Monaco

Liam swam back up from the lava. 'A lot of time has passed. I think I'll be ready to go to that weird tear in the lava in about two weeks,' he thought.

Several months had gone by as Liam continued his training routine, even getting some practical experience dealing with a medium-level hell tear. He had achieved a certain amount of mastery over both the Bolts of Balthakk and the Icy Tendrils of Ikkthalon. He had also begun practicing the basics of the dimensional pocketing spell, learning to fold a small space and anchor it to himself.

'Those fire imps made for great target practice,' Liam mused, remembering how he had used the Bolts of Balthakk to kill them. He had managed to achieve three collisions per spell. Since the imps were eliminated in a single hit, he had averaged three kills per spell, clearing the medium-level tear of about 28 imps.

But his training wasn't the only important thing that had happened during this time. Ava had successfully undergone her treatment from the Ancient One. The energy in her body, which was previously in conflict with each other, had stabilized and balanced itself.

Liam hadn't been allowed to watch during the procedure. According to the Ancient One, his energy could have disrupted the process and possibly altered Ava's cells in harmful ways. After the treatment's success, Ava chose to stay at the Sanctum to gain control over her abilities.

'Probably what the Ancient One planned all along,' Liam thought as he threw two backpacks filled with heavy weights over his shoulders.

Ascending the mountain to higher altitudes, he started jogging. 'It's only a couple more days until Iron Man 2 happens,' he thought. Just yesterday, on May 3rd, he had watched Tony Stark testify before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on TV.

'The clip of the Hammer Industries' failed robot was even funnier to see in real life,' Liam mused as he began sweating from the jog.

After an hour of running laps along the mountain peaks, Liam stopped at his usual resting spot. With a simple hand gesture, a water bottle appeared in midair. He grabbed it and drank it all in one go. 'Ah, the folded space kept the water nice and cold,' he thought, tossing the empty bottle into the lava below.

He had been formulating plans for the upcoming battle for a while now, considering multiple scenarios. He wanted a plan that would ensure:

No civilians would die and Tony would be able to learn as much as possible from the experience.

'Killing the robots and drones won't be an issue for me. With the sling ring, I can teleport the remains away so they won't explode in the middle of a crowd. But I can't use my dragon form or any temperature-related spells; the fire would detonate the bombs instantly,' Liam thought.

'That's why the Icy Tendrils of Ikkthalon are perfect. While the temperature isn't low enough to freeze the bombs inside the robots, I can take them out of the air easily.'

Concentrating in front of him, Liam spoke an incantation. A large circle, about the length of a football, appeared in midair. He threw energy into the circle, causing blue energy to shoot forward and freeze the rock he was aiming at on impact.

'It's such a beautiful spell,' Liam thought, loving the massive ice crystal that had formed where the rock once was. 'Later on, I could use this spell like Doom did in the comics—creating portals to freeze enemies from multiple directions at once.'

Liam's thoughts turned to his recent experiments with Incursio and his own body. 'I still can't get this white energy into myself,' he thought. A few weeks after the Ancient One had explained the energy inside people's cells, Liam had tried letting his own cells absorb energy from Incursio.

'But no matter how hard I try, the energy keeps rejecting my body.'

Still, not everything regarding Incursio was a failure. Over the past few months, Liam had managed to manipulate some of the energy within Incursio, redirecting it to specific parts to see what would happen. 'And as expected, the adaptation speed increased significantly in those areas,' he thought.

Watching the sunset, Liam decided it was time to portal back to his room. 'The day after tomorrow, we'll meet Tony for the first time,' he thought. Initially, he had wanted to stay hidden a little longer, but when he actually thought of the future, he realized that would be impossible.

Returning to his room, Liam decided to check on Ava. He hadn't seen her in weeks due to his intense training schedule. The medium tear he had been to was well-hidden in mountain caverns, which had taken up a lot of his time aswell.

Heading to the courtyard, Liam saw something unexpected. 'The Ancient One is personally training her to learn the sling ring spell?'

Walking closer, the Ancient One turned to him.

"Hello, young Liam," the Ancient One greeted, causing Ava to pause her training.

"Hey," Liam replied, stepping closer.

"What's going on here?" he asked.

"Young Ava has decided to join the Sanctum. Since you were too busy with your training, I decided to teach her," the Ancient One explained.

Having been in the Sanctum for over a year and a half, because he also got personal training from her a lot more often now, Liam's conversations with the Ancient One had become a lot more casual.

Liam nodded. "Thanks. Is she doing well?"

"Yes, Ava is making great progress," the Ancient One replied.

Ava looked at the two of them in confusion, feeling completely ignored. 'I'm standing right here, guys,' she thought, speechless.

"Speaking of your training," the Ancient One said, "a low-level dimensional tear from the Nightmare Dimension appeared in London yesterday."

Liam was tempted to volunteer but remembered his plans. "I can't go. I have something planned for the next few days," he told her.

The Ancient One smiled. "Then I will send someone else."

Turning to Ava, Liam asked, "How's your control over your phasing now?"

"It's still difficult, but I can phase without pain a lot better now," Ava replied, demonstrating by phasing and reappearing in front of them.

"Good," Liam said with a smile.

"I'm going back to my room now. I need to prepare for my plans," he added, saying goodbye to both of them before going back.

Once in his room, Liam opened his computer and purchased tickets to the Stark Expo—just in case his plans for Monaco didn't work out. 'Killing Whiplash on national television, with hundreds of millions of people watching the Formula 1 event, would be incredibly stupid. That's why I plan to go after him once the police have taken him off-camera.'