GIRAFFE

"Ahhh I see." The Ancient One puts on a smile as if she felt a little funny about the situation too. I can't help but look around and start to panic a little bit as I had fucked up pretty bad here. "Hold on hold on. I meant for now. I don't want to be a master for now. I already have so much on my plate as is. So I don't want to stack the responsibility of being a master on top of that. I'm sorry Master Kaecilius. I was trying to find a good time to tell you this but uh well. Here we are I guess." I smile wryly at my master as Wong breaks out into a laugh while patting master Kaecilius on the back.

"Well then let's bring this meeting to a conclusion before we move on to the new topic. Ned, are you certain you do not want to become a master?" The Ancient One tries to reel the room back in to order as the other masters slowly stop whispering amongst themselves. I nod my head with absolute confidence because this year is a very important year for me to be in America. Especially on the eastern seaboard of the continent. "Ahhh well that wraps everything up then. Is there anything else you would like to discuss before we end this meeting?"

"Yes Ancient One. I also wish to depart from Kamar-Taj for a couple of years. Presumably until after I reach the age of eighteen. By then I should hone most of my skills and flaws to an adequate level of being a true master of the mystic arts." I try to respectfully bow towards the Ancient One to try and save some face that I lost for her and my master. Not long after that our meeting came to an end as everyone but the Sorcerer Supreme, Master Kaecilius and Master Wong left the room. Well them and me because apparently I still need to stay behind to have a private one on three conversation.

"Wait Wong why are you here?" I point a finger at him. I mean I love big brother Wong but I didn't think he would be that important in my departure from the school. At least not yet anyways. That's still another five to ten years from now depending if the snap occurs in this universe or not.

"What? Am I not welcome here anymore Ned? Just because you're leaving soon doesn't mean I can't be a part of the goodbye process." He smiles slightly as the Ancient One passes the newly brewed pot of tea over to him. "Ah thank you Ancient One." He bows his head slightly before accepting the pot and pouring himself a cup.

"No, I'm not saying that. I'm just surprised that you're the same rank as Master Kaecilius. Did you lose all that hair of yours by yourself or is it from the stress of becoming a master? Because I do not want to go bald anytime soon." I crack a smile as Wong lets out a laugh of his own. I turn my gaze over and I can see the stoic look of my master staring right back at me. I hate it when he gets like this. It's so scary whenever he puts on his emotionless face to hide his true thoughts and feelings. Sure it might've looked great when I was sitting behind a movie screen where he couldn't break the fourth wall. But now I'm here. In the flesh with the antagonist of the first Dr. Strange movie.

"M-master?" I quickly got up from my chair to grab the pot of tea from Wong after he was done pouring his cup. I walk over to pour my master, a cup. Once I am done, I make sure to stay close enough to read his face and body for the slightest sign of motions but also far away enough to have time to dodge any fists that might be heading towards me.

"So." He finally turns his head to face my direction. "When were you going to tell me about this?" Slowly he calmly reached over to grab his warm steaming cup of tea. At which I back away just a little bit further just in case he decides to throw the cup at me.

"Well I was planning on telling you AFTER my four year anniversary party. I just never got around to actually getting a one on one with you since then. I mean looking back I probably should've just came straight to you and talked about it but then-"

"Enough. It appears that I had set too much expectations for you and I had failed as your master to notice your own opinions about the matter. If anyone is to apologize for the misunderstanding and miscommunication it should be me. I should not have jumped the gun in recommending your graduation as soon as you had completed the last requirement to becoming a master." Master Kaecilius turns away from me to look towards the window while slowly sipping from his cup of tea. I turn to look at Wong and the Ancient One for any cue or hints on how to respond to this version of my master. Never in my history and experience has he seemed to be so calm and collected about his emotions…well I mean I've seen his doppelganger in Hannibal do something like this but that's a different story from a different universe in a different time.

