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Godhood: For Dummies by intata

Movies » Avengers Rated: M, English, Adventure, OC, Words: 121k+, Favs: 8k+, Follows: 10k+, Published: Oct 6, 2018 Updated: Sep 5

2,390Chapter 4

A/N

This took a while. Next one will probably take longer. Sorry.

To reiterate; I do not own Marvel.

"Blue?"

"Blue."

"Then why is it green?"

"The Time Stone is green."

The Ancient One just stared down at the five-year-old.

"What?" Nathan asked, as if it should have been obvious.

"That's entirely asinine." She deadpanned.

"The universe is entirely asinine. I live by the 'KISS' principle: Keep it simple, stupid." He shrugged. "It hasn't failed me yet."

The woman quirked an eyebrow, glancing down at the five-year-old.

Nathan rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Rub it in." He rubbed his tiny temples and mumbled, "I wish my brother was here. He'd have to deal with this crap too."

"There's another one of you?"

Nathan looked up and blinked. "I thought you did a background check?"

"I did…" She looked sort-of peeved. "Or rather, we did. It seems Master Yun is developing dementia." She sighed and looked back down at Nathan. "So there is another half-human, half-Celestial out there somewhere?"

"Yep." The five-year-old said, popping the 'p'. "Though for all intents and purposes he's just a normal human. Great with a gun, good guy to have your back in a fight, and an amazing pilot, but still just a normal dude."

"So he didn't get the Celestial genes?" She asked.

"Oh no. He totally did. He's just an idiot and never listened to me. Said I was 'letting the aliens get to me,' and 'you're not special, I'm special. Learn how to pilot first, space cadet.'" He said with air quotes. "He's such a prick."

"Not a fan of your brother then?" She cocked her head to the side.

Nathan laughed. "No, he's still family. I'd do anything for him, but Christ on a cracker, he's dense as a brick."

"So why isn't he here with you?"

The five-year-old tried to roll up the sleeves of his oversized jacket, only to fail and just ended up flailing them around with a pout. "I told him I was leaving and asked him to come with me." Nathan shrugged. "Fucker thought I was kidding, got drunk, and told our pirate captain." He huffed. "I'd been planning everything for like half a year, and Pete just goes and spills the beans immediately. So I got pissed and left that night, which was good, since the Ravagers didn't want me to leave." He paused for a second. "I may or may not have thrown all his clothes out the airlock before I left."

She snorted.

Nathan smiled slightly in response. "Well anyway, the fact that my inner firefly is now green makes me think a few things." He turned around and started walking back into the library, the edges of the now comparatively giant Ravager jacket dragging on the ground, and the Ancient One only a couple steps behind him; Time Stone still floating above her palm.

Getting to the diminutive man's desk and ignoring the man himself, he spotted an apple on the desk which he quickly snapped up, then turned back to the woman behind him.

"If this works, then I have a few ideas on what to do from here, and a theory as to why I'm now five." He said, spitting out the last word.

He sat down and took a bite out of the apple, remembering the scene where Dr. Strange fucked with the life cycle of a similar fruit. Setting the thing down in front of him, he brought his inner fire out to the palm of his hand, closed his eyes, and slowly laid his palm on the apple.

After only a few seconds of concentrating through the senses of his energy, he could feel something… slipping, for lack of a better term, and tried to steer that sensation.

Opening his eyes after only a couple of minutes, he smiled down at the object in his hands, then held out the now unbitten apple to the Sorcerer Supreme.

Eyes wide, the yellow-garbed woman examined the fruit. "You managed to exert control over time without actually using the Stone."

"Yes and no." He responded without looking up from the apple. "My energy seems to be able to merge with the Stone's." He paused. "Well now I think I know how to use the Stones… Or at least have a working theory. Since the energy merges with my own, I can then direct it and use it as if using the Stone itself. Basically, instead of using a normal medium for it, like the Eye, I'm using my own energy."

They both slipped into silence as he lit up his hand in a green fire, only to watch the color slowly bleed back to blue. "And it appears the effect isn't permanent. This is the normal color."

"Maybe." The Ancient One said. "Try the apple again."

