Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics-Chapter 4362 - 3455: Midnight Sons (17)
Chapter 4362 - 3455: Midnight Sons (17)
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Stark and Miles were conversing, while Shiller was speaking with Khonsu in his mind.
"So, how is it? Can you feel the changes from the upgrade?"
"Not really," Khonsu commented. "Maybe you've improved compared to before, but compared to the other one, you're still far behind."
"It's just about being able to do it, not necessarily doing it well," Shiller said. "It's like I can mimic Steven's surgical techniques, but I don't have his muscle memory or his passion for medicine, so naturally, I can't be the Hand of God. The same goes for fighting."
"Then what is the point of the upgrade?"
"Although the quality isn't sufficient, the quantity can make up for it. Fighting is just one skill; there are many others."
"Such as?"
"For instance, I finally have the patience to study those hefty tomes on magic and mythology." Shiller stopped at the Temple Gate, not leaving with Stark and the others.
The others turned back to look at him, Shiller shook his head and said, "The image of the Minotaur appears in multiple mythological systems, I'll investigate it from this angle."
"Are you really not coming with us to see the analysis results of the Minotaur?"
"I have my own methods of analysis."
Miles recalled that the first Minotaur defeated seemed to have been taken away by the Moon Knight. He nodded and said, "Alright, if you find anything, I hope you let us know."
"You haven't said if you've decided to join the team." Stark asked from the Temple gate, "I admit you're strong in the use of magic, and we need talents like that. Want to join?"
Shiller nodded and said, "But I can't guarantee I'll act with you."
"Suit yourself," Stark said, turning around, "I don't think the mythological investigation will yield any results. Let's go."
After Stark left, Shiller went to the temple's rear garden. On one side of the garden were several massive stone coffins.
He raised his hand, one floated up, its lid opened to reveal the Minotaur that had almost been decapitated earlier.
It had returned to human form, but its state was frozen, maintaining a look of pain and terror.
Shiller closed the stone coffin lid, and with a gentle pull of his fingers, both the coffin and its contents turned into light, flying into the palm of his hand.
Then he himself turned into a beam of moonlight, landing on the windowsill of the top floor operating room at the New York Elderly Association Hospital.
Strange, who was leaning against the wall dozing, was startled awake and saw the figure on the windowsill, unable to react for a moment.
Khonsu's disguise for Shiller could fool ordinary people but not the Supreme Magician. Strange squinted and said, "Am I dreaming? Why are you dressed like that?"
"Didn't you know? Allow me to introduce the latest returning superhero in New York, the third-generation Moon Knight." Shiller took off his hood and said.
"What the hell," Strange sneered.
"According to superhero conventions, you're the only one who knows my true identity, excited?"
"According to Shiller's conventions, if you say that, it means I should be the last to know, should I be excited?"
"Who told you to lock yourself in the operating room these days? I don't dare to come in randomly; if your hand slips and causes some irreparable damage to the fields of human politics and economics, wouldn't that be too much of a bargain for humanity?"
Strange rolled his eyes dramatically.
"When's your next surgery?"
"In 20 minutes."
"Mind if I cut in line?"
"Very much, get out, or I'll call the head nurse."
Shiller took out a prepared medical record and waved it in front of Strange, "Are you sure? Then I'll really leave."
"Come back," Strange waved his hand, and the medical report flew into his hand. After flipping through it, he set it aside and said, "Was the brief disappearance of the moon in New York two nights ago your doing?"
"It was Khonsu."
Ignoring Khonsu's curses in his ear, Shiller continued, "I really have something important to discuss with you, check this out."
Shiller spread his fingers, and a cluster of light flew out. The Black man, frozen by moonlight, landed on the operating table, his neck wound and blood maintaining the state of the injury.
Strange seemed to sense something, his expression became serious. He put on gloves, walked to the operating table, and looked into the Black man's eyes.
"I can't be certain," Strange shook his head and said, "His power source seems to be some kind of...curse? There are elements I don't understand affecting the curse's state, so I can't say exactly what kind of curse it is."
"I'm not asking you to investigate that, can you bring him back?"
Strange looked at Shiller, a bit speechless, "Are you seriously planning to be a superhero ignorant of common societal knowledge, only knowing to shout justice and save lives?"
"Not even with magic?"
"You might as well just go find Death and have her revive him."
"I'm doing superhero work right now; superheroes should value life. Don't make me keep saying things like loss; it's too unheroic."
"Alright, big hero, at the moment of his death, I can stop his soul so you can ask what's going on."
"That's why you're the Supreme Magician!" Shiller gave Strange a thumbs-up.
Shiller withdrew the Moonlight Energy attached to the Black man, and the blood at his neck began to spray. The neck was mostly severed, and death was a matter of time regardless of intervention.
