Ian walked out of the room and came to the living room, where he saw Hermione waiting for him.
"Is the promotion going smoothly?" she asked.
"Everything went smoothly, except for one thing - I slightly underestimated the pain in the process," Ian replied with a smile.
"Don't be such a crybaby."
"Hey, you'll understand when it's your turn. Speaking of which, how long do you think it will be before you get promoted?"
Hermione shook his head. "It will take some time. Over the years, although my physical fitness has reached the promotion standard, my spirit Divine Power is not enough to control such a huge and violent magic power."
"I still need time to learn and strengthen my soul power."
She was somewhat envious of Ian's talent; he could easily absorb massive amounts of knowledge to quickly enhance his soul strength. But for her, this process was not easy or smooth, and required years of continuous research and learning.
Ian stroked her hair and comforted, "There is no need to be envious. Sooner or later you will reach the same level as me. Besides, how many people in the Empire envy your talent."
"I'm just worried that I can't keep up with you," she said softly, leaning her head on his shoulder.
"With your talent, it is only a matter of time before you become a Eleventh Tier·Multiverse level Arcanist. And the thing about Luck is that the most important thing we lack is time."
She smiled and nodded, "What about Twelfth Tier?"
Ian paused, "Honestly, I know nothing about that realm. I don't even know if I can reach that height."
"You should have more confidence in yourself."
"Maybe you are right," Ian replied, "How are you developing your innate abilities?"
"The situation is still the same. I can't locate any dimension in this universe, nor can I summon things from it. To be precise, these dimensions are very vague to me, as if they are blocked."
Hearing this, Ian frowned slightly. "Either this universe has very strict rules on dimensional magic, or these dimensions have been occupied and blocked by others."
"But there may be other ways."
"You mean Bracelet of Anubis?"
"That's right. That bracelet allows the user to summon an army of immortal Bleach. By studying it, you may be able to gain access to Underworld and summon those things."
"Of course, this also means that you are essentially stealing from Anubis."
Hermione nodded. Now that they have regained their strength - including Floating City - their fear of these gods has been greatly reduced.
"Speaking of the bracelet, we have given Black Book of the Dead to the cultists as per your instructions. They have used it Resurrection Imhotep."
"So, has the plot of <The Mummy 2> begun?" Ian thought to himself.
"Come on, let's go check out the situation."
He walked into a room where Lily and Snape were waiting.
The holographic projection in the center of the room is showing Mr. and Mrs. O'Connell and their eight-year-old son Alex, getting Bracelet of Anubis in the mausoleum.
Seeing this scene, the first thought that popped into Ian's mind was the power of fate Corrective Force.
Even with his intervention, the plot of the Mummy world was corrected by Self and returned to its original track.
Ian even speculated that, by calculation, even if he did not hand over Black Book of the Dead to the cult led by Baltus Hafiz, these people might find other ways Resurrection Imhotep, or find a substitute to fulfill his role.
He once asked Merlin about this power, and the old mage told him that most parallel universes involving Primordial Earth work like this.
Not all, but most of them.
However, according to Merlin, as long as you actively intervene in the plot, it will change until it cannot be reversed back to its original track.
Seeing everything happening in front of him, Ian began to deploy actions.
"Hermione, when the cultist kidnapped Alex, you followed him invisibly and studied the ability of the bracelet. Once the child arrives at Amshe's temple and removes the bracelet, you act according to the situation. If you have already studied it thoroughly, leave it alone; if not, control Hafez, let him activate the bracelet, and then study the summoning process."
Then, Ian looked at Lily and Snape. "Lily, you are responsible for studying the emblem at the entrance of the temple that took away Imhotep's power. Rush there as soon as possible to find out how Anubis took away his power and why he did it."
"As for you, Severus, you are responsible for Evelyn and Mira. During this journey, these two people will begin to recover the memories of their previous lives. You must secretly monitor their souls at all times and collect as much data as possible."
"Also, when Evelyn is killed, you are to show up with Black Book of the Dead and Resurrection her yourself. That is the exact moment her memory is restored and the perfect opportunity to collect the best data."
"What about you? What are you going to do?" Hermione asked.
"I'm going to observe the battlefield between Anubis's army and Pharaoh's Guard; I should be able to verify some things."
Afterwards, everyone split up and acted.
