#2you will be backAI Model: gemini-2.5-flash
Chapter 2 You Will Come Back
Ethan, who had regained consciousness, sat up abruptly. He looked down at himself. His original ragged and dirty clothes, which had become even more tattered after being at sea for a while, had been changed. He was wearing a set of white cloth clothes. Although they were clearly not new, they were very clean.
He touched his lips; his lips, which had been cracked due to dehydration, were much better. He even found that his spirit was more full than ever before. This sleep (coma?) was truly comfortable.
"Your body is doing well, much faster than I expected."
Ethan immediately turned his head when he heard the voice and saw the bald man who had approached him before he fainted sitting quietly at the table beside his bed, brewing tea.
"Although I gave you some potions to restore your spirit while you were unconscious, I'm still surprised that you woke up so quickly..."
The bald man, who was brewing tea on his own, didn't even look up at Ethan, just busy with his own affairs. The reason Ethan didn't respond was that he found the person wasn't moving their mouth when they 'spoke'. The sounds seemed to be coming from inside his own brain.
"Yes, I am communicating with you by directly linking to your mind through magic. I imagine you don't understand the language of our world... young man from another world."
The bald person finally looked up, and Ethan finally saw their appearance... well, perhaps I should use 'her'?
"Where is this?"
Ethan tried to concentrate his mental power, and then 'said' this sentence.
His reaction surprised the person opposite him. The bald woman rarely showed a hint of surprise: "Oh, you are very talented. You've mastered spiritual communication so quickly. This makes things much more convenient."
The bald woman picked up a cup of tea and walked over to Ethan. As she handed him the cup, she began to introduce herself: "This is Earth. My name is Ancient One, and I am a sorcerer... Do you know what a sorcerer is?"
Ethan took the tea and took a small sip: "I know!"
Not only did he know what a sorcerer was, he also knew what Earth was. After all, his previous life was that of a native Earthling – just not this Earth.
As soon as he thought of this, Ethan suddenly woke up: Mental link... she wouldn't directly read my thoughts, would she?
He looked up at the Ancient One. This powerful sorcerer from the Marvel world didn't seem to have 'heard' his thoughts just now. He didn't know if she was deliberately keeping a poker face or if she really didn't have the ability to 'read minds'.
Don't panic. Ethan put the half-finished cup of water aside and began to 'chat' with the Ancient One, saying whatever came to mind.
He deliberately interspersed concentrating his mental power to speak while thinking some 'conversations' in his mind without concentrating his mental power, in order to determine whether the Ancient One could directly read his thoughts.
It didn't take long for him to reach a conclusion: either the Ancient One had discovered it and was deliberately keeping a poker face, or she could only 'hear' the information he sent out by concentrating his mental power.
Although he hoped the second possibility was true, he couldn't rule out the first one. Fortunately, no matter which was the case, at least the Ancient One's current attitude allowed him to temporarily relax a little – it was good that she didn't immediately turn hostile.
As for schemes and tricks, with the Ancient One's strength, she wouldn't need to play such games with him. A single glance would be enough to kill him.
After chatting for a while, the Ancient One roughly understood Ethan's 'situation': he came from a world full of oceans, was just seventeen years old, his parents had passed away, he was alone, and he had unexpectedly arrived here.
Ethan finally understood why he was here.
It turned out that the glowing ball pointer in his hand pointed to scattered spatiotemporal energy. After finding the spatiotemporal energy, it would absorb it, and then Ethan, as the host, could use his mental power to activate this spatiotemporal energy, thereby activating the magic array for plane transmission.
After the transmission, the spatiotemporal energy would 'protect' the host for a period of time until the energy was exhausted, at which point he would be transmitted back to his 'original location'.
This was the fundamental reason why the Ancient One had chatted with him for so long: there was unstable spatiotemporal energy within Ethan's body.
In addition, Ethan also learned another thing, which was that the destination of the teleportation magic array was not within Kamar-Taj where the Ancient One resided. Instead, the Ancient One, who was responsible for protecting Earth from invasion by forces from other planes, detected his intrusion as a 'stowaway' and intercepted him midway.
"Alright, as expected of the Sorcerer Supreme. She can just stop you without discussion... I really don't understand how so many people who transmigrated to the Marvel world managed to hide from these Sorcerer Supremes who are constantly monitoring planar invaders."
At the same time, he was also glad that he had come to the movie universe, because the Ancient One in front of him was too familiar; if it were the comic universe... the outcome might not be so good – although he didn't know the details, he knew that the Marvel comic universe had more monsters and was more unreasonable.
"According to my observation, the energy in your body is slowly decreasing and will completely dissipate in about seven days."