Within just a few seconds, there were no signs of life. Strange grasped at the void, intercepting a shadow.
Shiller knew time was pressing, so he didn't waste words. He looked at the Black man and said, "Were you aware you would turn into a monster?"
The Black man had just opened his mouth to speak when Shiller interrupted, "I assume you understand the situation, you're already dead, and resurrection is impossible. When some people promised you certain conditions, they didn't mention this, did they?"
The Black man showed a complex expression, and after a while, he opened his mouth again, and Shiller heard a faint voice.
"A woman named Perry found me, saying that if I took some pills before joining the parade, she would give me a lot of money."
"Where are the pills?"
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"There was only one, and I've already taken it."
"What does that woman look like?"
"White hair, very tall, her eyes were kind of strange."
"Got it, you can rest in peace."
The soul quickly disappeared from the operating room. Shiller looked at Strange and said, "I know you're probably too busy to help me investigate, but open the New York Temple's library for me."
Strange furrowed his brow and said, "You're not planning to comb through those ancient texts yourself, are you? Since when did you have that kind of patience?"
"When did I not have that kind of patience?"
"You never did," Strange sneered, "You never used to investigate anything; you'd just weave a big net and wait for these fools to walk into it."
"I've been... quite idle recently, alright?"
"Then help me fill out a few more medical reports," Strange pointed at the computer.
"I'll do no more than 20. Come on, I'm not your intern; you can't just boss me around."
"If you were my intern, I'd hang myself on the operating lamp right now. 30 reports. Everything has a price—welcome to the magic realm."
Ten minutes later, Shiller, holding a key, arrived at the New York Temple. Only a few Little Wizards were on duty here, and upon seeing the key, they led Shiller to the library.
To facilitate the mages' practice, every temple has a library, but if the books are stored separately in different temples, finding them would still be troublesome.
So, after the Ancient One became the Supreme Magician, she used magic to make all temple libraries projections of the Kamar-Taj's Great Library. The true forms of all books are stored deep inside Kamar-Taj, and mages can access their projections at each temple's library.
However, there's a small issue: the projection of the same book can only be read by one person at a time. If someone else is already reading it, others won't be able to see it.
But this generally doesn't pose a problem because the vast array of books is so immense that it's unlikely anyone would happen to read the same book. And for the more commonly used magic texts, there are many copies, and multiple projections, so conflicts don't occur.
After Strange became the Supreme Magician, he implemented a modern search system here. Shiller went to the crystal ball in the library's center, entered the entries he wanted to search for, like "Minotaur," "mythology," "curse," "technology and magic integration," etc., and soon many reading lists popped up.
Shiller opened the first list, ready to go through them one by one, only to find that half of the books in this "Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Human Myths and Their Historical Development" entry were already being read and could not be accessed.
Shiller opened the second list, "An Overview of All Earthly Monsters, Past and Present," and found something even stranger: 70% of the books were being read, and the remaining few that appeared more fringe, discussing monsters from remote regions, seemed to contain no useful information.
As Shiller continued checking the entries related to his search keywords, about 60% of the books were already being read.
Excluding a system error, it seemed that someone was using the same method to search for the same content, and it wasn't just one or two people, but many people.
Shiller seemed to realize something, took out his phone, and dialed a number.
"Hello? Xu? How's your work going? ... I've run into some trouble here, could you check the Hong Kong Temple for me..."
"What? Sealed off? Why is it sealed off? Okay, got it."
After hanging up, Shiller began to think.
Xu Shang-Chi, with his outstanding physical condition and bilingual skills, had been recruited by the Chinese engineering team working on the Neptune Star Port. He had been working there for some time and had recently been transferred back to Shenzhen, now responsible for coordinating the linkage between the Neptune Star Port and the ground.
According to him, the Hong Kong Temple announced a lockdown, seemingly because a group of mainland experts was conducting research inside, aligning with the situation Shiller found: most books were being read simultaneously.
So, one possibility is that the Minotaur also appeared in China, prompting investigations on their end to track its origins.
But what puzzled Shiller was, if the Minotaur was created by Roxon Corporation, why would they focus their efforts on China?
Roxon Corporation's energy business covers the globe, even having economic leverage over many countries, but that probably doesn't include China. There shouldn't be any intersection between the two.
In the Marvel Universe, China is far stronger and more formidable than in Shiller's universe. They can readily cut through the Himalayas with a sky train without a word from Kamar-Taj, and the Supreme Magician has to negotiate politely for cooperation. So who does Roxon Corporation think they are?
Suddenly, Shiller recalled a comic book setting: Roxon Corporation is actually an interstellar energy company, with energy extraction sites in Jupiter, Vanaheim, and other dimensions of the Nine Major Kingdoms.
Wasn't someone planning to develop Jupiter recently?
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