i'm an idiot. An absolute idiot,' Luke berated himself. 'I knew the Ancient One was guarding the Marvel Universe, and I still had the guts to transmigrate here.'
He sat stiffly in a wooden chair inside an antique, incense-scented hall, nervously sipping from a teacup that seemed to refill itself infinitely.
Right across from him sat the legendary Sorcerer Supreme herself: the bald, enigmatic Ancient One. Her eyes were closed, completely serene, as if he weren't even sitting in front of her. If the Eye of Agamotto hanging from her neck hadn't already clicked open, Luke would have tried to make a run for it by now.
Staring at the glowing emerald hue of the Time Stone exposed within the relic, a wild thought briefly crossed his mind. 'If I snatch the stone right now, could I use it to rewind time and get the hell out of here?' Then he looked at the solid wooden table separating him from the Ancient One and immediately abandoned that suicidal fantasy.
Thinking back to how he ended up in the Marvel Universe in the first place, Luke wanted to slap himself across the face.
He had been working overtime. During a quick break, he pulled out his phone and opened an idle mobile game. As a standard corporate wage slave, he only had tiny fragments of free time each day—definitely not enough for intense shooters or MOBAs. When a flashy ad icon popped up on the game interface, he dismissed it without a second thought. 'What a joke. I barely have a few minutes of peace, and you expect me to watch ads?'
Staring at his accumulated idle rewards, Luke tried to figure out the most optimal way to spend his skill points. In the end, his monkey brain just dumped everything into the highest-tier upgrade: the Dark Dimension. But the moment he clicked to upgrade the Dark Dimension a million times in one go, he actually *entered* it.
He was still completely dazed when he appeared in a pitch-black void. A **System** interface suddenly popped up in front of him, offering a random selection of worlds to travel to. Out of the options provided, Marvel was the only one he actually knew anything about. The others were weird parodies of sci-fi games and hero shooters he barely recognized.
So, naturally, he picked Marvel. Naturally, he fell right into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Naturally, he crashed straight onto Earth. And naturally, he was immediately invited to tea by the Ancient One.
'If I had just chosen literally any other universe, I wouldn't be sitting in this terrifying tea party,' he thought, thoroughly regretting his life choices.
Since the Ancient One was visibly using the Eye of Agamotto to peer through the timelines, Luke didn't dare move a muscle. Everyone knew the golden rule of Marvel: the bald ones were always the most overpowered. The bald woman in front of him was the absolute apex predator of Earth. Compared to her, a certain eyepatch-wearing director was just a helpless toddler.
Since she remained completely silent, Luke fought back a sudden, nervous urge to use the restroom and decided to investigate the **System** he had received upon transmigrating.
The **Darkness System**. It sounded incredibly badass, but its actual functionality was downright pathetic. Just like the mobile game he used to play, it was nothing more than an idle clicker.
The **System** started him off with a personal dark space made entirely of **Dark Energy Crystals**. The more crystals he gathered, the larger the space would grow. To get more, he had to buy mining units from the **System** shop. The first unit cost **10 points**, and every subsequent purchase would permanently increase the price by **0.1 points**, with no upper limit. As for what a larger dark space actually did? Luke hadn't figured that out yet.
Still, the mechanics were way too familiar. 'Wait... is this literally just the idle game I was playing before I died?'
He studied the interface a bit closer. He currently had a starting balance of **10 Dark Energy Crystals**. There was only one item available for purchase: a ninja mask with glowing crimson eyes. It looked incredibly familiar, likely from some anime he used to watch, but his memory was a bit fuzzy. It had been years since he last binge-watched anything, and the details were completely lost to him.
Shaking off the nostalgia, he noticed the unit cost exactly ten points. Without thinking too much about it, he tapped the **+1** button next to it. His starting balance instantly dropped to zero. The price for the next unit updated to **10.1 points**, and his total resource generation rate at the top of the screen changed to **+0.1 Dark Energy Crystals per minute**.
'So the mining rate for this unit is 0.1 crystals per minute.' That didn't surprise him too much. Idle games always started with painfully low numbers before escalating into ridiculous trillions and quadrillions in the late game.
But what really bothered him was the time scale. This wasn't like standard clicker games that generated currency every single second. This **System** ticked once per minute. 'A whole minute just for one tick? Are you kidding me? At this rate, I'll die of old age before I even hit the millions!'
Frustrated, Luke grabbed his teacup, intending to down it in one gulp to calm his nerves. He totally forgot the Ancient One had enchanted it to hold a near-infinite amount of liquid. Instead of a quick sip, he essentially waterboarded himself. Scalding hot tea splashed all over his face and poured straight down his collar.
