"I swear, these 'wise' types must get a bonus for every sentence they leave unfinished," Huang Wen grumbled, his voice echoing in the thin, crisp air of the Himalayas.
He didn't just take the Ancient One's word for it and leave. That wasn't his style. Instead, he spent the next hour sweeping his perception across the surrounding space, ensuring that the Sorcerer Supreme hadn't left any "parting gifts" or invisible eyes behind. Only after his Dream Butterfly Escape confirmed that the lingering scent of tea and magic had truly dissipated did he finally relax his shoulders.
"Silly Girl, let's talk numbers," Huang Wen said, leaning against a frost-covered rock. "You've been scanning her since the moment she appeared. What are we looking at? Give it to me straight, no sugarcoating."
A soft chime sounded in his ear as Silly Girl processed the data. "Boss, based on the physical benchmarks you've established, her biological vitals are actually... quite ordinary. In terms of raw muscle density and reflex speed, you could probably bench-press her without breaking a sweat. However..."
"There's always a 'however,'" Huang Wen muttered.
"However," Silly Girl continued, "the energy signature localized within her cellular structure is off the charts. Even without accounting for the quality of her energy—which is highly refined—the sheer quantity is at least ten times your current maximum capacity. And that's a conservative estimate. My sensors suggest she might be tapping into a reservoir that isn't even stored in this dimension."
Huang Wen's heart sank. Ten times. And that was just the passive reading. If she actually started drawing from the Dark Dimension or whatever other cosmic batteries she had plugged in, the gap would be a canyon.
"Ten times... even with the Diamond Indestructible Divine Art at its current level, I'd basically be a very shiny, very durable punching bag for her," he mused. "Charles and Logan are probably sitting at the Legendary tier, but Gu Yi... she might have pushed past the ceiling entirely. If I hit a bottleneck now, I'm going to be in serious trouble when the real heavy hitters start showing up."
He looked at his hands, feeling the hum of his own power. In the movies, the Ancient One was strong, but in this "comprehensive" Marvel world, she felt like a force of nature. She was the apex predator of this planet.
"Well, no use crying over spilled milk. She isn't an enemy—at least not yet. And she doesn't seem to realize I'm a 'player' in this cosmic game," Huang Wen shrugged, forcing his mind away from the existential dread. "If I want to close that gap, I need more draws. I need to get stronger. Standing here staring at a wall isn't going to do that."
He turned away from the "region-locked" land and began his trek westward. He moved like a ghost, crossing the chaotic, war-torn borders of the Middle East with a speed that blurred his silhouette. As he soared over the desert sands, a thought suddenly struck him.
"Wait a second... Silly Girl, what's the date today?"
"June 14th, Boss."
Huang Wen slowed down, glancing at the vast expanse of the Middle East below. "Stark. Tony Stark. If the timeline is holding steady, isn't it about time for the billionaire to go for a ride in a Humvee and come back as a scrap-metal enthusiast?"
He paused, hovering in mid-air. He could easily find the Ten Rings. He could probably level their camp in fifteen minutes and bring Tony home in time for cheeseburgers. But then he shook his head.
"Nah. If I save him now, I'm just robbing him of his character development. Besides, a Tony Stark who doesn't get a piece of shrapnel in his heart is a Tony Stark who never builds the Mark I. And if there's no Iron Man, the System probably won't give me a single point for the rescue."
He calculated the years. The Battle of New York was roughly four years away. That was the real milestone. That was the day Chinatown would be in the crosshairs of an alien invasion.
"Four years," he whispered. "Logan and the others should be masters by then. If I can't protect a few blocks of New York after four years of leveling up, I might as well just retire now."
As he crossed into Europe, heading toward the Mediterranean, his thoughts were occupied by the limitations of his current skills. Sunflower School martial arts and his special abilities were great against mutants and thugs, but they were starting to feel "thin" at the Legendary level. He needed something heavier. Something... divine.
Suddenly, a strange ripple shivered through the air. It was faint, like the pluck of a guitar string in a hurricane, but Huang Wen's senses were tuned to the frequency of the extraordinary. He stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the horizon.
"Silly Girl, did you catch that?"
"Catch what, Boss? My sensors are showing a 99.8% stability rating for this sector."
"It wasn't electronic. It was... spatial," Huang Wen said, pointing toward the northwest. "There. Something just blinked."
Silly Girl pinged a passing satellite, her voice returning after a second. "The direction you're pointing is the French countryside. Specifically, a dense forest region near the border. There are no SHIELD outposts, no Stark facilities, and no known mutant signatures in the area."
"Interesting. Let's go see what the satellites are missing."
