The next day, in the fairy palace of Asgard, The Ancient One handed something small to Odin. Odin held the tiny black gadget in front of his eyes and took a closer look then held it distancing away, seemingly curious.
Suddenly, a projection popped up from the device. The startled Odin almost threw the gadget out. Mephisto, waiting below, grew impatient and said, "Can we hurry up? I've been waiting for a long while!"
Odin rolled his eyes and secured the device with magic in the middle of the room, ensuring that everyone in the room could see the projection.
In the projection, Mr. Strange looked much more relaxed without having to face the demon gods directly. He said: "Let's get started. From left to right, each person asks a question. No follow-up questions can be asked until after all the answers have been given. Then we start over again from the beginning."
Mephisto immediately began: "I'll start first. What was that you said last time about establishing a stable lending system? And what about the unclear interest rate benchmark and fraudulent contracts that you didn't explain properly...?"
While standing in the room, Strange turned his head and asked the table full of finance professionals behind him: "Did you all understand that?"
One of the men in a suit and glasses didn't even lift his head as he said, "This is my strong suit, the so-called interest rate benchmark ...."
After what felt like more than ten agonising hours, Strange felt parched and hoarse as he turned to his mentor, The Ancient One, saying, "Master, let's call it a day....."
He then turned to see that most people behind him had already collapsed. After all, even a demon god can't keep up with a non-stop brainstorming session of over ten hours without food or drink. Humans, however, definitely can't.
When the demon gods heard that they were going to take a break here, they all were dissatisfied, especially Mephisto, the lord of Hell. He had never realized before how good humans are at scamming....I mean, finance!
Mephisto made up his mind. Can a devil's trade be called a scam? It is called finance! Do you understand finance?
What cost? What conditions? Hurry up and change how you speak about it, it should be called deposit and borrowing. Why can't I collect more debts? That's called interest!
High interest? Wasn't it written in the contract…agreement that I had written? What? It was written too complexly? Then you shouldn't have signed it in the first place!
The demons are endlessly interested in the art of deceiving. Mephisto asked countless questions about the lending system, wishing he could learn the essence of human economics overnight.
In the demon gods' perception of time, not even 0.001 seconds had passed and humans were already crying for a break? How could this race be so weak?
But the demon gods can't do anything about it, human physical constitution is such that they need to eat, sleep, and rest.
The main contradiction now is between the demon gods' vigorous desire for knowledge and the limited energy of humans.
Helplessly, Nick had to bring in another group of people to work in shifts, eventually setting up three shifts.
Later though, that still wasn't enough. Strange was out of options until The Ancient One suggested letting the demon gods leave behind a magic array for communication, that way they could contact Earth's finance practitioners at any time.
But in the end it did not work, because ordinary people are not magicians. You can't expect a group of ordinary people, who have received decades of scientific education, to learn to meditate, focus, and communicate with the universe overnight. This requires a gift. Ordinary people simply can't use the magic array.
Finally, it fell to the mages of Kamar-Taj to bind the magic array to human smartphones, enabling the demon gods to call humans.
At first, the demon gods called randomly, chatting with whoever they got through to.
Because many demon gods don't understand human life forms, they don't know that humans' memories aren't shared between individuals and personalities also differ. This resulted in their conversations making no sense. One question would be halfway through conversation with one person and then the moment they call again, another person would pick up and they'd have to start all over again.
It fell on Strange to teach the demon gods how to dial the same person's number, while Nick chose exclusive customer service agents for each demon god.
After a bit of adjustment, the professionals were finally able to communicate smoothly with the demon gods and answer their questions.
Nick found a building in Greenwich Village and shoved all these people into it. The Ancient One called in a group of mages from Kamar-Taj to move in, helping the professionals connect with the demon gods. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were responsible for taking care of these people's food, drink, and general living conditions.
In the end, Strange named the building "The Sanctum."
But this was still not enough. The initial investors were found, but later business expansion and publicity still needed people to work on it.
You can't expect ordinary humans to run around the cosmos doing business and bringing in clients. They simply can't do it.
The Ancient One and Odin looked around for a long time. Finally, Odin glanced at his younger son, Loki, who was just idling anyway, and decided to let him do it.
So, Loki gloriously became a salesman.
If they wanted to let more people join in, they needed to make a name for themselves. Even if others didn't participate immediately, they still needed to let them know about this matter. In short, it just meant handing out business cards throughout the cosmos.
That day, Loki, carrying a stack of business cards and looking flabbergasted, was thrown by Odin out of Asgard.
Originally, Loki was gloating at his older brother's misfortune of being thrown to Earth, but then it turned out that he was tossed out as well.
Though Thor was thrown out, he didn't have godly powers or his weapon anymore, but at least he didn't have any missions. Nobody bothered him about wandering around on Earth. Loki, on the other hand, had achievement targets.
If Loki were slack like Thor, that would be all right, but he was ambitious about the throne. Even though he hadn't participated in the Demon God Hall's lecture, he knew that this must be a big deal for his father, Odin. If he could handle it well, he would undoubtedly get himself some limelight.
