"What about that blue guy?" Tony asked, eyeing the last captive. "What exactly is he?"
Only one figure remained. Blue-skinned. Clearly not human.
Rowan didn't answer right away. He opened a containment box and sealed the creature inside, then spoke evenly. "His name's Haisha. He's Atlantean."
"Atlantean?" The room went quiet.
Wakanda had already shattered a few assumptions. Atlantis was another crack in the map of reality. How many hidden civilizations had Earth been quietly carrying this whole time?
"They're an aquatic species," Rowan added. "This one stays contained for now. We'll deal with him later."
From Haisha's memories, Rowan had already pieced together the truth. This Atlantis wasn't the version from old legends or recent rumors. It was ancient, predating most surface civilizations. Their current ruler, Namor, was a hybrid. Born to an Atlantean royal and a mutant father, capable of flight as well as surviving underwater.
Haisha despised him for it.
A pureblood supremacist. A failed usurper. Multiple rebellions, all crushed.
If Namor cared about Haisha's fate, he'd come knocking eventually. If not, Rowan could afford to wait. Or erase the problem permanently. Either way, there was no urgency.
With the final loose end secured, everyone gradually dispersed. Rowan returned to his work without ceremony.
Alchemy was nearly complete. His next objective was more ambitious: combining systems from multiple worlds to lift the entire school into the sky. A true floating city. Beyond that, he planned to finish several long-delayed projects. Portal keys. Magical transport vehicles. Infrastructure that didn't depend on any single world's rules.
As for the chaos outside, he paid it little mind.
Governments were scrambling. Power structures were collapsing and reforming. The public was speculating wildly about Asgardians, Frost Giants, and gods walking among men. Rowan's name was spreading fast, edging into myth.
None of that mattered.
He'd reached the point where public opinion simply couldn't touch him.
Elsewhere, far from the school, one of Rowan's other bodies continued its work inside a sealed research facility. Drawing from Shirley Cromwell's memories, he was making steady progress with Anglican magic. Time magic remained the priority, but it wasn't something brute force could crack. That work required patience.
So his efforts were divided.
One self focused entirely on time. Another explored spell systems across worlds, refining foundations and searching for overlaps. Any insight, no matter how indirect, could eventually point back toward time itself.
Here, in Academy City, his attention was split again.
One hand guided the development of his esper abilities with the help of Tree Diagram-derived research. The other absorbed Anglican spellcraft at an alarming rate. Shirley had been raised within the Church. Her knowledge wasn't narrow. Doll magic, runes, structured rituals. She'd studied broadly, precisely so she could recognize and counter unfamiliar systems.
That breadth suited Rowan perfectly.
He mastered her doll techniques quickly, then moved on to runic weapons, layered sigils, long-range targeting rites, and large-scale defensive constructs. Some spells surprised even him. Weapons forged from condensed runes. Autonomous fire giants bound to revival arrays. Wide-area exclusion fields that bent perception itself.
Many principles overlapped with magic he already knew.
Different worlds. Similar logic.
With a few adjustments, the results were cleaner. Stronger. More efficient.
He modified rune-forged flame blades to incorporate cursed fire, abyssal burn, and draconic heat. He replaced fragile physical inscriptions with invisible mana constructs, immune to disruption. Old systems rewritten with better bones.
When the time came, Rowan glanced at the clock.
"Lab time."
He vanished, reappearing at the Hound Unit facility. The routine was familiar. Injections. Monitors. Controlled stress tests. Algorithms chewing through impossible calculations.
But this time was different.
Something broke.
Not painfully. Cleanly.
The invisible barrier he'd been pushing against for months shattered. His perception expanded in an instant. Processing speed spiked. Power surged through neural pathways that had always felt… almost complete.
Now they were.
Rowan exhaled slowly as the machines confirmed it.
Tier Five.
"So that's how it feels," he murmured. "About time."
Rising from the platform, he studied the data with detached satisfaction.
"Next stop," he thought, "the churches."
Then his eyes narrowed slightly.
"But before that… I should have a word with the Chairman."