Shanhai Realm

This Book of Dimensions recorded some dimensional universe coordinates discovered by mages who had previously practiced projection magic. There were not many, only forty-eight in total, collectively known as the Forty-Eight Visible Realms.

Worlds without magic or danger were called Primary Worlds. They were the most numerous, with twenty-eight in total.

Worlds with weak magic or other unusual abilities were called Intermediate Worlds. There were not many of these, only twelve in total.

Still higher-level worlds were called Spirit Realms. There were seven in total. These worlds were inhabited by intelligent races no less capable than humans, and some races were even stronger than humanity.

The last and most powerful one was called the God Realm. It was inhabited by a race known as gods. These gods lived for as long as five thousand years and possessed immense power; the strongest among them were no weaker than the Sorcerer Supreme.

Oh, that world's name was Asgard.

The God Realm, the Spirit Realm, and Earth made up nine worlds in total. Because they were linked by the World Tree, they were collectively known as the Nine Realms.

"So Asgard isn't in the universe?" Bai Jing clicked his tongue in wonder. He had thought Asgard was some kind of planet, but it turned out to be a dimensional universe.

But thinking about it, that was only natural. Asgardian technology had surpassed Earth's for so long that there was no way they did not know what the universe looked like. Yet they called them the Nine Realms instead of something like the Nine Planets.

There were countless dimensional universes, but most were too small to deserve names and therefore were not recorded in the book.

There was another possibility: the dimension might be too powerful and too dangerous. In that case, it would not be recorded in the book either, lest mages accidentally entered it.

The Nine Realms were out of the question. That old man Odin was always watching, and Bai Jing had no desire to go there. He was still in his growth phase, so there was no need to pick a fight with someone that powerful.

There was no need to visit Intermediate Worlds either. He was not going there to study arts; he was going there to absorb water. Naturally, the less trouble, the better.

So Primary Worlds were perfect.

Of the twenty-eight worlds, seven had water, and four had abundant water!

"Shanhai Realm. The waves in this realm are as high as mountains?" Bai Jing read one realm's description, then looked at the illustration in the lower right corner. It showed a person standing in the water, looking up at distant mountains.

"This is the one!" Bai Jing memorized the spell coordinates. To guard against there being too little water in that world, he also memorized the coordinates of the other six worlds before returning the book to its original place.

When he left, Bai Jing nearly ran headlong into Mordo.

Mordo looked at Bai Jing strangely. Bai Jing glanced at him, stepped around him, and was about to return to his room.

"Bai!" Mordo called from behind him.

"What is it?" Bai Jing turned and asked.

"I suggest you interact with everyone more. Ever since you came here, you're either in your room or in the library. That's not good. You should make more friends!" Mordo said.

"I came here to study, not to make friends!" Bai Jing retorted. "If I wanted friends, wouldn't an ordinary school be better? There are more people there, and they're younger, prettier, and more energetic!"

"No, no, no." Mordo waved his hands. "I just think you'll become very isolated like this. Do you know how everyone talks about you behind your back?"

"Who cares?" Bai Jing asked again. "There are so many kinds of magic and so many books in the library. Studying them could easily take ten or twenty years, yet I don't see anyone borrowing even one book to read. Instead, they have time to gossip? You think it's abnormal for me to study seriously, but normal for them to talk about me behind my back?"

Mordo was rendered speechless. After thinking for a moment, he asked again, "Studying shouldn't be your whole life. Living like this, can you be happy?"

Bai Jing had just been wondering why Mordo would ask such a strange question, but now he understood.

So Mordo had grown up under the system of happiness-first education too!

This version of Mordo was Black, so his backstory differed somewhat from that of Baron Mordo. But why a Black man could become a follower of Master of the Mystic Arts The Ancient One was not hard to guess.

Mordo was nearly forty this year and had followed Master of the Mystic Arts The Ancient One for nearly twenty years. In other words, he had begun following her in 1988.

There were four Sanctum Sanctorums in the world: one in London, one in Hong Kong, one in New York, and one in Nepal.

Around 1988, there were no black people in either Nepal or Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Britain and America in that era undoubtedly practiced happiness-first education.

That meant no concern for grades, no exams, and no importance placed on what was learned in class. The most important thing was happiness.

Under such an educational system, students liked activities and sports, hated top students and people who loved reading, and called them bookworms.

Anyone who enjoyed American TV shows should understand this culture.

When Rick told Morty not to do so much homework because homework lowered intelligence, he was talking about the homework assigned under that educational system. Homework designed solely to make students happy naturally would lower intelligence.

Mordo had grown up under that system, and certain ideas had taken deep root in his mind. He had even brought them into Kamar-Taj.

That was exactly what Bai Jing saw now: many mages punched and trained in the training ground, while there was not a single person in the library.

The only one reading was Kaecilius. No wonder he could become a villain; villains had always been resourceful and intelligent, and they valued knowledge.

Bai Jing looked at Mordo and said seriously, "I love studying. Studying makes me happy. I cannot give up studying for even a moment. To me, giving up studying is giving up life."

Mordo fell silent.

Bai Jing waved his hand. "Farewell!"

"Bai!" Mordo narrowed his eyes and thought again of the newly arrived Banner, as well as Kaecilius before him.

They were all equally gifted, and all equally diligent in their studies!

As the Ancient One's foremost disciple, this gave him a profound sense of crisis!

Bai Jing did not care what Mordo was thinking. He knew that Baron Mordo had spiraled after Strange became the Sorcerer Supreme, eventually turning dark and becoming a villain. He did not know what this Mordo's future would be like.