Nathan scrunched his eyebrows, but nodded, turning back to the apple. This time; however, when he sunk his energy into the fruit, he only got the normal 'sixth sense' on its celular makeup without any hint of that 'slipping' sensation.

Retracting his hand, he looked back to the woman in front of him and shook his head.

She shrugged. "Worth a shot."

Nathan chuckled.

"So what was this theory about your current age?" She continued after a moment.

He nodded. "Well I think that came from not knowing what the hell I was doing. I kept trying to protect myself from the Stone even as the energy was seeping into my own. Meaning that my blue stuff was in constant contact with the green stuff until it flooded my system, which after a while, murdered my control over it and let it do something weird. It is an Infinity Stone. They're all partially sentient according to one theory, and are much more powerful than any mortal being."

"You are part Celestial." She deadpanned.

"Well yes, but I don't think even a true Celestial can be counted as immortal. Sure they can live forever and they're essentially gods, but you can still kill them, albet with difficulty. I'll need to study up on my cosmic deity list, but there are a lot of 'immortal' beings that can reside in this universe at any given time, and most of those can still be killed off, merged with, replaced, or repelled if you use massive amounts of bullshit. Only one of them can't really be affected in any way."

She gave him a calculating look. "As reassuring as a Celestial's apparent mortality is, and how discouraging the rest of what you just said is, I don't think I see your point."

He shook his head. "Don't worry about my deity list. Those guys are pretty benevolent for the most part. My point, though, is that while I might be able to exact some control over the damn thing, if I'm not careful, it'll control me."

She didn't look exactly pleased with that revelation, looking back at the green gem that floated in her palm. "How dangerous would you say continued use of it would be, then?"

"Honestly? Not very. As long as I back out before it overwhelms me, the fabric of Time should be safe."

Her expression turned disgruntled at his word choice. "So do you think you can revert your age, then? I'm not personally skilled enough with the eye to do it for you. My master would have been able, but I never could get a hold of the more difficult aspects of it."

"No? Well, I fucking hope I can, but that might take a while. I would need to know exactly how it happened in the first place. I somehow kept my own mind even as my body reverted back. Not to mention it took a lot of energy to change that apple; energy that I currently don't have at my disposal due to said apple. I would need a lot more to mess with my own body."

"How long before you recover the amount needed, then?"

"Unfortunately it's not really that simple. Celestial energy is a little weird. I can fill my body to the brim, and have enough to work with on a daily basis for semi-normal use, but my body is the container. I can only store so much, and now that I'm tiny, I can't store as much as I could an hour ago."

The Ancient One frowned. "So you're stuck as a child, then."

"Not necessarily. I've found that certain materials can store my energy for varying periods of time, meaning that if I find something that can store a lot of energy, for long enough, I can continuously build on my energy base, regardless of the state of my body."

The Ancient One regarded the child in front of her for a moment, then as if deciding something important, looked down to her left hand and removed a dull golden ring, which she tossed over to Nathan. "Try that."

Nathan, a bit surprised, but otherwise curious, examined the ring for a moment. "Gold? No..." Suitably intrigued, he did as was instructed and poured the remainder of his Celestial energy into the ring.

Surprisingly, the ring took all of it without issue, and seemed to glow in anticipation for more. Though best of all, even after ten minutes or so, it had no sign of releasing even a smidgen of the energy.

"Uhh…" He began eloquently. "What is this, exactly?"

The Ancient One smirked slightly. "I take it the material works well, then?"

He nodded. "So far, at least. Need more experimentation." He slowly pulled a fraction of the energy back into himself, and found only a slight difficulty in doing so. Overall, he was pretty pleased with the material in the mere minutes that he had his hands on it.

She nodded back. "The ring is yours then. It isn't enchanted with anything, but it is made of a rather special alloy. I have been using it to store small amounts of Eldritch energies for years, but I can get another."