"Ah, crap!" he yelped, instinctively dropping the cup. It shattered into pieces on the floor as he leaped out of his chair, frantically shaking his soaked shirt.
Across the table, the Ancient One's eyes suddenly snapped open. She stared straight at him.
Luke froze. In his panic, he had completely forgotten he was sitting across from the Sorcerer Supreme. Seeing her pause her temporal observations just to look at him, he immediately snapped back into a perfectly polite, upright sitting posture like a scolded schoolboy.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Cold sweat drenched his back. 'Is she mad? Does she think I'm disrespecting her? Oh god, she's going to vaporize me! Please, no! I just escaped my miserable desk job! I haven't even gotten to enjoy life yet! At least let me catch up on my anime backlog!'
The Ancient One watched him intently for a long moment. Suddenly, a dark, jagged sigil briefly flashed to life between her eyebrows.
Luke actually recognized that mark. He knew that to sustain her life and power, the Ancient One publicly fought against Dormammu while secretly drawing upon the Dark Dimension herself. But he definitely wasn't going to bring *that* up. The politics of Kamar-Taj were way above his pay grade. Plus, he had mostly just watched the Marvel movies for the cool CGI fights. Who actually memorized all the deep lore?
But seeing her actively display the mark of the Dark Dimension made his panic skyrocket. 'Why is she showing me her deepest, darkest secret? Is she about to silence me permanently?!'
The Ancient One took in his terrified, perfectly still posture without saying a word. Recalling the branching futures she had just observed, she felt a rare flicker of genuine shock. 'This boy... this is the one who will eventually crush Dormammu between his fingers?'
Despite her racing thoughts, her serene expression didn't shift an inch. Dormammu was an entity so incomprehensibly vast that even with the Time Stone, she could never hope to truly defeat him. Yet the timelines insisted that this awkward boy sitting in front of her would one day erase the Lord of the Dark Dimension entirely.
Probing him gently with her own magic, she could sense a faint trace of dark energy lingering within him. But it was astonishingly pure—far purer than Dormammu's corrupted essence. That alone made the impossible future seem plausible.
She gracefully lifted her teacup, gesturing toward him. Luke braced himself for a magical smiting, only to realize that his shattered cup was suddenly sitting in front of him again, completely whole. He took a cautious sip. Still infinitely refilling. The warm, familiar taste made him sag with relief. 'Okay, good. She isn't going to murder me for breaking her china.'
"You harbor dark energy within you," the Ancient One stated calmly, taking a sip of her tea.
Luke, who had been chugging his tea to calm his nerves, violently choked and sputtered. He had *just* arrived in this universe! How on earth was he already tied to Dormammu? Kamar-Taj strictly forbade dark magic! 'Oh my god, she's framing me! She's totally going to execute me and hide the body!'
In his sheer panic, he had completely forgotten the name of his own **System's** currency—much like how a gamer never really remembers if an idle game uses gold coins or tokens.
"Do not panic. I am not going to silence you," she added seamlessly.
'Holy crap, she's reading my mind?!' Luke stiffened in horror, suddenly remembering his mental joke about her bald head looking like a white egg.
The Ancient One suppressed a sigh, recalling a specific timeline where he had frantically blurted out that exact thought process. "I am not going to punish you for your internal monologue, and no, I cannot read minds."
'You're totally reading my mind right now!'
Terrified, Luke completely shut down his brain, desperately trying to achieve a state of pure zen so he wouldn't accidentally think anything offensive.
"You won't be able to perceive the multiverse just by zoning out," the Ancient One noted in amusement. "I can help you with that. But first, you should probably relieve yourself, otherwise things might get incredibly messy." She waved a hand, and a shower of golden sparks flared into existence, spiraling into a portal that opened directly into a pristine bathroom.
At her reminder, Luke suddenly realized his bladder was practically bursting. He scrambled through the glowing ring without a second thought.
The Ancient One closed the portal behind him. After a few minutes, she waved it open once more. On the other side, Luke had just finished washing his hands. When he hadn't seen the sparkling gateway waiting for him, he had briefly considered making a tactical retreat out the bathroom window—right until the portal violently sparked back to life in front of his face.
Pulling a long face, he stepped back into the tea room, though his blinding panic had somewhat subsided. Thanks to a few minutes of post-bathroom clarity, he had managed to analyze his situation. If the Ancient One actually wanted him dead, she wouldn't have bothered refilling his tea or opening a portal for him to pee.
