Chapter 296: Graduation

"Here, it's already 2008, the beginning of everything."

From the voice, Jack guessed who the person was.

Half an hour later, Kamar-Taj.

"Ah~"

Jack sat on a couch and held a cup of hot tea in one hand while supporting his forehead with the other. He had a worried look on his face.

"Are you feeling better?"

The Ancient One took a sip of sweet honey-citron tea and let out a slow breath.

Seeing Jack in such a half-dead state, she sighed.

"You've been gone for longer than I expected."

"Yeah, almost two years."

Putting down his hand and staring at the cup for a while, he spoke again.

"Did you tell her?"

"Otherwise, how do you think this planet can continue to exist?"

The Ancient One shrugged, her tone becoming helpless.

"Of course, I lied. I told Wanda that you would come back soon, maybe in a year or two. Who knows? Luckily, you came back on time. I guess I didn't break my promise, right?"

"Right... I guess?"

Jack pondered in silence, and after a moment, he suddenly stood up.

"I need to go see her. I wonder if she'll blame me for disappearing for two years."

"If you go now, you should make it in time."

"Make it in time for what?"

The Ancient One smiled and said, "Of course, it's her graduation ceremony. She graduated early from MIT!"

"In less than a year?"

Jack was somewhat skeptical.

Is it that easy to graduate from school nowadays?

"She's the Scarlet Witch, and chaos magic helps her study."

The Ancient One suddenly added, as if she had just remembered,

"By the way, I almost forgot. She can now freely manipulate the chaos magic inside her body. Honestly, now I might not even be a match for her."

When hearing this, Jack's figure froze as he stood up, looking at the Ancient One with a serious expression.

"Is it because of Chthon?"

The chaos magic inside Wanda had always been a concern for Jack, especially during the nearly two years he was away.

However, now the Ancient One told him that Wanda had learned to control chaos magic, which instinctively made him think of Chthon, suspecting that he had done something.

"No, no, that's also something that puzzled me."

The Ancient One shook her head first, then smiled wryly.

"In the time after you disappeared, Wanda often came to the Sanctum to ask about your whereabouts. I had to take time to comfort her. You know, it's very difficult to persuade a girl who is in love."

"But one day, I suddenly discovered that she could manipulate chaos magic very skillfully, as if... it were an innate ability for her."

"What's even weird is that since then, she hasn't come again, as if she completely forgot about it. I also thought that maybe Chthon did something, but after investigating, I didn't find anything unusual."

After finishing her words with a frown, the Ancient One looked at Jack.

"Perhaps you need to find the answer yourself."

Jack pondered for a moment, nodded without saying a word, and turned to leave.

The Ancient One watched Jack's figure disappear, put down the teacup in her hand, and whispered,

"A brand new, unknown future is truly something to look forward to."

On the other side.

Inside the auditorium of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a very special graduation thesis defense was happening.

Because the presenter was just a girl who had recently turned eighteen and had been at MIT for less than a year.

According to reason and considering her age and the time of enrollment, the school would absolutely not and could not arrange this graduation thesis defense.

But the fact was just that.

Moreover, to demonstrate their importance to the presenter, the school even invited several top scholars from the industry to join the defense committee.

And among them, the most interesting one was the billionaire who was sitting in seat C and doing nothing.

Tony Stark.

To be honest, the school didn't expect him to come. They had just sent him an invitation letter as a formality and didn't really think he would show up.

According to rumors, when Tony Stark, who had just crawled out of a pile of supermodels, heard the news, he told his bodyguard to tear up the invitation letter and flush it down the toilet.

But when he heard the name of the presenter, he immediately and without hesitation said that he would definitely go.

This baffled the school, which was unable to understand why he had such a sudden change of attitude. Some people even thought that the presenter, Wanda Maximoff, might be related to Tony Stark in some way.

Little did Tony know that if he knew what some people were thinking, he might be too scared to come.

And at this very moment, the defense was coming to a close.

The knowledge of Miss Maximoff, who had applied for early graduation, astounded the committee members. Her knowledge was even better than theirs.

Frankly speaking, their positions should be reversed.

What else could they say?

Tony, the only one who remained silent, looked at the old scholars on both sides and couldn't help but smile when he saw their faces were either disappointed or excited.

Fortunately, he was just here as a mascot; otherwise, he might have embarrassed himself.

However, while he wanted to be a mascot, Wanda on stage didn't want to give him that opportunity.

"Mr. Stark!"

Suddenly hearing his name, Tony instinctively sat up straight and said seriously,

"Yes, I'm listening. Do you have any more questions, Miss Maximoff?"

"...That's exactly what I wanted to say."

Wanda looked helplessly at Tony's pretended seriousness and continued,

"What do you think of my graduation defense today?"

"How was it? It was perfect, of course!"

Tony picked up the paper in front of him and pretended to read it. He stood up and spoke first.

"I have to say, the physics world now has a famous woman who won the Nobel Prize."

"Thank you."

After politely expressing her gratitude, Wanda looked at the others.

She could ask a question, and all the members of the committee stood up and started applauding.

This was her moment.

But Wanda wasn't happy, even though this was a wonderful moment. She felt nothing but tiredness and boredom, as if none of this had anything to do with her.

This wonderful defense will go down in the history of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

After it ended, Wanda was ready to go home. After declining multiple celebration invitations, she stopped in her tracks.

Seeing Tony constantly eyeing Bumblebee, Wanda couldn't help but remind him,

"You better not touch her."

"Touch her? What do you mean?"

Hearing a noise behind him, Tony instinctively turned around and casually leaned against the car hood.

Zap!

A weak electric current instantly flowed through Tony's body. Before he could react, he realized that his arm had lost all sensation.

"Don't worry, and it'll be fine in five minutes."

"Mr. Stark, do you have any other questions?"

...

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