Chapter 8: Part 7
Again the Ancient One had to believe Ichibe. She could not detect any lie in what he was saying. He seemed to always tell the truth. At least for now.
"I see then what do you suggest that we do about it?"
"Well, I would like to study here if that is possible. And if there is something you would like in return I am willing to give it to you."
The Ancient One thought of this for a moment. She was indeed interested to have Ichibe study here. An ally such as Ichibe was going to be very beneficial for the safety of the world.
"That can be arranged. But I would like for you to tell me something about yourself. As you are the only one that has the knowledge and I have no idea whom I am dealing with."
"Certainly. That is understandable. My name you already know…"
Ichibe went ahead and told her all there was to know about him up to this point. He even told her about the Soul Stone and that he had met with it.
He told her about his power and what he should be able to do with it.
When he was finished, the Ancient One was speechless. Her intuition was correct. If what he told her was true, then he was one of the most powerful beings in the universe.
She knew one or two things about the power of names and this young man had the power to manipulate True Names. That was ridiculous. And now he wanted to learn eldritch magic.
He was going to become a very powerful mage.
And let's not forget his connection to the Soul Stone as well.
"I agree to teach you. The only condition is that you mustn't use what you learn here for harm and only for the protection of this dimension and the world."
"That is natural. I have no need for bullying."
"Then it's decided. Welcome to Kamar-Taj Ichibe."
"Thank you Ancient One."
Ichibe was given his own room to stay in. It was a small room, but he didn't mind. He was not here to enjoy luxury. He was here to find out why he was here.
And to learn some mystic arts on the side. He was sure that his purpose was going to reveal itself to him.
Now he was sad that he had never watched more than 30 minutes of the first Marvel movie. That knowledge might have helped him now.
But he was not someone that refused an adventure. And for him, this whole life was an adventure. He was excited to learn new things and manipulate and influence reality with magic.
The first thing that they gave Ichibe to learn was languages. Lots and lots of languages.
He had no problem with this. On the contrary, he loved to learn new things. And something that might help him in the future even more so.
.
(Time skip: 10 years)
A lot of time had passed since Ichibe joined the Masters of the Mystic arts and let me tell you. He had a lot of fun during his time studying there.
He had a sense of humour that could drive others nuts. And especially the so-called masters of eldritch magic were challenged to keep their cool at all times.
It started when Ichibe attended his first lesson in martial arts under Karl Mordo and Kaecilius. They tried to go all wise and philosophical on Ichibe when he started, or at least Mordo did.
And Ichibe would simply start asking stupid questions to challenge them in their respective fields.
This got so bad that almost no one wanted to teach him anymore. The Ancient One had to laugh when Mordo told her the reason for that. She knew that Ichibe could simply overlook their behaviour but she thought that it was not bad to get the masters back to the ground and not have them become arrogant.
And his questions were good too. They were challenging and made for good discussions.
So after a few months in, Ichibe had to learn things on his own and sometimes had the Ancient One teach him. Like the first time he got to use a sling ring or the time when she showed him the Mirror dimension.
Ichibe liked to explore new dimensions. His thirst for knowledge was great and he loved 'sight-seeing' as he called it.
Ichibe had many questions that even gave the Ancient One a hard time sometimes. He asked her about her soul and the dark energy that was present inside it.
The Ancient One told him about the dark dimension at some point and was surprised that he had nothing against her using that as a means to prolong her life.
He himself was immortal to an extent, but he still understood the will to live. And he had no moral barriers that hindered him to see the necessity of breaking the egg to make an omelette.
Or to put it another way. He understood that sometimes it was necessary to do things that were considered bad to fight for what you believed was right.
But he was an enemy of sacrificing friends, family or allies to achieve your goals. If that was something you had to do in order to win, you were just not strong enough and should choose another plan.
So he had absolutely no problem with the Ancient One using dark dimension energy to prolong her life and for fighting.
On the contrary. It was exciting for him and spiced up the spars they had inside the mirror dimension.
When she first showed him what was possible inside the mirror dimension, he was fascinated and tried to find out how it worked.
When he realized that most things should be contained that happen inside, he was very happy. Now he could train his powers better and grow stronger.
Their spars were filled with a lot of different spells and tricks on the side of the Ancient One and spells as well as spiritual appendage manifestation on the side of Ichibe.
She was very surprised when he used Senri Tsūtenshō for the first time. He did not use it to hit her directly and only as a defensive move against her spells that she seemed to use at lightning speed.
He wasn't sure that his spirit energy would work against magic. But he was positively surprised when it did. And the Ancient One was surprised as well.
She had never seen someone use his spirit like that. Normally the soul was something very fickle and weak. But his was like an ocean. And his use of his spirit energy left her speechless.
And that was before he started to use Kido during their spars. Ichibe had to re-learn all Kido from scratch. But somehow he knew how to use them and their spells.
Of course, he did not need to use their spells or numbers. Only the names were enough for him.
To date, he has managed to use up to the 89th Kido. He had no rush and was taking it slow. He knew that the Kido from 80 and up, were not usable in a spar.
He had to find an enemy to use it on.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone