Once the Undersider were completely and utterly handled things continued going forward. Since Lisa was no longer needed here he dragged her toward Coil's base so she could get a handle on it. He brought along the unconscious Coil with them as she deserved to have her prize within her eyesight.
That and he did not want to leave Coil in the Undersiders' hands even if he got a handle on the majority of them. Brian was still pretty finicky and he might take the opportunity to retreat with Coil in hopes that he would follow through on his promise.
So the overdramatic Bond villain in the making was going to stick around with him for the most part. Cole was currently sitting on the couch in Coil's office and was using Coil's body as a leg rest as he relaxed.
Lisa was tapping away at the computer muttering to herself as she drew on her powers to make sure she was making the right moves. She was pretty focused on that but she did shoot an envious look his way as she too wanted to use Coil as a footstool as she worked.
Which was not in the cards as being the boss came with some perks. Since he now had some downtime he opened up his System and just stared at the baffling amount of energy for a moment. He knew that it was going to be quite a lot since he was effectively throwing canon into the deep end by this point but it was still shocking.
Seeing the frankly crazy energy values he decided to take a risk. He knew that one of the words he had access to had a fellow System user and that guy would likely have the best stuff so he tried to target him.
Only to be completely and utterly shocked when he got a negative response. He figured targeting the things provided by the System would be too much but he could not even afford to target the System User with the vast amount of energy he had.
[Of course, the host can not steal from that man. The Perfect Template System would protect its own items when it is blatantly targeted. The first theft was humiliating enough for the Perfect Template System after all. You can only steal from other Systems in a blind theft as it blindsided both the Theft System and the Targeted System.]
Cole's System helpfully explained. Which was kind of shocking. It had been a long time since he had heard from the thing after all. He was begging to think that the System had fucked off to do something else.
[The Host had a handle on the System's functions and no longer needed guidance. The Host did not bring up any other issues they might be facing and the System did not have any input on your mating rituals.]
Cole blinked at the words being thrown at him. He understood that the System was going to keep quiet since he did not really ask it anything. He was also going to ignore the comment about the mating ritual as getting into that with an AI seemed like a pointless effort.
Cole frowned as he tried to figure out anything else he might have overlooked since he had time to think. The problem with that was he overlooked stuff in the first place because he could not recognize its value so thinking more about it was not going to be helpful.
Well, there was the fact that Systems were apparently rather difficult to steal from. He wondered if there were other things that met that level of difficulty.
[God's can be tricky depending on their power levels and their Domains. Beings that might as well be gods are also incredibly difficult to steal from. If an item has some sort of sentience it increases the energy values as well if at a much-reduced rate in comparison to difficult targets.]
The System explained again. That was good to know even if he could have put that together rather quickly. He would question why it was so easy to steal Powers from the Shards in comparison but it made sense.
While powerful Shards were not anywhere close to Gods as most of them fucked around with concepts. Most of the things Shards did was Dimensional fuckery, Math, and the Biology of various alien creatures. Powerful but not you die because I say so powerful.
Okay since the System was off the table what should he steal? Jujutsu Kaisen was a good target as always as it had a wide power pool and some of those abilities would be pretty broken here. The issue was if he kept spending all of his energy on JJK then he would never open up more powerful worlds.
Shaman King runs into the same issue and it is doubled as he does not really know all that much about the setting. Which kind of left him in a bind.
He had been wanting to take Viktor's power for a long time but he had crossed that off the list as it might draw attention from Papa Space Whale.
Stealing from Trickster was fine since the guy's power came from a dead shard but Viktor was very much a live trigger. It was just not worth the effort even if the guy's power meshed very well with his system. It was not like he was having issues collecting energy so far.
It had been less than a week and he had already pushed his pool far higher than he thought possible. On the other side of the coin, he had kind of pushed over the sand castle that was Canon by this point.
Cole let out a sigh that startled Lisa for a moment but he decided to just do a blind theft to calm himself.
[World Selected]
[Theft in process]
[Theft successful]
[The Theft System has stolen the Technique Perfected Ultra Instinct from the User Cognac.]
[Comment from Victim: Well, this is interesting. This has never happened before. I wonder how all of this works. Zeno-sama might find some amusement from this.]
[Would you like to leave a comment.]
Cole froze at the screen before him. He was just bemoaning not having access to any of the high-tier worlds and this just gets dropped into his lap. On the other hand, he just stole ULTRA FUCKING INSTINCT FROM AN ANGEL!
Since they were in a completely different multiverse cluster he should be fine but he was still worrying a lot. When people talk about powerful verses Dragon Ball gets thrown around constantly. He got access to that reality now and he even got a terribly effective move for the low low cost of a blind steal.
Well, Ultra Instinct was not that crazy when he thought about it. It just made him capable of reacting and acting at the very peak of his body. Currently that was still at the levels of a very squishy human. Sure, now he could dodge with supernatural grace but he could still be speed blitzed by Velocity.
