A Year of Events

The Ancient One helping Charles restore his bodily functions was not particularly difficult.

In the Ancient One’s own words, Charles could have recovered on his own.

After all, Charles was a mage with exceptionally high spiritual power and magical power, not an ordinary person like Jonathan Pernell.

Moreover, in the Ancient One’s view, Charles did not need her help at all. He could stand again through his own spiritual power.

Unfortunately, Charles simply did not know how. All the Ancient One had to do was teach him the method.

With the method in hand, Charles did not need to relearn magic like Jonathan Pernell. He only needed to use it to guide his body.

None of this needed to be done here, though. Charles decided to go back and study it at his leisure.

Once those matters were dealt with, Noah chose to head back, and the Ancient One did not keep them any longer.

Noah truly did need to return and watch over his Sanctum. A guardian leaving the Sanctum under his protection for more than a year was unreasonable no matter how one looked at it.

After all, not everyone was Strange. By the time Strange became Sorcerer Supreme, he had already annoyed Dormammu, Kamar-Taj’s greatest enemy, to the point where he no longer wanted to come to Earth.

So it was fine for him to leave for five years. Perhaps even ten years would not have caused any trouble.

"Finally home. This place still feels the most comfortable!" After returning to the London Sanctum, Noah immediately felt completely at ease. "Dennis, did you miss us?"

"More or less."

Dennis had naturally sensed the activity from the Sanctum’s teleportation array and came over. "If you share what you gained in Asgard, I think I’ll miss you even more."

"How realistic. But don’t worry, Wong won’t be stingy with this stuff." Noah laughed indifferently. "By the way, did anything happen while we were gone?"

Noah had been away for over a year, so naturally he had been unable to manage the Sanctum’s affairs.

He was quite curious whether anything interesting had happened in the Sanctum during his absence, or whether anything else had taken place in the magical world.

"The Sanctum is fine, though it hasn’t been as peaceful as before." Dennis shrugged. "As for everything else, that depends on what you want to hear."

"Oh? Go on." Noah casually found somewhere to sit, then took out the phone that had been switched off for a year and turned it on.

Although Asgard had internet, it did not have signal reception. Noah’s phone was not some time-defying black-tech device like Tony’s.

So Noah had kept his phone off throughout the past year. Now was the perfect time to turn it on and take a look.

Sure enough, as Noah expected, after twenty seconds passed and his phone fully booted up, a flood of text messages came rushing in.

There were also a huge number of WeChat direct messages and all sorts of @ mentions. One could only imagine how badly it lagged when so many messages poured in at once. Noah almost wondered whether his phone might explode outright.

Looking at his nearly frozen phone, Noah helplessly tossed it aside and sighed. "Tell me about the Sanctum first."

"The seals are fine." Dennis’s first words immediately reassured Noah. "And those little ones you trained are all improving quickly. I’ve also begun teaching them some Kamar-Taj magic."

"Oh?" Noah had not expected those kids to perform so well. "How are they learning? Do they have Sling Rings?"

"Yes. I went to Kamar-Taj and collected a batch." Dennis nodded. "But I don’t plan on letting them keep them. At least for now, I won’t let them carry Sling Rings around. I take them back after training."

Noah nodded. Those brats truly were not suited to wield Sling Rings yet. They were still too young.

Still, Noah was a little envious of them. Back when he had trained in those spells, he had not been allowed to use a Sling Ring at all.

Shaking his head, Noah cast those unpleasant memories out of his mind. "They sound pretty good. It’s no small thing to earn your approval. By the way, did you pass your Archmage assessment?"

"Of course I did."

At the mention of that, Dennis revealed a trace of pride, though it quickly faded away.

There were four resident mages in the London Sanctum who could handle affairs. Of those four, the woman was essentially a mascot, responsible for taking care of Noah’s daily life.

So there were really only three people managing things, and two of those three had passed the Archmage certification assessment.

That was why Dennis felt he should not be too proud of becoming an Archmage.

It might have been an honor to outsiders, but here it felt somewhat embarrassing.

"Among those little ones, Elena Neski has performed the best." Dennis immediately changed the subject. "She’s the girl you brought back with Jason. You should remember her."