"I-I'm truly sorry Master. I know you have a lot of faith in me and my potential but I just don't think I am ready. I know I have completed all the requirements to graduate into a master but I feel like what I lack the most is experience. All I've dealt with for the past four years of my life is school and death. I want to travel around the world and experience life as a normal earthling. I want to know just exactly what I am protecting every time I face death on my missions. I want to know what it is that my choices will affect every time I am faced with a difficult decision. I-I left my home to come here in search of the answers to my birth and my intangible fate. Now I've built a new home here but I am still left with my questions unanswered." I turn to look at my master before gazing over to the Ancient One. "And I believe the answers I seek are somewhere out there. Beyond the walls of Kamar-Taj and potentially even beyond the boundaries of Earth. Master, Ancient One, Wong. I wish to depart from Kamar-Taj in about two months' time. I believe that should give me enough time to finish my current projects and pack up all of my stuff." I give them a simple smile as they all turn to look at each other as if they're communicating via telepathy.

Not long after that I soon found myself back in my room. I look around the piles and piles of scraps and materials I have accumulated over the years. SIGH. I should clean up my room. Even if these hazardous build ups aren't actually going to affect my room in the material realm, I should still get rid of them before I leave this mirrored space for the next students after me. I wave my hands in the air while forming some seals with my fingers. Soon the materials begin to rise up and float in the air as they all line up in an organized manner. I take a slow and thorough exam of the items I have so I can decide what to keep and what to throw away. After a couple of hours I have accumulated one new pile of things I'll take with me and another pile of things I'll sell or give away because they can still be used. I open up a portal to an isolated space in the arctic somewhere to store the items I'm going to take with me. After securing my cache spot, I return to my room to deal with my pile of scraps and relics that I don't want or need anymore. SIGH. I'll talk to Wong and ask if there's anything I can give to the school from this pile or else I'll try and sell it to the locals. Otherwise I'll probably just drop it off at an active volcano somewhere to get rid of my garbage.

Now I know I've been trying to beat around the bush so I'll just come out and say it. The reason why I haven't been updating my mental journal for the last two years was because I wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. This year is especially important because the assembly is near and I need to use the chaos of the assembly to bureaucratically move to the US. As for how I've completed the requirements to become a master so quickly? Well it's pretty simple really. In order to graduate from a disciple and become a master, there are two methods. One; a dominance shift of power at Kamar-Taj occurs and too many masters die in the process. This will allow the more advanced disciples who have yet to complete the second method, to automatically graduate to the rank of masters. This is how Stephen Strange graduated in the movie and it's super rare for catastrophic events like these to occur. The last time such a scenario happened was over 700 years ago before the Ancient One's reign as the Sorcerer Supreme.

The second method to graduate into a master is to complete the requirements created by the ancient masters of long forgotten eras. The requirements aren't anything ridiculous nor so impossibly hard that one can never achieve it. Simply the requirements were created to ensure the next generations of students and masters can be better than the previous generation. But as time goes on, it becomes harder and harder to top the previous generations. The first of the requirements is to create a relic with its own will for the school to store and pass down. The second requirement is to create an original master level spell that can be passed down for future generations. The third is to teach five classes of novice or apprentice students, with the condition that the majority of the class passes in order to count. The fourth and final requirement is to either survive twenty successful highly dangerous missions or lead five successful highly dangerous missions.

The same rules sort of apply for the position of Sorcerer Supreme too. The current Sorcerer Supreme can step down and select a new sorcerer to take up the mantle of most supreme of sorcerers or they pick someone before they die. If no one is chosen to become the successor after the death of the Sorcerer Supreme, then it is based on who is skilled enough and talented enough to bear the responsibility of being the principal I mean supremest of sorcerers. Which is the case of how Wong became the Sorcerer Supreme after Strange got snapped. Although I do have to say. Wong should've been the sorcerer supreme way before Stephen when the Ancient One passed away. But I'm pretty sure this is something 'He Who Remains' wanted, otherwise it would make no sense to allow someone as reckless as Stephen to become the Sorcerer Supreme after studying magic for more than a year. This is also why I don't want to become a master because I'm just as reckless as Stephen and I do not fully believe in keeping the balance of power and peace throughout the multiverse.

