Jon pondered the question of what he could and should use this powerful artifact for. It seemed it would be easy enough to use it to become very wealthy, but what then? It would sap the meaning and adventure of everything, just to have a cheat code like that. It would be like starting a game of monopoly with owning all the properties. It would be like that episode of The Twilight Zone where the gangster dies and awakens to find he is in a world filled with casinos where he always wins, and life is bland, and after initially thinking he’s in heaven, learns he’s actually in hell. It would make life like one of those video games that doesn’t end after you beat the final challenge but just becomes a sandbox game as life goes on. What would be the point of even living, if you were stuck playing a video game after the final boss was defeated, but with nothing to do? Or was life already kind of like that anyway?
Then it occurred to Jon. Why not use the stone to earn money, rather than just to make money? Go into business for himself and make and sell products that offer the impossible. He could ask the stone to make perpetual motion machines and then sell them as the only one ever to not be a con man when making that claim. He could sell magic costumes that transformed their wearers but only until they are taken off. Or magic costumes that change their wearers in a way that persists even after they take them off, but are accompanied by warnings, perhaps accompanied with another costume that returns them to normal. Or spare body parts one could just attach to oneself. A replacement arm or leg for an amputee, extra arms or legs or other parts humans didn’t normally have like tails or wings. Or perhaps magic artifacts. Gold rings like the ring of power from the lord of the rings, perhaps without the addictive and personality-altering trait. Or magical objects from the Harry Potter franchise if not Lord of the Rings. No need to ride the coattails of some recognized intellectual property though, these were just ideas. Magic shoes that actually do make you run faster and jump higher. A necklace that made you invulnerable when worn, or allowed you to read minds. He could sell a cure for aging and cancer and any other problems and put the pharmaceutical companies out of business while he’s putting the oil and natural gas companies out of business with the perpetual motion machines. Or transportation devices to put the car industry to shame. He could go into business selling space ships, or teleportation devices. Maybe that last one like the stone itself would be limited to a few miles if they were created by the stone’s magic, so you wouldn’t be able to just teleport thousands of miles in a single jump or go to other worlds, but it still would be a useful and marketable product. Why not sell true Isaac Asimov style robots, or magical or at least genetically engineered pets for those not quite adventurous enough to be willing to be transformed into such beings through magic costumes themselves. Want your own robot butler? A pet cat girl? Well actually that one could be walking a questionable line between pet and adopted child. At what point did a pet deserve more rights, or did a robot butler become an oppressed slave? Maybe be careful with that area. He would have to be careful with a lot of them, actually. Or combinations of things, just to screw with people. Perhaps a cure for aging and cancer and other diseases, but it has the side effect of transforming its subject in other ways, so they have to accept it as a package deal. People would still be plenty interested, but it would be an interesting choice they would have to make. There were many ways to commercialize the rock’s abilities.
There was no reason he couldn’t eventually do all these things, or all the ones that didn’t have questionable ethics. Many of these things at least. Then again, even some of the seemingly innocent ones might be questionable. Someone could take an invulnerability potion, and then go rob a bank because bullets won't harm him. Or maybe Jon would decide he wanted to choose evil, and sell things that were unethical. Maybe life was also too boring if you're always good. But which of these ideas should he start with? Or perhaps something different that he hadn’t already thought of?
Jon decided he would start by…