Thus, Loki began his journey in cosmic sales.
Loki was much smarter than his brother, Thor, he knew exactly who could help him with this matter.
He cordially invited Mr. Strange, the future Supreme Magician, to the Nine Major Kingdoms, where they dined, drank, and had fun for several days. Then, he learned the principle of multi-level marketing from him.
Having understood the principle, Loki, the God of Mischief, thought this was really promising; if done well, perhaps fame and fortune could both be achieved.
The challenging part had been handled by The Ancient One and Odin. The Major Demons had already made their first-round investment, Loki's work was just left with mass marketing and fishing for more investors.
The heavens do feed the idle. Indeed, what could be a better match for the God of Mischief than pyramid selling?
Even when Loki, having nothing to do, did whatever he wanted, he would trick others time and again into tripping over themselves. When he got his enthusiasm up, in just a few days, all the Demon Gods in the universe heard the resounding name—"Cosmic Totem Demon God Mutual Wealth Project".
As the God of Lies and Deception, Loki grasped the essentials of pyramid selling without the need for a guide. Slogans like "miss it now and wait another 20,000 years","become big and strong, regain glory", and "congratulations to the Lord of the Crimson Dimension on gaining a billion years of power"...
During that time, all over the universe were Loki's crazy figures. From the Split Domain to the Place of Lingering, from the still hurting Pegasus Nebula due to the aftermath of wars to the long-quiet Nebula of the Fairy Constellation, from the central New Port to the Edge of Darkness, interstellar wars, galaxy gatherings, weddings, and happy occasions...he is ubiquitous.
Thor? Really not familiar!
"Hello, Sanctuary of the Nine Realms...I am sorry, but it really can't go any higher, we have rules here, only cosmic-level Demon Gods can raise it above 6%...Actually, you can also choose a joint venture, this is our new business..."
Mr. Strange quickly walked forward with his phone, speaking fast into it: "Lord Loki, the business on Sakaar can be paused for now. The people there are just too poor, they are also penny-pinchers, aside from calling to bother customer service every day...you can't really squeeze much more out of them, not to mention that High Lord..."
His pathway was through an office area, except the people working there were dressed quite oddly. Some wore suits and ties, some wore the mage robes, and some even wore prison uniforms; they obviously didn't have enough people and had to borrow from elsewhere...
"Hello, Sanctuary of the Nine Realms, what?…Could you repeat that? Translator! I need a translator! Here comes another one I can't understand!"A woman screamed who was dressed in professional attire.
A young mage in a yellow magic robe ran to the woman. After listening to the phone conversation and muttering a string of strange words to the caller, he hung up the phone and exclaimed: "Which backwater Demon God is this language from? Is this from the outskirts of Hell? That accent is just too heavy!"
Mr. Strange continued to walk, surrounded by constant chatter on the phones.
"Hello, Sanctuary of the Nine Realms, er… I'm sorry, but we don't offer that service. Yes, I know you're desperate, but we're not in charge of locating dogs. Right…I'll help you ask."
From a seat, a young man raised his hand and rushed to Mr. Strange asking, "Mr. Strange, a Demon God is requesting our help in searching for his lost dog. He's very panicked."
"Find a dog?" Mr. Strange covered his phone and examined the young man, "We're a financial firm, we don't find dogs… well, ask him where he lost the dog and what it looks like."
The young man ran back to his seat and picked up the phone, "I see… sure… okay… three heads? Oh, there are four heads, okay… No problem. we will do our best. We'll reply within two hours… Oh, that won't be necessary. We cannot accept personal rewards, thank you."
He put down the phone again and yelled at Mr. Strange: "He said it was lost in the upper realm of the Spirit Dimension. It's a blue crow with four heads and three claws…"
Loki on the other end of the phone also heard the young man's shout, "Isn't that the pet of Cambell? How did it end up in the Realm of Spirits?"
Then he told Mr. Strange, "The Lower Spirit Realm has five Minor Demons. They have a lot of contacts. You should go ask them."
Mr. Strange puts down his phone and yelled: "Who is in charge of the Spirit Realm area?"
A mage lady flashed to Mr. Strange and said, "It's me, but they had a fight yesterday and broke the internet connection, so there's no way to contact them for now."
"Leave it. I'll run this once." The woman continued, "The Spirit Realm is not far away. Could you ask them where they want the raven delivered once it's found?"
"Alright, wait a minute. Let me check... the caller is from… a middle layer between the Hell Dimension and the Star Realm. It's not too far…"
At this moment, Mr. Strange's phone rang again. This time it's not a Demon God, but Peter at the other end saying, "Mr. Strange! Get over here! Two symbiotes are fighting in New York. I can't stop them. Oh! My god! Don't go that way…"
"Symbiotes...what?"
Once Mr. Strange said that, the floor violently shuddered. One corner of the building collapsed as a massive gray creature jumped onto the roof, closely followed by a black monster.
Making out in time, trailing behind the two monsters was a slightly smaller figure … Purple Spider-Man???