Chapter 7 - Training

I arrived at the Ancient One's room and stretched my hand to knock when suddenly the door opens and I see the Ancient One with a smirk on her face and she says " Come in Mr. Doug"

I give her the stink eye and think she's definitely doing it on purpose. I walk in and find two cups of tea already on the table . I turn to her with a questioning gaze on my face.

She answers my unasked question and says

" Master Yun told me you were finished with the books. You didn't think I would waste my gift on such petty things do you? " I have a skeptical look on my face.

Which states that I would totally believe she would you use her foresight to mess with me. Although what she says could be true as I didn't seek her out right away.

I felt hungry on my way to her room, but decided to swing by the dining room to get something to eat first as I hadn't eaten in almost a day.

She takes a sip of her tea and says " I must say Mr. Doug I am surprised you're done already those books were supposed to keep you busy atleast a few weeks if not a few months it isn't easy to learn a few languages in a few hours if I do say so myself."

" I rub the back of my neck and say " Actually I forgot to tell you about my mutant ability. I am a hyper-linguist and my powers are semi-telepathic and semi-clairvoyant in nature. I can learn any language written or spoken in minutes. I am also kind of a genius and I have near photographic memory. "

As I am telling her this her eyes widen slightly which is the only sign of surprise she gives.

She starts by saying" Well that is certainly a useful ability Mr. Doug and well help you immensely especially in the Mystic Arts. " she says with an even voice.

I wait for her to continue, but she merely sips her tea again.

I start by saying" Uhm.. so what's next ? " she looks at me and says" What's next Mr. Doug is that you are going to come back in a few days to recieve a new training plan I will fit for you based on your learning speed . I will be busy as I have a few things to take care of for the next few days, but I think this is good news as you can now have a head start on your Martial Arts and conditioning training. I have personally asked Master Mordo to instruct you after group training. " she says with an unsettling smile that causes me to shiver.

' Why do I have a bad feeling about this ?' I look down at my tea and take a sip and say" Mm.. this is good tea. I can really taste the honey. "

A few weeks of tortur... Uhm.. I mean training pass. I am picking up magic at a crazy rate. Even the Ancient one seems surprised. I can already make portals without needing to swirl my hand around.

I only point at where I want it to open and it opens easily. I am currently working on changing the size and speed at which I can make them as I think they are useful for combat.

I hope I can master them soon. As the Ancient One told me the next step is opening a portal without a sling ring.

Learning opening portals surprisingly took me a few days. I also learned other useful spells like making energy weapons, but I am having trouble sustaining them for long and they break pretty easily if you get a good hit in.

Me and Master Mordo have just started incorporating energy weapons into our spars and as per usual he is still kicking my ass both in armed and unarmed combat it didn't matter that I could read his body language as I wasn't fast enough to react to his moves.

I managed to suprise him a few times with creative and well timed used portals, but he quickly caught on.

I managed to get a hit in once by creating a fist sized portal in front of his face and punching him even though we were 10 feet apart.

It was my happiest yet scariest moment of my life.

He quickly caught on and started predicting where I would place my portals to attack and would make another portal in front of mine causing me to hit myself a few times.

I got really pissed of and increased the pace of my attacks, but he just kept dodging and beating my ass.

I think at one point he may have asked me why are you hitting yourself, but nah I think I must have been hallucinating or something from all the concussions he gave me because there is no way in hell Master Mordo made a joke.

He was even more of a hard ass than he was with Strange. He must have really liked him because sheeesh last time I am ever pissing him off. Well unless he turns evil.

Then I would definitely just let Strange handle him. Nope still not fighting him. The guy looks like he's trying to kill me when he's supposedly still on the good side.

I am not touching him with a ten foot pole stick if I can help it. It would probably get embedded next to his other already present stick in the ass. Pfft.. Master Morsticks.

The hardest part of my training was probably Chi manipulation. I could manipulate it pretty well, but the problem is I didn't have enough.

I really wanted to learn how to glow. Iike the Iron fist. I wanted to suprise him if we ever fought, but instead of making my hands glow it would be my head and I would head ram him while he gapes in suprise. Just kidding.

I tried sending some Chi to my head. It didn't glow or anything but I did see some promise.

As I noticed I could think more clearly and ideas came to me more easily.

I couldn't sustain it for more than 40 seconds though , but I hope it gets longer as I build my reserves. I also think I got kind of high.

Just try sending pure life energy into your brain and see how you feel afterwards. Hmm... I wonder what will happen if I send it to THAT part. Food for thought. They could call me the Iron d.. nah I am not going there.