"What's it made of? It's too dull to be gold, and it's got a more orange tinge…"

The Ancient One smiled slyly. "I think Kamar-Taj is the last place on earth that knows how to produce it. Most of our enchanted items have a little bit of it in their makeup, or are made of it entirely. It's mostly an alloy of copper, with a bit of gold and a few other minerals. The Greeks were one of the first to mine and use it." She picked at a bead on a bracelet that she wore, which Nathan noticed was made of the same metal. "Used to call it 'Mountain Copper', but the fabrication process for the alloy was widely lost once Atlantis sank beneath the ocean; some twenty thousand years ago. Even then, we know they called it something else, and used another special mineral in their process that we don't know the nature of. This is the lesser Greek version." She finished, motioning towards the ring in Nathan's palm.

He stared at her blankly, words having some trouble forming in his mouth. "Y-you mean to say that this is Oricalcum?!"

A hint of mischief played across her eyes.

"What the absolute fuck?!"

"Language, Mr. Quill."

After talking about it with the Ancient One a little more. Nathan decided that he would stay at his current age, and just naturally go back through the stages of life even if he could figure out a way to get back to normal. For one, he could never be sure if what he might do would mess with his mind, and second; it would require a lot more time and resources than they wanted to put towards it to actually figure out how the fuck to do it without aging certain parts separately or at different rates. He definitely didn't have the control to do that correctly. He was just pissed that he would be going through puberty for the third fucking time.

"Um… Excuse me, but what happened to Nathan? And who's the kid?" Karl asked when they came out of the library.

'Was he just following us around?' The thought barely passed through Nathan's mind before he turned and pouted, "She turned me into a five-year-old."

Karl blinked.

The old-but-not-old lady smiled sweetly, completely nonplussed at the accusation.

"What?" Was his intelligent response.

When in doubt, blame your situation on someone else, right? He was still half human, afterall.

"...Nathan?"

"That's my name."

Karl was hilariously confused. "Uh… Why?"

Nathan smirked. "Well when I was born, I was the second twin that popped out. My mom decided to name the first twin 'Peter', and the second 'Nathan'. So voila! My name's Nathan."

Karl's eye twitched. "No, you insufferable idiot; why are you five?"

"This is what happens when you piss her off and she just so happens to be within five feet of the Eye of Aga-whatsit." Nathan pointed at the Sorcerer Supreme, who was still smiling sweetly, a twinkle of amusement in her eyes.

He gaped like a fish. "But… but what about the Natural Law?"

"It is quite undisturbed, Karl." The woman responded, unbothered.

"How could that possibly be?" The teenager stuttered out. "You messed with Time!"

"The Natural Law is not set in stone, Karl." The woman glanced down at Nathan, remembering his earlier warning about Karl taking her lessons a bit too literally. "They are a set of guidelines I, and those before me, made up to prevent our disciples from biting off more than they could chew."

Still looking at Nathan, she turned to face the teenage wizard and continued. "Nathan and I were speaking of this topic earlier, actually, and it seems I should hold a lecture on the subject. I fear much has been misinterpreted." She noticed the constipated look on his face. "To ease your conscience, my own master was particularly skilled in Time manipulation. He was known to simply age his enemies out of existence, and never once experienced any backlash. I, myself, have only circumferential knowledge on the subject and therefore avoid tampering with it unless necessary. That, Karl, is the basis of the 'Natural Law': If you are not aware of the consequences of what you're doing, or perhaps feel that you can subvert them, you are bound to fail. Magic always has a price, but so long as you are prepared to pay that price, there is nothing to worry about."

Letting that wash over him, The Ancient One waited.

"Then why insist on certain practices being forbidden? Why tell us that something is too dangerous if we can simply prepare for it correctly?" Was his response, finally.

"Not every practice has known consequences, child." Karl flinched slightly, but didn't otherwise object to the term, even though there was an actual child in the immediate vicinity, regardless of his true age. Nathan caught the meaning behind it as well; basically claiming that he still had much to learn.

"You may think you know them;" The Ancient One continued, "through your own studies and the work of others, but I have seen many attempt such magic, suitably prepared, only to be struck down by the very power they call for. Or perhaps they go slowly insane, or get bodily taken over by some extra-dimensional entity. Then there are the practices with known consequences, but require a strength of mind that most simply do not possess, or the preparations are morally reprehensible. In which case, is it not better to refrain from allowing such a skill? Even to those who may be able to use it? Afterall, one misstep could cost their life, or worse."

