Ep. 36 – Second Adventure

The morning of the fourth day, the gang assembled and we started talking a little.

"So, should we start our adventure? Oh, and what kind of world should we visit?" I asked.

"I'm all ready to go on an adventure! As for the world… Maybe magic? Now that we know that magic is real in our universe, I kinda want to learn it." Said Weiss.

"I'm ready as well. I also think that magic would be nice. Or maybe sci-fi! Like, really advanced!" said Ruby.

"I'm fine with anything as long as it's an adventure with you." Said Yang shrugging.

"I think magic would be nice as well. Ozpin wanted to give me the Maiden's power but he never actually got to it. Feel like I missed out on something." Said Pyrrha.

Seeing as Jaune, Blake, Sun, Ren, and Nora agreed with magic as well, I will search with that. How? I have absolutely no idea. I will trust MoonRay and my luck. Yeah, I think I'll find a decent universe.

"Since everyone agrees, let's get some breakfast in the city, then I need to find an excuse to get the Vanguard off my neck for a bit. After that we zip right to a new universe." I said.

In the end, I decided to go with 'hands-on training for new Guardians' as my excuse. Since I told Cayde and Zavala first and they agreed, Ikora had to as well. Within two hours, we were given the green light to take off. We returned to that stretch of empty space from where I departed the first time.

"Today again, the captain invites you to fasten your seatbelts and wear your armor. The UJD is warming up, we will depart in approximately 3 minutes." I said. Weiss had a smile on her face, while Yang and Ruby were snickering. I'm trying to lighten up the mood. To them, this ship could explode at any given moment.

After three minutes, UJD was ready to go, so I started my countdown and made the jump.

This time, no one was knocked out, even though Jaune wasn't feeling exactly well.

"What do you guys think? You missed this scene the first time." I asked.

"It's… confusing but fantastic. Are all of those portals different universes?" asked Ren.

"Theoretically, there should also be parallel universes mixed in, so maybe one day we'll get to see the younger versions of yourselves fighting with Salem against Ozpin. That would be interesting. Who knows what can happen? MoonRay, scan the portals for an energy different from Aura and Light we are searching for either a pretty strong universe or a really weak one in terms of laws."

"Why a weak one?" asked Jaune

"Well, the strength MoonRay detects is based on something called laws. There are all sorts of laws, for example lightning, fire, darkness, light… A world with magic will either have a lot of neutral laws that can transform to suit the caster's needs or a lot of varied laws that will take form after some sort of action. For example fire law shaping into a fire ball. Theoretically, a magic universe is either really 'weak' or really 'strong' by our standards."

��Exactly! I found several universes that suit your needs, though I really wouldn't be able to say which one is appropriate." Said MoonRay

"Let me see…" 'Really strong universes should be the cultivation universes. We're not ready at all to go there, so they're out. The medium strength ones should be the classical fantasy worlds with sword and magic, hopefully something I know from anime or books. The really weak ones are out as well, except for those that have 'null' laws. Those are good but not great. The magic from those worlds would probably be weakened if there aren't enough 'null' laws in other universes. Worst case scenario, that magic would be completely useless and I can't have that.' "… These four universes look good. How about you guys pick?" I said and brought the four portals up on a display. After some discussion, which was basically which one they felt was 'nicer', it was decided that we would enter the second portal. In case the universe sucks, we can just start another jump.

MoonRay brought us in front of the portal as always.

"Ready?" I asked

"Ready!" everyone responded at the same time.

I started moving through the portal and space distorted. We ended up above a barren red planet.

"MoonRay, mind telling me why that planet looks a lot like Mars?"

"Well… It IS Mars. Just not our Mars. There is no Light, no Darkness, no Aura, nothing known. There is some sort of signal, but I can't identify it. It's probably whatever fuels magic in this universe." She said.

"Great! Mind scanning the solar system a minute? I want to know if there are aliens or something else we should worry about."

"Sure… Nope, nothing you should worry about. There are humans on Earth, though some have a particular bit of DNA in them. Those are probably magicians. The technology level seems to be between the 1980's and 1990's." Said MoonRay, pulling up the scans.

"You heard her. Should we go and check out the situation?" I asked my passengers.

"Of course we should, dear." Wiess said.

"Yup, I want to learn it quickly then search for something exciting!" Yang said

"Ooh, I want to make some friends! Summer, it will be exciting!" Ruby said, talking to her Ghost as well.

One by one, everybody agreed, so I flew towards Earth. I also cloaked the ship. Well, like in Remnant, the world will see a ball of flames coming from the sky, but they will never find the cause. Once I was directly above Europe, I asked MoonRay do display the concentration of those humans with magic on the map. They were all over the place.

"America, UK, France, Italy, Japan, India, a little bit everywhere. MoonRay, did your scans show the concentration of that magic you were talking about?"

"They sure do. I'll overlay the scan results now."