Knowing his life wasn't in immediate danger, his wandering mind started to relax. Staring at the fading sparks of the sling ring portal, he had to admit—magic was ridiculously convenient. 'Imagine never having to walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night again.'
Before the refreshing wave of relief could fully settle in, the Ancient One practically teleported right in front of him and struck him squarely in the chest with her palm.
A bizarre sense of weightlessness washed over him. He blinked—and suddenly realized he was staring at the back of his own head.
'Wait, why am I floating?' Watching his perspective drift higher toward the ceiling, he instantly remembered that famous, CGI-heavy palm strike from the movies. 'Did she just punch my soul out of my body?!' He stared down in utter bewilderment as his physical body slumped limply back into his chair.
"Have a safe trip," the Ancient One murmured, looking up at his astral form.
Before he could scream, a massive, invisible force yanked him backward, hurling his soul through the fabric of reality and plunging him into an agonizing, kaleidoscopic nightmare of shifting dimensions—
The Ancient One calmly returned to her seat. If this boy genuinely possessed the potential to slay Dormammu, she had to nurture that spark. From the agonizing interrogations she had witnessed in alternate timelines, she knew he wasn't malicious. With the right guidance, he would never stray down a dark path.
By the time Luke finally snapped back to reality, it felt as if his entire existence had been dismantled and forcefully stitched back together. Gasping for breath, he realized he was back in his physical body, sitting in the tea room as if nothing had happened. He desperately gulped down some tea to soothe his shattered nerves and cast a traumatized glance at the Sorcerer Supreme.
"How was the journey?" she asked pleasantly.
"It was... okay, I guess. A bit intense," Luke admitted honestly. Remembering the dimension where countless disembodied hands had sprouted out of his own flesh, he shuddered. 'That was way too much sanity loss for one day.' He couldn't even remember half of what he had seen; his human brain simply hadn't been able to process the sheer visual overload of the multiverse.
'No wonder she eventually considers Stephen Strange the greatest Sorcerer Supreme,' he thought. 'If Strange could stay completely conscious through a trip like that, his magical talent is absolutely insane.'
The Ancient One nodded thoughtfully. "I will be sure to treat Stephen a little more gently when his time comes."
'So I'm just your guinea pig?!' Luke grumbled internally, though he kept his face perfectly neutral.
"Returning to our previous topic," she steered the conversation back with flawless precision. "You harbor dark energy."
"It's not like I wanted it!" Luke protested, feeling incredibly wronged. "If you hadn't mentioned it, I wouldn't even know I had it!" He had literally just spawned into this universe a few minutes ago. How on earth could Dormammu have targeted him so quickly?
Wait a minute. Dark energy. Why did that sound so horribly familiar?
Luke froze, quickly pulling up his **System** interface to check his currency tracker.
**Dark Energy Crystals.**
'Son of a bitch, it's my System! My own cheat is trying to get me killed!'
The Ancient One watched his expression cycle rapidly through confusion, realization, and sheer despair as she quietly sipped her tea.
Luke was at a complete loss. He had essentially waltzed right into the headquarters of Earth's supreme protector carrying a ticking time bomb of forbidden magic. That was basically begging for a death sentence!
"Please spare me!" he pleaded, looking at her with wide, innocent eyes. "I haven't even done anything bad yet! Wait, no, I mean I *won't* do anything bad!" If her teacup didn't refill itself, he would have been on his knees pouring it for her by now.
"Dark energy is incredibly volatile, yet it does not seem to corrupt you," she observed gently, allowing the jagged sigil on her forehead to fade away.
Luke hadn't looked in a mirror since he arrived, so he had no idea if he looked like a sleep-deprived cultist yet. Hearing her reassurance helped him relax a fraction. He was just making a mental note to find a mirror later when she spoke again.
"You will need to stay here for a few days under observation."
What else could he say? When the Sorcerer Supreme gave an order, you simply nodded and agreed.
Seeing that he had no objections, the Ancient One waved a hand. The space around them suddenly fractured, folding and shattering like countless panes of broken glass.
Luke stared in utter shock. They had been sitting inside the Mirror Dimension this entire time! He hadn't even felt the transition. 'She truly is the apex predator of this universe,' he thought, thoroughly humbled.
"I will have Mordo show you to your quarters. I hope you enjoy your stay here at Kamar-Taj." She clapped her hands together lightly, and a sturdy, serious-looking man strode into the tea room.
Seeing that the meeting was definitively over, Luke obediently stood up and followed Mordo out the door.