Countless thoughts flashed through Luke’s mind, and he thought of a possibility. “You want to temper the person?”

The Ancient One nodded. “Not just anyone can become a sorcerer.”

This basically confirmed Luke’s guess, and even led to a deeper speculation — would this bigshot need to personally speak to Luke if it were an ordinary sorcerer candidate?

Even if the Ancient One seemed to treat Luke differently, that wasn’t necessary.

“Okay.” Luke said, “But you’ll let me know beforehand, right?”

The Ancient One was amused. “Of course. But as always, you like to sound people out.”

Her words sounded normal, when in fact her reply indicated that the person was important.

Luke was at least 80% confident that it was directly connected to the Ancient One.

Stunned for a moment, Luke nodded and apologized. “Sorry, my bad.”

It really wasn’t on purpose. It was pure habit.

“It’s fine.” The Ancient One said casually, “You don’t have to be so… polite in front of me.”

Thinking about what Luke would do in the future, she couldn’t help but laugh.

Luke was full of questions, but he still asked, “Then, allow me to ask another question: Would it be possible for me to learn that spell earlier?”

A space portal was definitely first-class stuff, no matter how many restrictions there might be.

The Ancient One shook her head with a smile.

Luke didn’t think much of it. “Got it, thanks.”

The Ancient One explained patiently, “You won’t learn this spell.”

Luke was stumped. “Huh?”

The Ancient One said, “You have your own pride. You will refuse to ‘borrow’ the Vishanti’s power.”

Stumped for a moment, information about the Vishanti flashed through Luke’s mind, and he more or less got it.

He simply nodded. “Thank you for explaining. Then, are you here for that giant octopus?”

The Ancient One’s lips curved up, and she said lightly, “In passing.”

Luke sweated. In passing? Then what was the point in me fighting for so long?!

The Ancient One really knew him well, and added in a timely manner, “A trace left here by an ancient existence was accidentally triggered. Although it might not draw His attention, it’s better to take care of it in advance. You should deal with the giant octopus yourself.”

Luke asked, “Then what about the symbiote?”

The Ancient One found that odd. “Don’t you like collecting symbiotes the most?”

Luke: …If you have the guts, tell me where you got your information from! I promise I won’t get mad.

It wasn’t hard to understand how information on Light of Life and Life 1 might have leaked; Luke had used them many times.

The ‘monkey version’ of Life 1 was also sold worldwide, and the bigshot who sold everything had spread the word about it among the upper circles; it wasn’t a big secret at all.

However, the Ancient One knew that Big Dipper and Batman were the same person, knew that he wouldn’t use the Vishanti’s power, and knew that he had collected a lot of symbiotes.

These were things that even Selina, who followed Luke every day, didn’t know about.

At that moment, he seriously wondered if the Ancient One had some sort of super magical detection spell.

Forget it. After all, this was the power of the Vishanti! Thinking this, Luke sighed inwardly.

From all the intelligence he had gathered, he had already discovered that there was a problem with the sources of magic in this world.

Most magical powers here were ‘borrowed.’

For example, Old Mephisto was the Lord of a certain Hell dimension, but he was in fact borrowing the power of that Hell dimension.

He was Hell, and Hell was him.

He was practically invincible in that dimension. Nobody could kill him unless they destroyed that Hell dimension.

To use an online novel analogy, it was similar to fusing with the Dao. However, Old Mephisto could no longer break away from that Hell dimension, to the point that even his real body could never leave it.

He could only rely on his clones to collect premium souls and throw them back to Hell to increase the power of the dimension.

As for the individuals whom he gave the power of Hell to, they would continue to contribute to his power until they finally became part of Hell.

The Vishanti that the Ancient One had mentioned were slightly better than Old Mephisto’s Hell Dimension.

If Hell was the dark side, the Vishanti were more on the light side.

But there would be a price to pay sooner or later.

Whether it was using the powers of good or evil, it was equivalent to signing a slave contract.

The more power an individual drew out, the faster they would become part of that system.

It was like the old saying: A price was always exacted for whatever gift fate bestowed.

Although Luke had never had any clearly magical abilities, most of his strength was his own.

The only exception was the system’s support functions.

But even if he lost the system now, he would only lose his inventory, defense mechanism, and the clone technique.

Most of his other abilities wouldn’t be affected at all, because he had relied on his own strength to develop and refine them.

For the extraordinary bunch, the mighty powers they possessed always came from a higher realm.

For example, without his hammer, Thor’s strength would be reduced by at least half.

It was because the hammer wasn’t his, but was forged by his father, Odin.

One day, Thor would become worthy of the title of God of Thunder through his own strength; his power wouldn’t be any worse than when he was holding Mjölnir.

Thoughts flashed through Luke’s mind, but they didn’t show on his face.

After a brief silence, he said helplessly, “Fine, but that giant octopus is too big and isn’t easy to kill…”

The Ancient One said casually, “Just keep it as a pet. You’ll like it.”

Luke was lost for words. This bigshot was indeed extraordinary.

A pet that weighed 100,000 tons couldn’t be provoked!

Before he could finish complaining, the giant octopus finally arrived.

With a loud bang, it charged out as its huge head emerged from the ocean.

Staring at this image, Luke realized that this was from the Foresight Drawing.

He also understood why the island wasn’t in the drawing; it was behind them, and naturally wouldn’t make an appearance.

He assumed a combat pose and was ready to attack.

He still didn’t know how to catch the giant octopus, but there was one thing he was certain of — they could ‘fight to a draw.’

If that didn’t happen, then it was because he hadn’t beaten up the other party enough or hadn’t been ruthless enough.

The Ancient One, however, glanced at him and smiled. “It’s a small problem. I’ll deal with His mark first.”

As she spoke, she stretched out her hand and flicked her wrist.

Shua!

A dark orange fan appeared in her hand.

She moved her arm, and the orange fan drew a circle of fiery sparks in front of her to form a complicated, orderly, and strange circular rune.

“Go!” The Ancient One flicked her wrist, and the spinning orange rune flew at the giant octopus that had just stuck its head out.

Hiss!

The giant octopus that had charged out of the ocean roared excitedly.

It sensed that the mysterious place calling out to it was 100 meters up ahead. As long as it could enter that place, it could…

Shua!

The orange rune hit its big head and entered it smoothly.

The giant octopus was stunned.

The excited thought that had been about to explode in its head suddenly plunged down, down and down, until it completely disappeared without so much as a splash.

The entire process took less than two seconds. The octopus’s head hadn’t even completely cleared the water.

Boom!

A massive wave crashed onto the island, and the giant octopus’s body landed right in front of the Ancient One and Luke.