"Gah!?" I hastily opened my eyes and looked around.
My vision was quite blurry, but I was able to understand that I was in a building. And I could smell the very familiar scent of oil, metal and rubber.
Blinking a couple of more times I was able to get a hold of myself. I was in a very familiar garage.
"Isn't this…Dad's garage?" I asked with wide eyes as I saw the familiar racks of tools and boxes with screws of all shapes and sizes.
More importantly, most of the garage was taken by a car. The totalled BMW M3 my father got for me with pennies when he was drunk.
Yeah… When you want something from your parents, always try to get it when they are drunk.
My father was drinking with my uncle back in the countryside, over there I saw a brand new but very much totaled BMW M3. The car was going for parts and then into a junkyard. But, at that time, I was in the phase where I was head over heels for anything mechanical.
And so my dad bought it for pennies.
The point of me reminiscing about this is that… I'd already fixed the car and it should have already been fully tuned up and in my LA mansion!
And… why the fuck are my hands are this small?
"Oh shit… my voice… Why do I sound like a kid?"
For a moment, panic fully settled in as I rushed myself toward the car's door to take a good look at myself from the car's side mirror.
"Oh god! I am back to my boy-self? Wait! this doesn't make any sense!" My brain, at that moment, tried to come up with variables to this situation! I don't remember working with stuff related to time travel!
The last thing I remember was working on an energy source for my house. I mean, I got tired of paying the large electrical bills… And decided to build a reactor from some experimental data.
"Right… that white burst of energy… I should have done that in a proper research lab instead of my garage." I said while trying to remember more.
It turns out, I had miscalculated how much energy it would produce. I suppose my house couldn't handle it and went boom.
"But, this doesn't make any sense. The energy should have at least turned me into dust. There was no quantum physics involved in it. Unless the large amount of energy started affecting it.
"Right...and I think I saw a person dressed in all white...strange… Still though… if I am indeed back to my young-self again… I could… do alot of stuff… lots of stuff before anyone else could!" Thinking about all the discoveries I had made throughout my life…
I nearly started salivating at the chance of profiting on that and having some fun tinkering along the way!
"Marcus! You up? What did I tell you about sleeping in the garage!?"
'Oh shit, and comes the bad stuff of being a kid!'
"Sorry, mom! I got carried away!" I quickly got out my puppy eye technique. I should use it while it still works!!!
Sigh
"I know you are gifted when it comes to machines, Son. But you can't just spend the entire night in the garage! What if you catch a cold?" My mother walked over to me, and there was that scrutinising gaze of her's which I had seen for over 20 years…
"Sorry…"
"Just go and take a shower. You reek of oil!" She motioned for me to get back inside the house and fix myself up.
Sheesh...
As if she had never seen a guy working his craft! If only I had my…
Right… all my stuff!!! It's gone!!!
"Marcus, what's wrong? Why are you crying?" My mother asked with a concerned tone, as she saw me, with tears welling up in my eyes.
'Take a deep breath, it's only Tesla, Microsoft, Lexus, all the Italian supercars companies...nothing much! I can always buy them back!'
"Nothing… I think some dust just got into my eyes. Sniff " I swiftly said as I rushed back into the house. And quickly went upstairs to get as cold a shower as possible. I really needed a reality check. A.S.A.P can't cry like a baby each time remembering what I had lost…
~~~
And so, my trip to the past has begun. Me Marcus Goldman. The guy who spent his life tinkering with things in the basement and getting rich from it.
As weird as it sounds, working from home is quite lucrative. It started with my dad taking me to his garage for the first time and me falling in love with it.
From then on out I'd spent more time in the garage than he ever did. I pretty much took it over from him.
Working from wood to metal, then going higher and higher to the point where… well… one can guess what level it is when you start building a self-sustaining energy reactor in one's basement garage.
Exploding or not...
Still though, I found it weird… how easily I could pick things up, sure I was called a 'once-in-a-lifetime genius' and whatever other things there were. But, I just found it weird. I mean things just come together so naturally and easily. Maybe that's just what genius is?
Anyways… After waking up in my younger self's body, I found…that things are a lot easier than it was before…
After getting an extremely cold shower of which I nearly turned pale blue to, thankfully it was the summer holidays… and the weather was still hot.
I returned back to my garage and saw my first ever car there. My desire to forget drove me to start fixing it with the things I had laying around in the garage.
That moment I found out that I already knew the vehicle from the inside out… it reached the point where I could… improve on the already existing design of this German car.
It was at that exact moment that I realised I may not be in my past self but instead I may have possessed or fused with another version of Marcus Goldman.
The reason I was thinking like that was because I was certain… things were different… for example, some companies which I used to work with and used to own a portion of the stocks on don't exist… and most importantly, the dates don't match… I remember getting my car back in 2004 but this time I already have it in 2003.
It's either I am missing something or that blast has sent me to an alternate reality, like in one of those light novels I used to read in my free time.
