At the center of the plaza stood a hundred-meter-tall crystal fountain. Its jets of water condensed into all kinds of strange shapes in midair, sometimes becoming a great dragon riding the clouds, sometimes turning into dancing flower fairies. Each transformation came with the pleasant tinkling of water.
Even more astonishing was the fact that the splashing droplets did not fall. Instead, they hovered in the air, refracting brilliant rainbow-like light.
In the corners of the plaza, several suspended arenas floated in midair. Fierce magical duels were taking place on them, and dazzling magical light mingled with the cheers of the audience, adding even more dizzying color to this extravagant plaza.
After witnessing such a magnificent sight, Strange and Christine were utterly stunned.
Who the hell said Kamar-Taj was simple and humble?
This was clearly extravagant to the extreme!
"Wait!" Strange pointed ahead in complete shock, then looked back at the worn wooden door behind them and asked in confusion, "Isn't Kamar-Taj supposed to be simple? Then what's going on with this plaza? Even Tony Stark's private villa isn't as extravagant as this!"
Mordo smiled and looked proudly at the scene before him as he explained, "Kamar-Taj was indeed very simple, but that was when Master Ancient One served as Sorcerer Supreme.
"The current Sorcerer Supreme is Master Potter. As a shareholder of Stark Industries, the leader of the Multiverse Hero League, an honored guest of Asgard, and a Supreme VIP member of the Crossroads Dimension, he is naturally very rich. So we built the floating city and abandoned our old, simple lifestyle."
"Floating city?!" This war fortress straight out of fantasy novels immediately caught Strange and Christine's attention.
"That's right. This is the floating city! This one floating city alone has the power to destroy any country in the world. If the Sorcerer Supreme personally controls it, it can even rival an entire civilization!" Mordo became extremely excited as he said this.
When Harry had first started building the floating city, everyone had opposed him. After all, a floating city was a fantasy structure that existed only in novels. It had never existed in reality.
If it succeeded, then of course everyone would be happy. But if it failed, they would undoubtedly lose a massive amount of precious materials.
Kamar-Taj back then was nowhere near as wealthy as it was now. If the project failed, they might not even be able to guarantee basic security for the many sorcerers.
Without guaranteed pay, how could the sorcerers possibly be willing to risk their lives for Kamar-Taj?
Fortunately, Harry succeeded. With the floating city, Kamar-Taj's strength increased dramatically. On top of that, with the Mind Stone providing unlimited energy, all the resources available to the sorcerers became dozens of times greater than before.
This time, even some sorcerers who had opposed Harry serving as Sorcerer Supreme silently accepted the fact that Harry held the title.
From the moment the floating city was established, all of Kamar-Taj entered the era of Harry Potter.
Mordo led Strange and Christine through several turns before finally arriving inside a spacious hall.
"This is the sanctuary of the current Sorcerer Supreme. His name is Harry Potter," Mordo said quietly as he led Strange and Christine through the doors.
"Harry Potter? Is that his real name?" Strange asked in confusion.
As soon as he said this, the old-fashioned and conservative Mordo became even more displeased with him. He frowned and snapped in a low voice, "I already told you. Forget what you think you know."
"Sorry…" Strange quickly shut his mouth.
The inside of the hall was even more extravagant than the outside, giving off a sense of limitless luxury.
Here, Strange sensed even more things related to the extraordinary. Golden rune patterns wound across the floor, and those runes flowed slowly like living things, giving off a gentle glow.
Mysterious paintings hung on the walls around them. The scenes inside these paintings were not still, but constantly changing.
These shifting paintings were like movies, continuously playing one legendary story after another. In most of those stories, the figures that appeared were a bald female sorcerer and a young sorcerer holding a staff as tall as a person.
Strange had seen that young sorcerer before. Although the sorcerer's face was shrouded in gray mist and could not be seen clearly, based on his height and age, Strange judged that this was the Sorcerer Supreme, Harry Potter, the person he had come here to seek.
