Magneto watched the Professor walk back and forth, involuntarily recalling the days of their youth when they had fought together for mutants.
Back then, he had not hated humans as much as he did now. The Professor had still had a thick head of hair, and his legs had not yet been paralyzed.
They had been inseparable then, fighting together against his enemy, that powerful mutant-the Black King, Sebastian Shaw.
To defeat the powerful Black King, they had searched everywhere for fellow mutants hidden within human society.
It was through that process that they had learned how humbly and cautiously mutants had to live to survive in human society.
Then, on that beach, the Black King, who absorbed nuclear energy, had shown humans how dangerous mutants were, while he himself had shown them how powerful mutants were by hauling a nuclear submarine out of the sea.
The officers who had fired missiles without hesitation and the agent who had fired sneak shots from behind had all laid humanity's malice toward mutants bare.
That time, he had not only accidentally caused the Professor's paralysis, but had also completely abandoned the vain hope of peaceful coexistence with humans.
Come to think of it, both the Professor's current X-Men and his own Brotherhood of Mutants had taken their initial shape back then.
Through decades of trials and tribulations, they had continued to put their respective ideals into practice.
The two sides had occasionally cooperated, but had spent most of their time fighting each other.
One was a peace lover and the other a terrorist, and together they had carved out room for mutants to survive.
He had never imagined that, decades later, when both he and the Professor were old and frail, they would still have a chance to see a bright future for mutants.
Li Ge!
This fellow mutant, powerful enough to create worlds.
He was nothing short of a treasure bestowed upon them by God!
Thinking about it carefully, they had spent all that time locked in a bitter struggle with humans.
They had never stepped outside the mindset of ordinary people to consider their problems as a transcendent race.
Just as Li Ge had said, mutants and humans were two different races.
To ordinary people, powerful mutants were no different from gods.
And as a race of gods, why should they think like ordinary people?
It seemed their minds had been bound by the world after all, which was why they had never resolved the predicament mutants faced.
Fortunately, Li Ge had appeared, and this boy, still only a high school student, had directly offered an airtight answer.
A world belonging to mutants!
That answer directly eliminated all the ways humans could keep mutants in check.
Afterward, Li Ge led the group through a few other experiences.
Building houses, for example, and fishing.
As for the various monsters, Li Ge had no intention of taking them out to kill some for fun.
He had brought them into his world today only to show them that the world he had designed was perfectly suitable for people to live in.
It was not as though they would be living in his world from now on.
A little experience was enough. There was no need to understand every last thing.
Now it was time to do some proper work.
"Professor, what do you think of the world I designed?"
"Erik, are you satisfied with my world?"
Li Ge called together everyone who had been busily mining, fishing, and building houses all over this world.
He smiled smugly as he asked.
"Satisfied? Of course I'm satisfied!"
"Li Ge, will the world you're designing for mutants be like this too?"
With a fishing rod in one hand and a bucket full of fish in the other, Shadowcat answered first, looking thoroughly satisfied.
"Of course not!"
"I designed this world this way to meet my own needs. Besides, it runs on my own power."
"If I designed a world like this for mutants too, how would they have any inclination to develop? Wouldn't they all turn into people who just coast through life waiting to die?"
"I don't want mutants to remain incapable of developing anything even after they're free of human persecution."
"What I want to see is a civilization that reflects the unique characteristics of mutants!"
Li Ge's smile faded as he looked at Shadowcat with a serious expression.
"Li Ge is right. We can't rely on him to design everything for us."
"Our world is something we must ultimately build ourselves!"
Standing beside Magneto, the Professor looked just as serious as he voiced his agreement with Li Ge's ideas.
Magneto looked at his lifelong rival and friend and smiled with a relaxed expression.
The two of them would no longer need to rack their brains over the future of mutants.
Cyclops, Storm, and Beast stared at Magneto's smiling face in surprise.
As far as they remembered, Magneto had almost never smiled. His expression had always been stern and serious.
Only Mystique watched Magneto with a complicated look in her eyes, taking in his white hair and his wrinkle-covered face.
Only she knew just how difficult things had been for Magneto as he worked for the future of mutants.
Fortunately, it was all over now. Hope had arrived.
Mystique glanced at Li Ge instinctively and grinned.
"Professor, since none of you have any objections, I'll design the world according to my own ideas."
Li Ge studied everyone's expressions and confirmed that no one had any further questions.
Seeing them all nod, Li Ge decided to begin manifesting the World Seed he had already planned out.
Under the eyes of the Professor and the others, Li Ge beckoned toward the square sun in the sky.
A streak of red light shot down from above and hovered directly over Li Ge's raised palm.
Its familiar appearance allowed the people from the school to recognize it immediately.
It was Redstone!
But the Redstone was no longer the size of a sugar cube. It was now as large as the Tesseract.
And that was its size after expending energy to manifest this world.
After all, the energy contained in a sun was no joke.
The Professor and the others quickly accepted the fact that Li Ge used Redstone as the sun in his world.
Li Ge had already told them that the complete Redstone contained the energy of a sun, so using it as one was perfectly reasonable.
Magneto, Mystique, and Shadowcat, who had not understood what was happening, soon learned what the Redstone did from the Professor and the others.
Shocked by the Redstone's power, they looked forward even more eagerly to what Li Ge would do next.
Li Ge paid no attention to their reactions and continued with his work.
He guided the Redstone's energy to gather in his other hand, and a transparent crystal sphere the size of a fist gradually took solid form.
The crystal sphere glowed with a faint blue light, the color of spatial energy in the Marvel Universe. It was also a crystal Li Ge had condensed by deliberately converting energy into spatial energy.
Through the faint glow of the spatial crystal sphere, the Professor and the others saw a tiny world floating within.