POV Rio
It took me three weeks to finish the 007 Template, and I only took that long because I wasn't just training, but rather I had spent plenty of that time studying this world and basically looking for anything different. And I found a few things that made me look even deeper.
But before that, I had familiarised myself with the manor. And to do this, I was extremely fortunate that my Gruncle Stanford had left behind an extensive collection of videotapes, each recording my Gruncle Stanford explaining the manor, how it functioned, and anything I might need to know to live here. One such tape informed me that the manor had its own private network that connected to the internet in a way that makes it basically impossible to track or spy on. There was also enough food to last me several years.
The first thing I found was some changes in what companies existed, as well as several changes in a few media franchises. For instance, Star Wars only has three movies in this universe, but the Extended Universe did exist. There were also some companies that just didn't exist in this reality, such as Nintendo. Or correction, Nintendo did exist, it was a Taxi Company and a love hotel brand. In fact, that was one of the largest changes in this universe; several companies in the gaming industry just didn't exist, as well as several famous Comic Book series not existing. Marvel Comics, funnily enough, does exist here, but it sells comics about Captain America and Star Wars, and George Lucas owns them after he bought it from the government a few decades back.
The info made it possible that other things existed in this world, so I started to spread my feelers out more broadly. I found several places that made me realise what God meant when he said this world was more than just the MCU. I found a chain of hotels operating across the globe under the Continental name. Which, with a little searching through some old directories, got me to find a certain John Wick. That... That complicated things a bit. I had evidence of at least one other franchise in this world. And if you add the X-Men, which are a little jog away, and the future Fantastic Four, it makes three.
Then I found something odd that caught my eye because it sounded familiar. The planets would come into perfect alignment at the beginning of 2008, following a 5000-year cycle. The year wasn't the issue; it was the absolute nonsense of the event. I was decently familiar with astronomy, and I knew for a fact that there was no way that all eight planets plus Pluto would or even could come into perfect alignment. But then again, this was a world with magic stones that could wipe out half of all life if you snapped your fingers. And I was a magical elf that would live theoretically forever, so some odd astronomy isn't impossible.
But it was this exact event that made me feel like I had heard it somewhere, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out where. That was until I ended up looking at the back of a dollar bill. Then the puzzle pieces fit into place, and I quickly checked my hypothesis. And what do you know, a certain Earl and Countess of Abbington named Lara Croft lived in England. Now that... That I could work with. I was just before the events of the first Lara Croft movie, and I was confident I could snag up some valuables, but better than that, I knew where the Luna Temple was, and I knew it was filled to the brim with valuable artifacts and gold galore. And I intended to get to that temple before anyone even knew it was there in the first place.
I was in need of cash. I learned that the Pines family was millionaires, but as in we had one million, not multimillions. Which meant I couldn't take advantage of the upcoming Stark kidnapping. And while I could get some loans as my last name carries a lot of weight with a lot of people, especially those who had family that was saved by the Pines family during WWII. But even to do that, I could still only get so much, as not many people are both wealthy enough and still alive after all these years. And I had very little income. The only income was coming from the Mystery Shack, which was a tourist trap/park admission business. And it made very little profit after my Gruncle Stanley died, as he was the heart and founder of that business. But at least it was automated, and I didn't have to do anything but let it keep running. Not that it was run by robots, but that it had the staff needed to function without my involvement.
And also thankfully, there was no interdimensional portal built underneath the Mystery Shack. No, that was under the manor in the secret laboratory that my Gruncle Stanford had spent most of the family's fortune building. And it's just about exactly like the one from Gravity Falls. Except this one didn't work. It had two things preventing it from working. Energy and Vibranium. The portal requires an insane amount of power to function, so much so that even a fully operational nuclear power plant couldn't power it. And the Vibranium was needed to prevent any power surges and as a stabilising agent.
But I did discover a neat thing in the lab. An AI, of sorts. It wasn't anything close to Jarvis. It was more like a mix of magic and science to create a learning tool. This Learning Tool was called Miss Joy, and she was able to recompile information she had into an easy-to-understand and learn medium. I had used her to learn all sorts of things, such as programming, as I planned on making some games to make some money as a possible backup plan, and a way to gain some passive income. But that was for the future. For now, I had a trip to Greece to do.
But before I could leave for Greece, I had to figure out a disguise. Lucky for me, James Bond is quite adept at disguises due to his spy training. And my second Template helped a tiny bit. I got Friedrich Steiner, the Nazi Scientist behind the weaponisation of Nova 6 and the developer of the Number Brainwashing Program. He was not the most useful template, but I would take what I could get. And least training him had proven very easy. He started at 47% complete thanks to many skills overlapping between 007, him, and me.
I thankfully didn't have to worry about passports, as I had many to choose from that I confirmed were valid. Perks of being James Bond. I had also gone through the gear I got from him, and it was EXTENSIVE. I had practically the entire James Bond arsenal. Gadgets for almost any occasion. And damn did I look good in a suit. But despite the amount I had, it came with a particularly annoying caveat. Ammo. But to my rescue was the most unlikely of solutions. Friedrich Steiner, the man, had knowledge of numerous safe houses for Nazi spies. And by sheer coincidence, one was not that far from me. Now, the odds of it having anything after all these years, or even existing in this reality, are slim, but I chose to give it a shot anyway. As such, I left in the middle of the night and snuck over to the safehouse.
'Okay, it should be around here.'
I tap around on the ground until I hear a satisfying metallic tink. I then got to work removing the overgrowth and weeds before revealing a metal hatch leading underground to a small safehouse bunker.
CREAK
The hatch opened, but the sound was awful, especially to my more sensitive ears. But after grimacing and rubbing my ears, I started making my way down. It was a short trip, but when I opened the large steel door guarding the goodies, I wasn't disappointed. Inside were numerous weapons and some old radio equipment. There were 12 MP40's, 20 P38's, 24 Sauer 38Hs, 4 M30 Luftwaffe drillings, 1 Gewehr 43 Sniper Rifle heavily modified, and the best find of all, a Panzerschreck. As well as around 2500 rounds of just about every calibre you could imagine. A few cases of M39 Grenades and some long-expired rations. Everything went into the inventory, even the rations, as at least they could be recycled for something else, or if all else fails, they can be used as poison.
It was also at this time that I discovered a neat perk of the inventory. It acted as a form of identity spell, as anything that came into the inventory would automatically be correctly labelled. This worked even better than you might think. Not only did it tell me what something was, but it also told me what it was made of, if there was anything hidden inside, and if it was harmful to anyone or anything. In this case, I discovered a secret hatch hidden inside a chest that contained some vintage Reichsmarks and some gold coins. Not the Continental variety, at least I didn't believe so. If I sold the valuable at an auction or to a collector, I could probably earn a pretty penny. It also came to my attention that time froze while inside my inventory. But also, with that, nothing alive could be placed inside. I tried it with a mouse I found. But since he didn't go in, I named him Mickey and gave him some cheese I had put in my inventory before my trip.
I snuck back to the manor and went to bed. The nice thing about being an elf was that I only needed about 4 hours of sleep every night, and I could also use Reverie, which was like a form of meditation. In any case, with the speed at which I was completing Steiner, I felt it likely that I could be done within a week or less. It helped that learning programming had sped things up, and practising the knowledge I gained also sped things up. Depending on what my third template was, I would choose my course of action from there. In the meantime, I would continue my research and my work on my first video game idea. Based on the options and timeline, I chose Minecraft.