On both sides of the sanctuary stood two rows of long tables. These tables were not in the usual European or American style, but had the clean, sturdy look of old New England furniture. After all, Kamar-Taj had always carried a certain deeper connection to that austere, old-fashioned craftsmanship.
When Strange and Christine arrived at the center of the sanctuary, two sorcerers, one man and one woman, appeared at some point and walked to their sides. Each placed a strange circular device on their chest.
Just as Strange and Christine were wondering what these devices were, the two strange circular devices suddenly trembled. Then they turned into a liquid-like silver substance that seeped into their clothes and finally formed sorcerer robes identical to those worn by the sorcerers around them.
"Is this nanotechnology?" Strange was an educated man with a discerning eye, and he could roughly guess what kind of technology the device used.
"That's right. It is indeed nanotechnology, though some magic has been blended into it as well." Just then, a young man wearing a radiant starry sorcerer robe slowly walked over and handed Strange and Christine each a cup of tea.
Strange hurriedly thanked him. "Thank you, thank you. May I ask who you are?"
Before the sorcerer could introduce himself, Mordo came to Strange's side and quietly reminded him, "This is the current Sorcerer Supreme."
"Wait, he's the Sorcerer Supreme? He's too young!" Strange said hoarsely, unable to believe it.
He had thought the Sorcerer Supreme would at least be an elderly sage, kind and benevolent, old but full of vitality. He had not expected him to be this young, even decades younger than himself, looking like a kid who had only recently graduated from college.
"Disappointed?" Harry flicked his fingertip, making two more cups of tea appear before himself and Mordo. "Wrinkles and a white beard don't increase power. Strength and character are the first requirements for becoming Sorcerer Supreme."
Strange suddenly realized that this Sorcerer Supreme was completely different from what he had imagined. He did not have the detached aura of a mage who stood beyond the mortal world at all. Instead, he was unexpectedly down-to-earth.
"All right. So that's how it is," he replied somewhat stiffly.
Then silence fell.
Including the Sorcerer Supreme himself, every sorcerer stared at Strange and Christine, as if the two of them were some sort of strange creatures.
The scene placed enormous psychological pressure on them, forcing them to lower their heads and drink tea to hide their embarrassment.
At that moment, Christine suddenly looked up and asked curiously, "Before coming here, I looked through some files. You cured a man named Pangborn, right? A completely paralyzed patient?"
Harry snapped his fingers, and many exquisite dishes appeared from the void, lightly landing on the table. At the same time, he answered Christine's question.
"In a sense. But that wasn't my achievement. It was my teacher's."
"Then where is your teacher?" Christine asked.
"She passed away a few years ago," Harry replied sadly.
"Uh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to," Christine said, guilt appearing on her face.
But what Christine had not expected was that Harry's sadness seemed somewhat different from what she had imagined. In the middle of that sadness, there was a trace of gritted-teeth irritation as Harry complained, "It's fine. That old coot may be dead, but she isn't fully gone. At our level, death has never been an irreversible phenomenon."
Christine was confused.
Strange fell silent.
What was going on here? Was this Sorcerer Supreme really this… casual?
Wasn't this a little too disrespectful toward his teacher?
"Ahem!" At that moment, Mordo, who was standing nearby, coughed heavily to remind Harry.
Only then did Harry come back to himself and realize that he had drifted away from the script they had set up. So he somewhat stiffly changed the subject.
"Ahem. That's right. That patient was indeed related to my teacher, Master Ancient One."
Strange paid no attention to the earlier farce. Right now, he only wanted to heal his hands, so he asked, "May I ask how your teacher healed a completely damaged section between C6 and C8 of the spinal cord?"
"My teacher didn't heal him. He couldn't walk, but my teacher could convince him to walk."
"Wait. You aren't saying that was psychotherapy, are you?" Strange clearly did not believe it.
Harry did not mind. Every one of Strange's reactions was within his expectations.
"When all your damaged nerves reconnect, is it you who is healing them, or are your limbs healing themselves?"