The good thing about UI was that it scaled with him. So if he became more and more powerful the move would still retain its usefulness. He did not have to worry about the stamina drain as he had Perfected UI from the angels.
Well since DBZ was open he might as well get the most powerful move. As he thought it over he got a big fat X again. That made sense as Hakai would be a powerful ability and it was basically stealing from gods for the most part.
He tried to think over other techniques that might have worked out but none really reached the potential that Hakai represented. The other KI techniques also required KI which was not something he had. This meant he had to steal a KI pool and then control that pool to get a beam that might hurt Endbringers. Sure, Kamahamaha was powerful but it was just energy in the end so it was not going to kill the Space Whale as it hid across multiple dimensions.
He could steal the knowledge that Doctor Jirou had and make a android to fight the Space Whale but while they were powerful they ran into the same issue that certain KI blasts hit. Bulma might be more effective as she was able to make a literal time machine but was that worth spending energy on?
The way time travel worked with that thing was not really time travel more like parallel word travel which was fine but not that needed. He would still be stuck in this world cluster and the Golden Morning would eventually happen.
Maybe with Jirou's IQ coupled with Bulma's and their pool of knowledge, he could think up a solution but that was a maybe. He would be better off getting a handle on his cursed energy and stealing something like Idle Transfiguration.
The more he thought about what he could steal from DBZ the more frustrated he got. There were just so many possibilities but at the same time, the abilities seemed to have drawbacks that were hard to take care of.
For example, Hit could use Time Skip. Meaning he could cut the time between actions. Say he threw a punch he could cut the time between when he threw it and when it landed. Making it almost impossible to dodge as the time in which you could quite literally did not exist.
The issue with that move was that Hit could only cut a tenth of a second, which was fantastic for a person who could move fast enough to not be visible to the naked eye but next to useless for him. That was not even taking in how difficult it would be to steal.
Sure, he figured it was well within his budget but it would definitely sink almost all of his reserves for an ability he could not use.
Then there were abilities that had potential but he was not even sure if they were as useful as he thought they were.
For example, he could vaguely recall a rabbit that could turn anyone it touched into a carrot. A rather ridiculous ability but nonetheless an ability that would be frankly broken. The issue was he could not recall if it was possible to fight that effect off. Like Buu's Candy Beam, Vegeta proved that he could still fight as a candy so would the carrot remain a threat even if he turned it?
A carrot with the ability to glass planets was still a fucking threat. Not to mention the issue of touching the threats he would want to use this on. Although, he could circumvent that little obstacle with his clones.
An Endbringer might be able to kill thousands of his clones but one of them would eventually touch them. Then again the flesh that they wore was not really the Endbringer itself. The Endbringers were the core's hiding beneath that flesh.
There had to be more abilities that fell in that vein but trying to recall them was driving him crazy. DBZ had gone on for a long ass time and some people were just fucking forgettable. Which sucked as the forgettable characters often had gimmick abilities that would be incredibly useful to steal instead of the fuck off planet buster beams.
He was going to have to search for DBZ here or try to steal a copy of the manga from other worlds. That kind of ran into the issue of media being different in the multiverse but it was better than fucking nothing. He was also willing to take anything he learned from these copies with a grain of salt.
So that meant he was going to sideline DBZ despite its potential for now. It kind of sucked but he was not going to spend energy on an ability that he was not going to use more than once.
Which brought him back to his bread and butter Jujutsu Kaisen. Despite not knowing a whole lot about the series the compact nature of the show made it easier for him to remember certain bits. The esoteric techniques were interesting as well in comparison to Ki blast number 43.
Cole had two techniques that have been boosted massively by Sukuna's Cursed Energy Vessel. That would only improve more with his next pick.
[Target Selected.]
[Theft Successful.]
[The Theft System has stolen Six Eyes from Sugawara Michizane.]
[Comment from Victim: I've lingered long past life's embrace, yet you defile my vessel a great disgrace. Take heed oh thief of light, karma will strike you in the dead of night.]
[Would you like to leave a comment.]
Honestly, he will take it. He was expecting a very pointed discussion with Gojo as he stole his eyes so getting burned by some ancient poet was fine with him. Mr. Nah I'd Win can keep his eyes and Cole got to have the perfect tool to control his cursed energy.
Sukuna had an almost perfect handle on Cursed Energy but Six Eyes took all of that beyond reason. Plus they came with other abilities that might be helpful in the long haul.
He closed the commenting feature and felt a burning pain in his eyes. He let out a hiss of pain as he clutched at his face to stop the pain even if he knew it was useless. Again this was something he expected but feeling hot molten lava being poured into your eyes was never going to be a good experience even if you expected it.
He was a little worried that he would have just stolen the eyes themselves and had to pluck out his own eyes and place these new ones in using RCT to make sure everything went fine. Thankfully he did not have to play at being a Uchiha as Six Eyes was a trait that was passed along with Cursed Energy.