Karl looked down at the floor, with a look on his face that suggested he was rethinking his whole outlook on life. Then, after a moment, looked back up. "Forgive me, Master, but I still don't see how Time manipulation wouldn't send waves of unknown variables. It is simply too complex to use under any conceivable circumstance, and you even admitted that your understanding of the subject is lacking."

"Well that's the beauty of an Infinity Stone, isn't it?" The five-year-old spoke up.

Karl's attention whipped down to him. "And what could you know of them? You've been here in these halls for less than five hours total, and haven't even begun to learn!"

Karl had never been informed on why he had been sent to collect Nathan, so the fact that he came to Earth in the possession of one of the six Stones was still unknown to him.

"Believe it or not," The Ancient One began, getting Karl's attention again, "Young Nathan, here, is something of an expert on the topic."

Nathan held back a twitch. "Well, I wouldn't say 'expert'."

"Nonsense; you were able to teach me a couple things in the past thirty minutes."

"Mostly conjecture and theories-"

"Which is more than what we had before, Mr. Quill."

Nathan sighed, turning his attention back to Karl. "Well, to put it simply, there is a theory where the six Infinity Stones have a sort-of consciousness to them. In fact, I'm almost positive that two of the six have nearly fully developed 'minds' of their own." He said with air-quotes. "I haven't been able to confirm that, yet, but there is a reason why the 'Mind' Stone is called as such, and the Soul stone has long been held above the other five in a special place of its own. My theory is that it has a fully developed emotional system, if not a personality."

"Fascinating," apparently Karl didn't appreciate the fact that a five-year-old was schooling him, "but that has little to do with the fact that Time shouldn't be messed around with."

"I was getting to that." The five-year-old resumed. "An Infinity Stone is one of the few tools in the universe that can be used exactly as it is intended. As long as the user understands exactly what they want to happen, so will the Stone."

"Because of the sentience that you mentioned?" The Sorcerer Supreme asked.

"Well the 'sentience' is a theory to explain the phenomenon. There's another theory that the Stones simply link with the user's intent so it can enact their will exactly. Those are the only two I'm aware of, but the only reason why I support the former is because I don't see how the latter could be possible without understanding the user's intent in the first place."

The Ancient One just nodded, while Karl blinked about twenty times, looking between the two.

"So basically," began Nathan, "As long as you don't overuse an Infinity Stone, there are no consequences; especially since we're guarded by the Sanctum shields."

"We are currently performing a few tests on the subject, Karl." The Ancient one cut in. "We are heading up to my meditation rooms if you need me."

Karl nodded numbly, clearly confused with the turn of events, and just standing there as the two walked away.

It took Nathan three weeks to finally figure out how to use the Time Stone to change around his perception. It was a complicated mess of a project, but with the constant help of The Ancient One, they were able to bounce ideas around until they settled on a solution. The actual 'ideas' portion only really took up the first couple days, the rest was just working out the kinks and Nathan trying to explain how each sensation felt as he worked through them.

One of the first ideas they went through was just speeding up time in a general area; that way, Nathan would be able to age back to his original seventeen year-old self, while still getting that extended time frame that he was going after. However it came with the need for sustenance. With the perception change, he basically ended up with a twelve-to-one time fluctuation. In other words, one month equated to one year. It wasn't exactly that, but it was pretty close. The problem with using that fluctuation on his whole body meant that he would have to eat thirty-six meals a day. However magical Kamar-Taj was, that just wasn't efficient. People at the temple barely ate more than a bowl of rice and a few vegetables per meal.

There were ways to magically get food, but for the most part it wasn't very nutritious, so the economical option of perception altering was much more feasible than adding the equivalent of twelve new students to the roster. Not to mention his body would deteriorate under the area-of-effect option. He would be spending a ridiculous amount of time just reading books under the effect, meaning that there would be little opportunity to exercise, and any training partners he took would be aging at the same rate as him.

Nobody wanted that.

Oh, and there was the little, tiny fact that any AOE time fuckery would use a metric fuck ton of his own energy.