I didn't use the trick Strange used with astral projection to study, while sleeping as my learning speed was already insane.

I tested how long and far I could do it safely and found. I could do it for 8 hours straight and my astral projection didn't really have a distance limit the only problem was that if my time ran out while I am out of my body I would get lost in the astral realm and my body would just die.

Still it should be useful for recon, but then my body would be vulnerable for anyone to attack.

I still haven't learned how to access the mirror dimension as the Ancient One said it's an advanced skill.

It felt silly to keep calling her the Ancient One especially to her face. I tried asking for her name, but she would just smile mysteriously and refuse to answer.

Three more months pass and I have really made some headway in my portals I can now use them without a sling ring, but they are harder to form and take longer to make I am at square one with control again.

Good news though I solved one of the weaknesses of making portals which was I couldn't go to places I have never been before.

I asked Sophie to show me a picture of the place I wanted to go to but that didn't help, but then Sophie suggested maybe I needed more information and suggested that I could trick my brain and convince it where I am going by displaying a 3D hologram that makes it look like I am there.

My theory is it all depends on the amount of information you have.

Because when you use a memory to travel your brain stores the memory using input from your five senses and also depth, perspective and spatial awareness seem to be a big factor.

3D holograms seem to be enough to do the trick. There is still some limitations because if you don't have enough information about the place you're going it can be difficult to construct 3D accurate representation of the place.

For example what if the place you're going doesn't exist anymore it simply wouldn't work or if the place is hidden or hard to collect information on.

Who knew having an A. I with supercomputer image analysis and rendering capabilities displaying an almost accurate three dimensional representation of a place you have never been to in conjunction with learning the portal spell could allow you to travel anywhere in the world ?

I also started getting into enchantments and especially the use of runes as I figured runes are just basically a written form of magic.

I didn't understand them right away as I thought I would I think its because my powers need to be more advanced as the runes have another element to them other than the shape. I think the magical element to the runes is what's blocking me.

I think I might need to boost my abilities first if I want to use runes effectively also there wasn't many books that talked about runes in the library.

I found a book that mentioned Asgardian runes, but it didn't go into too much detail. I think some divine intervention of the All Father variety may have had to with why knowledge on Runes in general was so scarce especially Asgardian Runes.

I sigh. Maybe I could sneak into Asgard before it gets destroyed ? But even if I did that I don't think they keep books about Runes just lying around and let's not talk about Heimdell with his all seeing eyes or whatever.

Maybe I should learn illusion magic it seemed to do the trick for loki, but I don't know if my illusions can fool a God.

Next, I start to think about my progress in my Esper training. My telekinesis seems to show the most progress. In the first few weeks I could already lift hand sized objects and manipulate them freely.

In my second month. I could manipulate half a dozen knife sized objects accurately.

After 3 months I started working on increasing the weight I can lift to at least a few hundred pounds.

Because I wanted to know how to fly and I don't think the cloak of levitation is going anywhere until Strange arrives.

There wasn't much progress with my clairvoyance training. I went to the Ancient One as she was the leading expert on the subject.

She told me it could take decades to get it to be useful in anyway.

It frustrated me a bit as I thought seeing the future would have made things so much easier. My telepathic training has also hit a road block.

I try to keep accessing my mind so that I can organize it, but every time I access my mind I find myself in my old room back in my old world. It was the house I used to live in while my parents were still alive.

Things were kind of messy in my room. So I did the logical thing and started to organize everything and clean it up.

I could feel my memory recall improving and my mind felt clearer than ever. I went around the house and started looking through the rooms and found everything empty.

I headed to the garage door and tried to open it. I spent days trying to open it, but every time I couldn't. The paint on the garage door started to chip though with every attempt .

Which I thought was strange as it wasn't real paint nor was this a real door merely a mental representation of something . As the white coat of paint started to chip I found a red door with a golden zero on it.

I started to think that maybe the red door has got something to do with the old Doug.

I found it strange that I couldn't access his memories even after being in his body for close to 10 months.

I think his powers may have interfered in the merging process and separated our memories by creating a barrier between my memories and his.

I think the only way to access his memories is by opening that door. I thought about it for a while and decided I would leave it for now as it seems I can't progress my telepathic training anymore until I open that door and I can't seem to force it open.

I will try it again after I make some progress in my Chi training as I think I could force the door open if I pump enough Chi to my brain.

I just have to find a way to increase my Chi reserves.

'Hmm... I wonder if there are Dragons still around . I think I will just ask the Ancient One about it. Maybe I could get lucky and kill steal the dragon heart before Danny does it' ?

(Chapter End)

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