Chapter 221 - Hulk vs Ancient One : Who's the Best?

"What a surprise that Odin's last days were spent on Earth." Tony Stark was the first to say with a sigh of relief.

　　Everyone on the scene also sighed a little.

　　Apart from Star-Lord and Strange, everyone had just met this majestic and infinite old man in Asgard not long ago.

　　At that time, Odin, although old, still looked like a mountain.

　　Just by standing there, he could bring a lot of pressure on everyone.

　　But who would have thought that it was only a matter of time before everyone witnessed Odin's death?

　　But in any case, Odin died of natural old age, and this was a happy ending, nothing to be sad about.

　　"This image took place not long after Loki faked his death and took the throne of Asgard, I didn't expect it to be so soon."

　　Thor, however, was somewhat taken by surprise.

　　Everyone had previously deduced that Odin's death should be very close by, maybe even when Loki ascended the throne, and it turned out that everyone's suspicions were now proven correct.

　　And Loki's ascension to the throne of Asgard would be when the nine heavenly bodies converged and the Dark Elves revived.

　　Such things have happened!

　　Almost a year had passed since the Nine Celestial Bodies converged and all joined forces to kill Malekith!

　　The day of Odin's death was even less far away.

　　The thought of it made Thor's heart a little heavy.

　　"Thor, are you alright?"

　　Captain America asked off to the side as he glanced at Thor.

　　"I'm fine." Thor shook his head and forced himself to pull himself together, "Everyone go on, discuss the topic however you want, I'm perfectly fine."

　　And everyone didn't take much more care of Thor's emotions.

　　After all, Odin had died of old age, sort of a good death, and Thor was even less of a child.

　　"Guys, I'm sure you all remember too right, that image of Hela crushing Thor's hammer." Tony Stark spoke again, "Apparently, this image is the one that took place before that one."

　　"Which means that immediately after Odin's death, Hela appeared in front of Thor and Loki and crushed Thor's hammer!"

　　There was no doubt about that either, as the old answerers who had seen the corresponding video had recalled it a long time ago.

　　"I have to say, this is quite unexpected." Dr Banner scratched his head, "The Goddess of Death, Hela, who we've all been focusing on, is Thor's sister."

　　"That would explain why Hela is so powerful but Thor has never heard of her, turns out she's been locked up by Odin all this time." Captain America interjected off to the side.

　　And began to summarise, "Through this image, we can get two important pieces of information."

　　"The first is that Hela's source of power is Asgard and that she will become even more powerful once she returns to Asgard."

　　"The second is that Hela was imprisoned by Odin for her extremely inflated ambition, and for a long, long time and that she should have a hatred for Odin, and Asgard. Thor."

　　With that said, Captain America once again turned his gaze to Thor, "Hela might attack Asgard, you need to prepare yourselves in advance."

　　"Hela invading Asgard, an option that has come up in multiple questions before, which again tells you something."

　　Tony Stark added, "Based on our consistent experience in answering questions, none of the options in the questions is made up out of thin air."

　　The group in the room could be said to be largely in agreement on the point that Hela would hit Asgard.

　　The possibility was high.

　　Even if one could not be sure of this, Asgard needed to be prepared for this.

　　"Dad locked his daughter up, then she finally escaped when dad died and ended up fighting her way back to her own home to get revenge, even fighting her brother."

　　Star-Lord shrugged, "WOW, what a messy family relationship that is!"

　　[Please listen to the question: Hulk broke into the New York Temple in search of the Time Gem, in which of the following ways did Hulk finally get the Time Gem from the Ancient One?]

　　[A. Defeating the Ancient One through great strength and taking the Time Gem]

　　[B. Convincing the Ancient One to hand over the Time Gem.]

　　[C. Join forces with other teammates to steal the gem from the Ancient One].

　　[D. Destroy the Temple to force the Ancient One to give up the gem]

　　[Friendship note: Those who answer the question correctly will be rewarded with the Twelve Runes of the Horse Rune.]

　　Those who answer incorrectly will have one random attribute of their own deducted, including but not limited to knowledge, experience, skills, everything, etc. ...]

　　Amidst all the chatter, the second question appeared.

　　Everyone on the scene stopped discussing for a while and focused on the newly appeared question.

　　"Hulk's search for the Time Gem?"

　　Tony Stark was the first to notice something keenly, "Why would Hulk search for the Time Gem? Did this event happen after the exterminator snapped his fingers?"

　　"I suppose so."

　　Thor nodded in agreement after a brief pause, "According to our previous speculation, after Thanos destroyed the Infinity Stones, everyone went on a time travel trip to find the stones."

　　"What we can say for sure is that Stark and the Captain and the others searched for the Tesseract and the Scepter, and Natasha went to that mysterious mountain in search of the Soul Gem."

　　"Although we don't know much about the other gems, it's only right that everyone should have searched all six, right?"

　　It was a natural guess.

　　Since the only way to snap your fingers and wipe out half the life in the universe was to collect all six Infinity Gems, the reverse was also true.

　　To erase what Thanos had done and save those beings who had been wiped out by them, the six Infinity Gems must be equally necessary.

　　"Let's run through this, I remember you guys saying that the Thanos killed Loki on Asgard's ship and stole the Tesseract, and that's when he had the two Infinity Gems, and the Time Gem wasn't one of them."

　　Strange joined in, "It was also then that Hulk was transported to Earth by Heimdall."

　　"And Earth wasn't equipped for interstellar exploration, and given the general context of the imminent arrival of the Thanos, Dr Banner would have remained on Earth after that, preparing for the battle."

　　"In the Battle of Wakanda, we can see that no one knew the Thanos except Dr Banner, which means that the Thanos hadn't come to Earth before that."