A grin spread across Huang Wen's face. This was exactly what he needed—a mystery that could lead to a mission. He dived toward the French landscape, the sun dipping below the horizon as he arrived.
By the time he touched down, night had fully claimed the forest. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and pine, but there was something else—a chill that shouldn't have been there in June.
"Strange. I felt the ripple right here," Huang Wen muttered, walking through the undergrowth. "But now it's like it never happened. My sensing ability is hitting a wall... wait."
He closed his eyes, focusing his internal breath. And then he heard it. The rhythmic clack-clack of wooden wheels on stone. The jingle of a harness.
"A carriage? An oil lamp?" Huang Wen's brow furrowed. "Is this a Renaissance Fair, or did I accidentally travel back in time?"
In his mind's eye, he saw an old man, weary and hunched, sitting on the bench of a tattered horse-drawn carriage. The man was holding a flickering oil lamp, his eyes darting nervously into the shadows of the trees.
Suddenly, the sky above the forest—which had been clear moments ago—erupted in a violent display of lightning. A thunderclap shook the ground, and a massive bolt of white energy slammed into a centuries-old oak tree directly in the carriage's path. The tree groaned, splintered, and crashed down, blocking the road with a wall of smoldering wood.
"This feels... familiar. Way too familiar," Huang Wen scratched his head. "I've seen this movie, haven't I?"
He watched as the old man, panicked, tugged the reins. "Alright, we'll have to take another route, Philippe. Let's go, boy! Quickly!"
The carriage veered onto a narrow, overgrown side path. As the wheels crossed the threshold into the deeper woods, the temperature plummeted. White flakes began to drift from the sky—not the light dusting of a spring frost, but a full-blown winter blizzard. In June.
"There it is!" Huang Wen's eyes lit up. He could see the distortion now. It wasn't just magic; it was a permanent spatial barrier, hidden in plain sight. "A magical border. A fairy tale setting in the middle of a Marvel world? Now we're talking."
"Awoooooooo!"
A chorus of howls cut through the wind. The old man, Maurice, was being hunted. The wolves here weren't normal; their eyes glowed with a feral, unnatural hunger. Maurice lashed the horse, but the carriage hit a hidden root and shattered with a sickening crack. The horse, Philippe, neighed in terror, snapped his traces, and bolted into the dark.
Maurice fell hard against a jagged rock, clutching his chest as the pack began to circle. The lead wolf, a massive beast with scarred fur, bared its yellow fangs, stepping into the dim light of the spilled oil lamp.
"Right on cue," Huang Wen nodded. "Silly Girl, let's get a mission started."
[Mission Generated: Save Maurice's life.][Reward: One Mortal-tier Item Draw.][Accept? (Y/N)]
"Accept! Even a cushion is better than a floor," Huang Wen chuckled.
With a whoosh, his figure blurred. One moment he was thirty yards away; the next, he was standing directly between Maurice and the lead wolf. He didn't even look like he was trying.
"Evening, old timer. You look like you're having a bit of a rough commute," Huang Wen said, his tone casual and light.
Maurice gasped, his eyes widening behind his spectacles. "Young man! Be careful! Run! The wolves... they're everywhere!"
As if answering his call, the lead wolf pounced, its jaws aiming for Huang Wen's throat.
Bang!
Huang Wen didn't even use a skill. He just threw a straight, lazy punch. His fist connected with the wolf's snout with the force of a falling anvil. The beast was launched backward, spinning through the air for twenty feet before slamming into a tree trunk. It hit the ground with a pathetic whimper, its ribs likely turned to dust.
Maurice made a sound somewhere between a gag and a sob. He had just watched a man punch a wolf into another zip code.
"Gulp..." Maurice swallowed hard. He looked at Huang Wen's hands, then back at the snarling pack.
The other wolves hesitated, their primal instincts warring with the magical compulsion driving them. Huang Wen raised an eyebrow, his gaze sweeping over the pack. He felt a different ripple now—one coming from deeper within the blizzard. Someone, or something, was watching.
"You guys still here?" Huang Wen's voice dropped, carrying a trace of his internal energy that made the very air vibrate. "Scram."
The wolves didn't need a second warning. The sheer pressure radiating from the "human" was enough to break their spirit. They turned tail and vanished into the swirling snow.
Huang Wen turned to Maurice and offered a hand. "Hurry up and get out of here, Grandpa. The weather isn't the only thing that's broken in these woods."
As Maurice scrambled to his feet, thanking him in a stammering mess of French and English, Huang Wen's eyes stayed fixed on the path ahead. The barrier was still pulsing. Somewhere beyond the snow, a castle was waiting.