this was all a dream?" I asked myself.

But the vial in my hand was… seductive.

"Umm…" I took a gulp and slowly opened the lid of the vial.

I took it closer to my nose and sniffed the lid but weirdly enough, there was no smell to it and after liking it, I found that it had no taste either.

"So, no other way than to drink it huh?" 

I looked at the colourless liquid inside the vial. It looked no different from water but the mystery behind its appearance in this weird dream makes me more and more reluctant to drink it.

"What would Batman do?"

If Batman was even in a situation like this he'd probably keep the liquid with him and not drink it…

I was about to put the lid back on the liquid but I stopped. 

The temptation was too much for my will to overcome, like having 1600 primogems and I ain't no batman. 

And what if I wake up? I'd never known the taste of this liquid forever

I put the vial on my lips and took a gulp of the liquid, unlike what I expected, the liquid tastes like nothing. Even after I drank it my mouth was still a bit dry. 

Almost making me believe this was just a dream.

The keyword being almost because like the note said, I finally understood what the 'know' meant.

It was an essence, essence of Gacha to be specific.

As the essence went down my stomach, spreading through my being as it went down, the rules and possibilities of the essence entered my head. 

The moment the essence merged with my whole being, I came to know everything about it.

It was now my own power, mine only to command and control.

I can feel the change in my body… no, specifically the change in me.

Something changed forever.

I was flabbergasted, no words formed on my mind which was filled with awe and shock of the sheer wonder that just happened.

I closed my eyes and tried to reach for the 'change', the essence which was new inside me. I already knew how to use it using the info it gave me. Apparently I can choose how the gacha will appear.

The roulette kind or a lucky wheel…

But my mind instantly went to the wishing system of Genshin the moment I thought of Gacha and naturally I chose it.

A screen appeared inside my mind, I wasn't able to see it with my eyes, but I was still able to 'see' it inside my mind and command it mentally. Almost like I was imagining it.

The essence of Gacha… which is a mouthful so I'll call it Gacha from now on, is a cosmic entity. A parasite of sorts, its origin is unclear to me but I can feel its existence in me.

It's not alive but It's definitely not a thing…. The only thing I can compare it to is a star or similar celestial bodies.

There are a lot of rules to this gacha concerning its rewards and cost.

The rules can be simplified like this:

The rewards gained are fully random and unaffected by any and all concepts like probability, order or chaos.

The rewards gained, be it people, items, powers all are under the control of me. In the case of people, I have the full capability of controlling the mind of them as long as my will is stronger than theirs. They will follow my order as long as it's within their character. In an item's case, I can make it unusable whenever I want. Though in the case of powers, I have a limited level of such control if it and if I choose to give it to someone else, I lose full control of it.

There are some special kinds of items present in the rewards which include things like, power amplifiers and modifiers, appearance modifiers, personality modifiers. They can be used only once, hence I decided to call them consumables. 

People type cards can be used as a summon or I can assimilate with them if I want to.

Each roll or pull can be performed by consuming 1 gacha point. 

1 gacha point can be exchanged for 100$ which is calculated using whatever I consider as expensive, but not too expensive. If I knew this would happen, I'd have brainwashed myself into believing a penny is too much.

10 GP, short for Gacha Points can be spent to perform a 11 pull which gives an extra reward. The extra card will be guaranteed to be useful in accordance with my subconscious.

2GP can be spent to pull for an item from a specific category, the same way 20 GP can be spent for 10 pulls of a specific category.

Each day one can generate 1GP.

It won't give me stuff that is useless like sand or cloth. How does it work? Even I search for that answer.

The reward will be stored in inventory, but taken out of inventory it can be stored back in the Gacha inventory.

A reward can be exchanged back for a minimum value of 1GP. And according to the worth of the card to me, it can be exchanged for even more.

Time, space, life, death, none of these affect the Gacha. Even if I die and am resurrected, the Gp will stay the same as when I die. The same goes for time. If I jump 10 days to the future, the Gp will be the same. The only thing that matters is my age. If I aged a day, I'll get a GP.

That's basically it. 

Oh and there's a status screen present too for some reason. Maybe it's a must for all broken powers?

"Status" I called out and a screen appeared on my mind, similar to Gacha screen this screen also acted the same.

[ Name: Victor Bane

 Age:17

 GP: 0

 Species: Human

 Powers: 

 -None

 Summoned Characters:

 -None

 Character Assimilation

 -Assimilated Character: None

-In Progress: [Empty]

 Inventory: [Empty]

]

Woah… I kinda expected stats like strength or luck. Well to be expected of a Gacha stats I guess? Better than nothing.

So by my calculations, I can have approximately 30GP per month. Giving me 33 pulls each month if I pull only the 10 pulls. And honestly that's the smart option.

