NOVEL NEXT Chapter 9: Sanctum
Although it did take longer and longer to level up skills the higher level they were, when you spend a year grinding just a handful of skills, it didn't take long for them to be maxed out. My first skill that reached LVL: MAX, aside from Gamer's Mind, was [Concealment].
[Concealment] LVL: MAX
Your presence is near-impossible to detect.
With this, I was finally ready for my first plan of action since my rebirth.
You see, I had realised that even if I had a laundry list of things I wanted to do, items, technologies and knowledge I wanted to acquire, the biggest thing holding me back was my age.
Due to my age, my combat prowess was severely limited, due to my [Toddler] debuff. Additionally, my interactions with society was likewise constrained by the appearance of my young age.
Hence, I had thought of a solution that would kill two birds with one stone - I had to learn magic!
The potential of the Mystic Arts in the Marvel universe was near endless. And the potential of the Gamer System was limitless. Together, not even I could foresee the untold possibilities.
So the question came down to where I could possibly learn magic? Well, the answer was obvious.
I lived in New York City. And very coincidentally, the Sanctum Sanctorum was also located in New York City.
Now, there was one route I could take, which was to formally visit the Sanctum Santorum and ask the Ancient One to take me in as a disciple. However I did not do so for two reasons.
I could not predict the Ancient One's reaction to my existence. The current generation's Sorcerer Supreme was an ageless being who had in her possession the Eye of Agamotto, aka the Time Stone, and have spent centuries peering through time to glimpse future events.
Put simply, she knew the future that I knew, the one that had been in the movies. However, I was an anomaly. Lee Jae Sung was not a person who would have known anything about the Masters of the Mystic arts if not for my reincarnation in his body.
How would The Ancient One react to an anomaly?
This was not something I could deduce, and therefore I was not willing to take this risk. My anonymity was an advantage I was not willing to surrender. Letting even one other individual know about my special abilities was one too many.
Before I grew sufficiently strong enough to proclaim myself as the strongest on Earth, nay, the strongest in the Milky Way Galaxy, I would not want to reveal my existence to the world.
Which was why, I planned to treat the New York Sanctum as my public magic library with my newly maxed out [Concealment] skill. Slipping in without making a commotion, taking a quick trip to their magical library and studying magic right under their noses. I wouldn't even need to spend much time doing so since my INT stat had drastically improved my ability to speed read and memorise.
The average adept took years, or even decades to become proficient in using magic and spells. Doctor Strange took months to become a Master in the Mystic Arts. Me? I would take days, and at most weeks.
The difference in my capacity to not only memorize but completely comprehend what I've read before and after my INT stat rose into the thousands was like the distance between Heaven and Earth. I now had a near-eidetic memory that could effortlessly recall all that I've seen or heard. If my previous memory capacity was like a wet sandcastle, it was now akin to a seamless fortress made of steel.
This was also why I could very clearly remember the details in the Marvel movies that I last saw years ago. Details such as the address of the New York Sanctum for example.
177A Bleecker Street, Greenwich Village, New York City.
Greenwich Village wasn't far from my preschool in Park Slope. Oh yes, I was in preschool now. I had forgotten all about the fact that children actually had to go to school. Well, it was only preschool, but still.
We mostly learnt our alphabets and numbers. There was also story time, finger painting and nap time! Yes, so it was incredibly fascinating and educational!
All jokes aside though, the preschool experience was about as mentally stimulating as staring at dying paint post-lobotomy.
Though I did manage to generate a new skill [Artistry] after doing a few finger paintings, I had been looking for a way to get out of preschool. I knew that I was at a dangerous risk of blowing my brains out before Thanos could even snap me out of existence if I had to do another fucking finger painting.
And so, I began using concealment liberally while I was at Preschool. I often hid from the teachers, who were basically glorified nannies. I called it hiding but I was basically just sitting in the corner of the room with a book while under the effects of [Concealment]. The teachers would not be able to find me even if I stood right in front of their eyes.
I cultivated a reputation as a mischievous kid who loved to hide, and after a few months, the teachers started to get less and less worried when I disappeared, assuming that I was just hiding somewhere like always. Which gave me the opportunity to play hooky and take a cab to the New York Sanctum.
The cab ride was free by the way. I used my level 4 [Acting] skill to convince the cab driver that I was lost and needed a ride home. Some crocodile tears and Oscar-worthy performance, though considering my age perhaps a Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award would be more fitting, and voila, I got a free taxi ride to Greenwich Village.
Now, I found myself standing outside 177A Bleecker Street, aka the New York Sanctum. It was a three-story Victorian-style brownstone townhouse built in the French Baroque architecture design with a Mansard roof. Yes, I did read books on architectural design as well, during my year long tenure at Parkslope Public Library.