Following a Mage Means Starving Five Meals in Two Days

He stabbed a piece of food with a depressed expression; when his mood was poor, even the food tasted unappetizing.

"Mommy, she was killed by alien monsters..." Morgan spoke suddenly while eating, her voice muffled.

Her voice trembled slightly, causing Lin Yi's heart to skip a beat along with it.

Petting the little brown head with a pang of heartache, Lin Yi spoke, "You don't have to tell me these things, Morgan."

"Taking you out to play today wasn't because I wanted to get any information. I just hoped that you could be a bit happier, like the Morgan in another universe..."

Morgan shook her head. "I wanted to say it myself..."

An hour later, Lin Yi held the sleeping Morgan and slowly flew up into the night sky, heading toward the lakeside cabin.

Little Morgan was sleeping soundly, a faint trace of a smile hanging on the corners of her mouth.

Little Morgan had not said much more. After listening to things about Pepper, Lin Yi stopped her from continuing and instead spent the rest of the time painstakingly trying to divert her attention and cheer her up.

Tony and his daughter in this universe still lived in the lakeside cabin, but as Lin Yi flew into the range of the woods, he discovered that the security level of these woods was more than a level higher than his own universe's.

Lights were on in the lakeside cabin. On the lawn in front of the house stood Tony Stark.

He quietly watched Lin Yi fly down, glanced at the Morgan in his arms, and then a sarcastic smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "What? Mr. Lin Yi from the parallel universe, don't you feel ashamed using a child to get information?"

Lin Yi raised an eyebrow, his fists hardening.

"That piece-of-junk satellite of yours was practically shoved in my face. Do you not know what happened today?"

What did he mean by using a child! That was simply alarmist!

Of course Tony knew; saying that was just deliberately mocking Lin Yi.

After a moment of silence, Tony wanted to mock him further, but for some reason, the words wouldn't come out.

Taking Morgan from Lin Yi's arms, he walked toward the house without a word.

Lin Yi glared at him in annoyance. He had helped him look after Morgan all afternoon, and this old codger didn't even know how to say thank you.

"Hey! Tony, we need to talk."

Tony's steps paused, then he continued walking toward the house.

"...Tomorrow. Come to Stark Tower to find me tomorrow."

Bang!

The door closed mercilessly. The meaning was obvious: there was no hot tea for you, so get lost.

Fine! Lin Yi spread his hands and turned to fly away.

When he left this universe, he would definitely beat him up if he got the chance!

Inside the cabin, after putting little Morgan on the bedroom bed and tucking her in, Tony came to the small yet warmly decorated living room.

Most of the small ornaments here had been personally selected and bought by Pepper. He used to find them a bit cheesy, but ever since Pepper left, these items had stayed right where they were, never moved again.

"What's the match rate?" Holding a wine glass, Tony wanted to toss his head back and drain it in one go—a habit he had developed over the past two years.

He had slowly stopped drinking after Morgan was born, but two years ago, he started drinking again.

After all, alcohol could temporarily help him forget certain things, yet he never dared to drink too much; he had to ensure he maintained a clear combat readiness at all times.

All of this bound him like a rope—responsibility, the future, threats, omnipresent, hurrying him to age rapidly.

"The target individual matches multiple features mentioned by the Quantum Man. Combined with the final communication device photos, the match rate is 67.7%."

"Sir, the match rate has exceeded 60%. Shall we make initiation preparations for STW2501?"

Save the world—one of the few very serious project codenames in Tony's plans, beginning in January of year 25.

It hadn't been this name at first, but with the continuous development of events and updates in information, both the project codename and its contents had undergone modification more than once.

"Initiate it." Tony leaned his head back against the sofa, staring blankly at the ceiling.

"If he comes to find me tomorrow, we'll carry out the final verification. Even if it's not him, we have to make other preparations, JARVIS."

"Our time... is running out too."

Lin Yi flew leisurely toward the hotel; when he wasn't in a hurry, he always flew like this, quite cozy.

Returning to the hotel, as soon as he entered the room, he saw Strange and Peter.

"Yo, you guys came back pretty early today! Did you have any gains today? Let me tell you..." Lin Yi said as he bypassed the sofa.

Lin Yi, who was getting ready to talk about what he had obtained today, stopped, looking in disbelief at the two refugees in front of him.

Ragged was not enough to describe the current state of the two: battered and bruised, demoralized, eyes hollow and gazing at the sky, like salted fish that had lost the meaning of life.

Even the Magic Cloak behind Strange had turned into tattered strips of cloth, constantly twitching. Seeing Lin Yi, it weakly raised a tattered strip of cloth and tremblingly waved hello.

Even this tattered rag was more polite than Tony!

What on earth had these two experienced over the past two days? How had they ended up in this wretched state?

"No way, you guys went to find The Ancient One again? This wasn't beaten by The Ancient One again, was it?"

"Wuu wuu... Woof!" Peter incoherently howled at the sky twice.

"Why are you still barking like a dog?" Lin Yi was even more shocked! Had they been beaten so badly their spirits were abnormal?

How the hell was he supposed to explain this to Tony when he got back? He took his "idiot son" out for a trip, and he really turned into an idiot son.

Peter wanted to cry. His mouth was swollen, and he couldn't speak clearly.

"Don't mention it..." Strange said weakly, "We ran to the Dark Dimension and had a fight with a demon."

"Wuu wuu wuu..." Peter rolled his eyes and whimpered a couple more times. Was that just having a fight with a demon? If the two Ancient Ones hadn't shown up at the end, the two of them might have entered the Quantum Realm long ago; with bad luck, getting lost wouldn't have been any better than being swallowed by a dimensional demon.

"Dormammu?" Lin Yi asked rhetorically. "Dormammu could beat you guys like this? Your Time... oh right, sorry."

He forgot, the three of them hadn't brought the Time Stone when they came.

The Ancient One deliberately hadn't given it to them, saying that this universe was too dangerous and unlike the Lost Library, so they couldn't carry the Time Stone.

Fine, it was quite realistic, but also out of helplessness.

"Not Dormammu, an even more powerful dimensional demon." Strange forced himself to sit up and said in a deep voice.

"No, maybe it shouldn't be called a dimensional demon. Its body was covered with twisted faces of dimensional demons; I don't know what that thing was, but it definitely belonged in the Dark Dimension."

Great, it looked like they fought a dimensional demon and mastered the art of saying a whole sentence without imparting any information.

"Peter and I couldn't beat that thing at all, and we kept running. We almost ventured into the Quantum Realm."

Lin Yi's expression gradually grew serious. They almost entered the Quantum Realm, meaning that demon had genuinely threatened their lives.

Otherwise, in a universe that didn't belong to them, without a single anchor point, rashly entering the Quantum Realm was an absolute dangerous behavior that must not be performed.

"In the end, two Ancient Ones appeared and turned the tide of battle."

"You won?" Lin Yi asked.

"No, The Ancient One brought us out escaping."

"We couldn't beat it; that monster was too powerful. Moreover, the Dark Dimension was its domain, and we had no advantages whatsoever."

"Oh right!" Strange suddenly raised his head. "Lin Yi, help us order some food. We haven't had time to eat these past two days, we only had that meal last night."

...Lin Yi didn't know how to evaluate this. He thought they were going to say something major with expressions so serious, but it turned out they were just hungry.

These two were... truly miserable.

Yesterday they took a beating from The Ancient One, and today they were kicked around like a stray dog by a dimensional demon for most of the day.

Suddenly he felt a bit of sympathy for Spider-Man. Following Strange for two days meant starving five meals and getting beaten into this damn state.