Chapter 49

Mordo showed no extra expression, his voice kept low. "Now, you can go deeper."

He paused, his fingertips unconsciously rubbing the rough edge of his robe. "But don't stop.

Do you remember Zhao Yu? At your stage, he was already able to touch those advanced runes."

"I understand."

Strange replied, his voice betraying no emotion.

His gaze swept across the room, briefly lingering on that figure before moving away.

That name had come up far too often these past few days.

Whenever he barely mastered a new spell, whenever an unstable spark had just flickered to life at his fingertips, Mordo's deep voice would sound again, carrying that tone he had gradually come to recognize—one used to measure the gap between them.

His confidence deflated soundlessly like a punctured bubble.

Sometimes, late at night, as he stared at his trembling hands, an absurd thought would worm its way into his mind: Half a month? Was that really within the realm of human capability?

The air smelled of dust and old parchment.

Strange shook his head, clearing the tangled thoughts from his mind, and refocused on what lay before him.

What he would be touching today bore the echo of an ancient deity in its name—the Ring of Raggadorr.

For the first time, he was truly reaching into the realm known as "divine power."

"Listen carefully,"

Mordo's voice pulled him back to reality. "What you are dealing with is not a god with a will.

They are more like... a prearranged mechanism, a flowing force.

Your task is to find the interface, follow those invisible rules, and then draw upon it."

"What exactly are the rules?"

Strange pressed, his throat a little dry.

"They differ from person to person."

Mordo's answer was brief. His gaze rested on the heavy twilight beyond the window. "Every soul is calibrated differently."

The instant his fingertips hovered in the air, fine heat rose around them.

Strange stared at his trembling wrist. The dark red strands of light were like startled mayflies, gathering only to scatter again, unable to hold even a proper shape.

He heard a short breath squeeze from his throat, like air escaping a leaky bellows.

"Don't get distracted."

Mordo's voice cut in from the side, steady to the point of cruelty. "The power is right there. You simply can't hold it."

Strange said nothing.

He tried again—his palm drew a circle, his will tightened, trying to scoop something out of the void.

The strands of light surged forth again, twisting into a knot, only to collapse noisily at the very instant they were about to take shape, scattering into dim embers.

He shook his hand, as though he could shake off the helplessness clinging to his skin. "This is just..."

He paused, swallowed the rest of the sentence, and changed it into a murmur. "...not something humans can control."

"Gods?"

Mordo gave a short laugh, devoid of warmth. "They are merely travelers who took a few more steps before us.

You think too highly of them, Strange."

Before his words had faded, something stirred on the other side.

Zhao Yu did not even look at them.

He merely raised a hand, as casually as if brushing dust from before him.

A scarlet torrent poured from his fingertips—not threads, but a waterfall—dense and obedient, weaving and spreading through the air on its own before instantly condensing into a circular shield with sharp edges, quietly floating there.

The shield's surface was smooth as a mirror, reflecting the candlelight dancing across the stone walls of the training hall.

Strange stared at the shield, his lips pressed into a thin line.

Mordo was about to say something else when another change occurred at Zhao Yu's side.

A cold white light, as thin as frost in early winter, quietly climbed along the edge of the scarlet shield.

The two colors stood side by side, their boundaries distinct: red like burning blood, white like snow of extinction.

Then a third color seeped in—a somber ink-black, like thick ink dropped into clear water, swiftly spreading as it intertwined with the red and white.

The three streams of light chased and nested within one another, eventually stabilizing into a flowing pattern so intricate it made the eyes swim.

It was no longer a simple shield, but more like some sort of living crest.

Zhao Yu still said nothing.

His fingers moved slightly, and the tricolored shield obediently began to rotate slowly. As the patterns of light flowed, it emitted an extremely faint hum, as if metal were being stretched.

The corner of his mouth seemed to curve upward, faintly and so quickly it might have been an illusion.

In the silence, Strange heard his heart slam heavily against his ribs.

As his fingertips swept through the air, some stagnant sensation suddenly loosened.

Zhao Yu sensed a certain marker deep within him shift forward by a tiny increment—the training progress of Bethpheny's Sigh had accumulated another point.

Then, an even clearer sense of breakthrough welled up from deep in his bones, as though the first crack had opened in ice beneath the spring sun.

** Leveled up.

The curve of his lips deepened slightly.

One person truly could not bear the favor of two gods at once.

Powers from different sources would tear at and annihilate one another, unless the vessel itself stood above the gods.

Mordo understood that principle. Strange understood it too.

But they did not know that Zhao Yu had no need to reconcile those powers himself.

The system packaged every spell into a ** container.

Divine powers were placed in separate glass bottles, each one unable to interfere with the others.

All he needed to do was reach out, take the bottle he needed, unscrew it, and pour.

Three? Ten? That was merely taking a few more items from the shelf.

He could even do it more leisurely.

Mordo froze where he stood.

He saw it more clearly than Strange—when ordinary mages cast spells, the divine power they drew upon was no more than a few grains of salt mixed into dough. The vast majority was still supported by their own magic.

But the magic wielded by the person before him was woven almost entirely from pure divine power, while Zhao Yu's own magic had instead become a thin adhesive.

Since when had gods become so generous? What made Mordo's spine go cold was that three utterly different sacred auras were circulating steadily within the same space, without collision or rejection, like three parallel rivers.

Strange's throat tightened.

He had seen many things that defied common sense, but this scene still shattered his understanding.

How could a human possibly control three kinds of divine power at once? Could those ancient records of taboos have been lies? He stared at the intertwined radiance in Zhao Yu's hand, trying to find a flaw in the illusion, but he felt only an undeniable pressure.

At some point, the sky outside had darkened.

The wind passed through the corridor, carrying the chill unique to night and lifting the hem of Mordo's black robe.

