Chapter 630 - Magic Library

"He... turned the invitation down?" T'Challa inquired for the sake of confirmation as the holographic projection of Nick Fury nodded silently, his gaze accidentally falling on the young girl behind T'Challa controlling her expression but the twitch of her lips still giving her away.

"He's... busy, your highness," Nick continued with T'Challa shaking his head.

"Then Silk?" T'Challa inquired as Nick shook his head once again, "I'm afraid she would not feel comfortable without her partner in action. If you would like, we can coordinate a date with the head of your... security."

"Dora Milaje," T'Challa corrected, "And they are more than my guards. All of them are my family, Director. And yes, you can set another date and then inform Okoye," he gestured towards an impressive female warrior standing behind him. "Our communication channels will remain filtered and I have to warn the agency looking over the rest of the world that any insensitive action towards my country's privacy shall not be tolerated."

After cutting off the communication, T'Challa sighed as he slumbered back on his throne with the young girl standing a few steps behind him chiming happily, "O'highness, is this throne everything you wished and desired."

"Enough," T'Challa sighed as the young girl gave the king not an ounce of face and tiptoes around the throne to quickly pick up the modified kimoyo beads.

"How did you turn your kimoyo beads into a projector, Shuri?" He inquired with interest as the dark-skinned girl in white shrugged, "I just updated it. Want me to update yours?"

"No, mine works well," T'Challa shook his head as Shuri gave him a sour look before having her leave. And the departure of the king's sister was all it took to attract the attention of every member of Dora Milaje. "This still feels weird," T'Challa mumbled as he made one of the women fetch the ambassador of the tribes to hear their problems, a weekly event. "Then you should not have slept with any of the Dora Milaje," Okoye informed while standing true to the king.

"I didn't mean to. It was a mistake."

"No, trying to find affection from the outside world was a mistake, my king. Dora Milaje was discontinued for a reason, a needless politics that played with the life of native warriors and the emotions of pure women waiting on the king."

"And I restarted it to cease the tribal unrest," T'Challa looked at Okoye.

"Unrest caused by your acts of finding warmth in the arms of an outsider."

"Ugh, I shouldn't have chosen you as the head."

"We had a competition and I dominated that," Okoye smiled.

---

"This is so awesome!" Nik sighed in amazement as he continued to read through the books at an inhumane pace. All he needed to do was scan the books with a single glance but there were so many of them. He read on the detailed observation of various elements that finally increased his own understanding by quite a considerable margin. He had a good understanding of the elements in terms of science and energy but seeing it from the point of view of magic opened a wider range of adaptability for him.

Not only that, while the elements and teleportation were the mainstream choices of study, many sorcerers also dabbled in the ambiguous art of transfusion. Nik could convert one energy to another and balance them as if its a child's play and much of that was due to his talent [Balance] and early acquired skills. However, the art of transfusing one physical object into another was still theoretical in this library. Maybe there were more advanced concepts in the other part of the library that Strange wouldn't let him into, but that was a thought Nik would ponder another time.

He also had the chance to read another magician's discovery of the elemental form of energy however, this form was slightly different from the energy running within Nik's body and he knew why. According to this particular book, the elemental energy can only be obtained once someone bonds with a particular elemental spirit. However, a sorcerer also needed a source of energy, like magic, to convert it into the element his spirit belonged to.

In Nik's case, he was able to hold a neutral form of energy within himself and even absorb it from the outside world which he now credited to his bloodline since that was the only difference between him and regular humans. Not only that, with the innate talents of his bloodline, having s.e.x with a spirit or any being, for that matter, would allow him to use [Exotic Escort] and copy their affinities as a form of 'payment' for his 'services'.

But that wasn't all. As he had suspected earlier, the library held no account for souls and spirit for that matter. Not only that, even when Strange seemed way too familiar with the concept of another world, the library, once again, failed to mention anything of the sort. However, he did find a detailed explanation of the magical system of the planet itself. While the human sorcerers were unable to hold any form of power by themselves, they did make contracts with the lords of other dimensions and that is what categorized them. The strength of the beings contracted with directly reflected on the sorcerer's strength and this was only one of the many factors.

