Arcane Spring’s Tremendous Power

Yinsen had originally planned to rest for a day and begin crafting tomorrow, but the image of the new wand kept circling through his mind. He simply could not calm down completely, so he gave up on resting. After preparing all the materials, he busied himself in the workshop.

A rocking ship was not an ideal environment for forging or crafting Magic Items. Even with the magic stone stabilization device activated, the ship’s swaying still affected him greatly.

Yet Yinsen overcame all those difficulties. He was desperate to complete this creation, and no matter how many problems arose, he never stopped.

Since he had used soundproofing magic, he did not have to worry about disturbing the others aboard the ship.

He had also used magic to isolate the workshop from the outside. A Do Not Disturb notice hung outside its door, letting Logan and the others know that Yinsen was busy with some "magic-related matter" again, so no one came to interrupt his work.

Failure after failure, adjustment after adjustment—when Yinsen emerged from the workshop again, five days had already passed.

"I was in there for five days?"

While eating breakfast, Yinsen had genuinely not realized that he had spent several days in the workshop. He felt mentally excellent, with almost no discomfort at all, and physically he was not in much trouble either. It felt like he had just finished a long-distance run: he had been somewhat tired right after finishing his work, but after resting for a while, he had recovered considerably.

Logan nodded. In fact, he had checked outside the workshop every day. The Do Not Disturb notice outside had remained lit the entire time, and there had been no major issues during their voyage that required Yinsen’s decision, so he had not dragged their captain, who was obsessed with crafting wands, out of there.

"So, what’s been happening lately?"

Whenever they left the Goddess of Dawn for Other Worlds, the greatest source of confusion was always the continuation of time. They had spent a year in Azeroth, while only an instant had passed here. Though his memory was excellent, Yinsen still needed a moment to sort out what had happened before.

Logan had needed even longer to organize his thoughts. Only now had he turned his attention back to what they had planned to do a year ago.

"We’re approaching the designated target according to plan. Based on our previous calculations, we should be able to rendezvous with Brent’s fleet within the next few days."

If Yinsen had not come out soon, Logan would have called him out. There was an emergency button outside the workshop that could alert Yinsen inside that something important had happened and that he needed to put down his work and come out immediately.

They did not simply open the door and go in because crafting Magic Items carried considerable risks. No one could be sure whether opening the door would trigger a disaster.

Even that kind of alert carried a certain degree of risk, but there was no helping it. For now, it was already the safest method.

"Is that so? Brent and the others are almost here too."

They still did not know what dangers this so-called expedition would face, but Yinsen’s strength had risen dramatically. Loki should not face any danger in these waters, while Logan, Selene, and even Laura had all grown much stronger. This expedition probably would not threaten their lives.

Besides, Yinsen had reserved plenty of Space-Time Energy. If anything went wrong, he could take his companions and hide in Other Worlds, then return after figuring out a solution.

He stuffed a slice of fried meat into his mouth. As he used medicine to strengthen his physique, his appetite had steadily increased as well. Now, he could eat several meals a day, each one three to five times what an ordinary person could eat, depending on whether he was hungry at the time.

Sometimes, he would privately mock himself. Not only had his potential gone from a cup of water to a bucket, but even his appetite had gone from dinner to bucket-level eating.

"Is this what you spent several days crafting?"

As Yinsen ate, everyone took turns examining the long staff he had brought out. They had never seen him use it before, and considering that he had spent the past few days shut inside the workshop, it was very likely newly crafted equipment.

The staff was roughly 1.3 meters long. Its shaft was exceedingly plain, like an ordinary metal rod, without a single decorative pattern from top to bottom.

If not for the diamond-shaped structure at the head, inlaid with what might have been a gemstone or crystal, everyone would likely have mistaken it for an ordinary iron rod. The faint blue-violet glow made it clear that it was no ordinary staff.

"A wand?"

Yinsen was a Mage, so it was not strange for him to own a wand. Wasn’t Loki, also a spellcaster, fond of carrying a scepter? Although Loki often used daggers, short swords, and throwing knives as weapons, he usually carried that scepter to maintain the bearing of a mage.

In comparison, Yinsen seemed far less dedicated. He often carried blades and swords and even liked wearing armor. It truly made people wonder whether he was a mage or a knight.

