"Then let me swim in the ocean of knowledge."
Blaine, who had come back to his senses, no longer hesitated. He simply sat to one side, picked up the magic books from the bookshelf, and began reading them.
Coincidentally, Blaine could also take this opportunity to heal the internal injuries he had suffered from being shaken by the metal monster in the dark space before. At the same time, he could replenish his mental strength and restore his other conditions to their best state.
There was nothing to say all night. The night in Kamar-Taj was unusually quiet. Perhaps because it was close to the Himalayas and located in a mountainous area, people had no other recreational activities at night, so they all rested early. Unlike the villa area where Blaine lived, the entire city was brightly lit at night, becoming a city that never slept, even livelier than it was during the day.
At night, aside from the occasional chirping of insects and frogs, Blaine could only hear his own breathing. Oh, no—there was also the snoring of the librarian, the sorcerer called Wong.
During the first half of the night, Wong, like Blaine, turned on a lamp and read into the night. But before long, that guy could no longer hold on. He yawned again and again, and finally fell headfirst onto the table. Bursts of thunderous snoring soon followed.
There were also oil lamps. Blaine did not know whether the Ancient One had done this on purpose. What age was this? They were still using oil lamps. Was she not afraid of burning down this library and destroying hundreds of years of her hard work?
At some unknown time, perhaps because the oil had run out and the wick had dried up, even the oil lamp did not outlast Blaine and went out.
Fortunately, Blaine did not care about such things. As long as he was focused, no noise could disturb him. As for the lack of light in the darkness, that mattered even less. With Hawkeye's night-vision function, how could he be afraid of not seeing things at night?
That night, Blaine felt more serious than ever before. Even when he had been in school, he had never spent an entire night reading so earnestly.
However, despite the hard night, Blaine still gained something.
At the very least, Blaine figured out what the Ancient One had meant by magical energy. In fact, in the final analysis, this thing was not much different from Blaine's mental strength. However, the former could be absorbed and improved through cultivation, while the latter could only be expanded, then automatically restored after being used.
As Blaine thought, since the two had different approaches but equally satisfactory results, why not gather their strengths and make up for their respective weaknesses? Therefore, this was what Blaine would do next.
Not only that, Blaine also understood the meaning of the first few words the Ancient One had said yesterday.
"Everything has its own laws."
"There are no great or small things. They mutually generate and restrain one another, and the cycle repeats endlessly."
In fact, every magic circle had its own rules. Even complex magic circles were based on countless elementary-level spells, constantly expanding and innovating.
Therefore, one should not underestimate any elementary or low-level magic. Perhaps it just happened to be the nemesis of some high-level, or even treasure-level, magic.
There was no such thing as elementary-level magic, only magicians who did not know how to use it. Every spell, as long as it followed its laws, could become part of a stronger system.
Now Blaine finally understood why the prehistoric Bounty Hunters had been so obsessed with pursuing magical cultivation. And the Ancient One—why could the Ancient One be honored as the Sorcerer Supreme? It was not merely because she had inherited the title from her predecessor. Why was she worthy of it? Not only did she possess powerful magical ability, but her understanding of magic had also reached an extremely profound level.
Besides magic, Blaine also learned something about the Ancient One that night. Just as the Ancient One had said, this library did not only contain the magic she had collected over hundreds of years, but also its origins. Naturally, it also included the biography of the Ancient One. It could be regarded as a record of the various experiences of the Ancient One's life.
Among them, Blaine learned many unknown secrets about the Ancient One.
For example, the Eye of Agamotto had not actually been inherited by the Ancient One from Agamotto. Instead, it had been obtained from Eternity, the cosmic creator god.
There was also the Ancient One's youth, when she had liked traveling through the universe and multiple dimensions, fighting crime, and studying magic.
Because she had frequently experienced dangers and obstacles, the Ancient One became very powerful. She not only sheltered the Himalayas, but also practiced with monks. There had even been a gathering of sorcerers and so on. The specifics were not recorded in the book. Perhaps the Ancient One did not want people to know. This gathering caused many sorcerers in the world to fight one another, and even the Ancient One participated. As expected, she won the final victory. It seemed that after this battle, the Ancient One earned the title of Sorcerer Supreme.
The book also recorded that during the Great Fire of London in 1666, the Sorcerer Supreme, the Ancient One, encountered the monster Dormammu for the first time. At that time, the Ancient One used all her strength to repel Dormammu, a truly powerful guy. The later records were the same as what Blaine knew. The Ancient One's power was not enough to destroy Dormammu, so over a long period of time, the Ancient One fought many battles with Dormammu.
There were more books in this library than Blaine had imagined. There were not only all kinds of magic, but also the life experiences of the Ancient One, and even detailed descriptions of the Ancient One's abilities.
For another example, the Ancient One's powerful magical ability—usually triggered by reciting spells or changing various gestures, though the Ancient One's magical tools did not seem to be well documented—allowed her to convert magical energy into physical invisibility, energy projection, object penetration, life extension, illusion creation, flight, hypnosis, protective shields, alchemy, psychokinesis, and various super abilities such as teleportation, spatial teleportation, and dimensional teleportation.
…
Not only that, the Ancient One also possessed a powerful soul projection ability. Soul projection, as the name suggested, was the separation of the spiritual body from the physical body, which was what Blaine understood as astral projection.
…
Moreover, in the state of astral projection, the soul was invisible. Except for other souls, no one could see it, and it could not be touched. This was not difficult to understand. It was simply invisible and untouchable.
However, the amazing thing was that in the state of astral projection, there was no need to breathe, eat, or rest. To put it bluntly, it meant not eating, drinking, sleeping, or breathing.
What was even more powerful was that this state was not affected by physical laws. In other words, it was outside Newton's jurisdiction. Even if Newton kicked his coffin board to pieces, he still could not control it.
How should it be put?
While in astral projection, the Ancient One could still retain all her conscious thought. Blaine had also seen this before.
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