"I followed the mysterious coordinates left by the Plough constellation system, and came to this cosmos. I initially thought I would encounter some malevolent and difficult-to-deal-with Demon God, but things developed far beyond my expectation."
Sitting cross-legged on a mat, The Ancient One slightly shut her eyes, seeming as if she was asleep. However, the few individuals who sat across, drinking tea, picked up on a trace of pain from her tone.
"I was attacked," The Ancient One said. Then, she set her gaze on the young people across from her. She didn't need to say anything. They understood the type of attack she had suffered, a kind similar to what they have endured before.
But The Ancient One appeared to be unscathed, Xu Shang-Chi thought. The wound in his tongue had stopped hurting. He even felt lucky because oral wounds heal the fastest.
"I know you are wondering why I haven't sustained severe organ damage like you." The Ancient One slightly shook her head and said, "I have lived a very long time, almost reaching the end of my lifespan, and these extra years are not idly long. In my dealings with magic, I have polished my state of mind to perfection."
"I have the ability to answer all my questions, adopting an acceptable perspective on the environment and the events I have encountered, regardless of the situation. Fear has never been my main theme."
The Ancient One gently tilted her head, seemingly unaware of the shock her words brought to the young people in front of her. She continued with her gentle gaze and soft tone.
"In my younger days, I also had a period of confusion, but as evident, as long as you live long enough, you can eventually find an appropriate answer to every question you care about."
Xu Shang-Chi dipped his fingertips in tea and asked: "So, should we pursue immortality?"
The Ancient One shook her head and said: "Immortal life without power is meaningless. I am alive till now because I truly can fight."
The group fell silent at this response, but The Ancient One continued with what she really wanted to say: "After gaining power and longevity, I had endless comfort to explore myself. This is a necessary process and the fundamental reason why I am sitting here, conversing with you."
"So, as long as the willpower is strong enough, one can be immune to these injuries?" Wanda asked.
"No, even the strongest willpower cannot resist the insidious corruption of darkness. I must maintain a full and desireless state, guiltless, feeling neither fear nor hesitation."
Among everyone present, only Xu Shang-Chi faintly understood the sentiment conveyed in The Ancient One's obscure words. This leaned more towards Eastern philosophy, much like "fearing no evil when committing none" and resembled the "Great Perfection" and "void" emphasized in Buddhism.
Xu Shang-Chi's gaze fell on The Ancient One's face and the black pattern on her head. The thing didn't look friendly. It didn't align with her claim of resisting invasion. He even doubted whether the mage could truly understand her own state or, like them, was masked by something.
Seemingly sensing Xu Shang-Chi's gaze, The Ancient One revealed a smile and said: "You may be wondering why even then, I have ended up in this situation?"
"As you can probably tell, my condition is not good. In fact, I am in a very perilous situation. Trapped in this cosmos and unable to leave, I fear I need your help."
"What encountered you?" Wanda asked, leaning forward anxiously.
Upon seeing The Ancient One's apparent good condition, she held some faint hope, thinking perhaps this powerful Supreme Magician could help them get home. Still, as expected, things didn't develop as she wished. The Ancient One probably wasn't as easeful as she appeared.
The Ancient One gently sighed and said:
"Over the years, the perfect state of mind I've cultivated has indeed helped me resist the dark invasion time after time. I have been here for over 40 days."
As the words fell, exclamations rang out. Everyone who could utter a sound exclaimed. For those who've only experienced two nights here, 40 was an unimaginable figure.
In these short two nights, almost everyone had lost crucial organs, endured madness and pain, and none had the confidence to get through the next night. However, this seemingly gentle mage had persisted alone here for 40 days. It's understandable why her condition wasn't good.
"Actually, for the first 29 days, I was practically untouched." The Ancient One blinked and said, "The monsters on the ground couldn't harm me, and the strange, chaotic madness inflicted at night was nothing more than a fleeting storm to me. No matter how mad, as long as I stick to my heart, they would eventually pass."
"But everything changed on the evening of the 29th day... The consequences of some action I had taken shatter my perfect state of mind. A crack appeared in my defenses, and since then, whispers have been continuously coming from that crack."
"They are getting closer." Despite the calmness in her tone as if talking about something completely unrelated to her, this short sentence sent chills down the spine of the few people on the other side, leaving them feeling as if a bucket of cold water had been thrown over them.
"Their tendrils have squeezed into the crack. My eyes and brain have noticed their presence, resulting in the patterns you see now. Perhaps in no time, they will be born from within."
