Novice of Mystic Arts

Falling through the portal that the Ancient One had opened under my feet, I drop on my ass in the middle of a desert. A quick glance around tells me that I am in the middle of bum fuck nowhere with plains of sand surrounding me as far as the eye can see.

I expected to be dropped on Mount Everest, similar to Strange, but it seems the bald woman decided to spare me from the cold, probably not thinking I would be talented enough to get back before freezing there.

Reasonable enough since, unlike Stange, I have received absolutely zero training in the mystic arts until now. Of course, I'm still on a time limit to get back since the sweltering heat from the sun would do me in soon enough with no water around.

The system will make this whole thing easy for me. I take a look at the pamphlet on how to use the Sling Ring that the Ancient One handed to me earlier, it has a few pictures and a whole bunch of text on it that really doesn't interest me.

Despite being just a piece of paper, the system still thankfully classifies it as a skill book and lets me consume it. Getting back from here would have been much more challenging otherwise.

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[Inter-Dimensional Portal creation - Active] (Max Level)

[Cost - 200 mana]

Allows the user to open up Inter-Dimensional wormholes that connect two places as long as a sling ring is equipped.

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A fixed cost in mana and already at max level. I had hopes that I could level it up and not need the ring to open portals later since the Sling Ring is a pretty useless piece of equipment in and of itself, but no luck on that front.

Without further ado, I make a circle motion with the hand my ring is equipped on and open up a portal leading me back to the Sanctum.

Stepping through it, a slightly taken aback voice immediately greets me. "My, aren't you a quick one. It hasn't even been a minute yet."

"Not the first time a woman has told me that."

"Oh, sorry for bringing up past trauma." She jokes. "I wonder, though, how did you come back so quickly? Someone who got caught in the most basic magical trap clearly has no experience in the field, and I doubt you read the entire guide on how to open a portal in such a short time."

She looks me over once again with a hint of suspicion and curiosity before noticing my empty hands. "Wait, where did that pamphlet I gave you go? Did you just leave it in the desert?"

What, is she accusing me of littering? A superhero like me would never do such a thing… unless leaving human trash webbed to street lamps counts as littering, that is, in that case, I am guilty as charged.

"Well…no… I kind of just consumed it." I say in response to the accusation.

Revealing anything about my powers and the system might be considered dumb (and it is), but I have a reason for this doing this and have at least somewhat thought things out.

For one, I would like to gain the Ancient One's trust in order to one day get my hands on the time stone, and what better way of doing that than telling her secrets that no one else in the world knows.

There is no way I am going to reveal everything about the system to her, not even close, but I can at the very least let her know about some minor features like the skill books to show trust.

Another thing is that I have a million and one things going on at all times, including but not limited to: training stats, being spiderman, developing an AI, clearing the dungeon, and more.

Learning magic by standard means of reading through the entire library and putting in thousands and thousands of hours of practice just isn't going to fit into my already pretty tight schedule.

I would much rather just take shortcuts by having the Ancient One create copies of books in the library and letting me consume them as skill books. Something which would be pretty tricky if I didn't tell her about this power of mine. I suppose I could start sneakily eating the books in the library, but there is no doubt they would catch on eventually.

Peter Parker joins the Masters of the Mystic Arts… a few days later, books start vanishing into thin air… I wonder if there could be a connection made there.

Well, the point is that telling the Ancient One about a select few of my powers should make my life easier, and I highly doubt she would reveal this info to anyone else.

"You consumed the pamphlet?" She stares at me in slight confusion.

"That's right. I can't go too much into detail, but I have a power that lets me consume books and learn the skills that the book is about."

Hearing my brief explanation, the Ancient One just nods with a serious face before suddenly clapping her hands together.

"That is an interesting power that I would love to see in person, but for now, I would like to welcome you into the Masters of the Mystic Arts as a novice." She says with a smile before opening up a portal next to her. Looking through it, I can see a familiar place.

"This is Kamar Taj. Let me show you around first, and then we can go talk further in my room, as I remember, you had another… less… reasonable topic you would like to discuss." She says, briefly touching the eye of Agamotto hanging from her neck.

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Note: There will be at least one more chapter this week.