Can't Go Back?

"Put the spatial ones on the left, the enhancement ones on the right, and the everyday ones at the back. Put the forbidden arts on the table. Don't touch those—I'm talking to you, Mage Lin. Let Mage Hart handle the forbidden arts!" (Hart: I finally have a name!)

When the great Sorcerer Supreme Wong returned to Kamar-Taj at noon, this was the sight that greeted him.

"Did a dimensional demon god attack our base?"

Mage Hamir soon explained what had happened, and Wong finally understood. But he felt this was even worse than an attack by a dimensional demon god!

Six years ago, Thanos had snapped his fingers, and sixty percent of Kamar-Taj's mages had vanished. He had worked himself to the bone protecting Earth with the remaining forty percent for six whole years. Even if he deserved no credit, surely his hard work counted for something? How had he failed to get any of the benefits?

Now an outsider from another universe had flattered them and been given his own skeleton outright!!!

The more Wong thought about it, the angrier he got. Without another word, he turned and left.

"Master, where are you going?" Hart, who was carrying books, was somewhat puzzled.

"Don't call me Master. As of today, I'm not the master anymore. Go find Strange."

"Mage Hamir, this..."

Without looking up, Hamir used his only remaining hand to pick up a copy of Levitation Spell from the floor and dust it off. Somewhat speechless, he said, "If he doesn't want to work, he doesn't want to work. He even had to get himself worked up over it. As if I don't know him. All right, let's carry on."

Lin Xu, who had been working silently, quietly breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Mage Hamir. That bastard. What a waste that he didn't become an actor!

"Huh? Levitation Spell, this is a good one! Let me take a look."

Lin Xu spent the entire day in the library, sorting books while committing everything he wanted to learn to memory. Whatever he couldn't remember, he photographed with his phone.

He knew that in as little as a few hours, dawn would break in New York, and this universe's Strange would use that box, whatever it was called, to send the two Spider-Men and all the villains back to their original universes.

He, too, had been transported here as a villain, so he would go back with them. There were no mystic arts for him to study in the Amazing Spider-Man universe.

As for using the medium spell to activate Gungnir again?

After what Wong had said, he didn't quite dare. What if it killed him?

Before long, it was past five in the afternoon, and seven in the morning in New York. After hugging Mage Hamir and Mage Hart goodbye, Lin Xu went outside and quietly waited to be transported.

Ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour passed.

Nothing happened!

Hart said, "It's dinnertime, Mage Lin. Why don't you... eat something first?"

"What time is it?"

"Six fifteen in the afternoon in Nepal, seven thirty in New York!" Now that the books had been put in order, Wong had popped up again from who knew where.

"Do you know who Spider-Man is?"

Mage Hart raised his hand. "I do, I do! Peter Parker. I saw it on the news this morning!"

In that case, he would go take a look himself, Lin Xu thought. He immediately opened a portal straight to the Statue of Liberty.

"..." Lin Xu fell silent as he looked at the enormous Captain America Shield in the statue's hand.

If he remembered correctly, he hadn't taken part in the plot since arriving in this universe, had he?

"Could I have remembered the timing wrong? Was there actually a day in between, and I just didn't know?"

"No!" Wong's expression grew grave, and he stepped straight through the portal.

"What is it?"

"Such strong spatial fluctuations. It's the Mirror Dimension!" Wong formed seals with both hands and drew another portal.

The next moment, Strange climbed out of it!

Wong said, "Where's your Sling Ring?"

Strange said, "..."

"So you opened the Mirror Dimension yourself, got yourself trapped, and even had your Sling Ring stolen!"

Strange said nothing. He held up his left hand and made a three-point gesture. Ten seconds later, a Sling Ring came flying back.

"Not too far away. All right, go take care of your business. I'll handle things here!"

Wong shot Strange a sideways glance, turned and left, closing the portal behind him and leaving Lin Xu and Strange staring at each other.

"Are you new to Kamar-Taj? This isn't something you can get involved in. Go back." Strange turned and saw that Lin Xu was still standing there. Noticing that he was wearing the standard Kamar-Taj robes, he asked casually.

"...You brought me here with the Ruins of Kurt Carl. Now I'm waiting for you to send me back..."

"...Magic Spider-Man?"

"..."

Lin Xu thought, I can't very well tell him I'm a villain, can I?

"The Multiverse really is amazing!" Seeing Lin Xu fall silent, Strange assumed he had guessed right and said no more about it.

At Ned's home.

The other villains, Norman included, had all regained their senses.

But because Andrew Garfield Spider-Man had switched to studying the humanities, he had forgotten most of what he knew about science. Despite rushing, he only finished making the Lizard Antidote Serum at daybreak.

Watching Dr. Connors, who was restrained by Doctor Octopus's mechanical arms, slowly change from the Lizard Monster back into a human, everyone present finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Looks like I'll have to brush up on that knowledge when I get back."

"What do we do now? Just press that switch?"

"Press it. The ring flew away, so Stephen should be free now..."

"Okay!"

Click...

Meanwhile, Strange no longer seemed to be in any hurry. He was chattering away at Lin Xu.

"Speaking of which, how did you become Spider-Man? Do you use binding ropes as webs and a sticking spell to climb walls? And..."

A red light flashed, and Lin Xu knew he was about to leave.

"I'm not Failure-Man, I'm a villain. Goodbye!"

After delivering that irresponsible statement, Lin Xu vanished from Strange's sight.

In the blink of an eye, he appeared in a brilliantly colored space.

"Huh? Wait, where is this? Shouldn't I have gone back to the Amazing Spider-Man universe?" Lin Xu looked around in confusion.

The space was made entirely of colored particles, like... images magnified infinitely.

Suddenly, Lin Xu felt dizzy, and a piece of information appeared in his mind.

"Fuck!"

It turned out that the Amazing Spider-Man universe's world membrane had been patched, and it had rejected him outright!

And where he was now lay between the Quantum Universe and the Reality Universe...

Fuck, he was just like those Banana People who snuck abroad only to find they couldn't get a green card or go home, facing the Quantum Storm's kill threshold at any moment.

"Surely the other universes haven't been patched too?"

With no time to think, Lin Xu picked a direction and thrust Gungnir out in an instant. An immense suction force immediately pulled at him!

1979, British Columbia, Canada.

A farm stood among a range of mountains that stretched as far as the eye could see. A couple around sixty years old walked out of it.

"Sam, it's been seven years. Will Carrett ever come back?"

"...I think he will!"

"I heard that country to the south is going to introduce some kind of Mutants Act. I don't know anything about mutants or whatever. All I know is he's my son."