Half a minute later, they had dimmed back to the original level.
"I should have known .....".
I knew there would be restrictions. At least, I wasn't expecting invincibility to be granted to me.
So I didn't think that far and consciously lowered my standards.
"Reality Warping".
Silence.
"Kryptonian bloodline".
There was no response. No reaction whatsoever.
That wasn't surprising. I was just testing the waters.
"Rinnegan". Still no reply.
"Infinite Copying".
"."
"One stat point per second?"
".."
"Eternal Mangekyo". Finally, there was a change. I could feel it, a slight nudge from the void that lasted for a split second.
Like in a Warmer/ Colder game. In this case, I was getting warmer.
I frowned with a bit of thought.
"Three tomoe Sharingan".
It happened then. The light screen once again appeared before me, but instead of words, what I could see was a loading bar that was almost filled to the brim with green light.
Slightly below, was a confirmation button that would most likely finalize my choice.
Numerous thoughts ran through my mind as I returned my gaze to the loading bar. It was almost full. Although there was no percentage, I would assume it was somewhere between eighty-eight to ninety-five percent.
So apparently, all the stuff I called earlier was way beyond what the loading bar could carry. In that case, my wish perk must not exceed this.
I thought hard for a few seconds before trying again.
"Mangekyo". The green light disappeared completely, leaving nothing but an empty bar. Sure enough, the restriction was set to this point.
Even a defective Mangekyo was too much. So the wish basically couldn't accommodate the pupil techniques that would be spawned in both eyes.
The frown on my face deepened. Even if it could fit mangekyo, the fact that the eyes would go blind after continuous usage was not pleasing to the ears.
It was basically a consumable. And there was no way you wouldn't consume it.
If not, then what was the point of getting it in the first place? Furthermore, there was another problem.
No Chakra. Eyes without chakra would be useless. Like a sports car with no fuel.
The wish might accommodate it to be used on Chi instead based on where I'm going. But ... There laid another concern.
How exactly was I going to appear there?
If it was reincarnation, then there might still be a possibility. But if I was going to be dropped there like this …. Then could my body even harness chi? Did it possess it?
If it did, how much would I have? How much would be needed to actually use the defective eye and if it wasn't enough, would my chi grow? Or would it stay stagnant?
If my body did not, then the issue was right there. No chi, the wish was basically useless. As for whether the eyes would even work with chi instead of chakra ... That was also another concern. A risk I wasn't sure I should take.
Then there was also the issue of how much chi I would be able to harness at my peak. Like Kakashi who didn't even have enough chakra to use Mangekyo for more than a single move.
Then ..... He was basically exhausted right after.
"Sigh!"
I sighed wearily for a second. Then energetically began pondering other abilities the next.
A pair of nice eyes wasn't the only thing I could get, after all.
From my long experience of reading novels, I guessed that the limit of the wish should be something akin to the world's laws.
Perhaps it couldn't accommodate something beyond its power scale, or something too foreign.
Of course, I could be wrong here. Currently experiencing the difficulty of no instruction manual for this thing.
Wait! Power beyond the world's level? An idea clicked in my mind as I immediately put it into action. Experimenting with the loading bar to see just exactly what the criteria for selection were.
And so, I began a new round of testing.
"Super strength".
Nothing changed on the light screen, but I felt something from the void. Just like before, but this time, it was different.
I could understand what it was trying to portray to me. In two simple words ..... How much.
My eyes brightened again as I discovered a new possibility.
"Superman level strength".
".." Nothing happened.
"Superboy level strength". Nothing still happened.
"Super soldier serum".
Finally, a reaction.
The loading bar lit up once again, filling move than half of it. I'm assuming sixty plus percentages.
"Speed of Sound".
"..". No movement.
"Iroh level firebending". I estimated about fifty-five percent was taken up.
"Mark one Iron Man armor .....".
"Density shifting….".
"Accelerated healing .....".
