Astral Projection!

Nepal, Kathmandu.

Richard blended into the crowded streets, holding a small dish of crispy balls as he drifted naturally with the flow of people.

These crispy balls were one of the few Nepalese street foods he dared put in his mouth. Their outer skin was as their name suggested—crispy—and they were filled with mashed potatoes and beans. One bite released a slightly spicy, sour, chilled broth.

Richard popped them into his mouth one after another, crunching his way through the entire dish in no time.

He casually tossed the empty dish into a wooden trash bin by the roadside.

Richard watched with great interest as rows of prayer wheels mounted along the wall spun by. These prayer wheels looked quite lavish on the outside, but most were wooden within, wrapped in a thin layer of copper and then gold-plated.

What interested him was that the prayer wheels seemed to be engraved with all sorts of patterns and scriptures.

A few enthusiastic locals told him that the inscriptions were the Six-Syllable Mantra, also known as the Six-Character Mantra. Spinning the wheels could bring blessings, ward off disaster, and accumulate merit.

When in Rome, Richard followed behind a group and completed this unusual blessing ritual.

Then he continued wandering aimlessly.

He had come to find Kamar-Taj, but all he knew was that it was located in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.

But now, as he looked at a hooded Black man in the crowd not far away—

Richard smiled. He had probably found it.

Following behind the Black man through a maze of twists and turns, he soon arrived before an elaborately decorated Buddhist shrine.

Richard shifted his gaze to a ramshackle room with a broken wooden door across from the shrine.

He watched as the Black man pushed the door open and entered.

Richard smiled, walked up to the door in a few strides, and raised his hand to knock.

"Knock, knock, knock~"

The door creaked open, and the Black man who had just entered appeared before Richard once more.

Richard pressed his palms together and bowed.

"Hello, Master Mordo. My name is Richard, and I would like to request an audience with the Ancient One."

To his surprise, Mordo stepped aside from the doorway. "Please, come in."

Richard froze for a moment. Thinking of the Eye of Agamotto in the Ancient One's possession, he assumed she had foreseen his arrival.

"Thank you." Richard bowed again before entering.

In stark contrast to its plain exterior, the room beyond the door was an exceptionally spacious hall.

Richard immediately spotted the bald sorceress standing nearby.

He pressed his palms together and respectfully addressed the Ancient One.

"Greetings, Master. I have come to study."

The Ancient One smiled faintly and asked,

"Mr. Richard, do you believe in science?"

Richard blinked and nodded.

"Of course. Everything in modern society—electric lights, telephones, automobiles, airplanes, televisions, computers—is a miracle created by science."

The Ancient One continued.

"Then do you believe in magic?"

Richard chuckled and nodded.

"Of course. I came here precisely to study magic."

The Ancient One nodded and paced back and forth before suddenly asking again,

"Then if one day, your magic conflicted with your scientific beliefs, what would you do?"

Richard spread his hands.

"Simple. Magic is magic, and science is science."

The Ancient One clapped happily. Mordo, who had remained silent the entire time, looked at Richard with an odd expression.

"Well said. Then one final question: do you believe in the soul?"

Richard's eyes lit up as he looked expectantly at the Ancient One.

"Of course I do!"

The Ancient One nodded, then suddenly raised her hand and shoved Richard in the chest.

She moved incredibly fast. Richard only had time to raise his arm before the Ancient One pressed against it and pushed his soul out of his body.

"Whoa!" Richard excitedly looked at his ethereal, faint-blue soul form. It felt cool and refreshing, like the exhilarating sensation of breaking free from shackles.

"Richard, what you are feeling now is only an illusion. Remember this well: the flesh is the raft that carries one through this world. Once a soul loses its body, it becomes rootless duckweed and gradually withers away." The Ancient One's voice rang clearly in Richard's mind.

Richard controlled his soul form, pressed his palms together, and bowed in thanks.

The Ancient One extended her hand and pressed down lightly. In an instant, Richard felt as though the world around him had been frozen by a pause button.

