Limitations

IF I EVER FIND WHO WERE BROUGHT ME TO THE MCU I'M GOING TO SMASH IN THEIR KNEES AND MAKE THE WORLD WATCH IT!!!!! This is fucking bullshit and I know that we all know it. For almost a whole year I couldn't perform magic because I wasn't in tune with my heritage properly?? I know whoever is writing my story is just lazy and a dweeb for pulling that shit. What's next? My black hair is going to turn blonde and I start hunting demons now whenever I sleep? Get that Moon Knight Zenitsu bullshit out of here. Uhhaaaaa!!!! Fuck this! Fuck The One Above All! And fuck this universe for making my life a shitty anime. Urghh!!!

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Breathe SīChóu. Breathe.

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Well I suppose there's no point in cursing at life anymore. Now that I have a way to finally use magic, it's time for me to actually get my plans rolling. I've been waiting patiently for long enough and now I need to explore my powers to their limits to see how I can improve them. If I want to ensure the survival of myself and my family I need to reach a level above the gods of Omnipotence City since they can't do shit against multiversal threats. Now I know I am aiming for the impossible but I don't really have any other choice since there's so many things out there that could just sneeze and all of humanity will be gone. I don't even know how I would be able to reach the level of casual wiping the multiverse let alone be above actual gods. Sure I can become a god-like figure in my universe with the infinity stones but to compete with the living tribunal, beyonders, and any other multiversal entities I might as well as reincarnate to the next life…wait can I even do that? Oh fuck it whatever. I'm here for a good time and a long time, not a speed run for my next walkthrough. 

So step one of Godhood: Magic. Check. 

Step two of Godhood: Spider Totem. Pending process. 

Step three of Godhood: Infinity Stones? Pending idea.

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Step ??? of Godhood: profits?

I really should've waited a little longer before dying to see what phase 12 is going to be like for the MCU. Sure I can probably deal with Thanos and the Infinity saga and even some variant of Kang but battleworld and after phase six??? Oof. I got a lot of big fishes to fry and all I got is a plastic minnow bait that comes as part of a kid's fishing pole. Sigh. Ned you're thinking about this too hard. All we need to do is keep living until it's either not our problem anymore or we achieve everything we want and then it's no longer a problem…wait that sound like the same thing. Fuck!

Alright. SMACK! SMACK! Come on Ned we need to think bud. We need to think. Now that we can do magic we can apply everything we know in Samuel's life into this life. That pseudo science that couldn't be proven but does "work". Theories that are only hypothetical because of the limitations of middle 21st century technology. Innovations and ideas that became big during my 17 years of living. Anime moves and hacks that weebs of the late 2000s would be blown away with. Sigh. We're getting somewhere but I still don't have a solid plan. Well fuck it. It's not like there's much I can do right now anyways since it's so late at night. I think I'll just go back to bed and play in the 'Fields of Morpheus' until morning since I don't know how to enter the mirror dimension yet to test out my spells. Well no. I can probably enter the mirror dimension but I just don't have a way to get out since I was never assigned a sling ring….oh shit I can use one of my favorite sorcerer hacks now. FUCK YES! Alright let go to bed, Ned. We can't make time move faster so we need to pass the time doing something else. Let's go burn some incense for mother to welcome the new year and head to bed.

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-----Day one of being an official magic student-----

Waking up in the morning I felt so excited to finally show off my understanding of magical theory in actual spells only to embarrass myself and create nothing. Once more I could not produce even a spark of energy to form a shield and I was so excited to show my new discovery with some of my schoolmates and teachers during my morning workout. After the stunning magic show of invisible magic, I got the chance to talk to master Kaecilius and the Ancient One and immediately I saw in their eyes that they knew. They were aware of my 'Bolt of Balthakk' that went off last night while everyone was supposed to be asleep. I told them about what happened and master Kaecilius told me to practice my mother's martial arts once more until I feel the energy again. I did as I was told and finally got the chance to create the iconic shield spell that I had practiced for a countless amount of times. It just felt so natural that once I was able to summon magical energy, the shield just sort of unfolded itself from the palm of my hands into the air. I guess when you hammer one set of skills over and over again for thousands of times, it eventually becomes something great. Well that was my only choice since the other option was to go insane and become obsessed with the shield spell. Now I have a safety spell that I can deploy almost instantly and at a moment's notice. 

