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CHAPTER 147
🕑 Added 2025-09-02 16:15:58 +0000 UTCAsgard.
Outside the main palace of Asgard, there was a gray-brown building that looked like it had been standing since the dawn of time. The architectural style was still that of an ancient castle, but with a grandeur that made Earth's greatest monuments seem like children's sandcastles. The building in front of the gate had a row of pillars, and the pillars were in the Doric column style - simple and rigid inverted conical truncated cones with unadorned capitals. The grooves of the columns intersected into sharp edges and corners, and there was no column base. The majestic column bodies rose directly from the platform, showing the strength and beauty of classical design that had inspired civilizations across the Nine Realms.
Walking into the interior, Aidan's footsteps echoed in the vast and expansive space that seemed to stretch beyond what the building's exterior suggested was possible. All kinds of strange murals were hung on the walls every other section - depictions of cosmic battles, portraits of long-dead heroes, and abstract representations of magical concepts that hurt to look at directly. The sun shone through windows far above, golden Asgardian light making the somewhat dim hall appear much brighter and casting intricate shadow patterns across the stone floor.
At the same time, there were also various bookshelves lined up around the perimeter, with books neatly placed on them in perfect order. The volumes ranged from massive tomes bound in what looked like dragon leather to delicate scrolls . Continuing to move forward, you could see many stone tablets scattered throughout the space, some of which were incomplete with chunks missing like broken teeth, and some were well-preserved and covered with various mysterious runes or characters that seemed to shift when you weren't looking directly at them.
Aidan took a slow turn through the library, his head tilting back to take in the sheer scope of it all. There were a lot of books here; if you really wanted to read them all, perhaps a hundred years wouldn't be enough. This was completely an ocean of knowledge, containing almost all the history and secrets of the Nine Realms. The words engraved on the ancient monuments, in particular, had a longer history than most civilizations had existed.
Where do I even start? he wondered, feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the possibilities.
After spending nearly an hour just wandering through the various study rooms in the castle - chambers dedicated to different schools of magic, alcoves filled with astronomical charts, and vaults containing artifacts Aidan finally focused on his immediate goal. He took out a piece of enchanted leather from his dimensional storage, its surface inscribed with seeking runes, and then began to visualize the knowledge and documents related to Atlantis in his mind.
The leather grew warm in his hands as the magic activated, reality bending around him like fabric. Soon, Aidan disappeared directly from his place, teleported by the library's own search system to exactly where he needed to be.
When he opened his eyes again, he was standing in a dark blue study that felt somehow older and more solemn than the main library. Bookshelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, filled with volumes that looked like they'd been untouched for centuries. In the center of the room sat an inscription table, its surface carved from a single piece of what looked like crystallized ocean water.
The inscription was roughly the same as the one on the monument of life and time that Aidan carried, but older, more primitive in its construction. There was also a note below it, written in the flowing script of the Mayan civilization that he'd learned to read during his studies with the Ancient One.
"On a night where day and night are indistinguishable, Atlantis fell into the deep sea..."
Well, that's ominous, Aidan thought as he began reading.
The record detailed the origin and end of Atlantis, but it wasn't very comprehensive since the stone tablet was seriously damaged. Large chunks of text were missing, leaving frustrating gaps in the historical narrative. According to the prediction of the Mayan calendar, there were five cycles of destruction and rebirth on the Earth where human beings lived. Each of the cycles was a so-called "solar era." At the end of each solar era, a huge disaster would occur to destroy the human beings of that time.
Aidan settled into a chair that materialized as he approached it - apparently the library was designed to accommodate researchers who might spend days reading a single text. The information was fascinating and disturbing in equal measure.
In the first solar era, the Gendaya civilization, the people at that time were only about one meter tall, but all the men had a third eye and possessed various superpowers, while the women didn't. This civilization was destroyed by the sinking of the continent caused by a great flood. Sexist superpowers, Aidan noted with dark amusement. Even ancient civilizations had weird gender politics.