Honestly that was the worst drawback of his abilities. He could only use the Stone directly for as long as his energy lasted. If he used some other medium for the thing, he would be using the Stone's own energy to power the changes. Much more efficient that way, but he had so much more control while using his energy as the medium. Maybe in the future, he would be able to draw energy from the Stones as he used them, equaling it all out, but at the moment that wasn't feasible.

As for his Celestial energy storage problem, after spending some time studying the makeup of his new Oricalcum ring, he could now use his energy to create a few more. Each ring held about nine or ten times as much energy as his seventeen-year-old body could, and it took about that same amount of energy to create another ring from scratch, then about four-to-five hours to fill the ring up using the residual energy of the Time Stone. He currently only had four of them, which he left on the index and ring fingers of each hand. He didn't really need more at the moment, already having access to over forty times the amount of energy than before. Not to mention he was having a bit of trouble controlling that much. The rings basically made it so that he didn't have to control it all, being a relatively good container, but even these containers had holes in them - however small. Meaning he had to periodically swivel his sixth sense through them to keep the leaking to a minimum.

Through his entire time at Kamar-Taj so far, the Time Stone was fully in his possession, so by using the residual energy of the Stone, he could keep his own reserves at an acceptable level even while altering his perception constantly. He spent an ungodly amount of time in the library, guarded by the Librarian and the other students, so it seemed there was little to fear of him stealing the damn thing, or using it in an untoward manner.

The Librarian was kind of scary.

The Ancient One personally telling him to hold onto it whenever he was in the library probably helped a bit on that front, too.

As for the actual altering of his perception, he had to use the capabilities of his own energy to directly target the firing synapses in his brain, as well as his eyes in particular, as they had to move around faster to match with the incoming stream of information, then steering the 'slipping' sensation of the Stone's energies to speed up the flow of time like he had done on the apple. If he hadn't targeted his eyes, he would experience the hell of staring at one spot for seemingly hours at a time as his mind sped up to take in everything, even though only seconds would pass.

One would think that targeting all of the synapses of his brain would be far beyond his abilities at this point, but if he 'zoomed out', and just targeted the area of effect, it seemed to work. No doubt it would be more effective if he could target each individual connection directly, but at his current level, the effect was still substantial. As he was now, he could read a book as fast as he could turn the pages. Of course his hands were unaffected, so he found himself turning those pages with agonizing slowness, often starting to turn the page as soon as he began reading it.

Of course, doing all of this also came with the drawback of aging his brain and eyes many times the normal rate. His brain was actually pretty easy to target, as well. Meaning that he wouldn't run the risk of aging other parts of his body unneededly. As for what he was aging, he could sort-of counteract that by periodically strengthening the squishy bits by flooding them completely with his own energy, untainted by the green stuff; enhancing the cellular life expectancy. It wasn't a complete solution, but it would do for the time-being.

That was something else he had learned about himself. His Celestial fire could enhance biological processes and strength simply by being present in individual cells. The effect was miniscule without proper direction, but a deep paper cut could be healed in a few hours, rather than a day or two with its help.

He would have to study biology at some point to get better at actually healing himself. That would be a pain in the ass. The workings of the human body were ridiculously complicated.

In the following few months, using his new trick - nearly four full years in his mind - he had taken to simply learning languages, both living and dead. Latin, Greek, Sumerian Cuneiform, Hindi, German, etcetera etcetera. He even put some time into Xhosa, the primary language of Wakanda. Speaking any of them was a bit of a problem, but he could read them all just fine.

This allowed him to actually read a lot of the ancient texts within the library. Of course, though, the librarian was the one recommending his reading list, and by 'recommending', he meant that the diminutive man took no shit despite his appearance, and force-fed him said list; outright refusing deviation from it until he had a sufficient level of 'base knowledge'.

As it turns out, most of the students at Kamar-Taj wouldn't begin learning how to utilize the basics of magic until the Librarian was done with them. This process would usually take around a year, depending on the person, however Nathan apparently had a special place in the man's heart. He had been utterly ruthless in insisting on a higher level for Nathan before he even began. Most only learned one or two languages and read through the first few tomes of introductory information before their first practical lessons, but Nathan had been forced to learn eleven languages outside of the two that he already knew; English and French, and have a comprehensive knowledge of the theories and studies done in three separate fields of magic. By no means was he expected to know how to perform any of them, just know about them.