After breakfast was done I continued my day just like I had for the past ten months of school. During my classes I could not produce magic like usual but it felt like my comprehension of magic was rising even more than previous because now I can visualize how the magic can flow through my body. Eventually after eating lunch I got to spend my afternoon with my master and all he had me do was practice the martial arts from Ta Lo. Master Kaecilius had seen Tai Chi during his time prior to becoming a master sorcerer however he had never seen any Tai Chi practitioner be able to manipulate energy like me. He even had a look of surprise on his face when I told him that it was probably because my mother's version was from a different dimension. I guess I never really told him about my parents before…maybe I should do that if we ever get the chance.

Eventually after a couple hours of watching me practice the routine, Master Kaecilius and I finally got to spar in the real world using magic right before dinner would begin. It felt just like our fights in the 'Fields of Morpheus' except this time my flashy moves gathered quite a crowd of students and masters as they watched me attempt to kil- I mean pay back the beatings I took from my master. The fight ended fairly quickly though. What felt like a five minute Dragonball fight was probably no more than two or three minutes max because I can't do a lot of spells yet. I became super tired after creating one Kamehameha wave and some whips of energy. I was able to transmute a whip from just solid energy into a morningstar of flame that caught Master Kaecilius off guard for a few moments before my magic ran out. Apparently it's really rare for sorcerers to "run out" of magic since all that they're doing is changing the flow and manipulation of energy around them. I however seem to be playing with a different set of rules apparently. Whatever the case may be, all I know is that I'll definitely need to start buying my own food because after my magic ran out, my body was just washed with fatigue and hunger. Even after eating dinner, my stomach felt like it was still empty as if all I had was just crumbs of rice instead of the actual meal that I ate. 

-----Two Weeks Later-----

For the first two weeks of the new year I've been practicing my Ta Lo martial arts at least twice a day. One in the morning when I wake up and another at night right before bed. But there is one part of the routine that I try to consciously practice during every waking moment. Master Kaecilius and the Ancient One had helped me break down Ta Lo's style of Tai Chi into isolated sections to help determine why I can only use magic after flowing through the martial art. And long story short, it's because of some bullshit anime reasons. The breathing that I do during the routine is the same breathing that my body does unconsciously when I'm asleep. This is why whenever I fall asleep my body seems to radiate the same feeling of a spell being performed. This is probably why my body glows at night and how I can recover from any mild injuries so fast. SIGH. All this time I had the answer to all of my problems literally right under my nose. Anyways with that breakthrough of a discovery I was able to officially become an apprentice instead of just an honorary special case. Now my only problem is my stamina…well I guess in this case it's both my stamina and magica since I can't seem to last very long when I produce spells during spars. In regular combat I can take on and go toe to toe with pretty much anyone under the rank of a master but if I use any spells I have to finish the spar quickly or else my body just seems to run out of energy. 

-----Eight Months Later-----

Today is Shang-chi and my ninth  birthday. It's been exactly 223 days since I became an official apprentice and I have made many many great strides and improvements to myself and my assets. I never stopped studying the art of artificing and with my ability to finally use magic I was able to create many new prototypes as well as improve my previous relics. For the past couple of weeks now my current project is to try and recreate Tony's arc reactor. Now why would I, a sorcerer, need an overly complicated sci-fi battery when I can already manipulate energy through my body and magic? Well it's because I've come to a new discovery about chi. Everyone and everything that is alive in one way or another is all because of chi. Well no shit Ned. No, what I'm trying to say is that the little tiny amount of electricity everyone's body produces to stay alive is chi. Chi is the bio-electrical spark that separates the living chemical of the universe from the rest of the cold dead universe. The energy created from the mitochondria of the cells!!! It is what differentiates the chemicals of a body from an actual living body…I think. I'm not really good with my biochemistry but I think that's how it works. 

