Before losing consciousness, Ethan vaguely saw the surrounding radiance slowly dissipate. A group of people in robes were staring at him with wide, wary eyes, and among them, a bald woman in a yellow robe was slowly walking toward him, seemingly saying something?

Chapter 2: You Will Come Back Again

Regaining consciousness, Ethan suddenly sat up. He looked down at himself and saw that his old, battered clothes—which had become even dirtier and more tattered after being at sea for a while—had been replaced. He was now wearing a set of white cloth garments. Although clearly not new, they were very clean.

He touched his lips; the dryness and cracking caused by dehydration had improved a lot. He even found his mind more refreshed than ever before. That sleep (coma?) was truly comfortable.

"Your body is in good condition. You woke up much earlier than I expected."

Upon hearing the voice, Ethan immediately turned his head and saw that the bald person who had approached him before he fainted was now quietly sitting at a table beside his bed, making tea.

"Although I fed you some potion to restore your energy while you were unconscious, I'm still surprised you woke up so quickly..."

The bald person, busy making tea, didn't even look up at Ethan, just focused on her own business. The reason Ethan didn't respond was because he realized that when this person 'spoke,' her mouth didn't move at all. The voice seemed to echo directly in his mind.

"Yes, I am communicating with you by linking directly to your mind through magic. I suppose you don't understand the language of our world... young man from another world."

The bald person finally looked up, and Ethan finally saw her face clearly... Uh, maybe he should say her?

"Where is this?"

Ethan tried to focus his mental energy and then 'said' this sentence.

His reaction surprised the person across from him a little. The bald woman showed a rare hint of surprise: "Oh, you are quite talented. You mastered mental communication so quickly. That makes things much easier."

The bald woman picked up a cup of tea and walked over to Ethan, handing him the cup as she introduced herself: "This is Earth. My name is Eleanor, and I am a sorcerer... Do you know what a sorcerer is?"

Ethan took the tea and sipped it slowly. "I do!"

Not only did he know what a sorcerer was, he knew even more what Earth was. After all, in his previous life, he was a native of Earth—just not this Earth.

As soon as he thought of this, Ethan was suddenly startled: Mental link... could she be reading my thoughts directly?

He looked up at Eleanor. This powerful sorcerer from the Marvel world didn't seem to have 'heard' his inner thoughts just now. He couldn't tell if she was deliberately hiding it or if she really didn't have the ability to 'read minds.'

Don't panic. Ethan put the half-finished cup of tea aside and started to 'chat' with Eleanor sorcerer, sometimes responding, sometimes not.

He deliberately alternated between focusing his mental energy to speak and thinking some 'dialogue' only in his mind without focusing, to test whether Eleanor could directly read his thoughts.

It didn't take long for him to reach a conclusion: either Eleanor had noticed and was pretending not to, or she could only 'hear' the information he sent out by focusing his mental energy.

Although he hoped it was the second case, he couldn't rule out the first. Fortunately, whichever it was, at least Eleanor's attitude allowed him to relax a little for now—at least she hadn't turned hostile right away.

As for any schemes or tricks, with Eleanor's power, she wouldn't need to bother with that. She could kill him with just a glance.

After chatting for a while, Eleanor roughly understood Ethan's 'situation': he came from a world full of oceans, had just turned seventeen this year, his parents had passed away, he was all alone, and had arrived here by accident.

Ethan also finally learned why he had appeared here.

It turned out that the glowing orb in his hand pointed toward scattered space-time energy. Once it found space-time energy, it would absorb it, and as the host, Ethan could use his mental power to activate this energy, thereby triggering a magic circle for dimensional teleportation.

After teleportation, the space-time energy would 'protect' the host for a period of time. Once the energy was depleted, he would be sent back to the 'original place.'

This was also the main reason Eleanor had spent so long talking with him: Ethan had unstable space-time energy within him.

In addition, Ethan learned something else: the destination of the teleportation magic circle was not in Eleanor's home of Kamar-Taj. Instead, Eleanor, who was responsible for protecting Earth from interdimensional threats, had detected his 'stowaway' intrusion and intercepted him midway.

"Well, as expected of the Sorcerer Supreme—if she wants to intercept you, there's no discussion... I really don't get how so many people who travel to the Marvel world manage to slip past these Sorcerer Supremes who are always watching for dimensional intrusions."

At the same time, he was glad he had arrived in the movie universe, because this Eleanor looked so familiar; if it had been the comic universe... the outcome might not have been so pleasant—he didn't know all the details, but he did know that the Marvel comic universe had more monsters and was even less reasonable.