Surprisingly, he was able to pick which three he wanted to study - from a list provided by the Librarian, but still; he was offered a choice. He was starting to think he impressed the man or something.

He chose Dao Weaponry, Eldritch Enchanting, and Mental Defense.

The first two were more on the 'advanced' end of the spectrum, but he had the time to dive into them fully, using his little trick with the Stone, so they weren't much of a hassle regardless of how difficult their concepts were. Mental Defense, though, was one of those 'all-encompassing' fields. Meaning that it had levels of difficulty ranging from beginner to bullshit.

There were a few different mindsets for the practice, but the one that clicked with him was along the lines of Sherlock Holmes' Mind Palace. The book on the subject was written by an ancient Roman sorcerer who's name had been lost to time. The book itself had been thought lost as well, apparently, though 'The Method of Loci' was referenced in major academic resources all over the place. Even Cicero, one of the most famous Roman writers of all time spoke of it, even though he couldn't use the magical aspects of it.

'The Method of Loci' was a rather short collection of scrolls, rather than what we usually recognize as a 'book'. It was about the equivalent of a fifty page novel, but covered concepts that went way over Nathan's head. Still, he was able to utilize the basic meditation practices, as well as the more mundane art of organizing his memory. The defensive aspects of the craft were all magical in nature, and he couldn't even begin to start on them with his current level of ability, however outside of the defensive abilities, there was one magical concept in 'The Method of Loci' that he could already use: powered by his Celestial Energy instead of Chi, he could easily sort desired memories and information for quick retrieval - essentially granting a minor eidetic memory.

Chi was an interesting energy that was called for in many uses of the Mystical Arts, but it required many, many years to develop. It was characterized by strength of mind and body, and when utilized correctly, could enhance nearly any other type of magical force, or be used on its own to devastating effect. 'The Method of Loci', in the very first scroll that mentioned the magical properties of the art, described how one could gain a further control of their mindscape through the use of Chi, giving everything more weight and form in their mind. Apparently most practitioners of the Mystic Arts weren't able to use anything past the mundane version of 'The Method of Loci' due to the Chi requirements. Evidently Chi was one of the most advanced aspects of magic taught at Kamar-Taj. Only the Masters had any control over it.

This didn't help Nathan either, as he was currently in the body of a five-year-old, meaning that he had no strength of body, regardless of the strength of his mind. Chi required both. So instead, he looked into using what he already had: Celestial energy.

Nathan was happy to find that it made a suitable replacement, even though it didn't seem to be as effective as the scroll said Chi was. In fact, Nathan was starting to suspect that he didn't have any Chi, and would probably never have it. The method to access Chi was remarkably similar to how he accessecd his Celestial energy, meaning any Chi he might have had was probably overridden. Even if that was the case, Nathan wasn't too upset. His blue fire was way cooler than Chi ever could be.

Well, with all that figured out, an enhanced memory did wonders for learning all of those languages. Even with those functional four years that he had, without his mental library, he would not have been able to learn even four languages effectively. With the library, he could get all eleven to a passable level.

It took him two full days of Time Stone augmented meditation to create his own organized inner world, which at the moment was just a Greek temple-themed library.

Simple as it was, it worked, and he couldn't be happier with the results.

So there he was, four months into his stay at Kamar-Taj, having learned more than he ever dreamed possible in such a short amount of time, and standing in front of the door to The Ancient One's study. He was told by the Librarian that he was ready for more practical lessons just twenty minutes prior, and then was promptly handed an introductory book on Arabic.

The prick.

After his daily return of the Time Stone to the Eye's pedestal, he was told that the Ancient One wanted to see him, so he made his way through the corridors to her study.

The current doorman on rotation, now a rather stocky German man named Richard, simply waved him through to their leader's study.

Once inside, he bowed respectfully to the woman behind the desk. "Master, you wished to see me?" Four months in this place - about four years in his mind - really beat into his head just how much the Sorcerer Supreme and nearly everyone else in this lifestyle deserved respect.

Magic was fucking hard.