The new map showed that these magicians were mainly found where the highest concentrations of magic. 'These should be either leylines or maybe dungeons? There are a lot of possibilities…'

"Weiss, choose a number from 1 to 10 please."

"Hm… 4."

"Okay, 4 it is, which means, UK!"

"Wait, you were deciding on our destination?" she asked.

"Sure am. This universe has no particularly distinguishable features, so I don't know where we should head to. The UK had the fourth largest population of magicians, so we're going there. It should be fine! Should…" I said.

This Earth is identical to Earth in Destiny just in a different era. I really can't tell in which universe I am. There are a lot of novels and manga that portray a secret society of magicians on Earth, so I could be anywhere. There is also the Harry Potter saga.

If I had to place my bets on where we are, I would say we are either in the Nasuverse, which means I know nothing except for the Grail wars in Fuyuki, or in the Harry Potter universe since leylines would still fit, ambient magic could be produced by magical villages, which explains the distribution of magicians, and the time period checks out. To be honest, most of my knowledge on Harry Potter comes from FanFictions. I did see the movies a couple of times and read the books, but I had the memory of a goldfish, so I remember close to nothing apart from the general plot. Oh well, I'll deal with it later. By the way, I'd be happier if we ended up in the Harry Potter universe because objectively, after having just reviewed my memories, the magic was pretty useful, though not particularly deadly. Oh, and gathering knowledge on magical materials could be interesting.

Anyway, we descended upon London. I really wanted to mess with the people, so I moved closer to the Big Ben.

"Wait for me just a second." I said and trasmated outside on the wing. I moved closer to the 'hour' hand and moved it up two hours. I then trasmated back to the cockpit.

"Seriously?" asked Yang

"Seriously. Don't you think it'd be Yang-tastic to see everyone hurrying when they have two hours? Complete chaos, an entire day of work ruined! Oh, how devilish." I said.

"Pfft! It would sure make for a nice sight, but we should work on figuring out where we are. I want to learn magic. Oh, how well it would go with my glyphs." Said Weiss, trying to hold in her laughter.

I checked my map again and saw a few hundred magicians converging in one point here in London.

"MoonRay, do me a favor and watch what these guys do. I will go down and see if I can gather some info from the locals. You guys wait for me here. Culture-wise, I am the most suitable to mix in. We'll have time to tour the place once we know where we are." Saying that, I trasmated to the ground with my under-armor on. Yang came right behind me.

"I'm coming with you. We can act like tourists. Weiss, Ruby and the others will follow us on the ship." She said.

"Okay then my dear. We are a newlywed couple who came here for their honeymoon from a place called 'America'. Now, let us find someone who seems agreeable." I said, offering my hand to her. She happily held it and we started roaming around. I was looking around and noticed that my prank had misfired. Everybody was moving quickly thinking they were late, so no chance to stop anyone.

"How about a bookshop?" proposed Yang.

"Hm, yes. That will be faster than finding some random stranger on the streets. Look, there's one there." I said, pointing to a nice bookstore.

We entered the shop and were greeted by a middle-aged lady. I talked with her extracting info subtly. It's currently 1991, nothing supernatural is happening in the open. I casually dropped some names I knew could help me recognize the universe I am: from the magician families in the Nasuverse to Godric's Hollow in the Harry Potter universe and some in between. That's not important because, to my extreme joy, the woman had some kind of family member living in Godric's Hollow and died about ten years ago. What a fucking coincidence. I bought a couple of cookbooks and interesting adventure series Yang might like and paid with my usual kilo of gold, leaving a stunned woman at the counter.

After exiting the shop, I spoke to Yang.

"My dear, I know where we are and have enough info from this part of the world, should we head back?"

"Of course, my dear husband." She said.

We quickly went into an alley and trasmated back to the ship.

There, we were greeted by the gang.

"Ok, so here is what I found. It's 1991, basically a very retrograde version of my Earth. Magic officially doesn't exist, but there are incidents that can't be explained normally, though everyone just seems to accept the explanations given. I believe those incidents are caused by magic. Now, the only way I can come up with to actually learn magic is getting to the magicians."

"So they are hiding? I thought magicians would be at the top of society since, you know, they can bend reality with… The power of bullshit?" said Sun.

"Pfft! Y-yeah! I know, right? It's strange. Anyway, MoonRay, have you monitored those magicians on the map?" I said

"I did. They separated into basically two groups. One is currently traveling on top of a leyline, while the other left the place they met at. Some of them disappeared, so I am pretty sure they were magicians." She said.

"Perfect. If I have to guess, we might find something interesting if we follow the first group. The leyline leads to an accumulation point of magic, so there must be something."

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" said Pyrrha.

And so, our first adventure together started, in the search for magic in the Harry Potter universe. One sole problem remained: 'How the fuck do I convince the old goat-fucker to let us study magic? Well, I don't really need him to study magic, but Hogwarts would be a good HQ.'