But no matter what, he would never be Bai Jing's match.

With a black hole in hand, the world was his!

Shanhai Realm, here I come!

Inside the small room, Bai Jing recited the incantation. His spirit left his body, and as the special spell was used together with the spatial coordinates, Bai Jing felt as though he had passed through a thick barrier. In the blink of an eye, the world that had been brightly lit at one in the afternoon suddenly dimmed.

Before his eyes were only a sky full of stars and the surging tides beneath his feet.

The stars did not belong to this world; they were projections of stars from the outside world.

But the waves beneath his feet were real!

This was an ocean. Even with Bai Jing's eyesight, he could not see its end, nor could he see even a single fish or island!

This was a world made entirely of water!

Rumble...

A thunderous sound rose from the horizon. Bai Jing hurriedly looked up and saw a wave connecting heaven and earth in the distance. Like a moving city wall, it came rolling toward him!

"Waves like mountains, waves like mountains... This is practically the Red Line!" Bai Jing looked at the towering wave and recalled humanity's terror of being ruled by giants.

"This is exactly what I want!" Bai Jing excitedly plunged headfirst beneath the water.

A clear image first had to form in his mind before a portal could transport someone there. Therefore, he had to enter the seabed, find a fixed scene, and record it.

He had no idea how deep this water was. Bai Jing activated Devour and descended while absorbing. Half an hour later, he still had not reached the bottom.

"What the hell is this? My speed must be around 120 kilometers per hour, right? I've descended sixty kilometers and still haven't reached the bottom?" Bai Jing clicked his tongue. The deepest trench on Earth was only eleven kilometers deep!

Refusing to believe it, he continued descending. But another half hour later, as he looked at the pitch-black ocean below, Bai Jing began to feel uneasy.

He was quite brave, but the key was that there was not a single fish even at a depth of 120 kilometers. Everything below was pitch black, constantly giving Bai Jing the feeling that he was staring into a solid abyss.

"Forget it, I'll stop here for today!" Bai Jing had no idea when it would end. What if he went for another hour and still did not find the bottom?

He had needed to recite an incantation and sense the coordinates when coming here, but he did not need to do so when returning. His own body was the most obvious coordinate!

In the blink of an eye, Bai Jing returned to his body. When he sensed the range of his Gravity Field again, it had reached 3.7 meters!

He checked the time. Only

Bai Jing looked at the time in surprise. Why was it seven-thirty in the evening?

I spent six hours in the water world?

That wasn't right. Thought was extremely fast. If he had spent one hour in the water world in spiritual form, then theoretically, less than a second should have passed in the outside world!

But in reality, six hours had passed outside!

In other words, this world's time ratio differed from reality to an outrageous degree.

One day in the water world was equivalent to several decades on Earth!

Maybe if his real body went to that world, took a piss, and came back, even poor bastards outside would already have grandchildren!

Bai Jing hurriedly flipped through the book and found the description of the water world. He looked up, down, left, and right, but found no mention of the time ratio!

"I understand!" Bai Jing thought for a while and figured out the reason.

Because the water world contained nothing but water, it had no value to mages. Therefore, mages would not go there in person. At most, they would project their spirits there for a look.

The time of the spirit and the time of reality were inherently relative, while the time of the water world and the time of reality were also relative.

When those two relative values were divided, the ratio between time spent by a spirit in the water world and time outside came close to 1:1!

That meant one hour for the spirit in the water world was also one hour in reality!

When mages viewed the water world this way, they would naturally overlook the difference in time.

It could be compared to the sun and moon. The sun was like spiritual time, while the moon was like the water world's time. The sun was N times larger than Earth, and Earth was N times larger than the moon, yet because of distance, the moon and sun appeared to be the same size to us.

Bai Jing's situation was that his spiritual realm was too weak, like Earth being too small. The relative time ratio in spiritual form was therefore very small, so one hour in the water world equaled six hours in reality.

Once his spirit became stronger, he could make his spiritual time and external time reach 1:1 as well!

"Hmm, although the time ratio is vastly different, the water at nearly 120 kilometers deep has far greater pressure than the Hudson River, and my water-devouring rate hasn't slowed by much!" After doing some simple calculations, Bai Jing realized that even with the time difference, spending an hour each day devouring water in the Shanhai Realm was still pure profit!

The key was that he could devour the Shanhai Realm's water as freely as he wanted, but Earth...

The diameter of his Gravity Field had already reached seven meters. Drawing in that much water from the Hudson River would definitely be noticed. Even in the deep sea, it would be hard to avoid being seen by the Ancient One.

More importantly, once the Gravity Field continued growing, absorbing water like this would create climate problems.

In short, it was neither free nor comfortable.

"Then I'll go for two hours every day. That would equal twelve hours in the real world, and my Gravity Field could grow by around one meter each day!" Bai Jing thought.

Hmm, he could also sink deeper and see whether the Shanhai Realm really had a seabed!

Fifty chapters already!

The protagonist had only been in Marvel for about six or seven days.

Honestly, I didn't intend to pad things out, but there was never a point where I could simply skip ahead several months.

So I could only write it slowly like this.

Once Hell's Kitchen is taken down, things will speed up.

In my outline, taking down Hell's Kitchen only took one line, six words. Who knew it would take so many words to write?

Also, turning Hell's Kitchen into heaven doesn't mean I've betrayed the working class.

I explained it earlier: one person's poison is another person's honey.