"Ah, Nathan." She said, looking up from what appeared to be an Egyptian papyri scroll, and gestured to the chair on the other side of the desk. "Sit, please. I was told that you had finished all that Master Haman had assigned you, correct?"

"Master Haman?" Nathan responded with a raised eyebrow, taking the offered seat.

The woman's mouth twitched upwards. "The Librarian."

"Ah." Nathan blinked, just realizing that he never learned the man's name, then shrugged. "Well he did just give me this, but otherwise, it seems so." He removed the book on introductory Arabic from the crook of his arm and showed it to her.

Nathan had the distinct feeling that the woman in front of him was fighting a smile.

"Master Haman gives me regular reports on the progress of the newer students. You seem to have impressed him with your intake of knowledge, so I wouldn't be surprised if he continues to push you."

The five-year-old just sighed, resigning himself to continue his current pace for a while.

The woman snorted lightly. "Oh stop pouting, after just four months here you've managed to learn more than most do in half a decade, if only in languages and spots of theoretical knowledge. You've created quite the foundation. With your current language background, you have access to over half of our collection of texts, which is more than a few of the Masters. We only require the knowledge of three languages for our initiates, and few continue learning them in earnest when they advance."

That surprised Nathan. "Really? I don't feel like I've accomplished much at all, considering how much I've cheated."

"I would hardly call utilizing your resources as 'cheating', Nathan. The Time Stone just so happening to be one of the resources available to you does not mean that you are being underhanded with its use. Though from at this point, I do not think you should use it further."

He perked up, slightly confused. "Why? It's been going fine so far."

"Yes, but we still don't know exactly what it has been doing to your brain. I have been worried for a time now that it will affect you negatively in the future. You do have the body of a child right now."

Nathan nodded slowly. "Fair enough, I can't really argue that point." He was already mourning the loss of his increased learning speed, though he could still utilize his inner library and Astral Projection - once he learned it - to keep a pace that should mirror what Strange was able to accomplish, but Strange was a complete genius even without counting his memory.

She smiled warmly. "Though if Master Haman is accurate, it seems you are already prepared to start with a more advanced class. We begin all of our students with the Sling Ring, which is ongoing, and starts at five in the morning on Wednesdays; if you didn't already know. Please make your way to the central courtyard at that time."

He smiled widely, unable to hide his excitement, and bowed his head. "Thank you master."

"Though before we start on that, I think it's about time we spoke of a certain topic."

Nathan raised his eyes to meet her own. "I'm honestly surprised you waited this long."

She smiled slightly. "I think you'll find I can be quite patient. Though I wanted to see how you would fare with your basic studies before we started on this conversation, as well as get an idea of your overall personality. I feel I know you well enough now to at least understand your abilities. Now, I wish to know your drive."

"In other words, you want to know why I'm here, why I'll help protect this world, and how I know all that I do."

The older woman just continued smiling.

Nathan chuckled. "Alright, where should I start?"

A/N

So I tried to make the Time Stone crap believable, but it still sounds a little farfetched to me. Too many things about it that don't match up with what I want, or just don't make sense. If you didn't notice those problems, I ask that you don't go looking for them and just try to enjoy what I wrote. I couldn't figure out how to fix it, so I'm decidedly in the "well, fuck it" mood.

Oricalcum - A legendary metal/alloy that was referenced in… I'm not sure how many ancient texts. I think Plato talks about it in Timaeus and Critias when he mentions Atlantis. If you want to look it up, skip to Critias. Him talking about what Solon saw at Atlantis is pretty cool, but back to the Legendary metal: we actually found some Oricalcum in a real-life shipwreck a few years ago, so yes, we do actually know what it was made of. Look it up. The Greeks thought that it held mystical properties, and claimed that all of Atlantis was adorned with it due to those properties. For all intents and purposes, it was a real metal, but I'm making up what it can do in this fic.

I don't need a new asshole. The one I have works just fine, so please don't rip me a new one with your crappy insults. However if you have actual constructive criticism, I will gladly accept it. If you don't know the difference, you don't have to say anything at all.

Please review! Even if it's just a word or two, I would like to know what you think.

Chapter 897 - 4