"Yes, this wand lets me use Arcane Energy freely."

The function of this wand was simple, only slightly more complicated than the ring on his hand.

The ring on Yinsen’s right hand stored energy extracted from the Tesseract for his use. He had previously relied on the energy stored in the ring for most of his spells. Since that energy possessed spatial attributes, he could use spells such as the Mirror Dimension, teleportation, Space Confinement, and even the Otherworld Dimension with ease.

This wand had a few more functions. Its interior was connected to a space containing Arcane Energy. The wand automatically drew energy from that dimension and stored it until it could hold no more, at which point it stopped automatically. Once energy was consumed, it would draw more from that dimension.

The core techniques behind this wand were all magic Yinsen knew well, so they posed no difficulty for him. The fundamental reason he had been unable to create it before was that he had never encountered Arcane Energy himself and had no idea what it was like. Even if he wanted to search through the endless planes, he would not have known where to begin.

After encountering Arcane Energy in Azeroth, he finally gained a detailed understanding of it. Naturally, he could then identify the correct world among the endless planes that contained energy. This was also a method commonly used by Kamar-Taj, except Yinsen could search far more "targets" than those mages in the Marvel Universe.

To avoid certain complications, Yinsen had not chosen the world of Azeroth. Instead, he chose a tiny, inconspicuous world where Arcane Energy was not particularly dense and drew the energy he needed from there. No matter how little Arcane Energy that world possessed, it was more than enough to satisfy his needs alone.

The name Arcane Spring came from that very fact. This wand was like a spring that could continuously produce water. It also possessed another function: it could unleash all the Arcane Energy stored within it in an instant, creating an astonishingly massive explosion.

To put it plainly, it was an Arcane Bomb. If Yinsen’s estimates were correct, at Full Power, this single wand might not destroy New York, but it could very possibly level Manhattan.

He had crafted such a thing because he had realized that although his methods were becoming more varied, he lacked a Trump Card with sufficient power.

And considering that the World Security Council had actually tried to threaten him last time in the Marvel Universe, he felt it was necessary to create such equipment for himself.

He could not truly lead the Burning Legion into the Marvel Universe, but if those politicians continued to see no real threat, they might suddenly lose their minds and come provoke him.

At that time, he could show those people the power of his wand. Yinsen had not spent so much time crafting just one of them. Once he resolved all the details and finalized the design, he could make one a day, fill them with energy, and stockpile them in his storage space. Once placed inside a spatial ring, however, the wands could no longer draw Arcane Energy from other planes.

Listening to Yinsen explain the seemingly ordinary wand and learning that it possessed such terrifying power, Logan lowered his head, examined it several more times, and returned it to Yinsen.

"I hope that before you use that ability, you send all of us far enough away."

Having personally experienced a Nuclear Bomb explosion at close range, Logan knew how agonizing an explosion of that scale could be. Even with his Undying Body, he had no desire to experience it again. Furthermore, he did not know whether an explosion triggered by this kind of Magic Energy would have any unusual side effects.

Of course there would be side effects. Looking at what happened after the Well of Eternity exploded, vast amounts of Arcane Energy would scatter everywhere, and that world would gain a new kind of energy.

Considering that Arcane Spring itself contained a spatial passage connected to a world with Arcane Energy, no one, not even Yinsen, could tell whether an explosion would cause that opening to form a stable connection directly with this world.

The milder possibility was that the Arcane Energy would slowly dissipate after a certain amount of time, or undergo some transformation and become a Special Energy unique to this world.

The more serious possibility was that the connection would be fully established and take root in this world. After some time, a group skilled in using Arcane Energy might emerge—most likely mages once again.

"I think you’re far crazier than I am."

Loki looked at the wand in Yinsen’s hand with great wariness. He had no desire to personally test whether its power was truly as great as Yinsen claimed.

"I just make preparations in case something happens."

He did not truly want to use it for that sort of thing. The greater purpose of creating this function was for when he encountered an enemy that was difficult to deal with: throw a wand over, use Teleportation Magic to flee, get hundreds of thousands of miles away, and quietly enjoy the brilliance of the fireworks.

After putting away the wand, Yinsen returned to his room and rested properly for a day. He needed to restore himself to peak condition before rendezvousing with Brent’s fleet.