The Sharingan's upgrade

She had just said she would help Mercer learn the magic within, only for a surge of magical pressure to erupt from his eyes the very next second.

The first spell in the Book of the Vishanti used magical pressure to oppress enemies.

It was the first spell, but also the hardest to master at the highest level.

Compared with attacking an opponent directly or defending against them, releasing mana as an invisible pressure and spreading it outward was the most difficult.

It required a continuous output, unlike other spells, which could be cast simply by pouring a certain amount of mana into a magic circle.

The Ancient One had planned to skip it and start with the second spell. She had never imagined Mercer would learn it with a single glance.

"Was it because of those eyes... I've never seen magic like this before."

She knew Mercer could only have learned so quickly because of his unusual eyes. She had never seen him use them before.

Throughout history, she had never heard of a sorcerer casting spells through their eyes. This lay beyond even the Ancient One's knowledge.

Mercer was just as surprised. He calmed himself and narrowed his eyes slightly. When he opened them again, his Sharingan had returned to ordinary eyes.

Incredible. The Sharingan actually helps me learn magic, and it's incredibly powerful! Mercer thought.

When he had looked at the Book of the Vishanti just now, his mind had seemed to wander for an instant, and the Sharingan had activated on its own.

Immediately afterward, a blurry figure had appeared in his mind, with a vast, densely packed crowd standing before it.

Mercer could see mistlike substances floating around the figure. Then that great mass of mist had erupted from its body.

The entire crowd had fallen to their knees and prostrated themselves, unable to move.

The vision had ended abruptly there.

After witnessing it, Mercer had absorbed "Vishanti's Technique, Punishment" into his Sharingan, then unleashed it through the eyes' powerful ocular power.

With chakra's unique nature combined with the Vishanti's magic, even the Ancient One had struggled to resist that peculiar magical pressure for a moment.

Just then, Mercer suddenly felt a strange sensation in his eyes, like the refreshed fullness of waking after a good night's sleep.

Could learning magic from the Marvel Universe make my Sharingan evolve?

Ignoring the Ancient One's astonishment, Mercer was more concerned with that question now.

Although there was no explicit indication, he was certain the sensation meant his Sharingan's ocular power had increased.

Maybe the system adjusted the way my Sharingan upgrades. Otherwise, if I still had to increase its ocular power through suffering like in the original, I'd probably never get the chance.

Mercer had no intention of enduring that kind of suffering.

Let's try again.

Mercer turned to the next page of the Book of the Vishanti. The same experience appeared in his mind again, only with a different spell this time.

He stood there like a machine, mechanically turning the pages. With every turn, Mercer learned and cast the preceding spell.

The astonishment on the Ancient One's face had turned to numbness. Mercer grasped many spells she had spent centuries unraveling with just a glance or two, and his proficiency was no lower than hers.

A monster. An absolute monster!

The Ancient One repeated those words inwardly, a hint of regret in her expression.

Mercer had surprised her more today than everything in the past few centuries combined. She even wanted him to become the Sorcerer Supreme.

She felt he would be better suited to the role. He would surely become the strongest Sorcerer Supreme in history, one no one could ever surpass.

But even after their brief time together, she knew Mercer would never stay at the Sanctum Sanctorum to become the Sorcerer Supreme. His future was far beyond what this little Sanctum Sanctorum could contain.

In just half an hour, Mercer reached the final page and closed the book, narrowing his eyes as he quietly digested the magic in his mind.

When he opened his eyes again, the Ancient One saw that the single tomoe in each eye had actually become three!

"Your eyes..." The Ancient One pointed at them.

"What about them? Have they become three-tomoe?" Mercer asked calmly, without any alarm.

"Yes. You knew they could change?"

"Yes. It's the evolution of these eyes."

After absorbing an entire book of magic, Mercer's eyes had evolved from the one-tomoe Sharingan into the three-tomoe Sharingan.

Just as he had suspected, in the Marvel Universe, his Sharingan could evolve simply by using it to learn magic.

All those spells would be cast through the Sharingan. Whenever Mercer wanted to use them, he only had to activate his Sharingan.

"All right, I've learned everything. I can face that Sub-Dimensional Being now," Mercer said confidently.

The Book of the Vishanti contained many powerful spells. Although it was said to offer "no offense, only defense," many of its defensive magic circles were more terrifying than so-called offensive ones when unleashed.

"Galacta, want to help me practice?" Mercer looked at Galacta, who was so bored beside him that she had started playing with strands of her hair.

"Let's go, let's go!"

Now that she had something to do, Galacta sprang up from the table she was sitting on and pulled Mercer outside.

The training grounds.

"If anything feels wrong, tell me. We're only practicing, not fighting to the death. We'll stop before anyone gets hurt," Mercer said.

Neither of them would go all out, and they both knew it. But this was an experiment with magic he had never used before, so accidents were always possible.

He had to make that clear beforehand, just to be safe.

"Hehe, sure. Come at me!" Galacta bounced lightly in place, and her stance made Mercer pause.

Those were textbook moves from American military combat training. How did she know them?

Noticing Mercer's surprised gaze, Galacta chuckled. "If you think I'm just a glutton, you're seriously underestimating me. There isn't much knowledge on any planet in this universe that can stump me.

"As for Earth's fighting techniques, I only need a few glances to learn them."

He hadn't expected her to be a genius girl, too. Mercer shook his head with a laugh, then said in a low voice, "Here I come!"

[Vishanti's Law, Four-Sided Suppression!]

An ethereal, echoing voice rang out from every direction. Mercer's eyes opened wide as his three-tomoe Sharingan activated.

The Sharingan's powerful ocular power combined with the magic from the Book of the Vishanti instantly formed four enormous rectangular dark-gold blocks in midair. One descended toward Galacta's head.

The dark-gold block was four or five meters tall. Galacta raised her slender arm skyward and effortlessly caught the massive block, which dwarfed her.

"I'm not done yet."

Mercer's eyes flicked aside, and another dark-gold block slammed onto the one Galacta was holding up.

With the two stacked together, the weight doubled.

Even Galacta couldn't help letting out a soft sound of surprise. The ground beneath her feet suddenly sank considerably.

The remaining two dark-gold blocks rushed toward Galacta from either side, snapping together like magnets.

Boom!

The two dark-gold blocks slammed together in an instant.

"I-is this really okay? Surely that killed her?"

A commotion this great was bound to draw spectators.

The sight made Mordo's scalp crawl. Could anyone survive being crushed like that?

Watching the scene, the Ancient One calmly held her hands behind her back and murmured.

"Of course she's fine. If something like this could kill her, a godlike being like her wouldn't be so terrifying..."

As her words fell, the two dark-gold blocks locked together nearby exploded, first breaking into fragments, then dissolving into wisps of dark-gold mist.

Galacta appeared before everyone again, followed by the sound of her laughter.

"Haha, fun! This is really fun!"