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Home Sweet Home, Siberian Taiga[1998]
–Damian Hawthorne–
It had been two days since the Ancient One decided to visit his home and drop some cruel revelations, more akin to bombs on his plate. The thing with the Ancient One telling him something like that was that he had to take her seriously.
It wouldn't matter if it were some other schmuck who told him that; he could have just outright ignored them. But it was the Ancient One. The planet protector, and who, in most iterations of the Marvel Multiverse, had sort of supreme authority on the matters of magic on Earth.
Sure, there were entities who didn't have to listen to her, but he was certainly not on that level, not yet anyway. A long way from reaching that level, he could recognise that. Which is why, as far as he was concerned, he was within her jurisdiction.
The Ancient One being so powerful meant he had to listen to her, but there was another aspect of the ageless Sorceress that he fully intended on taking advantage of. Her near inability to actually harm him in any way.
He knew that she was not some paragon of morality, but he knew that being the leader of Kamar Taj meant she had an unofficial code of not hurting someone like him.
Not tainted by Dark Magic? Check.
No magical crimes? Check.
Innocent? Check.
Literal Child? Double Check.
All in all, it created a nice window for him to slip right through the cracks. He will get out of this place, and relish all the good food he can find.
As for how he was going to do that?
Well, the very early prototype for that was standing right in front of him. Now, he did have Kinetic Absorption as the enchantment on the clothes he was given by the ROB, which helped a lot to mask the sound of any movement, but it did little to actually move the vehicle.
He had issues with actually turning any energy into Kinetic energy. Actual Kinetic energy absorption worked great, to the point that anything he threw at the rock that had it just stuck to it before ever so slowly dropping due to the force of gravity.
The absorption worked great, so stealth was partially resolved. All he needed was a way to actually move the wheels of his vehicle. He could already make wheels out of stone or wood, so that problem was solved.
He really did not want to create a steam engine for him to move reliably, but as things were going right now, he could actually foresee that happening.
"Well, there's a reason why the basics work, right?" He muttered to himself, sitting his butt down on the ground, looking at the entrance of his cave, which was very wide now, because he did not need much protection these days.
In the entire year he had been here, he had maybe encountered a dozen wild animals that could actually threaten and kill humans. Maybe it was the sheer size of this place, or maybe he was just dropped in the right spot, but the frequency of seeing actual threats to his life was very low.
Despite all the noise and disturbance he created at the beginning.
Shrugging, he set the small box of prototype on a nearby table that was temporarily designated as a project space, before running back to the edge of his cave, where the stove was kept.
Opening the wooden cabinet gingerly, "Yes!" he shouted in triumph for the tenth time in two days, as he saw the same vision every time he emptied the bottle of milk and the bag of tea.
They were full.
Taking both of them out of the cabinet, he flipped on the switch for the stove, putting the pan with water on it. Just like the ten times in the last two days, he could barely wait for the water to come to a boil before pouring in the tea, then the milk, and then–
"Ah!" Heavenly. Simply heavenly.
He didn't know if it was due to the bland taste that he had subjected his taste buds to for the past year or some other magic, but even without the magic honey, this tea tasted awesome to him.
Sighing in contentment, he leaned on the walls of the cave, which looked as if they were made of stone but felt soft. "Ah! This is life."
Looking at the now empty bottle lying beside him, he muttered to himself, "Self refilling milk and tea. Truly, a gift worthy of its name."
Once he was done drinking enough tea for a small group of people, he washed everything down and carefully placed the bottle of milk into the wooden cabinet once more. For some reason, the refilling only occurred when no one was looking at it and only after a certain number of hours.
He had tried to take a look at the enchantments, to see if he could make his own, but he hit a snag, that being the encryption built into the enchanting language. He could not make heads or tails of the language itself but he could guess its functions.
He could tell that going past the encryption layer would result in immediate function loss, which was something he did not have the luxury of experiencing. The one good thing in his life right now, could not be sacrificed to the altar of curiosity.
So, he let them be for now. Once he was out of this forest, and had access to the modern day abundance of everything once more, he could afford to experiment.
Looking at the setting sun, he burped a bit because of all the milk he drank, which was quickly becoming his go-to snack these days, as he prepared to take another crack at his vehicle plan.
The solar to kinetic conversion matrix and the kinetic redistribution matrix were looking more and more like a dud, despite the sheer breadth of utility it would provide him, as he could just use it as a base for almost any type of vehicle, as long as he was on the planet.
Alas–
He stopped, head perking as he felt something. Something had tripped the enchantment on the other side of the mountain, the one he'd placed there on a whim, because that part was hours away if he ran and almost a day away if he walked.
On a whim, he swiped the sharp stone sword from the corner of his cave, and began running in the direction of the enchantment, his connection to it giving him a rough direction and sense of distance.
Anyways, he was bored of working on the vehicle, since it seemed to be taking far longer than expected, making him lose interest in the whole task.
Using the enchantments on the original clothing given to him, he darted through the forest, not even stopping for a second as he raced straight to the enchantment. Throughout the duration of his run, he did not run into a single wolf, or any other animal, which was worrying because he was not making any effort to silence himself.
He was very light, so most branches did not break on impact, but still, he should have grabbed the attention of something. Something was wrong here and…he couldn't wait to find out why.
After a few hours, give or take, there was pitch black in front of him, something he could banish with a fire but he had something else in mind. His magic, woven tightly in a circle around him, told him all he needed to know about his immediate surroundings.
That, combined with the enchantment, meant he could run full steam ahead without the danger of bumping into a tree. That would not do any damage to him anyway since his force field was active.
He had never really found his limit in keeping these enchantments active, especially now when he needed only a fraction of the original magic to keep the Dimensional energy conversion matrix alive and well to keep these enchantments going for basically, indefinitely.
So, he ran, and within a few hours, he was on top of the enchantment, which was just a rock buried in the ground, primed to go off when weight was pressed on top of it. He installed it here just on a whim, who knew he would find someone here, because that was most definitely a magical signature on the enchantment.
In the dark of the night, he grinned, having found something or someone in his territory, and unlike the last magic user he found, he had a hunch that his one was not someone he would have to hold back on.
"Let's do this," He whispered to himself as he activated the stealth enchantments, taking stock of all the weapons he had on himself.
Last he checked, he could create a flash of light so bright, it would probably be visible all the way from his cave, with just the ordinance he kept on his person at all times, not to mention his ability to just take a rock and make it explode now that he had Dimensional Energy to use as an energy source.
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