The second solar period, the Mesobudamia civilization, was mainly based on food culture. They'd apparently been amazing cooks and agriculturalists who could make the desert bloom. The reason for their demise was that the Earth's axis changed, the magnetic field shifted, and the crops couldn't grow due to a perennial ice age. Most of the people starved to death, which led to the demise of the civilization.
The third solar age, the Murian civilization, was a prehistoric civilization that was good at using light energy. They'd built cities powered entirely by captured sunlight and could focus solar energy into devastating weapons. Later, their continent sank and was destroyed by a prehistoric nuclear war. They invented solar-powered nukes and used them on each other. Brilliant.
In the Fourth Solar Age, the Atlantean civilization, according to records, they were aliens who'd migrated from the Orion constellation. They possessed advanced technology that made modern human science look like cave paintings, but were destroyed by a major experimental accident.
The human beings of today belonged to the fifth solar age. It was also the civilization with the most complex emotions, which apparently was both a strength and a weakness depending on your perspective.
After reading through the fragmented history, Aidan breathed a sigh of relief. The pattern was clear - every previous human civilization had destroyed itself through some combination of arrogance, war, and catastrophically bad decision-making. At least we're consistent, he thought grimly.
Afterwards, he roughly read the surrounding book labels and got some new research goals. Texts on dimensional manipulation, guides to cosmic entity communication, and what looked like a complete manual for Infinity Stone usage. Then he took out the enchanted map again and focused on his next destination.
The Vanaheim study materialized around him . This room felt different - warmer somehow, with wooden shelves instead of stone and books that seemed more organic in their construction. Because Hogun had taught him about Vanir magic for a while, he knew a bit more about the Vanaheim text than most Earth-based magic systems.
But he didn't open the books to read just yet. The knowledge here was too advanced for his current level - like trying to read graduate-level physics when you'd barely mastered basic algebra. After roughly finding his target bookmarks and marking them for future study, he decided to wait for the right time to return. The Bridge was still waiting to be repaired, and that took priority over academic curiosity.
Come back when I'm stronger, , running his hand along the spine of a book that seemed to pulse with living energy.
Meanwhile, at the Bridge fracture site, the damage was even more impressive up close than it had looked from a distance.
The Bridge had released its devastating energy because Loki had wanted to use it as a weapon to destroy Jotunheim entirely. In the process of stopping his brother's genocide attempt, Thor had made the desperate decision to use Mjolnir to smash the connection between the Observatory and the Bridge itself. The hammer's impact had severed Asgard's primary energy conduit, cutting off the massive power flow and preventing the destruction of an entire realm.
The cost had been enormous. Loki had fallen from the broken bridge into the endless universe during their battle, seemingly lost forever. And Asgard had been cut off from the other realms, reduced to using inferior backup transportation systems.
Now the fracture site looked like a cosmic construction zone. Jagged crystalline formations jutted out where the bridge had been severed, their surfaces still crackling with residual energy. The gap stretched for nearly a hundred meters - a distance that seemed small until you realized it was a hundred meters of interdimensional void that connected to everywhere and nowhere simultaneously.
Thor and his friends had all gathered here, waiting for Aidan to work his magic. The Bridge wasn't just transportation infrastructure - it was a symbol of Asgard's power and authority throughout the Nine Realms, a monument that announced their civilization's mastery over space itself. Getting it repaired was both practically and politically essential.
"When'll you be able to fix this?" Fandral asked curiously, adjusting his soft armor as he studied the damage. The swashbuckling warrior looked uncomfortable with anything involving advanced magic - he preferred problems that could be solved with a sword.
"I don't know exactly, but it should be enough to fill the space with energy. If the materials work like they're supposed to, it shouldn't take more than two days," Aidan replied, pulling a massive container from his dimensional storage. The pot contained colorful liquid that seemed to move on its own, full of a dreamy quality that made it hard to focus on directly.
"Anyway, your expedition's in three days, so this won't delay you guys."
