Chapter 309: The Restless Youkai Sage
Just as Tatsumaki had said in the chat—
The Ancient One, being the newest member, seemed to be the only newcomer among everyone who'd ever joined who'd gone and figured out the Dimensional Chat Group entirely on their own, without any veteran member needing to point anything out—finding the group announcement unprompted, and reading it all the way through, no less.
Maybe that was just the wisdom of a Sorcerer Supreme at work?
Ryū couldn't say for sure exactly how or why.
What he did know, though, was that regardless of the specifics, the Ancient One was now, officially, a member of the Dimensional Chat Group.
And as a fellow member, the Ancient One naturally received the full warmth of the group's welcome. Which was exactly why so many members had piled on with a chorus of "welcome newbie" the moment they'd joined.
The Ancient One—Marvel's own Sorcerer Supreme, someone the group had actually crossed paths with once before, during the Mid-Autumn Festival event—joining the chat group for real genuinely caught more than a few people off guard.
Especially Tony Stark, also from the Marvel world, who was probably the single most stunned member in the entire chat right now.
Tony had always assumed he was the Marvel world's sole representative in the chat group. Statistically speaking, he'd figured if another Marvel-world member ever did join, it'd probably take decades before that happened.
Instead, to his complete shock, it hadn't even taken decades—barely a few months after he himself had joined, another Marvel-world newcomer had shown up.
And not just any newcomer, either—someone operating at a genuine heavyweight tier within the Marvel universe.
Just how heavy a hitter are we talking here?
Well, even with tens of thousands of Points invested into strengthening himself, Tony still didn't feel confident he could go toe-to-toe with the Ancient One.
After all, the man's magic alone would put him firmly in his place, never mind the Time Stone—a genuinely terrifying, dimension-tier existence in its own right.
Tony also remembered the Admin once mentioning that the Ancient One ranked among the Marvel world's true Godhead-tier powerhouses—strong enough that even Thanos, without the full Infinity Gauntlet assembled, would've been on the receiving end of a beatdown if he ever crossed paths with him.
In the original movies, that purple potato-headed menace Thanos had only made his move on Earth after both the Ancient One and Odin had died. If either of those two heavyweights had still been alive, Thanos wouldn't have had the nerve to show up, not even with a hundred times the courage.
Currently crashing at Wolf Castle in the Pleasant Goat world, Tony Stark muttered to himself with an odd expression, "Wait, hold on—if the Ancient One's from the Marvel world, and Uncle Tony here is also from the Marvel world, doesn't that basically make us hometown buddies? Does that mean I can just, like, openly latch onto this guy's coattails?"
"No wait, hold on—I'm literally Iron Man, world-famous superhero and all that. Latching onto someone else's coattails like that feels a little... beneath me, doesn't it? Ahem! Guess coattail-riding really does require some careful strategic consideration."
In the end, Tony decided to shelve the coattail-riding plan for now—no telling if he'd accidentally suck up to the wrong horse's leg, so to speak, and end up embarrassing himself in the process.
Better to wait and watch for a bit. Besides, Admin had mentioned once that the Marvel world had countless parallel universes—no telling which particular parallel-universe version of the Ancient One this newcomer actually was.
If it turned out to be some version separated from his own universe by several degrees, latching on might not even do him any good.
After all, if they were separated by several parallel universes, could either of them even meaningfully help the other, even if they wanted to? Could you actually punch through the walls between parallel universes like that?
If someone actually could break down the barriers between parallel worlds like that... well, that would make this particular Ancient One a genuinely absurd existence, wouldn't it?
Sinking his consciousness into the Dimensional Chat Group, Tony—having nothing else to work on for the moment—settled into a comfortable lurk-and-watch mode.
The Ancient One: A chat group connecting countless different dimensional worlds, capable of using Points to travel between them, and even growing stronger through Points investment.
The Ancient One: Whoever engineered something like this operates on an entirely different conceptual tier of existence altogether. Genuinely baffling. Then again, given how vast the multiverse actually is, perhaps this is simply par for the course.
Terrible Tornado: The newbie's adjusting way faster than usual. Truly worthy of being a heavyweight in their own world.
My True Form Is Cola: New heavyweight, please remember my face! I'm the chat group's #3 Salted Fish, Umaru Doma! Admin-sama's #1 Salted Fish, and Yukari-senpai's #2 Salted Fish!
My True Form Is Cola: As for Kizaru-ojisan, he's been busy handling paperwork nonstop thanks to Sengoku-ojii-sama lately, so he's officially been demoted out of our glorious ranks of the idle. Shame on him.
The Ancient One: Umaru Doma...that sounds like a Japanese name.
My True Form Is Cola: That's because I AM Japanese! Family name Doma, given name Umaru!
Eternally Seventeen: Speaking of which, @The Ancient One, haven't we newcomers actually met once before? During the whole Mjolnir incident?
The Ancient One: ...So THAT mysterious group was you all?
RawrSoFierce: Huh? Turns out it really is an old acquaintance after all. Here I was assuming it might be from a different parallel universe entirely.
The Ancient One: I see. Given you're all from this Dimensional Chat Group, your appearance in my world that day makes considerably more sense now.
The Ancient One: That day genuinely spooked me—I spent over a month combing through my wards around Earth, convinced there had to be some kind of breach somewhere. Never found a single flaw anywhere.
Eternally Seventeen: As I recall, Admin-sama mentioned you're an incredibly powerful sorcerer. If you've got time sometime, we should compare notes.
Eternally Seventeen: This humble self happens to be a fairly accomplished sorceress herself, you know—especially when it comes to all sorts of conceptual magic.
The Ancient One: No problem at all—I'd genuinely welcome the chance to study magic together with you.
[...]
No idea whether it was because Yukari, the youkai sage, had finally found a fellow magic practitioner, but her tone this exchange came off remarkably composed and proper.
Then again, knowing this particular youkai sage as well as Ryū did, that composure absolutely would not survive more than a few minutes.
Give it a little while, and her train of thought would inevitably start wandering off the rails again, and she'd probably not be able to resist driving inappropriate content into the conversation before long.
Honestly, it kind of made Ryū wonder if this youkai sage's "mating season" had been running continuously for months straight now.
Driving off-topic every single day like clockwork—felt like she'd been getting a bit restless lately.
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