Chapter 46:
"If I like your answer, I'll let you go," Mark said bluntly.
"But if you don't satisfy me, no one can save you today. I'll kick you straight into that space turbulence," Mark warned.
"In front of Thor?" Loki couldn't help but ask. "He won't just stand there and watch me die."
"Do you have a small knife?" Mark suddenly asked. "Give me one first, and I'll do you a favor."
"Huh?" Loki was taken aback, confused by Mark's request.
"Don't waste time." Mark raised the Hellish Cleaver and urged, "Hurry up."
Loki quickly obeyed and pulled a dagger from his pocket. To his surprise, after Mark took the dagger, he immediately stabbed himself in the chest without saying a word.
"???" Loki's eyes widened in shock.
"See? This is my special skill: suicide," Mark said calmly, despite the dagger sticking out of his chest. "When Thor shows up, I'll just say that you, Loki, attacked me, and I had to kick you off the Bifrost Bridge in self-defense."
"You..." Loki grew increasingly anxious. He had to admit, this guy was ruthless. Loki couldn't even tell which one of them was the real god of mischief.
"Alright, time's ticking." Mark didn't give Loki any time to think, pulling out his phone and starting a timer.
"Okay, okay." Loki raised his hands in surrender, realizing he had no choice. "If you spare me, you'll have the friendship of the Prince of Asgard. How's that?"
Mark didn't bother to reply, just gave Loki a condescending look.
"Well... let me rephrase that."
Since his trickery had failed, Loki quickly changed tactics. "I know a lot of secret passages in Asgard. If you let me go, I'll tell you where they are. You can go wherever you want in Asgard, even without the Bifrost Bridge."
"I'm already friends with Thor and an ally of Asgard," Mark replied, questioning Loki's offer. "I came here to visit, not to sneak around. Why would I need to use secret passages?"
"Then..." Loki tentatively asked, "Should I teach you magic?"
"Your illusion magic?" Mark raised the dagger in his hand. "Come on, ask this dagger if I need that."
"I know other spells besides illusions," Loki quickly explained. "I've heard you're a sorcerer in Midgard, so it would be good for you to learn some magic from this realm. Look at the weapon in your hand... um, I mean, your sword. You've been holding it this whole time, so I assume you don't have any containment spells, right?"
"Containment spells?" Mark asked. "Like a spatial ring or something?"
"Spatial ring?" Loki looked confused for a second, then nodded. "Yes, yes, it's like that kind of spell. Look."
He quickly took off his helmet and held it out.
Mark watched as Loki stretched out his hands, making the helmet float in mid-air. Then, he brought his hands together, and the helmet vanished.
Mark couldn't help but remember some scenes from the movies.
Loki used spells like this in the first Thor movie. He suddenly summoned the Winter Casket to attack Heimdall, and sometimes he would conjure a small knife out of thin air.
The most memorable scene for Mark was when Loki gave the Tesseract to Thanos. His hands were empty at first, but then he reached into the void and pulled out the Tesseract. Doctor Strange seemed to have a similar spell for hiding the Time Stone.
A spell like that would be incredibly useful to Mark.
Unlike Steve, who had the Alchemy Bag, his own backpack, and an inventory, Mark, even though he was digitized, didn't have any storage space. This meant that some materialized items couldn't be put back into Steve's backpack, which was sometimes inconvenient.
Mark decided to give this spell a try.
But what he didn't expect was...
Before he could say anything, a mysterious system notification echoed in his mind.
[System prompt: New module feature detected. Research to obtain download permissions.]
"Huh?"
Surprised by the prompt, Mark instinctively glanced at Loki.
Of course, Loki couldn't hear the notification. He had no idea Mark was interested in the spell. If Mark wasn't interested, he would really be thrown off the edge. So, Loki anxiously watched Mark.
"Alright, you pass."
Mark shrugged and canceled the timer on his phone. "When we get back, remember to teach me that spell."
"No problem."
Seeing Mark nod, Loki finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Just then, Thor returned, holding Heimdall's sword with a puzzled look on his face.
"Why did it take so long?" Mark glanced at Thor and asked deliberately.
"Heimdall's sword was stuck. It took me a while to pull it out," Thor scratched his head, confused. "Strange, this has never happened before with the energy conduit. Could that weird purple energy... have damaged the conduit during the overload?"
"Let's wait until Odin wakes up to discuss this."
Mark patted Thor's shoulder. "After all, you're an Asgardian warrior, not a Dwarf. Leave the repairs to them."
"Alright."
Thor nodded, then apologized to Mark. "But repairing the Bifrost Bridge is a huge task. Mark, I'm sorry, but you might not be able to go back to Midgard for a while."
"Is it that hard to repair the Bifrost Bridge?"
Mark asked curiously.
"No, the Bifrost Bridge is just a device that activates some magic runes. Asgard's craftsmen can fix it in a few days," Thor explained. "The real problem is repairing the Bifrost itself, that thing..."
"Oh, that's fine."
Mark waved his hand dismissively. "No need to repair that. Just watch."
Mark's Stand, Steve, immediately retrieved the Bifrost Bridge block and put it back in its original place. Within seconds, the broken bridge was fully restored.
Once ag
ain, the bridge glowed with a vibrant, colorful aura.