"What exactly are they?" Wanda asked, her tone trembling.
"They are clusters of stars, they are also from the old days... The Day when the Stars Return, the time when the Old Days Come Again." The Ancient One's voice grew lighter, repeating the phrase she had heard over and over, then she said: "The stars have returned."
"Then we, what should we, what should we do to deal with them? We can't even see them." Wanda said, somewhat collapsing.
However, Jarvis noticed a key point. He stared into The Ancient One's eyes and asked: "What disrupted your state of mind?"
The crowd fell silent waiting for an answer. They believed if she could persist so many days in the dark all by herself, there was no reason for suddenly crumbling. So, what exactly had The Ancient One gone through? What trapped this extremely powerful mage here?
"Guilt."
This answer took everyone by surprise.
"Guilt..." Wanda murmured softly, she tasted the word on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't understand its deeper meaning.
"You all came here following the footsteps of the monster, didn't you?" The Ancient One picked up a cup of tea and took a sip, asking several people who nodded their heads. The Ancient One continued saying:
"It was me who attracted almost all of the monsters in New York City and eliminated them."
Then, The Ancient One gently closed her eyes and said:
"Please forgive me for not being able to tell you the whole truth, because even if I recite them, I would shatter my own defenses completely, and there seems to be no one here who could mend them."
"All along, what I could not accept more than death is loss of control. If that day is destined to come, I would resolutely choose the former."
"No." Jarvis instinctively said.
"Do not worry, children." The Ancient One again softened her tone, and said: "This is just a hypothetical situation, and that day is still far away. Upon returning from my self-exploration, I have understood the importance of a long life. So, I am trying hard to save myself, and my hope lies in you."
The room fell into a short yet seemingly endless silence. Wanda calmed down, she lifted her hollow eyes and asked The Ancient One: "What do you want us to do? What do you think we still can achieve?"
"You children shouldn't feel pessimistic." The Ancient One's lips gently curled upwards, her tone seemed light-hearted, sounding much like those teachers in summer camps reminding children to get their belongings, and asked in a slightly exaggerated, childish tone:
"Does anyone of you have gardening skills?"
Everyone looked at each other and shook their heads. Riley lightly sighed, saying as briefly as possible: "I could even kill a cactus, don't count on me."
"Then perhaps you did not know, in the technique of grafting, some gardeners will deliberately make a wound on the plant, not to kill them, but to stimulate the phenomenon of regeneration, enhancing their vitality and adaptability to this world."
"Absolutely no understanding." Wanda shook her head and said.
The others' feelings were as confused as hers, The Ancient One was really the most traditional kind of Mage, expressing every matter with complicated metaphors and indirect allusions, seemingly incapable of speaking without complex, mysterious academic terms that is hard for an average person to understand.
After a few rounds of tea, The Ancient One slowly stood up, held out her hands and said to everyone, "It's going to get dark soon, I'm afraid you must leave."
"The longer you stay in the cosmos, the more attacks you will encounter, and I cannot assure you whether being by my side, you will be subjected to the same level of attacks. If so, you will not survive."
"So, you should return to New York City, before the attack that you can resist entirely engulfs your heart, find what you are looking for."
"What exactly should we look for?"
"The truth of the past reappearance, a way to leave here, or perhaps just... a way to survive."
After leaving the temple, everyone was lost in their thoughts. Wanda let out a sigh of relief, Miss Witch seemed a lot calmer, which surprised the others.
"As long as we have a goal." Wanda gently shook her head and said: "Besides, there really are a lot of strange things going on here waiting for us to investigate, aren't there?"
Suddenly, a gust of wind came from behind them. Everyone stopped and turned around, only to see the enormous temple gradually fading in the magic power and slowly disappearing, as if their previous experience was just a dream.
"Wait, a dream?" Xu Shang-Chi suddenly paused, he stopped and fell behind the group. Others in front noticed his stillness and turned to look at him.
Xu Shang-Chi broke off a branch from a bush beside the grassland and wrote a line on the edge of the grassland.
"So far, has any of you had a dream?"
Riley and Jarvis looked at each other, Jarvis shook his head and said, "We didn't even have time to sleep, where would we find the time to dream?"
"Then we can try tonight." Xu Shang-Chi wrote.
"What's the point?" Wanda asked.
"Why at night?" Xu Shang-Chi wrote quickly: "Why do those things appear only at night? What's the significance?"
Everyone's expression quickly turned solemn, Wanda rushed to the side of the road and said, "We need to find a place to stay, and then observe what makes the night so special."