Strange certainly did not want to freeze to death. He had only just found Kamar-Taj, and his hands would absolutely be healed in the future. He still had a bright future ahead of him. How could he possibly die here?
Strange shakily stood up and waved his hands, trying to open a portal. But no matter how many times he tried, only scattered sparks appeared. There was no sign of a portal opening at all.
Harry and Mordo watched the entire scene from the floating city. The two of them stood inside the sanctum. There was clearly nothing in front of them, yet it was as if they were staring at something together.
Mordo looked worried. Without thinking, he wanted to reach out and help Strange, to bring him back. Strange did not look like someone who could successfully open a portal. If this continued, Strange, whose magical talent was exceptionally high, might very well die right there.
But just as Mordo took a step forward, Harry reached out and stopped him.
"Don't worry. Don't interfere with him. He can definitely succeed."
"But…"
"Relax. I'm here. There won't be a problem!"
But the moment Harry finished speaking, the two of them suddenly saw Strange collapse. He lay on the freezing stone and began unconsciously taking off his clothes.
That was clearly a symptom of severe hypothermia!
Mordo silently looked toward Harry and deadpanned, "That doesn't exactly look like he's fine. He's already failed. I'll bring him back."
But Harry only smiled and said, "How has he failed?"
Just then, a dazzling green light enveloped Strange's body. As if time were flowing backward, he returned to the state he had been in not long after reaching Kamar-Taj.
Strange had returned to the exact moment after Harry had just left.
Mordo was speechless.
He finally understood why Harry was so certain that Strange would succeed. If Strange failed, Harry would simply use time magic to rewind him back to the beginning. After several attempts, how could Strange possibly fail?
Sure enough, with repeated attempts and Strange's magical talent, which was second only to Harry's, by the third reset, his eyes sharpened. He suddenly felt as if he had already experienced what was happening now.
But he did not think too deeply about it. If he did not open a portal soon, he really would be done for.
So, relying on some muscle memory that seemed to come from nowhere, he gathered all the magic in his body and waved both hands. In an instant, a portal opened before his eyes.
Although the portal was crooked and uneven, not round at all, and looked as if it might vanish at any moment, it was still enough for him to return to the floating city.
At that moment, Strange was too frozen to walk properly, so he threw himself straight through the portal. The next second, he arrived inside the magnificent sanctum of the floating city.
Strange was not angry at Harry for leaving him on Mount Everest. On the contrary, he was extremely grateful.
Clearly, this was Harry's teaching method. If Harry had not used such an extreme approach, Strange might have needed a long time before he could grasp how to open portals.
Besides, he had been too anxious at the time and had not thought it through. Now that he was out of danger, when he looked back on the incident, he realized that the danger had always been under Harry's control. If his life had truly been in danger, Harry would never have stood by and done nothing.
After all, Kamar-Taj was a benevolent organization that protected world peace. There was no way it would treat human life so carelessly.
Ever since Strange successfully cast a portal, his magical attainments improved at an astonishing pace.
He truly was a genius. He was skilled in almost every kind of magic, and he also had outstanding talent in the extremely difficult fields of time and space magic.
However, geniuses had troubles of their own. Strange only spent a few months learning every spell taught in Kamar-Taj's public classes, while Christine, who had joined at the same time as him, had only just completed one-fifth of the curriculum.
Because his progress was completely different from everyone else's, Strange inevitably became proud. He realized that he was special.
Gradually, he stopped attending Kamar-Taj's public classes. Instead, he chose to borrow magic books from the library and study magic on his own.
Naturally, this behavior displeased the teaching sorcerers. They reported Strange's conduct to Harry, so Harry prepared to find a time to have a talk with him.
That day, inside the floating city's sanctum, two figures slowly walked into the spacious hall through the main doors.
Harry's expression did not change. As if they were only having a casual conversation, he asked Strange, "In this very room, only a few months ago, you begged me to teach you magic. But now, you're telling me that you question all the classes and have chosen to teach yourself?"
