Visiting Kamar-Taj
"Surprised, aren't you? The first time I traveled through the Multiverse and discovered that female versions of the Ancient One existed in other universes, I was just as surprised as you."
The Ancient One waved her hand lightly, and Lin Xu felt the scene before him change. He was sitting in a chair, without any dizziness or discomfort.
In Thor: Ragnarok, Thor hadn't even been able to keep his footing when Strange transported him.
"The reason Thor felt dizzy was that Strange had only just learned the spell and wasn't proficient at it, and the person being transported was different."
Lin Xu: "..." You old bastard!! Reading my mind again?
"Sorry, force of habit. I'll let you know beforehand next time."
Really? May your son be born without an asshole. May your son be born without an asshole.
The Ancient One said nothing. She silently picked up the teacup on the table, a smile on her lips.
May you be Sorcerer Supreme for ten thousand years and never get to retire, never get to retire!
Bang~~
"Ha! Someone's finally lost their cool!"
After that battle of wits, Lin Xu finally felt some of his tension ease.
"Hmph. There's tea on the table. Make it yourself."
"Thanks." Lin Xu readily went to make some tea, but when he looked down, he saw Golden Silk Chrysanthemum, Snowfall, Yunding Minglan, and Tieguanyin. They were good teas, but every damn one of them came vacuum-sealed in a little plastic bag.
"Do you... usually drink this?"
"Not really. It's convenient."
"..."
The two of them then fell silent for a full half hour.
"Ahem..."
In the end, Lin Xu was the first to lose patience.
"Um, Ancient One, we've had our tea. How about opening a portal and sending me back now? Or should I go down the mountain and buy a plane ticket?"
"Aren't you curious why I called you here?"
"I am, but... if you won't tell me, I won't ask!"
"Hmm~" The Ancient One's lips curved upward. She stroked the whiskers at the corner of her mouth and continued resting with her eyes closed.
You f—
Crash~
There was a sudden, sharp crack. One leg of the chair beneath Lin Xu's butt abruptly snapped for "no reason," and the whole chair immediately tipped backward and to the right...
"Fuck... you old bastard! I've fucking had it with you!"
Lin Xu finally reached the limit of his patience. Clutching his butt with one hand and pointing at the old bastard Ancient One with the other, he unleashed a torrent of abuse!
"****, motherfucker, assiba, baka, merde, Scheiβe, Сволочь, དམྱལ་བ་བོ།!!!"
After that string of curses in eight languages, Lin Xu finally felt better. What he hadn't expected, though, was the Ancient One's reaction.
"Hahaha, that's more like it. You don't have to be uptight at Kamar-Taj, and you don't have to hold anything back. Say whatever you want." The Ancient One opened her eyes, her face full of relieved smiles.
"You know, I've lived so many years, and what I hate most is people who put on a front, saying one thing and thinking another. It's exhausting. This is much more comfortable."
Fuck. So after all that, this old bastard wanted me to curse her out!
"Hmm?? What did I say?" The Ancient One narrowed her eyes.
"Ahem. So after all that, you wanted me to curse you out!"
"Hmm~, that's more like it... uh, that doesn't seem quite right either..." Even someone as powerful as Earth's protector had gotten tangled up in her own logic at that moment.
"Ahem, let's drop that. Let's talk about the new timeline created by your actions." Sure enough, the best way to put off an awkward moment was to change the subject.
"A new timeline?" At that, Lin Xu's butt stopped hurting immediately. He pulled over another chair and looked at the Ancient One. "Tell me more!"
The Ancient One stretched out her left hand and lightly pulled it across the middle of the table. A long, bright yellow line immediately appeared.
"As everyone knows, time can be viewed as a long line, or as an endlessly flowing river. Every person and every tiny deviation can create a new timeline."
"And these new timelines won't affect the established timeline. No matter how hard you try to change things, you'll only create a new timeline. Whatever was going to happen will still happen in the original timeline."
"The closer the thing you change is to the established time, the closer the two timelines will be to each other."
Having said that, the Ancient One stopped and looked at Lin Xu with a smile.
Lin Xu understood the first part, but what did the last sentence mean? Once something was changed, it was changed. Even if it created a new timeline, at least the people on that timeline would survive. Wasn't that a good thing?
Wait...
The closer it was to the established time, the closer the two timelines would be!!!
"Are you saying that if I succeed, the corrupted Strange from the neighboring parallel universe might come charging over? Because... if I succeed, that proves the Christine he loves exists in this universe!!!"
Lin Xu's face grew paler and paler. "Then the two Stranges will fight over who gets Christine, casually throwing out every kind of forbidden spell, all for one woman... But this is a male-audience story! Those shitty Marvel writers!"
The Ancient One's hand froze. This again!
In fact, the Ancient One had noticed Lin Xu as soon as he transmigrated eight years ago. At first, she had thought he was an avatar of some dimensional demon god that had crossed over, but after observing him for a long time, she discovered that he was simply a pure soul, one that had not been tainted by any dimension.
That purity made her even more puzzled. After all, the intelligent life in the entire universe had been tainted by dimensional demon gods to some degree, especially someone as greedy for money as him.
So she began observing him in secret, and eventually discovered something unusual.
Whenever Lin Xu thought or spoke about this world, she would hear a jumble of garbled noise. And the last time that had happened was with... Wade Wilson.
That motormouth who ran around all the different universes.
She had also asked Eternity about it. Eternity told her it was a form of self-protection to prevent the soul from collapsing, and that she should not interfere too much with the existence of people like them. They were all capable of creating miracles.
The karma was too great. They must not be killed!!
So, over the years, while Lin Xu made money, she used the Eye of Agamotto to reinforce the timeline.
Until today, in the afternoon, New York time, when Nick Fury swapped out Christine's corpse. The timeline she had painstakingly reinforced had finally... split anyway.
"Sigh!"
Before Lin Xu arrived, she had traveled through time and seen two hundred million possible futures.
In more than a million of them, Lin Xu failed, and two dark Sorcerers Supreme were born on the two parallel timelines at the same time. Earth was destroyed.
In more than ninety million others, Lin Xu succeeded, and Strange used the Eye of Agamotto to bring Christine back to life. But because Christine's corpse had existed for over a year, the entire planet collapsed from the excessive use of the Time Stone. Earth was destroyed.
In another hundred million or more, Lin Xu succeeded again. Strange traveled back along the timeline and stole the corpse from Nick Fury. This time, the corpse had existed for a short enough time that Christine was successfully resurrected and Earth remained intact. But Dark Strange crossed over, and the two fought. Earth was destroyed.
In more than a thousand others, it was the same as above: Christine lived, but Strange found the Book of the Vishanti. Dark Strange attacked, and the two killed each other. Earth was destroyed.
In the last hundred or so, it was the same as above: Christine lived, but the Ancient One chose not to retire and secretly hid in the shadows. In the end, she successfully sealed Dark Strange away, but none of the three Sanctums were spared. Dimensional demon gods began eyeing Earth, and she had to work more than three hundred extra years!!!!
And in those more than two hundred million futures, Lin Xu was just an ordinary person wearing a Vulture suit.
She couldn't see futures in which he wasn't an ordinary person!