"It's cells!"
"But cells only recover through their own unique methods…"
"That's right."
"What if I told you that your body can convince itself to recover in all kinds of ways?" Harry's smile grew even brighter.
Strange's eyes lit up. He stepped forward a few paces, and his hands trembled even more violently.
"Are you talking about cellular regeneration? That's cutting-edge medical technology.
"So you're researching it here because there's no medical board oversight? I'd like to ask, how far has this method progressed?"
Harry and Mordo looked at each other, then smiled without immediately answering.
After Harry refilled Mordo's tea, he continued, "Not bad. At most, it can grow flesh over bare bone and bring the dead back to life."
"Wait, so you've found a way to make cells regenerate?" Strange was so excited he could barely contain himself, and even his voice carried an obvious tremor.
However, Harry's answer was destined to disappoint Strange. He spoke meaningfully.
"No, Mr. Strange. We haven't found a way to make cells regenerate. But we do know how to use the soul to better heal the body."
"Wait. You're talking about the soul healing the body?" Strange's expression abruptly stiffened.
"That's right."
Strange clearly did not quite believe this. Although he was certain that magic truly existed, all known magic seemed to be nothing more than powerful destructive force.
Did the soul really exist?
Could the soul truly heal the body?
Although he was half-believing and half-doubting, Strange still decided to grasp at this final sliver of hope. He asked haltingly, "Uh, all… all right. Then what do we do? Where do we start?"
Harry placed a page from a book in front of Strange. On the right side of the page was a diagram of the human body.
However, unlike the anatomical diagrams found in ordinary hospitals, this human body diagram did not contain organs. Instead, it contained one universe after another.
Inside one of those universes, Strange saw the name Asgard.
Wasn't that a myth?
Why was the Sorcerer Supreme showing him this?
Harry noticed Strange's surprise, but he did not explain much. Instead, he continued acting according to the script Master Ancient One had prepared long ago.
"Do you like this chart?"
"Uh, it's nice, but I've only seen this kind of thing in gift shops before."
"What about this?"
"Acupuncture. Wonderful."
"And this?"
This time, Strange truly could not take it anymore. He turned his head and immediately said to Harry, somewhat awkwardly, "Sorry, but please show me an MRI. I don't believe in this."
Harry was not angry because of Strange's offense. He still smiled and said, "These diagrams were drawn by hand. Like blind men feeling an elephant, they see the trees but not the forest.
"So the world you know is not the real world."
Strange was somewhat disappointed. "This is your treatment plan? I thought you would at least be a little more scientific."
"But magic is another scientific system. Its underlying logic is simply different. Just like water flows downward, but in magic, water can flow upward."
"Forget it. I never should have placed my hopes in magic. Letting you superheroes fight and kill is one thing, but delicate work like neurological treatment is absolutely impossible for you. Maybe I should go back as soon as possible and look for several famous hospitals to perform rehabilitation surgery." Strange was completely disappointed.
Strange's reaction made Harry nod. According to Master Ancient One's plan, this part of the script first required Strange to be disappointed in Kamar-Taj, then use a somewhat aggressive method to make him trust Kamar-Taj again.
Now the first step had already been completed. Strange was already extremely disappointed in Kamar-Taj.
So it was time for the second step.
Christine was still asking whether they could treat Strange, but Harry had no intention of answering her. He simply walked in front of the two of them and stretched out both hands, striking each of them in the chest.
The next moment, their souls were projected out in spirit form and floated in the air. Just as their souls revealed expressions of absolute shock and tried to say something, Harry quickly snapped his fingers.
The simple multiverse tour starts now!
"Ahhh!"
Amid a continuous series of piercing screams, Harry sent Strange and Christine flying together into a tunnel connected to different parallel universes.
The two felt as if they had been shoved violently by an enormous force. They suddenly accelerated, smashed through the wall of the sanctuary, and appeared high in the sky.
When they looked down, they saw an entire city-sized floating city hovering above the Himalayas.
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