Any Sorcerer Supreme would have the favor of the Vishanti, a group of cosmic entities, Gods, in layman's term, and have different forms of energies within himself or herself.

"So... that would mean that if I even find the weakness of one of his energies, he would still have an arsenal of unused ones. That's assuring."

Nik really didn't wish to think of Strange as an opponent but now he didn't wish to be as laid-back to not even think of the countermeasures regarding the man in the worst-case scenario.

"Hmm?" As Nik continued, he found a rather surprising tome written by Garuk himself. The astonishing fact was that there was no memory within the man regarding this particular tome and it instantly piqued Nik's interest.

"Luck and Destiny, a romantic novel?" Nik jested to himself as he read the title written on the grim, black-colored leather covering of the book before opening it and reading the contents and while the contents were certainly revealing, the knowledge didn't bring any pleasure to Nik as it diffused one of his greatest misunderstanding, a fatal one at that.

"Hey, Sky, did you know that a high stat in [LUK] doesn't mean the charge of my luck itself?" His inquiry pulled everybody's curiosity.

"What do you mean?" Sky inquired with a yawn as Nik explained, "Garuk summarised a person's luck as a neutral charge with the varying quantity depending from person to person, place of origin, karma, morals, and many concepts. But these, let's say, units of luck are actually affected by the positive and negative charge. The positive entailing good luck or in the interest of the person and the negative charge meaning bad luck or accidental situations against the interest of a person."

"What does it matter?" Sky furrowed her brows, "And this Garuk... he is that faceless horror? I thought you read his memories, why are you surprised now?"

"Garuk should be in this library but I couldn't read those memories for some reason... they didn't exist, if I might add. Anyway, why this book is interesting is because... Garuk stated that the intensity of good luck or bad luck depends on the 'units' of luck a person has. Now, would you consider me extremely lucky? Universally speaking?"

"Better than Kaal's," Sky hummed in agreement before chuckling, "But the type of your soul does not only provide you with a high 'units' of luck. It also 'tilts' your unforeseen situation towards your interests so I'd say that you are worrying unnecessarily... though, Kaal said the same thing to me and he's dead so... your situation might just be more complicated. Still, Kaal was attacked by a team of rank 9 with millions of years of experience and he only had thousands."

"You are not making me less worried," Nik muttered grimly as Sky chortled, "I know. Suck it! Hah!" And with that, the bat disappeared.

"But... nothing regarding luck and other stuff was within Garuk's memories," sighing to himself as Nik now felt that Garuk might have just been a part of something bigger, Nik continued to sponge off the information in the library. After all, he needed to compile everything within hours, and he was already using his psychic aptitude skill with Lola, too, using the influx of knowledge to change her methods of synchronization of her first project under Nik— the integration of spirit bones.

The only thing that made Nik feel a little bit incomplete was the total lack of topics regarding the bloodline, which kind of made Nik a little more determined to seek out Newton but only when Anna and he were absolutely free.

---

"I'm back!" the door flung open as Natasha came to gaze upon a Mary with a cooling mask covering her face.

"I never gave you the key," Mary stated off-handedly as she didn't seem too concerned by the fact that her talented junior spy had a spare key to the apartment.

"Where's everyone?" Natasha inquired. Unlike her usual outfit, she wore a white shirt with a pencil black skirt marking her voracious curves with her ginger head styled by curls, and the tips of her hair grown out a little.

"Ann's in her classes and you will pick her up in two hours," Mary stated before placing the slices of cuc.u.mber over her eyes.

"I just came back," Nat whined while placing her purse on the table as Mary turned on the volume of the music to drown her voice out.

"And Nik?" Natasha inquired which Mary did hear.

"Library, he said. It's strange since he already completed his assignments."

"Huh... is it me or nerdy glasses would look cute on him?" Natasha inquired as Mary sat up straight and removed the cuc.u.mbers from her eyes.

"Are you tired?" Mary inquired.

"Not for shopping, no. Although, I did get my ass handed down by the Taskmaster so... we can also get some ice cream."

"Sure thing," Mary smirked with Natasha being unsure of the reason. Ice Cream and knowing the failure of her missions were one of Mary's many delights back in the day. Of course, Natasha could never really confront Mary about this since Agent Mary of the past was a scary woman who only mellowed after birthing Anna.