After several months in Kamar-Taj, Strange was no longer the inexperienced newcomer he had once been. By now, he had long since figured out Kamar-Taj's general rules, as well as the general personality of this absurdly young Sorcerer Supreme standing in front of him.
Now dressed in a fitted sorcerer's robe, Strange said dismissively, "In this room, you once told me to broaden my horizons. Now you're asking me to blindly accept rules that make absolutely no sense."
Harry did not care about Strange's rudeness. Even though everyone called him the strongest superhero, a multiversal-level Dimensional Demon God, and the most sacred Sorcerer Supreme, he had never thought he was anything special.
He had always been magnanimous.
So he raised an eyebrow and asked, "Oh? Are you talking about the rule that says you can't casually use a Sling Ring in the library?"
"Did Wong tattle on me?" Strange did not show fear. Instead, he asked back with interest.
Harry shook his head. Without any warning, he suddenly snapped his fingers.
Immediately afterward, the space-time around them completely froze. However, Strange had recently begun studying time magic, so his consciousness was still able to keep operating.
Of course, that was also because Harry had not deliberately targeted him.
But Strange did not know that. After studying for some time, his strength had already reached a level that his former self could never have imagined.
Now, he could even face an army alone and emerge victorious. He believed that if he maintained this pace of improvement, perhaps in a few years, he might be able to defeat Harry.
However, Harry's sudden move shattered that fantasy. Although he was now far stronger than before, when facing Harry Potter, known as the greatest Sorcerer Supreme, he still had no power to resist at all.
In fact, before he began training, Harry Potter had been an insurmountable mountain to him. But after he began training, he realized that Harry Potter had become a boundless sky. No matter how he looked up, no matter how far he explored, he still could not see the end.
This made Strange think of an old American fantasy-forum meme: Before you train, you see me as a frog in a well looking at the moon. After you train, you see me as a mayfly staring up at the endless sky.
There was no better way to describe the current situation.
Strange felt a little afraid. He did not know why Potter had suddenly immobilized him. Was he about to punish him?
But Harry's next words denied that guess.
Harry gently pinched at him, and a wisp of savage scarlet gas appeared in Harry's palm.
The scarlet gas seemed alive. It twisted continuously in Harry's hand, trying every second to corrode his palm.
But the gap between them was simply too vast. No matter how the scarlet gas struggled, it could not harm Harry in the slightest.
Harry observed it for a moment, then exerted a little force with two fingers. The ominous gas immediately dissipated.
Strange asked curiously, "This… this was found on me? What is it?"
"Energy from the Crimson Cosmos," Harry answered Strange's question. "This is exactly why I forbid most sorcerers from reading advanced magical knowledge. Your minds are too fragile. The moment you let your guard down, Dimensional Demon Gods can invade your thoughts, until eventually, you become their slaves."
Strange's expression changed drastically, his eyes filling with panic. After several months of study, he naturally understood what that meant.
It meant he would become the slave of some great being and be tortured endlessly by them. Even death would not let him escape.
Seeing Strange's reaction, Harry nodded in satisfaction and continued, "When it comes to spells, you really do learn very quickly. But if you want to study deeper knowledge, you still need a safe place to practice. Come with me…"
Harry gently waved his hand, and layers of mirrored images appeared in the air beside them. They looked like shattered space, piecing themselves together as they floated around Harry and Strange.
"This is the Mirror Dimension. You need to master it as quickly as possible. From now on, when you read those advanced magic books, do it inside the Mirror Dimension. It can effectively block the gazes of most Dimensional Demon Gods."
"Most?" Strange asked, puzzled. "What about the small portion it can't block?"
Harry did not answer. He only smiled.
Before absolute power, how could a mere dimensional barrier possibly stop the gaze of higher-dimensional beings?
However, with him here, most of those few Dimensional Demon Gods would not dare to come anyway.
After the two of them entered the Mirror Dimension, Strange suddenly discovered that someone had followed them in.
It was Master Mordo.