Ethan knew that the spatiotemporal energy in his body wouldn't last for seven days, but six. After six days, when the spatiotemporal energy reached its minimum level, it would automatically erupt, activating the magic array and sending him back.
"I finally made it here, I can't just eat a few meals and drink some things and go back, that would be too much of a loss." He just didn't know if this Sorcerer Supreme would be willing to teach him magic, a suspected 'stowaway'?
After a simple probe, the Ancient One immediately changed the subject as expected. After the persistent Ethan asked a few more questions, the Ancient One finally made him abandon the idea of directly becoming a disciple and learning magic.
"Your mental power is only decent. Even if you learn magic, it will be difficult to achieve anything, and it will waste most of your life."
Well, it seemed she didn't think much of Ethan's aptitude.
This was not surprising. In the settings of any story, the requirements for a magician's aptitude were never low. And Ethan, in both his previous life and this one, was just an ordinary person.
"However, if you just want to solve the problems you are facing by learning magic, it's not difficult."
Ethan had already confessed the predicament he was facing, hoping to gain the Ancient One's sympathy, but the Ancient One, who had lived for who knows how long, was not someone who would easily become overly sympathetic. Fortunately, she was not someone who would sit by and watch Ethan face a desperate situation without offering help.
"You have good mental power control abilities, so getting started won't be difficult for you. As long as you practice diligently, this small spell can help you solve the problem of drinking water."
The biggest advantage of communicating through the mind is that many things that are difficult to describe with language and notes can be understood by the other party in a more convenient way. Ethan immediately understood all the key points of this small spell. Now he just needed to practice diligently to cast this small spell specifically used to extract surrounding water elements to create clean water.
This small magic extracts water elements (water molecules?) that already exist in the environment and then condenses them into drinkable clean water. It can be said that the environment directly affects the effect of this magic. At the same time, it is not generated out of thin air or converted from magic power. The casting difficulty is not high, the environmental requirements are high, and the practicality is average.
But it just so happened to correspond to the world Ethan lived in - looking around, it was all water...
The only difficulty was controlling mental power. Many people had strong mental power but could not enter the ranks of sorcerers because they could not control it precisely. By chance, Ethan had been constantly training to control his mental power since transmigrating in order to use the light sphere pointer, so this difficulty was non-existent for him.
Looking at the water droplets gradually condensing in his palm, Ethan finally showed a look of joy: this trip was not in vain just for this.
Moreover, in order to facilitate communication with him, the Ancient One also 'taught' him a local language through a mental link, finally allowing him to escape the awkward situation of being unable to communicate with people.
In the following three days, Ethan also wandered around outside his room, but there weren't many places he could go, and he didn't meet many people, nor did he see any 'familiar' faces.
Although the Ancient One didn't harm him, she wouldn't let him wander around her home. The appropriate surveillance was not removed. Once Ethan wanted to leave the 'designated activity area', someone would appear in time to stop him.
Other than that, there were no restrictions. Chatting with the apprentices, bragging, and even discussing magic learning were fine. There was even a young magic apprentice showing off his smartphone to him, an 'otherworldly native', bullying him because he didn't know what it was. As a result, Ethan, after pretending to play with it for a while, taught him a lesson – he was already tired of Angry Birds in his previous life.
It was also thanks to this guy's showing off that Ethan finally figured out his current timeline while playing with the phone – Iron Man had just been born not long ago, and this game was still new, so it should be between Iron Man 1 and Iron Man 2.
"So Doctor Strange won't be coming here for several more years... Huh? Am I considered his senior brother?"
Perhaps because of his 'good' performance, the Ancient One sent over some more things next.
This included packaged food, some simple daily necessities and navigation tools, a few changes of clothes, and a few books.
"The energy in your body will activate tonight and send you back to your original world, and these things should be enough for you to use for a while."
The title of Sorcerer Supreme was not given for nothing. In just a few days, the Ancient One had understood the true state of the energy in Ethan's body and calculated the exact time of his departure, preparing some things for him in advance.
"Although the water-making spell I taught you is a very simple small spell, if you practice diligently, it will also be a good practice for your spirit, so I think you will need these things in the future."
The Ancient One pointed to the few books in front of her. The first one was "Introduction to Mental Power Cultivation." Following that was "Detailed Explanation of Basic Spell Application," and then there were several large volumes, starting with a thick stack of "Oxford Dictionaries." In addition, there were French and Chinese textbooks and dictionaries, etc.
"Don't worry, if you practice hard, your memory will also get better and better as your mental power increases. You'll be able to memorize these books quickly."
Ethan scratched his cheek: "But why are you giving me these?" He didn't understand why he, a person from another world, should learn English. He had learned enough in his previous life.
"I have a premonition that you will come back..." The Ancient One's expression suddenly became very serious: "Perhaps you can help me solve a big problem then."