The next second, an immense force hurled his soul into an interdimensional rift.

"You think highly of him?" Mordo asked curiously.

The Ancient One shook her head. "I cannot see his future."

Mordo was shocked. "How is that possible?!"

Yet the Ancient One merely smiled calmly. "I am not omniscient or omnipotent, Mordo. There will always be things in this world beyond our understanding. We must view all things with reverence."

"Yes, Master." Mordo pressed his palms together and bowed respectfully.

Elsewhere, after entering the interdimensional rift, Richard seemed to arrive in a dazzling corridor of space and time. He was rapidly falling through it at a speed beyond his comprehension. Yet the sights beyond the corridor seemed to move a beat slower, entering his mind with perfect clarity.

Outside the corridor were countless worlds—planets, oceans, continents, flames, and even jellyfish-like worlds of flowing, transparent gelatinous matter that he could not comprehend.

There were even jellyfish-shaped worlds?!

Richard marveled at the vastness of the universe. It truly held every strange thing imaginable.

His soul continued to descend, and he clearly saw an unimaginably enormous tree hanging upside down in the void. Its vigorous roots plunged deep into nothingness, while branches spreading from its trunk blossomed into galaxies. A familiar azure planet entered his sight.

Earth~

Before Richard could take a closer look, his falling speed suddenly increased. The space around him became filled with nested amber bubbles—some deathly silent, as though dead, while others seemed to breathe, rhythmically expanding and contracting.

Passing through the layer of bubbles, Richard suddenly plunged into a dark void and seemed to come to a complete stop within it.

But the next moment, two incomparably long and narrow cracks split open in the void, leaking an ominous blackish-purple glow.

Though he could do nothing, Richard remained secretly on guard.

The cracks swiftly opened wide. They were actually two eyes larger than planets!

Richard instantly recognized their owner: Dormammu, ruler of the Dark Dimension!

Dormammu had clearly noticed Richard, tiny as an insect. He stared directly at Richard's soul form, and a soundless roar exploded beside Richard's ears.

"Vermin!"

Richard clutched his head in agony, but the crushing pressure made his soul form creak under the strain.

Just when Richard thought he was about to die, a powerful pulling force descended from above and yanked him out of the oppressive domain Dormammu had spread open.

"Ancient One!" Dormammu's eyes opened as wide as they could, and he roared in fury.

Richard rose continuously and quickly escaped Dormammu's sight. By then, his ascent was countless times faster than his previous fall, and everything beyond his view had become a world of blurred, multicolored streaks.

"Bang~" Richard's soul form burst out of the interdimensional rift and fell back into the body seated in the chair.

"Gasp—gasp—" Richard's eyes flew open. Like a drowning man who had just broken the surface, he gulped down air in great breaths.

"That was intense!" Richard's eyes shone with delight as he turned to the Ancient One and asked, "Those last two giant eyeballs were Dormammu, right?!"

The Ancient One nodded with a smile. "To dare stare directly at Dormammu as a mortal, Doctor Richard—your strength of will is admirable."

"D-Dormammu?!" Mordo was startled by their conversation. He stared at Richard in disbelief. "You saw Dormammu just now!"

Richard raised an eyebrow smugly and put on a dismissive air. "Yeah. Those two huge eyeballs were staring like crazy."

The Ancient One chuckled softly. "Rest for today, Doctor Richard. Tomorrow, you will begin formally studying the arts of Kamar-Taj."

Richard's eyes lit up, and he hurriedly thanked her. "Thank you for your help, Ancient One!"

Afterward, Mordo led Richard to a guest room and casually handed him a slip of paper before leaving.

It read, "shamballa."

"Shamballa? Kamar-Taj's internet password has never changed, huh~" Richard shook his head with a smile, took a laptop from his backpack, and prepared to send an email to Christine, whom he had not contacted in days.

"Maybe I should have Christine download QQ International~"