New Era Has Not Yet Arrived

In the training room.

The barbell slipped free and floated more than two meters into the air. Raven jumped in fright and hurriedly sat up.

"If half your attention is spent hiding what makes you different, you won't be able to do what you should."

Magneto slowly walked in and said.

He was referring to the way Mystique had struggled while lifting the barbell.

"Your strength is greater than this. Why hide it?"

Mystique's blue skin was covered in fine scales. Unlike ordinary people, she possessed a certain degree of physical enhancement.

A heavy barbell would be difficult for an ordinary person to lift, but it should not have been so for her.

But she had been distracted by maintaining the appearance of an ordinary person and concealing her true face, unable to use her full strength.

Whoosh!

Magneto's gaze shifted, and he released his control over the barbell.

Whoosh!

The heavy 100-kilogram barbell plummeted from the air with a rush of wind.

Raven was forced to return to her original appearance, blue-skinned and yellow-eyed. No longer maintaining her disguise, she steadily caught the barbell without any effort.

Just as Magneto had said, she had always been distracted by hiding her original appearance.

But no one liked being lectured by someone they barely knew, especially after Magneto's rude actions. It was infuriating.

"I suppose you can stand there and say such things to me because you've never been abandoned as a monster, forced to wander from childhood, pelted with stones by children who shouted for you to get lost, forever unable to be accepted by society as an outcast."

She spoke angrily.

"You want society to accept you, yet you cannot even accept your true self."

Magneto gently shook his head. His tone was earnest, and an immensely infectious confidence and smile appeared on his face.

"If I were you, I would never hide my appearance. You should be proud. You were born different—a miracle, a pioneer."

"We mutants stand ahead of everyone else on the frontier of evolution. Right now, you are like Copernicus after discovering the truth, afraid of being branded a heretic and desperately hiding yourself among foolish ordinary people."

Having endured so much since childhood, Raven was extremely sensitive. She could tell Magneto was not merely speaking casually. He truly believed it. If he were like her, would he really do the same?

Was she wrong? She was clearly ahead of them, yet she wanted to blend in with ordinary people who lagged behind on the path of evolution?

After speaking, Magneto turned and left, leaving Mystique deep in thought and confusion.

I've only ever thought about hiding myself. I never thought about accepting myself. Was that wrong?

She set down the barbell, struggle in her eyes.

Knock, knock. A knock sounded at the door. Ron stood leaning against the doorway with his arms folded.

"Ron!"

Raven cried out. She was currently in her true form, and she turned her head, intending to change back into that pretty blonde girl with brown eyes.

But thinking of the discrimination she had suffered as a child, she felt an inexplicable sadness and anger. She stopped, turned back, and looked at Ron.

"You saw it. This is what I really look like—ugly and strange, like a beast, like a demon."

"I did see it. I heard what he said to you just now too."

Lowering his arms, Ron slowly walked inside. He offered no comfort, merely indicating that he had heard everything Magneto had said to her.

"Do you think he was right? Was I wrong to hide myself all this time?"

But when she saw that Ron's expression had not changed, that he showed neither shock nor disgust, Raven seemed comforted. Slightly nervous, she asked.

Lost and confused, she now needed someone she trusted to advise her and help her leave this crossroads behind.

"In a sense, he wasn't wrong."

Ron said.

This could be called one of the pivotal moments in Mystique's life.

It was after hearing Magneto's words today that she rejected the Serum Hank had developed, which was said to restore her appearance to that of a normal person. From then on, she always showed herself in her blue-skinned form.

"Is that so? You also think I was wrong."

Raven lowered her head and murmured softly. Already wavering, she began considering whether she should show her true face to others from now on.

"No, you were not wrong."

He gently shook his head, rejecting the idea that Raven had done anything wrong.

"Anyone can speak grand principles, but very few can live by them.

People are often not as strong as they imagine themselves to be."

How many people could truly possess the mindset of a saint in theory, with terrifyingly resilient spirits, indifferent to honor and disgrace, unconcerned by the strange looks of others, and calmly live their own lives?

Magneto believed he could do it, but that was only what he believed. He had never truly faced such circumstances.

"Copernicus was indeed a pioneer of science, but after formulating heliocentrism, he feared the consequences of the theory and did not publish it for thirty years. He lived well and died of illness in bed in his old age."

"By contrast, his student Bruno vigorously promoted heliocentrism after his death. The Church denounced him as a heretic, and he was burned alive while people watched and cheered."

Speaking of the example Magneto had given earlier, Ron spoke earnestly.

"Raven, the New Era has not yet arrived. Those who are too far ahead will not be understood or accepted by people of the old era!"

People could not separate themselves from society. Their choices had to take the progress of the times into account.

"I... I understand."

Raven nodded. Her eyes became resolute after hearing this, and she hesitantly asked a question she cared deeply about.

"Ron, what do you think of how I look now?"

"Do you want the truth?"