Now I'm sure some of you are wondering, just what exactly did I do to complete the requirements? Well for starters I participated in a couple of dangerous missions before leading five missions on my own. Now I couldn't just jump into the position of squad leader right out of the gate because that's just dumb and reckless on the administrative side of things. In order to become a leader of a squad one has to complete two conditions; survive at least five highly dangerous missions and pass the assessments of two randomly assigned masters. This is to ensure that the disciples who are working towards their graduation are adequately prepared enough for a mission to go wrong. For the first couple of missions that I went on, it was pretty much like how things went for Thailand except we weren't a scouting party anymore. Now after I became a leader of a squad, well I guess you could say I got a little taste of blood from killing demonic entities and I went on a bit of a warpath. Sure there were a few close calls here and there where I could've lost my life but I came out on top and gained a little more experience with fighting.

As for the relic requirement, well that one was pretty easy. As the sole artificer of Kamar-Taj it was not difficult to create a relic with a will to pass it down. No, the difficult part was picking which relic to pass down as the official relic for the requirement. I thought about making a new weapon or some armor or something more practical that anyone can use if they're lucky enough to be chosen by my relic. But that's too easy. No, what I did is imitate my legacy master by making a relic that requires one to think outside of the box. So in turn I've made a better version of a relic that I use everyday to pass down.

I have these binds that I put around my wrist and ankle to increase the gravity around my body for training. What I use for my training is not very important right now but let's just say I'm used to carrying at least twice my bodyweight now. Anyways, this bracelet and anklet set that I have submitted…to be honest I'm a little jealous with how well they turned out. I call them the 'Lee retainers' after a certain character from this very old anime I saw. They function the same as my gravity damper except they can also reverse the effect of gravity on the body. Now this does not mean that the user will start to float with no bounds. It just means that gravity will affect them very lightly, imagine rock climbing while underwater. There's also another function to the jewelry set. If one of the binds is attached to someone else who's not the owner, the gravity is automatically set to times four Earth's gravity. Now there are some more practical usages for the relic that I can probably think of but I'll leave that for the future generations to come up with.

We can just skip over my classes since they're mostly just magic theories and lessons from fictional works applied in real life magic. Sure some of them are actually great and practical but they were mostly just classes to inspire creativity in the students while they get used to manipulating magic.

Now last and most importantly my own original master level spell. While it does have to be an original spell that has never been seen in Kamar-Taj before. It doesn't mean that it HAVE to be original original…I think it's easier to just show you guys instead of describing it in my mental journal.

I raise my hands in the air and wave my right hand in a circular motion as I summon a portal to a very specific area. I've been curious about visiting this place since I was a kid. My mother would always tell stories about her home and I dreamed about visiting her birthplace at least once in this lifetime. Stepping through the portal I can smell a scent of home and belonging in this realm. Not wanting to draw any more attention than what I already am going to get I open up another portal to get as far away from the village as possible as I land on top of a mountain. I look around the sky and a smile grows on my face as the clouds are reading just perfectly for what I need. I clap my hands together and form a spark of electricity within my palms before slowly pulling my hands apart and stretching out the electricity. I turn the violent stream of electricity into a rod before shaping it into a spear. I take the spear into my right hand and aim upwards towards the sky before launching it forward into the cumulonimbus clouds. Streaks of electricity sprawl throughout the clouds as my smile grows just a little bit more sinister and excited.

Now with all the preparations for my spell completed, there's only one last thing I have to do. Well technically there's two but the first thing is just something I do for fun and is not important for the completion of the spell. I look around at the mystical creature that this spell is named after turning my attention towards a mountain in the distance. A mountain that's nowhere near the village nor the lake next to the village. I put my hands together and begin forming some signs with my fingers. 'Ushi, Oo, Saru, Tatsu, Ne, Tori, Ushi, Mi, Inu, Tora, Saru'. Suddenly the cries of a thousand birds emits from my right palm as I raise my hand towards the sky. I took towards the mountains again before striking my hand in a downward motion.

"GIRAFFE!"