　　"But by that time, Thanos had already snatched the Time Gem!"

　　"That would mean that the Thanos didn't snatch the Time Gem from Dr Banner, in other words, it wasn't in Dr Banner's possession during this time."

　　"So, yes, that's right, Dr Banner didn't get the Time Gem during this time, it would be the time of time travel."

　　Through everyone's simple analysis, the point in time when the Hulk was looking for the Time Gem, as described in the question, was established.

　　It wasn't 100 per cent certain, but it was still very likely.

　　"Let's look at a few options." Dr Banner also opened up, when the first analysis was made, "A, Hulk defeats the Ancient One? The woman who was high up in the Kamar-Taj?"

　　The clues about the Ancient One were not very many, or even very few.

　　All the clues came from the conversation between Casillas and Dr Strange, and everyone could only speculate that the Ancient One Mage was of high status and had probably lived for a very long time.

　　And of course, naturally, the strength is very, very strong.

　　The battle between Kaecilius and Dr Strange was clear to everyone, and the guy was much more powerful than Dr Strange.

　　But even he needed to draw power from the Ritual to defeat Kuichi.

　　Although we know very little about the Ancient One at the moment, there is no doubt that he is a big shot.

　　What would happen if he and Hulk fought?

After carefully comparing and analysing the situation in their minds, they could only say that it was impossible to tell, Hulk could defeat Gu Yi, but even if he was defeated by Gu Yi, people would not feel any surprise.

　　After all, everyone had already seen a lot of the mage's methods, which could be said to be breathtaking, capable of many, many things that defied the norm and seemed like miracles.

　　The Hulk is a huge threat to the vast majority of people, but in the presence of such a mage, it may not be.

　　"Option A we can't tell." Tony Stark said at once, "Let's just say that the possibility exists, but we can't be sure."

　　"There aren't many people in the world who could defeat the Hulk, but I don't think I'd be surprised if the Ancient One Mage was one of them."

　　No one on the scene offered any objections either, it was really hard to tell if the Hulk was fighting the Ancient One Mage or something.

　　"What about B."

　　Strange put his eyes on option B and made a judgement call first, "Isn't option B the one to rule out? Dr Banner is like a monster once he turns into Hulk, right? Just hammering away at everything."

　　After sharing information with everyone, there were some of the most basic facts about the situation Strange knew.

　　But unfortunately, he didn't know too much detail.

　　"Moving the needle is indeed unlikely for the current Hulk, but the future can be hard to say." Captain America, however, shook his head.

　　"Strange, as we have analysed before, Hulk is constantly evolving, his sanity continues to grow, and perhaps one day in the future he will be able to fully control his anger and regain his sanity."

　　Tony Stark also began to explain to Strange, "If the Hulk at that time is that 'sane version of Hulk', it's not impossible for him to reason with the Ancient One."

　　"But even if that's the case, option B isn't possible, is it?" Star-Lord shook his head repeatedly to the side, "That's the Time Gem! Something that important would be convinced?"

　　"Whoever that Ancient One mage is, she seems like a very powerful character, she would be convinced by someone?"

　　Star-Lord felt a little bit of bullshit when he thought about it.

　　Everyone on the floor, too, subconsciously shook their heads, thinking that this option was simply impossible and that it sounded a little too childish.

　　"Guys, I think we should analyse this option carefully." But Tony Stark, after some contemplation, was saying to the group with a straight face.

　　"Stark, you have a different opinion?" Thor glanced at Tony Stark with a little surprise.

　　The other people on the scene, too, had their eyes on Tony Stark, waiting for Tony Stark's "high opinion".

　　"As we have analyzed before, there is a high possibility that the Hulk's search for the Time Gem at the New York Temple took place after the destruction of the Infinity Stones, when everyone went on a time travel trip to find the Gem, right?"

　　"There is no doubt about that, is there, everyone?"

　　Naturally, everyone had no doubts, this had been agreed upon at the beginning when everyone started to formally enter into the analysis.

　　"Then there's one more thing, during the endgame battle, Dr Strange held out a finger to me and reminded me how to deal with the Thanos, I don't think everyone has forgotten that either."

　　This scene had been brought up more than once during the Q&A, and naturally, everyone still remembered it.

　　"Stark, what exactly are you trying to say?" Captain America inquired as he stared at Tony Stark with some confusion.

　　"As we have analyzed before, the time travel happened after cutting off Thanos's head and not the endgame battle, so why did Dr Strange know how to deal with Thanos during the endgame battle?"

　　"If he knew the method, why didn't he tell me in advance, but only stuck out a finger to remind me at that life-and-death moment?"

　　"You're trying to say that Dr Strange foresaw the time." Dr Banner interjected off to the side.

　　The theory in question had been mentioned by Tony Stark in previous questions.

　　It was because Dr Strange knew the future that he was afraid of changing the future timeline, making the conditions for dealing with Thanos untenable, that he had warned Tony Stark at the last minute.

　　"Exactly!" Tony Stark nodded, "It's a reasonable guess, Doctor Strange has the Time Gem on him and we've seen images of how he manipulates time."

　　"For them to see the future is not a strange thing."

　　"While the truth about Dr Strange sticking his finger out is still unclear to me, the fact that they can see the future is something I can accept," Thor said as he nodded to the side.

　　It wasn't just Thor, but everyone else in the scene likewise agreed on this point.

　　After all, everyone had seen the images of Dr Strange using the Time Gem to manipulate time, and even things like turning back time could be done, so what was the big deal about seeing the future?

　　And as everyone came to this point in their analysis, they all vaguely understood what Tony Stark meant.