The End of the Trip to Kamar-Taj

On the wide training grounds of Kamar-Taj, Li Yue stood facing a man in a dark green robe. The man held a short staff in his hand, waiting for Li Yue's attack.

Without wasting any words, Li Yue stretched his hands and grasped the air before pulling them to his sides. Beams of blue light gathered around Li Yue's hands. He waved the ones around his right hand; the blue light could stiffen and flex at will, forming either a staff or a whip.

The energy on his left hand coalesced into a blue energy shield. With the shield in his left hand and the staff in his right hand, he rushed at the figure in front of him.

Li Yue arrived in front of the man in less than a second, slamming his staff on the man's head. Instead of dodging, the man raised his short staff to block Li Yue's attack. The two continued to fight in close quarters, using all sorts of moves at increasing speed. The battle was dizzying to watch.

Li Yue used up all the martial arts techniques he had learned, but his opponent easily blocked them. Li Yue wasn't discouraged. He abandoned the coherent martial arts and began moving unpredictably, erasing any division between his moves.

His opponent was caught off-guard by Li Yue's sudden attacks and panicked as he blocked them. He looked a little embarrassed, but he didn't admit defeat yet.

Perhaps sensing a disadvantage if the situation continued, the figure quickly retreated a few steps. Before Li Yue could catch up to him, he stepped into thin air. A yellow light suddenly appeared under his shoes, forming a disk that supported his weight. He walked several steps in the air over Li Yue's head and then slammed his glowing orange short staff on Li Yue, bringing his full weight to bear.

Li Yue watched as the man suddenly circled around in midair. He hurriedly turned around just in time to block the falling orange staff with the blue energy shield in his left hand.

Bang!

With a loud, ear-piercing sound, Li Yue's blue shield shattered into pieces and disappeared. His opponent landed on the ground, taking several steps back before standing in a firm stance.

"Mage Mordo, you won again!"

Li Yue broke the silence, ending the exercise. That's right, the one that just sparred against Li Yue was Mordo, Li Yue's close combat instructor.

An inexperienced observer might see the fight as ending in a draw, but Li Yue knew that Mordo was simply defending against him. The few attacks that Mordo did were more instructional than actual offensive moves. Had Mordo used his full strength, Li Yue would not be able to hold his ground.

Although, Li Yue wasn't going through his moves effectively either. His physical strength still grew steadily, so he had to suppress his own strength if he wanted to study Mordo's martial arts. Otherwise, he might just accidentally kill Mordo; despite the magical strengthening that Mordo used, he was only several times stronger than an ordinary person. He was definitely underprepared to receive Li Yue's five-tons punch.

One might say that Li Yue is a beast in human form.

Li Yue had been fighting with Mordo for the past few days, and he had improved in controlling his own strength.

"Mage Li Yue, you are too humble. Everyone has witnessed your improvement. Without the power of these artifacts, it would be difficult even for me to defeat you," Mordo praised Li Yue, smiling.

...

Time passed quickly, and soon a month passed since Li Yue arrived in Kamar-Taj.

Li Yue's growth has been exponential during this past month. He had mastered the Mirror Dimension spell, and he could even manipulate the power of space in the real world, folding space and matter at will.

He could use his power similar to the one Kaecilius commanded in the movie after Kaecilius absorbed the power of Dormammu's dark dimension. Though fortunately, Li Yue didn't have to turn into panda eyes like Kaecilius in the movie.

Li Yue hid this power from the others and practiced it in secret. His power wasn't strong enough to affect the real-world environment, anyway, although it could be used to affect individuals.

For example, when Li Yue used it on Mordo, Mordo would feel and perceive that the world had been flipped and folded at will by Li Yue, even though the real world hadn't changed at all.

...

During his time in Kamar-Taj, Li Yue also thought hard about the ways to change the fates of Kaecilius and Mordo, but he didn't find any good ideas.

Kaecilius had already fallen deeply into obsession. He had dedicated his everything to reviving his wife and children. There's no act too deplorable or sacrifice too great for him to achieve this goal.

Master Mordo's nature was rigid and inflexible. He hated people who broke the rules, even if it was in service of humanity. In the movie, he became disillusioned after discovering that Ancient One had been using the powers of the Dark Dimension to achieve immortality. He then became a rogue, much to Li Yue's regret.

However, Li Yue couldn't find any good way to avert this. He could only give subtle hints to Mordo: powers are not inherently good or bad, and only people who use them could be good or bad.

These subtle messages didn't seem to have much effect on Mordo.

...

While Li Yue was thinking hard about changing fates, his cell phone suddenly rang for the first time. He felt a bad premonition from this call.

Li Yue picked up the phone and hurriedly asked, "Tony, what happened?"

"What are you so jumpy about? Nothing major happened. You've disappeared for about a month. How are you doing? I've upgraded my armor several times; when will you come back to see them?"

Tony's familiar voice came from the other side of the line. Li Yue sighed in relief when he heard that nothing major had happened. Then he felt a little angry.

"Don't call me if nothing happened; you scared me. I thought something bad had happened," Li Yue said in a bad mood.

"You've been away for so long; aren't you curious about how your little girlfriend is doing? Aren't you worried that she would run away with prettier boys?" Tony teased in an annoying voice.

Li Yue really wanted to teleport all the way to Tony's side just to beat the playboy up.

"Tony, is there anything wrong? If there's nothing else, I'll hang up."

"Wait, wait, wait. I'll get to the real business. The Stark Industry Expo is starting tonight. Do you want to come for the opening ceremonies? I'll introduce you to beautiful women!" Tony finally brought up the real reason for his call.

Li Yue sighed at Tony's words. Time passed really quickly—it's been a month! And now the main event of the Iron Man 2 movie had begun: the Stark Industry Expo.

However, since Tony had solved the palladium poisoning problem, he shouldn't go to the suicidal race this time. Which would also mean that he wouldn't encounter the Whiplash, Ivan.

"I'm not going. You always make everything flashy everywhere you go; I'm not in the mood to see your antics."

Li Yue then hung up the call before giving Tony any chance to say anything.

Nothing should happen, but Li Yue still felt that this was a good time to end this trip to Kamar-Taj and bid farewell to Master Ancient One.

With that thought, Li Yue began Astral Projection to cultivate his ability.