"Heat vision ...".
"Size manipulation .....".
"Invisibility...".
"Impure world reincarnation .....".
Time passed. And I finally discovered the parameters to understand the rules guiding the wish.
Basically, the wish equated to immediate combat power. The more powerful the thing I asked for, the more percentages it would eat up. If it exceeded the percentage bar, It would just return to zero.
Second, anything wished for would be tweaked to fit the world I was going to. So there was no need to worry about different energy sources not being able to power the wish if need be.
I guess this was a small perk on its own.
And now, I was about to discover the third rule. If the percentages equate to the combat power, then what about something that grants no immediate combat power but could grow more powerful later on?
"Azula's Firebending affinity".
I uttered while watching the loading bar light up with green color intently.
A moment later, I found a small grin appearing on my face as I watched with inner elation.
Thirty percent .... Or, at least that was my conservative estimation. Honestly, I'm not sure if it was even up to that much, but the bar certainly didn't reach half.
If I really had to take a guess, I was going to throw in a twenty-five percent at best.
Then ....
"Aang's Airbending affinity ...". It was roughly the same. Perhaps slightly smaller than the last one. Almost unnoticeable if I wasn't wrong, but still.
"Iroh's bending affinity". Another one came out. Noticeably smaller than the other two which was a bit surprising.
Compared to iroh's bending ability, the talent to achieve it was much smaller than I expected. Which basically confirmed my thoughts.
The wish criteria was based on immediate combat power. If that wasn't my criteria, I would be able to exchange for several abilities that would pay off in the long run
Too bad, the healing factor of Deadpool and wolverine, while not combat based were too outrageous. Like the others, they didn't appear at all on the loading bar.
Any form of healing that even came close to regenerating a severed limb was also out of the question.
I already worked up a possible combination.
Azula's Firebending affinity, Batman's combat talent, Uzumaki bloodline and lastly, enhanced comprehension or faster nerve reaction speed. I checked using the loading bar.
With a few adjustments, all of them could be crammed in to make such wish a reality.
And with as little as five years of training, I could become as strong a bender as Iroh, Ozai and Jeong Jeong if I started at the age of five.
This was also a conservative estimate, accounted for due to the possible rebirth conditions. E.g, being born in a poor home or in the wrong nation.
In less than ten years, becoming as strong a bender as Roku and Sozin at their peak wasn't out of the question.
Mastering heat manipulation, Lightning bending and perhaps a variation of combustion bending was also possible.
A fifteen-year-old with the strength of Avatar Roku. Roku's bending experience at his prime, given to anyone else could constitute an inferior avatar state.
I also thought of something similar.
"When there's a will, there's a way". I tried it spontaneously. As a result, the experience bar reached a full eighty plus percent.
It came to me from the thoughts of my past life and similar to the above-mentioned, it was a potential type ability. Basically, as long as you are willing to work hard, you will receive the fruits of your labor.
A regular person could be a master swordsman, a great inventor, a master engineer with enough time. If you could bend, a master bender as well.
With every passing day, you could get better and stronger as long as you were willing to put in the grit.
No need to worry about wasting your time and energy on a fruitless endeavor.
Almost defying the boundaries of talent.
Something simply tailor-made for people like Guy and Rock Lee. It was almost akin to Saitama's training exercise.
Continuously exercise and become stronger. However, this one had heavier limitations.
It was slower than regular talent and needed accumulation over time to create actual results. Until you can catch up with geniuses through your own efforts.
This has greater potential than the former combination but wasn't feasible and would take longer. Much longer.
As while, it could defy talent, it couldn't change it. Plus, the physical condition must be put into account as well.
Too much training without a proper self-healing factor would damage the body.
Which would lead to internal injuries, which would lead to disabilities.
If you grew old, then the effect would decline. You couldn't continue to grow stronger when your physical functions were declining.