At that moment, Harry's voice rang out. "Strange, you've been studying at Kamar-Taj for several months now. Spar with Mordo and let me see your results."
When Strange saw Mordo, he was eager to try. He had long wanted to test his current strength.
On the training ground in the Mirror Dimension, Strange and Mordo stood twenty meters apart and stared at each other.
Strange was the first to provoke him. "Master Mordo, are you ready to be defeated by a beginner who has only studied magic for a few months?"
Mordo shook his head and said indifferently, "Don't run your mouth. We'll decide the winner with strength."
The match officially began.
Strange raised his hand and waved lightly. Three deep-blue energy blades immediately condensed in the air and launched a probing attack at Mordo.
But naturally, such minor tricks could not trouble Mordo. Mordo even had enough spare attention to scold Strange.
"Strange, I've told you countless times. Remember, casting magic isn't about using your hands. It's about using your will."
Mordo only took a few relaxed steps and blocked all the energy blades.
Immediately afterward, he also condensed three energy blades and launched an attack at Strange.
Strange, however, could not deal with them so easily. Instinctively, he leaned back. A cold current brushed past the back of his neck, and strands of his hair were sliced off and fluttered down.
Then he hurriedly traced the runes he remembered, but only a few weak sparks burst from his palm.
Because his emotions were too intense, he failed to cast a spell he had long since become proficient with.
"Too slow!" Mordo turned his wrist, and three obsidian spikes suddenly rose from the ground.
The three obsidian spikes trapped Strange directly between them. The match had lasted only a few dozen seconds before it was declared over.
"Looks like you're still pitifully weak." After the match ended, Mordo walked to Strange's side, dispelled the rock magic, and mocked him.
Since his skill was inferior, Strange was still unconvinced, but he did not say anything.
If he talked now, Mordo would only mock him twice as hard. What he needed to do most was study magic even harder, and then defeat Mordo once he became stronger than him.
Harry was not surprised by the result of this match at all. Although Strange's talent was greater than Mordo's, Mordo was still a sorcerer who had studied for many years. Under normal circumstances, Strange would not be Mordo's opponent for the next year or two.
However, that was under normal circumstances.
Harry took a glittering green gem out of his Pocket dimension, held it in his hand, and asked with a smile, "Strange, do you want to get stronger faster?"
Strange nodded without hesitation. "Of course I do, Sorcerer Supreme!"
"Then I'll give you this Time Stone. Use it to study time magic and accelerate the flow of time around yourself. That will let you become stronger in a short time." Harry tossed the Time Stone to Strange.
"Wait!" Seeing Harry throw the Time Stone to Strange, Mordo finally realized what was happening. His face filled with anxiety as he stopped him. "Sorcerer Supreme, you can't hand something as important as the Time Stone to a new sorcerer like this. He will absolutely keep casting time magic and casually disrupt the boundaries of space-time.
"You must understand that time manipulation can create time branches. Those are extremely unstable spaces, spatial paradoxes, time loops. Do you want Strange trapped in an infinitely repeating stretch of time?"
Strange had never seen the normally composed Mordo lose his composure like this. It seemed that the time manipulation Mordo mentioned was an extremely dangerous kind of magic.
Faced with Mordo's accusation, Harry smiled and comforted him. "Relax, Mordo. I wouldn't hurt Strange. After all, my future happiness depends on Strange becoming a cuck… a powerful sorcerer!
"Time manipulation is extremely dangerous for you, but for me, it's something I can manipulate at will. Even if Strange really falls into an infinite time loop, I can easily fish him out.
"As for creating new time branches, there's even less need to worry about that. The multiverse creates new time branches every second, and at the same time, countless old time branches are destroyed. Everything we do cannot harm the multiverse's timeline in the slightest."
"What about a time war?" Mordo was still somewhat worried.
"There's even less need to worry about that. This timeline is my timeline. How could I possibly sit back and watch it be destroyed?!"
//Check out my P@tre0n for 30 extra chapters on all my fanfics //[email protected]/Razeil0810