And from the looks of this, I don't seem to be in a dream or something either. Did I really regress? I thought it was an old Manhwa trope which is re-used more than toothpaste. Not that I hate it, I'm all for it, after all I just look at the pictures most of the time.

Still this is my life from now huh?

Kinda sad when I think about it… all the friends, relationships and experience I gained all gone to dust.

The essence didn't just provide me with the knowledge of how the Gacha works, but also the knowledge about this world… more specifically, the marvel world.

This is not my original world, though my family here is the same… they're not the same. All the memories I now have of this world are similar to mine, but there are a lot of different things, from different schools to different people and friends.

At least my parents and family are the same, in a way. I can only take it and move on, like what can I even do? I'm literally in a world which is nothing but a fantasy. All of this could be a fantasy of someone too… or even my fantasy and I just got into a coma or something.

The memories all are now colliding into each other and to be frank… I can tell the difference between my parents in this world and my previous one. They are so goddamn similar.

I can only hope that this is my original world and I just happen to get the memories of my other self or I'm a copy of the original me who's still sleeping in that world.

Or is already dead… after all time passed in that world could be more than I can even comprehend.

To be honest I'm not even surprised by the fact I'm in a fictional universe, after all that has happened I won't be surprised to even see god now.

"What's going to be my life now?" I stared at the ceiling and asked myself.

I honestly have no idea how to carry on with life, I thought the lost feeling after graduation was bad, but this feeling now is much worse.

"And I still haven't graduated in this world too…" I groaned and put a pillow over my face.

I feel… bad. I'm not even crying… is that bad?

Did I not love my previous world? My parents?

But they're still here, just a few metres away in the next room specifically.

Some of my friends are no more in this world, but I never really had a good relationship with them so I don't feel so sad.

That goes both ways too, I have no real friends in this verse either… well except a girl or a guy who talks to me in discord sometimes in this world.

Once again I'm truly alone huh? Not a great feeling… but a familiar one. The last time I felt like this was when a relationship had ended.

"No! Cheer up Victor! This is a new beginning, don't be sad!" I slapped my face and started to cheer myself up while looking at the mirror. That's when I noticed a red envelope from the corner of my eye.

It was the money the aunt next door gave me for New Year!

I picked up the envelope and tore it open without hesitation to get the money from inside. It was as if fate was by my side, as inside it was a $100 bill.

"Maybe I am lucky?" I chucked and mentally thanked aunt Cass. She was not in my old world and if she was, then I wouldn't have dated any girl in my school.

Though I call her aunt, I have a huge crush on her. She gives off more of an older sister vibe and runs a cafe nearby. 

And she's crazy hot and is the reason my balls dropped. Maybe I have a chance in a year?

Putting aside my unholy thoughts, I mentally commanded and activated my power of Gacha, and like any true Gacha, my money disappeared without leaving behind a single trace.

"There goes 100$ from the US economy" I chuckled at my own joke and turned up the gacha screen.

Now I have 1 GP. Which is not much but I can now test if this thing works right?

"Hopefully with this my genshin addiction could go away" I said while thinking of whether to wait for an extra day and roll for a specific category like power or weapon.

I used the only GP I have and pulled like usual. The asteroid fell from the sky and revealed what I got in the form of a card.

[Nolan Greyson]

"PFFFFTTTT!" I was utterly shocked at what I got.

I looked again just to see if I saw right.

"So I wasn't twerking…" 

I saw nothing wrong, it was indeed Omni-motherfucking-man that I got. A literal god…Did I jinx myself back then? Fuck If I knew better I'd said something as Goku or Saitama.

"Still this is not bad… but I sure as hell don't have a stronger will than him to control his mind and summoning a guy who lived for thousands of years hoping that he won't kill me isn't the best idea."

And I'm in marvel, a world with dangers that is on the same level as the powers around. So use it in dwelling on it any longer.

I put the card on one of the assimilation slots. After all, in the end, 

"Personal power is the best power." I probably quoted Sun Tzu.

But strangely I felt no difference, almost like nothing changed.

So I checked the status screen.

-In Progress: [Nolan Greyson- 0.0001% completed ]

??

Is this a fucking joke? 

Just how long will assimilating take? Years? What's the point if I die before it even reaches 10%!?

Well, 10% of Omni-man is still probably enough to fold half of the heroes or villains, but that's it. Just half, the rest will whoop my ass in all 4 directions.

If I got unlucky with my enemies, my ass could even be whooped across planets and dimensions.

Though, with gacha that's highly unlikely if I'm lucky like this. Just imagine if I got Saitama on my second pull? I stop pulling Gacha for the rest of my life if that happens.

Hope I jinx this.

Just how long will this take.

-In Progress: [Nolan Greyson- 0.0001% completed ]

-In Progress: [Nolan Greyson- 0.0002% completed ]

Woah, it went up.

Maybe I'll get to like 1% by the morning.

And there's only one way to find out. 

To wait till the morning.

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