And if you didn't have even the minimum qualifications to learn it, then it wouldn't work, no matter what you did.
A non bender couldn't become a firebender through consistent practice. At least a trace of firebending DNA, no matter how thin, was needed within your genes.
It was the kind of skill that was best paired with an immortality perk. The older you get, the more demonic you become.
For long-term growth, both options were good for consideration. However, a problem suddenly occurred.
That was …. I didn't have time to wait. If it were before I picked the timeframe, then I would have selected to go back in time, ten to fifteen years with one of these two or thought of something with similar potential.
As for the risks of being born in dangerous locations of the earth Kingdom ... I could grit my teeth and take a calculated risk.
But ...
99 AG. It was already selected.
If it were in the main avatar series, then perhaps I could, but this was an AU I wrote myself.
Aang wasn't going to defeat Ozai. Hence, if I wanted to live a peaceful life, that job automatically fell on my shoulders.
I must prepare myself for the eventual possibility that I might have to kill the Fire Lord in Aang's place.
I couldn't gamble on potential and play the long game. I needed an advantage that could be transformed into immediate combat power in a matter of weeks, months, at most a year.
With that, my options immediately narrowed. And removing things that were too powerful, my options narrowed even further.
When the experimentation was over, I realized that it was a lot harder to choose than I initially thought.
First thing first, long term potential abilities are ruled out.
Next, using the full loading bar solely on physical increase was similarly ruled out.
It is unclear to me why but for some reason, wishes that pertained to body strength increase, speed increase, defense increase and self-healing were quite costly. While things akin to information, knowledge and talent had better cost price.
Investing the full thing into a single one of these, while it would make me far stronger, was nowhere near enough.
I would be able to lift a few tons if I put it all in strength but without the other corresponding body attributes, I would be too single and easy to target.
Too much defense wasn't going to work either.
Speed ... Similarly restrictive. There was a limit to how much you could lift if your muscles couldn't support the weight.
The same way, increasing speed without sufficient ability to resist could destroy my legs if I ran too fast.
My brain reaction also needed to be boosted to keep up.
Without the speed of sound at the minimum, something the wish was unwilling to give, I found it inadvisable.
Once those types were ruled out, I found myself with numerous choices. Come to think of it, it still didn't seem to have decreased one bit.
Another thing I noticed was that abilities that required a form of energy to use were considerably cheaper. Unlike the X-Men whose bodies didn't follow the law of conservation of energy. So, I focused in that direction.
"If I want to get anything good, I need chi ... But directly asking for enough of it will cost too much and be counterproductive .... So ..... Instead of getting it for myself ….". My eyes lit up again for the third time.
"I'll get something that can get it from others".
My initial thought was to ask for something similar to the Uzumaki bloodline for chi. But that would either cost too much or take too much time to gain enough of it.
In that case, get something that can steal it from others.
Something immediately came to mind.
"Chakra absorption technique...". In the Naruto world, there were many types of chakra absorption techniques.
People like Hoshigake Kisame, The sound Ninja that fought Sasuke, Orochimaru's minion Jirobo, the aburame clan's Kaikachu, Samehada and First hokage Senju hashirama had techniques that could absorb the chakra of others.
However, the absorption all had something in common. That is, it wasn't permanent.
I wasn't sure of this as there wasn't much explanation on chakra absorption techniques. If not, then the sound Ninja who used it in the chunin exam should have been targeted if it could permanently add chakra.
The other methods more or less had attached tags that enabled them to do so. Such as First Hokage's word style. Aburame clan Kaikachu bugs being insects and Samehada being a living sword and all.
I couldn't afford any of these right now. So ..... Add a word at the beginning.
"Permanent Chakra absorption technique".
A technique that didn't belong to the Avatar world appeared, taking up about twenty percent of my loading bar.
Like I said, information and knowledge-based abilities took less.
The energy problem was solved. Next, I wanted something for defense.