Nonetheless, this doesn't change anything big in the scale of things. And after double-checking the technology level…
Well…
I cried again…
So I had decided to first work on the most essential of things: the smartphones, touch screens, the fibre optics, etcetera… the list is quite long.
I mean I started crying when I saw the fat tv which can barely even display 480p...
While I had never worked on them before, as it was the basics among basics. By the time I had moved on to technology from machinery, everyone already had smartphones and fast internet. So I didn't really need to improve on any of it since It was already there. Instead, I spend my time on app creation…
That's why I need to change my thought process as by this point it's like knowing how to build the building but not knowing how to build the foundations for said building.
In other words, back to basics… but… then it happened… the event which changed my perception of the world as it is…
~~~
"It is totally... not strange when a posh white book with golden letters engraved on it appears on my desk first thing in the morning," I said with a deadpan as I saw that a book had just appeared on my table.
By this point, I am no longer surprised that the supernatural of some sorts exists… My crafting and creation skills can already be considered supernatural and my existence in the body of my former self in an alternative reality is another clue of sorts that it can and does exist.
Nonetheless, the book's appearance was like the icing on a cake.
Slowly I walked over, not touching it, instead inspecting from a safe distance.
After getting a good angle I was able to read out the cover.
"The…magic arts of Solomon the Great." I read out loud as my eyebrows were slightly raised in interest.
"Ok...this is out of context, but why Solomon? I mean I would take someone like Tony Stark's journal or something… or even Reed Richards… but this is… well... magical sounding?" I thought out loud for a second before deciding to satisfy my curiosity and check it out.
Slowly… I reached out and touched it…
As I touched it, a searing pain suddenly washed over my whole body, starting from my hand then, like a tidal wave, it started spreading throughout the whole body.
Sharp gasp
"Fuckkkk!" It felt like my nerves were fried at that moment, nearly dropping on my ass right then and there.
But then, just like how the pain had appeared, it suddenly disappeared like it was never even there before in the first place.
And as weird as it sounded, I can now tell where this book is all the time. Not only that…
With just a thought…
Flash
And a bright golden flash, the book had just magically appeared in my hand.
"Right… totally magical it is then…" I stated like it was the most… normal… thing in my life.
Since it had just proven to me that it's truly magical, I opened the first pages.
"This book was written by the Great Solomon who ruled over the greatest Kingdom mankind has ever seen and was known as the King of Magic and also the man who was able to mess with Lucifer himself and walk away victorious just by taking over 72 devils for himself!
Since you are reading this, that means my greatest secrets are now yours!" Once I was done reading the intro lines I realised that, yeah… this was The Solomon the dude with 72 demons… devils, the very same one who had a massive harem and ruled Israel.
'But, seriously? Lucifer is real? That shit is serious, and I really need to fortify my garage and get some magical stuff done fast.'
"Right… but first… this dude was quite arrogant… I mean I was the one who sold the licence to a shackled A. I, but even then I was not that arrogant…" I thought with an eye roll, before continuing reading.
"Before anything, a mage needs to build up his magic reserves, casting human-based magic normally requires magical calculation but to bypass that is quite simple. At my peak, I had 10 rings which allowed me to cast spells as easily as any Devil or Angel…"
'Right so…Angels are real too… let's assume that most of the myths are real too… less surprises that way…'
"Magic is like a muscle to access. It has several meditations just for it… let me mention some so that you wouldn't need to check other books since my one is the best anyway."
'Right…'
With another eye roll, I skipped to the part where the meditations are described.
'So, chunni stuff does… work, in this reality that is… so, how on earth has no one developed chunni magical powers yet?' I thought for a second.
Anyway, I checked most of them and decided on the easiest one. The one where you had to stare at a candle sounded far too weird.
So mental image, breathing…
'I suppose I could do this while I am resting… until then, reading it is…'
'Once you have got the basics done, you should also know that humans are the most fragile of species, so you either have to get some magic armour crafted or find them and get your hands on them.'
'But, if you want, you can follow my footsteps which is much better! and that is learning how to channel your magic to reinforce your body! If you can do this successfully then you can achieve a body even stronger than devils or angels!'
'Right, so both it is then, I suppose magic enchanted items exist as well? Since he did mention them…' I hummed internally remembering some of the metallurgy I did earlier in the past. I mean, I did craft some of the car parts myself.
I suppose I could invest some time in weaponsmithing… magical weaponsmithing…
'And once you have the basics done, let me now tell you about the best part of my magic! And that is summoning and binding devils permanently to yourself! Devils are quite special, they are beings who look like humans, but very much are beings of sin, they have bat-like wings that they can summon or retract! And their magic are based on imagination! But the best part is that they have unique magic depending on the pillar they are from!'
'These devils' does sound quite similar to that silly anime I used to watch back when I was a teen… What was it again? Something school? All I remember are those nice armours though…'
As I thought about it. I checked the next page and saw a bunch of summoning circles and just damn… I will truly be able to bind them just like that! Regardless of their power to mine!
"The power of Ars Goetia… designed by Solomon and the Big G…nice…"
"So Gods are real too...good to know…" I thought with some sweat running down my back...