He was an experienced mage, yet at this moment, he felt as though the familiar rules beneath his feet were crumbling.

Something even the Sorcerer Supreme could not accomplish was being displayed so casually in this young man's hands.

Mordo watched everything unfolding before him, his fingertips unconsciously tightening.

An indescribable tension filled the air, as if even the light had turned viscous.

He had seen many apprentices draw upon dimensional energy. Those powers always came like trickling streams, requiring patient guidance and careful control.

But what he saw now was entirely different.

The energy was not seeping in strand by strand. It surged and gathered like a burst dam, almost violently.

Its scale had long surpassed the realm of "borrowing."

It was more like a silent plunder.

Dust on the walls trembled faintly within the invisible force field, producing a barely audible rustling.

Mordo could even smell a trace of scorching in the air, as though something had left behind a mark after being drained too excessively.

Could those beings slumbering on the other side of the dimensions truly be completely unaware? The thought flashed through his mind, followed by a wave of absurd exhaustion.

The burden of teaching others had never been so clear—when the demonstrator himself overturned every established rule, where could guidance even begin?

He simply could not do the same.

That realization weighed heavily on his chest.

He had thought that staying away from that unusual student would buy him a moment of peace, but reality was exactly the opposite.

Witnessing such a display beyond all reason had instead become a continuing torment.

Why could someone break through boundaries so easily? The question rolled in his throat before finally becoming a silent sigh.

He had to maintain an outward calm, especially in front of the other apprentice.

Mordo adjusted his breathing, relaxing the line of his shoulders as much as possible, then turned toward the doctor beside him, whose brow was tightly furrowed.

"Watch carefully,"

he said, deliberately flattening every trace of emotion from his voice, like cooled metal. "The demonstration is complete.

This proves that the spell itself is not impossible."

He paused, allowing the words to sink into the silence. "Your talent is sufficient. What you may lack is focus.

Do not seek external reasons. Feel the flow of energy more deeply."

Strange's gaze moved repeatedly between the two—on one side, that blazing radiance, stable to the point of provocation; on the other, his own empty palm.

Doubt began to gnaw at his conviction.

Could his method really have been wrong? Could those complex gestures and exquisite incantations actually be simplified to such an extent?

"Perhaps... it really isn't difficult."

He spoke softly to himself, more like he was trying to persuade himself.

He raised both hands again, his fingertips attempting to catch the threads of energy drifting through the air.

This time, he held nothing back, calling upon the root of power represented by that ancient name.

Scarlet strands of light finally emerged, trembling and struggling as they traced a fragile, unstable outline between his palms.

The energy tore two colors into the air, white like fresh snow and red like clotted blood.

They tangled and exploded, producing a sound like muffled thunder.

Strange was thrown to the ground, his robe covered in dust.

He slowly climbed to his feet. There was neither anger nor surprise on his face, only the stillness of dead water.

He understood.

The problem was not the magic itself.

The problem was Zhao Yu—that guy simply could not be measured by common sense.

Recently, Zhao Yu had always been following Mordo around, watching the newly arrived doctor learn how to control energy.

His task was simple: repeat demonstrations of those spells and hand gestures.

But for some reason, whenever he finished demonstrating, Strange's eyes would become hollow, as though he had lost all expectation for the future.

That puzzled Zhao Yu.

But he did not ask.

Apart from the time spent teaching, he mostly stayed in the library.

Kamar-Taj's texts were open to everyone. As long as one wanted to learn, one could find the corresponding scrolls.

Ancient notes, lost incantations, insights left behind by guardians through the ages... all of them sat on the shelves beneath a thin layer of dust.

Whenever Zhao Yu had free time, he buried himself among those yellowed pages.

Wong now managed the library.

The original keeper had merely been an ordinary mage, but after what happened with Kaecilius, several elders discussed the matter and decided to replace him.

They did not want to see another bookkeeper vanish without a sound.

Wong always wore headphones, listening to music with a strong beat while turning the pages of heavy ancient books.

When Zhao Yu entered, he did not even look up.

Today was no exception.

Zhao Yu walked straight to the wooden shelf against the wall, pulled out a notebook with worn corners, and sat in the chair farthest from the window.

The book was a travel journal written by an ancient mage, stuffed full of fragmented observations and anecdotes.

Zhao Yu had no interest in the stories—he turned the pages, his fingertips stopping at a passage written in rough handwriting.

Something else was hidden there.

When his fingertips touched the page, those ancient symbols seemed to come alive.

Zhao Yu's gaze swept over line after line of twisted writing, and some rhythm buried beneath the syllables began to resonate in his chest.

He made no sound, merely reciting the words inwardly, yet the air inexplicably grew heavy.

Deep in the library, Wong wore enormous headphones, his head swaying lightly to a beat only he could hear, utterly unaware of everything beyond himself.

Zhao Yu lowered his hand, palm facing upward.

A short incantation slipped from his lips, as light as a sigh.

Then a stream of air formed between his fingers, at first only a barely perceptible vortex, carrying the dry scent unique to the library's old paper and dust.

It swirled, gradually taking on a blue-gray color that did not belong in nature.

The record on the page flashed through his mind—the being called Watoomb had once been a guardian, but later embarked on the path of devouring his own kind.

This wind borrowed the lingering echo of that corrupted power.

The whirlwind between his fingers did not expand into a violent turbulent current as described in the records. Instead, it collapsed inward, its color changing from blue-gray to somber darkness. Tiny specks of light flickered at its center, as though shattered stars had been imprisoned within.

He felt something inside him being lightly stirred.

It was not a level-up, but more like... a transformation.

The wind's original form was breaking down, rebuilding itself, and being infused with unfamiliar rules.

A brand-new name surfaced in his senses: Nebula Storm.