Since I couldn't drastically improve my constitution to the point of being impervious to the elements, or improve my speed to be fast enough to outrun them, then I needed another way to effectively avoid attacks aimed at me.
In Avatar, blood benders existed. Although not many, Hama and Katara were blood benders.
Even if their bending was heavily restricted, even if they could only do so on a full moon, no one would feel comfortable knowing that someone had the potential to control you like a puppet.
I was no different.
Even Aang in his youth was helpless against Hama's blood bending. He could only escape blood bending later on with the power of the Avatar state, channeling huge amounts of cosmic chi.
Even if I absorbed the chi of the entire world, I doubt it would be enough to match Aang who had Raava. He was basically the Avatar version of Naruto with nine tails.
There was also air bending capable of taking the air out of someone's lungs.
Nobody in this stage could harness such power, but I will be taking precautions nonetheless.
After thinking for a long time, I could only come up with four possible solutions after eliminating others.
One, Kamui.
Two, teleportation.
Three, Density shifting
Four, making myself immune to bending in general.
As for why I didn't just make myself a waterbender ... Bloodbending was outrageously expensive. I checked. Even the potential to achieve it like Amon and Tarlok took up more than half of the loading bar.
Back to selections.
Number four is automatically scratched out. Too difficult to achieve.
One was next. Kamui was too expensive.
That left teleportation and density shifting.
Full-fledged teleportation was impossible. At most, I could teleport in short flashes within a twenty to thirty-meter radius at most.
Density shifting .... That was more doable. Moving through solid objects, changing your body density making it immune to air, heat and blood bending, as well as the ability to dodge both physical and elemental attacks.
Aside from Kamui, it was perfect for me.
However, as the principle ability of Martians and a certain mutant girl, it was also expensive.
Too much for me to afford on its own. If this was going to be my perk, then I had to make it count.
And for the first time in my lifetime, I was glad I studied economics in college.
"Density shifting requiring large amounts of Chi to perform. Can't change the physical strength of the body or harden it in any way. Can't change the density of objects more than half my total body weight. Any additional will increase the Chi requirement greatly".
This was another thing I discovered. I could place and remove restrictions on the wish object itself.
For example, I could ask for a perfect devil fruit. Or, I could ask for a heavily weakened kryptonian bloodline.
But even the weakest kryptonian bloodline was not something my wish would allow.
Anyway, the density shifting of Martian Manhunter and the mutant girl didn't obey the laws of conservation of energy. This was what made it so outrageously expensive.
What I tailor-made for myself did.
And so, another sixty plus percentage was taken out, leaving less than twenty percent for my final choices.
Now I had an auxiliary control technique for chi which in some ways could serve as an attacking technique.
I had something suitable for defense as well.
Now, in this world of bending the elements, I needed stable attack power. The higher, the better. As well as something that could give me the ability to best the avatar in a battle if need be.
However, with the pitiful amount of loading space I had left, I doubted I'd be able to find such a thing.
Honestly, I really wanted a Susanoo at the moment. Or an Amaterasu, tsukyuomi, Reverse Kamui, laser vision, telekinesis, a nine tails, flame control to make me the natural enemy of all firebenders, something particularly offensive that could allow me to fight a whole nation by myself.
However, I couldn't afford any of that. So I settled for the best thing I could get.
"As much Chi control ability as the rest can give me".
<< Confirm your choices >>
[Density Shifting: Ability to move through solid objects]
[Permanent Chi Absorption: Absorb Energy From Others]
[Enhance Chi Manipulation: Greatly Enhanced control of Chi above with any human can achieve ]
Hearing this, I immediately hit the confirmation button.
<< Selection confirmed, would you like to avail? >>
'Yes'.
And like that, everything disappears.
My consciousness fades, and when I wake up, I find myself laying down on a charred sandy ground, looking at the cloudy sky with a bit of grogginess in my eyes.
"Where Am I?"
....
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