"I remember. A girl with a tragic past." Noah nodded. He could naturally guess what Dennis was thinking, so he went along with him and did not pursue the previous topic.

"By the way, Noah." Dennis seemed to recall something and frowned slightly. "Do you know what happened to Kaecilius? The last time I went to Kamar-Taj, I found that he seemed to be getting more and more withdrawn. And I heard that he—"

"Oh?" At the mention of Kaecilius, Noah immediately perked up. "You heard what?"

"A friend told me he seems to have started looking through things he shouldn’t be looking through." Dennis sighed. "And apparently, he didn’t take part in the Archmage assessment this time either. He no longer interacts with his companions, apart from his own disciples."

"Is that so?"

Noah frowned as well and rubbed his chin. This really was not a good sign.

The man clearly still clung to some unrealistic ideas, and his actions seemed to be getting increasingly dangerous.

It seemed the Archmage assessment had become the trigger for some rather unpleasant developments.

But after thinking about it briefly, Noah felt there was no need to dwell on it any longer.

The Ancient One had not yet reached the point where she would disregard all consequences just to train Strange. Nor did she seem to intend to abandon her body in order to ascend to a higher form of life.

If that was the case, Noah did not think it would be much of a problem.

With the Ancient One holding the fort, Kaecilius probably could not stir up much trouble.

If the Ancient One truly found herself unable to act, Noah would not mind having a little fun with Kaecilius himself.

Though they were both high-tier Tier 7 mages, Noah did not think he would lose to that man.

With Dragonborn as his trump card, and with his physical abilities being more than capable of handling close-range attacks from Kaecilius, Noah was fairly confident he could deal with him.

Having sorted it out, Noah smiled at Dennis. "All right, I don’t think we need to worry about that. The teacher has returned. With her at Kamar-Taj, what could possibly go wrong?"

"The Sorcerer Supreme has returned?" Dennis’s frown eased upon hearing the news. "Then naturally, there won’t be any other problems."

"Anything else? In the Sanctum?"

"Well, the snake you keep often turns into a woman now. Honestly, is she an Animagus? She scared the life out of me last time. I thought an outsider had broken in! But after asking around, I found out you’ve been carrying a woman around with you all this time."

"She transformed back? Regularly? That’s good news. As for her situation, it’s a little complicated. She’s a Maledictus, but I removed her curse. Since she was human for too long in her sleep, though, she needs time to adapt to her new body. Is there anything else?"

"So that’s how it is. I understand. As for anything else, your Flerken nearly swallowed your owl several times. Since it couldn’t find you, it could only take its anger out on your bird."

Upon hearing this, Noah’s eyes widened. His red and blue pupils startled Dennis for a moment as well.

He truly had not noticed that Noah’s eye color had changed, but Dennis did not ask what had happened to him.

"You’re saying Goose nearly swallowed Hathaway?" Noah asked in disbelief. "Are they both all right?"

"They’re fine." Dennis steadied himself before answering. "Your owl is fast, and that Flerken didn’t truly intend to swallow her. But there’s something I need to tell you: to feed your Flerken, I ordered a lot more dragons. The cost of that—"

"No problem." Money was a trivial matter, and Noah did not care in the slightest. "But remember to have them issue an invoice."

Dennis found Noah rather shameless. Was this guy planning to get Kamar-Taj to reimburse him?

"All right, aside from the Sanctum, is there anything else?" Noah glanced at his phone. It seemed the messages had finally all loaded, and his phone appeared to be running out of battery.

"That S.H.I.E.L.D. guy contacted you five times during this period. Your classmate contacted you once, and some playboy contacted you three times." Dennis thought for a moment. "Oh, right. I nearly forgot something."

"What is it?" Noah was still receiving the messages, and Dennis’s sudden outburst left him a little baffled.

"It’s Jason." Dennis said directly. "He came looking for you after he returned last time, but you had gone to Asgard. He said he made a major discovery and needed to report it to you."

"Is that so?" Noah rubbed his chin. He remembered having sent Jason to investigate that so-called assassin organization. Since he had returned now, it meant he had an answer.

"Where is he?"

"In the Sanctum."

"All right. I want to see him."