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"So it's you." The Ancient One said, quite surprised.
"Oh, Master Ancient One, do you know me?"
Lionel secretly grumbled to himself: If you know me, then why did you pretend not to see me when I came to the Sanctum before?
"I know and I don't know. People who don't exist in Time are still very rare."
The Ancient One said. She knew Lionel because she had specifically investigated him. A few months ago, the Ancient One, with the help of the Time Stone, discovered that some developments in the World line were subtly different from what she had observed before.
But when she used the Time Stone again to observe the timeline, she found no abnormalities.
To investigate the cause of the anomaly, the Ancient One could be said to have compared the differences between the timelines frame by frame, identified the discrepancies, and then conducted on-site investigations, transforming into a bald great detective.
But even so, it took the Ancient One a long time to determine that Lionel was the culprit. She still didn't understand why she always failed to recognize Lionel when investigating his activities. Every time she used magic or some other means to find images or videos of Lionel's activities, she couldn't connect them with existing clues. Even now, if the Ancient One hadn't identified Lionel through a process of elimination, she wouldn't have thought that the Lionel in front of her was the same person as the Lionel wearing glasses.
Recalling the not-so-pleasant experience, the Ancient One said to Lionel, "I understand why you have come to see me. Come in and have some tea."
Before turning away, the Ancient One gave Makima a deep look. A strange visitor from another World, somewhat like a devil, yet very different.
Danny asked, "Sorcerer Supreme, what about this Beast's incarnation?"
"Don't worry about it. This Beast is harmless for now." The Ancient One didn't care about Kuro.
Kuro also didn't continue to provoke, its body quickly shrinking, once again returning to the size of a house cat, and leaped into Makima's arms.
Looking at the 'Unfilial' Entry above the Ancient One's head, Lionel followed her into the New York Sanctum.
Upon reaching a large hall, the Ancient One sat on a futon and gestured for Lionel and Makima to sit down.
"Please have some tea!"
Tea appeared out of thin air in the empty teacup. Lionel curiously looked at the teacup; magic was truly suitable for showing off. Even though he knew in advance, he still found the ability to conjure tea out of thin air astonishing.
After taking a sip of tea, Lionel put down the teacup and asked,
"Listening to Master, you already know the purpose of my visit. May I ask why there is a Time loop?"
The Ancient One leisurely sipped her tea, unhurriedly saying,
"This is not a Time loop."
"If it's not a Time loop, then what is this situation?"
Lionel originally thought he would hear the Ancient One say it was some kind of Time Magic to fight a powerful enemy, but he didn't expect her to say it wasn't a Time loop.
"Yes, this is not a Time loop, but a large-scale fate reset, covering the entire Earth."
"Fate reset?" Lionel was even more confused.
"Have you heard of the myth of Sisyphus?" the Ancient One asked.
"I know a little, he's that unlucky guy who keeps pushing the rock, right?"
The Ancient One nodded and projected a canvas into the air beside her.
Animations and voice-overs appeared on the canvas, and then came a style that Lionel found unusually familiar.
"There is a hero whose name is forever associated with endless toil and punishment, and that is Sisyphus. Sisyphus was the king of Corinth, known for his intelligence and cunning, adept at manipulating people and handling various challenges. Sisyphus's most famous deed was that he once tricked the God of Death, Thanatos. When the God of Death came to take his life, he imprisoned Thanatos, thus exempting himself from death, but this act plunged the World into chaos… Zeus was enraged, and Sisyphus was brought to the Underworld. His punishment was to push a huge rock up a mountain, but every time the rock was about to reach the summit, it would always crash back down to the foot of the mountain…"
After watching a short video that the Ancient One had obtained from who knows where, Lionel was suddenly speechless. After a while, he finally asked,
"Master, isn't this a short video from the internet?"
The Ancient One said, quite surprised,
"Ah, you noticed! Humanity has developed too quickly in recent years, and I also need to keep up with the times. This is a new magic I invented, which can automatically retrieve the content I need from the internet according to my requirements. It's pretty good, isn't it?"
Lionel was astonished, thinking, "You've made a search engine with magic, old master! You're really keeping up with the times!"
"As expected of Master Ancient One, even if you weren't the Sorcerer Supreme, you could still be a technical consultant for a big internet company!"
"Haha!"
The Ancient One was very satisfied with the effect of her magic. After a while, she returned to the main topic and said,
"That was the popular version of the Sisyphus myth. What I'm going to tell you is the true history. The story up to that point is mostly the same, so I won't repeat it. The difference lies in Zeus's method of punishment. Sisyphus himself possessed divine blood. Asking him to push a giant rock, let alone push it to the top of the mountain, even throwing it directly to the top wouldn't be difficult. So the real punishment was not the simple rock-pushing that ordinary people imagine."
The Ancient One paused at this point, took a sip of tea, and then continued,
"Zeus took some power from the legacy of the Old Gods and ordered Hephaestus to create an hourglass, a giant rock, and a bronze armor. The giant rock is the widely known boulder, which can automatically adjust its weight according to the user, with the weight set just below the user's maximum strength. The armor served as a guard for the gods to monitor Sisyphus. The most crucial item was that hourglass.
The hourglass could reset the fate within a certain range, normally a local area with a radius of a hundred meters. This reset has nothing to do with what you call a Time loop; it does not involve Time, but rather affects fate. To put it simply, it can 'load a save file.' It records the fate of a certain state in advance, and when a pre-set condition is met, it overwrites the current fate with the recorded fate, achieving a reset effect, which is what you are experiencing now. But this has no relation to Time; what was experienced before the reset still exists, it's just that the people who were reset will have no memory of it.
Zeus used these three items to punish Sisyphus endlessly. The giant rock brought immense pressure upon him, the hourglass would reset fate every time he pushed the rock to the top of the mountain, sending him back to the foot, and the bronze armor would forever monitor Sisyphus, preventing him from playing tricks."
Lionel was stunned by what the Ancient One said. "Sisyphus was quite a figure to be treated with such high regard. But Master, didn't you say that this reset range only has a radius of a hundred meters? But now the reset covers the entire World."
Lionel found a blind spot; resetting the entire World was a bit exaggerated.
"That's under normal circumstances, but now the hourglass has been damaged and accidentally established a connection with the Space Stone. You should know about the Space Stone. This allows the hourglass to record the fate of the entire Earth. As the resets continue, the recordable range will constantly expand, potentially even recording the entire Universe."