Which made sense as there was not really a way to breed that sort of biology. Instead, it made sense that the cursed technique molded the body it inhabited to fit its needs.
He was tempted to use RCT to get the pain to stop but held off despite the immense pain. God, knows how the RCT would interact with the melding process. He wanted his super op control eyes and he did not want to risk losing it.
Finally after what felt like ages the pain subsided and he moved his hand away to see the rest of the room. The first thing he noticed was the vivid clarity that he could see things. It was like looking at a 240p video and getting slammed with 4k out of nowhere. Which caused more pain to bloom in his head but he could handle it for now.
Beyond the sudden clarity, he could now perceive Cursed Energy which oddly enough was in his surroundings and not just himself. Although, the Cursed Energy sitting in his core had a different flavor in comparison to the Cursed Energy just floating about.
He would clock that off to his Innate Technique but he did not want to assume.
Finally, he noticed as Lisa let out a quiet gasp as she caught sight of his new eyes. When he let out a hiss of pain she stopped working and looked over at Cole in concern. Troubled by the man that stream rolled over her life dealing with a sudden bout of pain.
That concern bled away as she caught sight of his radiant blue eyes. Before his eyes looked like gems but now, well there was a reason that Gojo had ladies eating out of the palm of his hands. Lisa was not really one for superficial things like that but Six Eyes really were that pretty.
Which was an issue he was going to have to deal with. Suddenly having glowly gems as eyes were going to draw questions. Thankfully Kaito had the disguise route locked and loaded. So he just had to put in colored contacts to get back to his old color schemes even if they would affect his vision. This was not really a problem with Six Eyes as he could view the world from the cursed energy he could sense.
Sure, it was not like seeing with his eyes but it might as well be considering how vivid his sensing was now. He never thought he would relate to Dare-Devil but here he was.
"Right, sorry just experimenting with my powers," Cole spoke out with a wry smile. Lisa paused for a moment with her thoughts running through her mind a mile a minute. She clearly had something she wanted to ask but at the same time she still did not have much faith in current trust levels between them.
She did not want to overstep so early so she kept her mouth shut despite wanting nothing more than to ask all her questions.
So she went back to her work even if she was not as focused as she was before. She also had a light blush that was barely noticeable but with his new eyes, it was almost screaming at him.
Cole could not imagine the look on her face if he actually had to pull off the old Uchiha trick. Tearing out his eyeball and forcibly stuffing a new one in its socket was quite literally insane.
He had to wince again as the details his eyes were showing him hit him again. He really needed to put in those contacts soon. He might also have to pick up the habit of wearing sunglasses indoors like Gojo despite it being an asshole move.
Still, even with the pain it was producing he did not regret installing them. Before trying to use his Cursed Energy felt like throwing waves out of an ocean but now he could take out individual droplets and juggle them. He could see why Gojo could rival Sukuna despite not having nearly the same levels of reserves.
Now he could play around with enhancing himself with Cursed Energy. Before he did not want to take the risk as flooding himself with energy sounded like a good way to explode his arm into a shower of bloody chunks. That was no longer an issue so maybe he could work on punching down a building.
Maybe UI will not be as useless as he thought it would be.
Hell, he could do stuff with this level of control that he did not think was possible before. He waved his hand and a shadow of his arm followed behind his every action. Cloning had a bit more to draw from than simply making more of himself after all. Now he could possibly clone a blow that he inflicts on someone.
He would try to clone other things but his technique was called Body Double which meant he had to stick with interacting with just himself. There was the Cursed Technique Decay as well.
Before he could not use it with his own flesh as it would Decay from the energy running through his body. Now he could isolate his fist with Cursed Energy and put the Decay energy on top of that. Hell, he could even control the level of Decay he was using.
He could amplify it sky-high or make it a simple sting. Having that control really made a world of difference.
Despite Six Eyes being a big ticket item he still had a large pool to pull from. He could at least afford another big ticket item which meant he could get Idle Transfiguration if he wanted it.
He thought it over for a moment but dropped it. Papa Space Whale's body here was technically just an Avatar. The real thing was hiding between multiple dimensions.
So he needed a different move and that was not going to be provided by the universes he had access to. So he had to keep reaching.
Cole did theft after theft trying to find the world he needed. This time his Luck was not as crazy. A Rusty Nail from Your Lie In April, A Loose String from Toradora, and a pencil from My Little Monster.
A Phoenix Feather from Harry Potter put his luck back up but it was still not enough. So he continued stealing which led to him getting a sticky pad from K-on which was irritating. Then he pulled the Deck Of Many Things.
Which was an answer to his dilemma even if he really did not want it to be.
------
No joke I used ChatGBT to draw Gacha and got fucking UI. I managed to hit the 2% chance at a legendary. Was tempted to scrape it considering what it was but figured UI was not really that impressive and DBZ was not as crazy as most people think. It's just guys punching stuff at the end of the day.