Anyways what I'm trying to say is. Chi is the living energy that everyone produces naturally, no one has to ever worry about running out of it because it's just a part of life. Just by living you can produce all the bio-electricity you need to function…that is unless you're me. Over the last eight months of studying my own body and how I create spells, I've come to the conclusion that my body is severely different from everyone else's. Well my master had already told me about it but I had no idea how different my body really is until now. Normally anyone can learn how to use magic because it's as natural as breathing air and drinking water. But when I use magic I have to exchange my bio-electricity with the universe in order to call forth mystical powers.

Now I'm sure this explanation is redundant and I'm just using it as paddings for my word count at this point but my bio-electricity comes from food and my body. I can command as much bio-electricity as I want as long as I'm breathing a certain way. However my body simply doesn't not have the fuel required to turn into the energy that I need to use magic. Sure I can eat more but I can't just eat all the time when I have shit to do and my body to train. Which brings me back to my arc reactor. Because chi is just bio-electricity, as long as I have a source of energy on my body I can convert that into magic. And just like Tony Stark, I do not want to be carrying a car battery around me everywhere I go just so I can set off a few fireballs. Sure, I could just keep training and conditioning my body until I have enough chi to compete with my stamina but in the long run that's not going to work. If a life and death battle is determined by who can endure the longest and come out on top, why would I want to keep myself limited just to be "fair". I ain't no goddamn Goku.

Anyways while I'm still stuck on the issue with my arc reactor I've made more progress on my own body and skill sets as a practitioner of the mystic arts. Everyday I would train in the morning before the sun is up until breakfast is served. To start the day off I would try to draw out the energy I had accumulated overnight in my sleep through the motions of my mother's Tai Chi. Once the energy has been summoned, instead of using it to create spells I would try to coat my body with it and try to nourish my body. I'm not quite sure if it's any different from what my body naturally does when I'm asleep but I try to think of it as something that a Kryptonian would when they go into plant mode. By consciously bathing my body in chi energy I hope it would gradually increase the amount that my cells can produce as well as strengthen my body at the cellular level. In a way it's my own version of bodily cultivation from a wuxia novel except there's no doa or anything profound. 

Once my body has been thoroughly coated and I had performed twenty reps of the Tai Chi routine, I would move on to my regular sets of calisthenics before putting on some weighted gears to run up and down the stairs of Kamar-Taj and through the countryside of Nepal. All while keeping the breathing technique going and cycling chi through my body. I really wished I had started a record of my progress to see if my new training routine is effective at all because I think I can summon more spells now but I still feel exhausted after a while. Well obviously I can't just magically get rid of the fuel limits just by working out but I do gotta say my stamina has improved by a lot with this method. By imbuing my body with chi, I could train harder as well as recover more quickly than if I don't. And when I don't circulate my body with chi I feel like everything my body can do has improved by a lot compared to last year. By the time breakfast begins I would portal back to my room and take a quick shower before joining everyone at the courtyard.  After dinner I would attend my classes but with half a heart because almost every lesson being taught by the teachers was something I had already read about. Sure listening to their lectures and perspectives would help better my understanding of the subject but at the same time I have so much going on that I'm really just wasting my time not learning on my own. 

Hell even master Kaecilius had stopped giving me mystical philosophical lessons. Whenever we are in a class together we would just fight and improve my fighting techniques with magic. Now I'm not saying I look down on him or anything because I have great respect for my master. But I like to have both brain and bronze, not just one or the other. Still I'm not complaining since I need someone who can keep pressuring my body for growth. One day I'll reach my master's level of skills and then I'll have to move on to bigger and more deadlier things just to keep growing my strength and power. Anyways once school is done I would spend the rest of my day in my room either studying a new book, breaking down a relic and rebuilding it, practicing my own magic or doing my own personal projects during my free time. It really depends on what day it is since I can't do all of them in a single night. I have to set each day of the week for one of those things so I don't burn myself out too much.