When Alex was kidnapped, Hermione appeared next to him and began to study the bracelet on his wrist.
Snape used Clone Spell to create a clone. The original self stayed with Mira, the reincarnation of Anck-su-namun, while the clone followed Evelyn, secretly monitoring the status of these two souls.
In the past, Snape might not be able to do these things under the nose of Imhotep, who has the strength of Fourth Tier, but now, with his peak strength of Fifth Tier, which is close to Sixth Tier, it is simply a piece of cake.
As for Lily, she arrived at the temple where Scorpion King was buried and began to study the emblem at the entrance.
In this way, a few days passed.
The Pharaoh's Guard army, led by the charismatic Ardes Bey, stands in the desert, ready to fight.
Soon, a group of humanoid the Mummy with jackal heads appeared in front of them; that was the army of Anubis.
A fierce battle broke out between the two sides. In terms of individual combat capabilities, Pharaoh's Guard, who had firearms, had the advantage.
Unfortunately, these jackals cannot be killed. Even if destroyed, they will respawn immediately.
However, Ian didn't care about this. As the death toll increased, he closed his eyes and began to detect.
Before the battle began, he planted tracking marks on the souls of these people.
When they died, he immediately began to track the whereabouts of their souls.
At first, he found nothing. But as time passed, he soon discovered that these souls were being transported to a different space, an alternate dimension.
The soul was transported to a very specific location in that dimension. While trying to find the end point, Ian soon saw the existence of a huge jackal-headed person lying in a golden coffin.
Those souls are being devoured by him.
At this moment, the jackal head suddenly opened his eyes and stared directly at Ian.
"Mortal, how dare you peek at the gods."
Snap!
The channel connecting the pocket dimension was instantly cut off, and two lines of blood flowed from Ian's nostrils.
"It's interesting," he muttered to himself as he wiped away the nosebleed, and his brain began to work rapidly. Many seemingly unrelated clues began to piece together.
However, he did not jump to conclusions immediately because he was still missing the last piece of the puzzle.
So, he contacted Lily.
"Did you find anything?"
"Yes," she replied, "Anubis not only took away Imhotep's power, he also implanted something in Imhotep's body. According to my current theory, this thing can make Imhotep his container, and may even allow him to directly seize Imhotep's body."
"As expected."
"Did you find anything there?"
"Yes. If I guess correctly, the gods of this world seem to have fallen into a deep sleep for some reason and are extremely weak. As for Anubis, he plans to release his undead army to the world, kill as many people as possible, and restore his strength by absorbing the souls of mortals."
Ian knows that the situation is more complicated than it seems. Legend has it that Scorpion King will be Resurrection five thousand years later, so Anubis may have been planning it for that long.
Ian believes that the latter's plan is to first seize Imhotep's body, and then kill Scorpion King to regain control of the army.
However, another Egypt spirit intervened to stop him: Osiris.
The latter prevented Anubis from regaining control of the undead army by sending Rick to hold Spear of Judgment that could kill Scorpion King.
Ian narrowed his eyes and fell into deep thought. Anubis's plan was by no means that simple.
If all goes well, Imhotep should have Resurrection and rule Egypt eight years ago, and may even have launched a war against the whole world.
Then, Anubis only needs to wait a few years for Imhotep to enter the temple of Scorpion King, deprive him of his power to reduce resistance, seize his body, and then control the undead army.
Unfortunately, on both attempts, he was blocked by the O'Connell family on behalf of his father, Osiris.
As for why Anubis had to go to such great lengths to win over Imhotep?
There is an explanation in <The Mummy>. Although Ian has not seen the movie, he has seen the trailer and some commentary videos and knows a little about the spoilers.
In the ending of the movie, the god of chaos Set takes away the body of the protagonist Nick played by Tom Cruise.
However, in the end, Nick successfully suppressed Set's consciousness and regained control of his body, while retaining Set's power.
This shows that with the current state of these gods, it is not easy to take away anyone's body.
To be honest, Anubis and Set may not be the only ones using this method of sacrificing souls and seizing bodies to restore strength. In <The Mummy 3>, Dragon Emperor also has a similar plan to use the undead army to conquer the world.
It is very possible that some China gods have plans similar to Anubis, and have been planning them for more than two thousand years; they regard both Dragon Emperor and Zi Yuan as pawns in the game.