Volstagg nodded approvingly. "Good. The longer we wait, the more the rebels in the other realms will think Asgard has grown weak."
With that said, the large pot of colorful liquid slowly rose under Aidan's magical control and floated in the air above the fracture point. The substance seemed eager to escape its container, tendrils of rainbow energy reaching toward the damaged bridge structure. After it all came out, forming a shimmering cloud , Aidan took out a blue energy cube - the Tesseract. The colorful liquid was called rainbow crystal, which had strong energy superconductivity that made normal materials look like primitive stone tools. The Bridge had been named after this incredibly rare substance. However, if the crystal was in solid form, it had to be liquefied first, then shaped quickly before cooling. The timing was critical - the space's energy needed to be replenished while the crystal was still malleable.
No pressure, Aidan thought as he prepared for the most delicate part of the process.
If the energy input wasn't completed before the crystal solidified, then all their efforts would be wasted. After crystal was liquefied, it was impossible to process and liquefy it again - the molecular structure changed permanently during the first heating. So after a failure, the entire batch of crystal would become useless decoration. It was too brittle to be used as a weapon and too unstable to serve any other purpose.
After the Tesseract appeared in his hands, its blue glow intensifying, the Space Stone's energy began flowing toward the pile of dreamy rainbow liquid under Aidan's careful guidance. When the two forces made contact, energy instantly poured into the liquid like water rushing into a canyon. The first moments of contact were always the most dangerous - competing cosmic forces that could either merge perfectly or explosively reject each other.
Aidan pursed his lips and nervously maintained the influx of energy, sweat beading on his forehead despite Asgard's cool air. Come on, work with me here.
The others stood behind him watching the process with curious but somewhat glazed expressions. They were basically warriors who seldom got involved with complex magic beyond "point hammer at problem, hit problem with hammer." After watching the swirling energies for a while, they couldn't see any particular technique involved and were getting a little bored with the cosmic light show.
Hogun was the only one who seemed to understand what he was witnessing. "The precision required for this process is extraordinary," he murmured to Sif. "One miscalculation and the energy feedback could level half the palace."
At this time, the energy transmission gradually stabilized as the two cosmic forces found their rhythm. Aidan stretched out his hand and slowly guided the process as he settled into a cross-legged sitting position. The liquid slowly turned into a perfect sphere under his control, which was more stable and absorbed the Tesseract's energy much faster.
The sphere pulsed with internal light, colors shifting through spectrums that didn't exist in normal physics. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time - enough power to connect worlds or destroy them, depending on how it was used.
"How's it going?" Sif stepped forward and asked with genuine concern. At this point, she'd regained her natural blonde hair , and the return to her original appearance made her look much more regal and confident.
"It's going alright, we just gotta wait," Aidan nodded, but his eyes stayed locked on the interaction between the Tesseract and the rainbow liquid. Without the White Queen's precise calculations to guide him, he could only rely on his magical senses to maintain the delicate process. One moment of distraction could ruin everything.
As for Thor and the others, as the surroundings slowly quieted down to just the hum of cosmic energy, they got bored and began trading stories and bragging to each other about past adventures.
"Remember the time we fought those rock trolls in Alfheim?" Fandral said, gesturing dramatically. "You should've seen Volstagg here try to climb out of that pit..."
"I was being tactical!" Volstagg protested, his hand moving instinctively to his sword hilt. "A strategic retreat to reassess the situation!"
"You mean you fell in and couldn't get out," Sif laughed, though she kept her voice low out of respect for Aidan's concentration.
Thor smiled at his friends' familiar banter, but his attention kept drifting to the cosmic forces swirling just a few feet away. If this works, we'll finally have our full strength back, he thought. The Nine Realms will know that Asgard hasn't been weakened by recent events.
The rainbow sphere continued to grow, fed by the Tesseract's inexhaustible energy, slowly reaching the size and power needed to bridge the gap between worlds.
Comments
Book Warm
Thanks for the chapter
KingSpy25i .
Thank you for the awesome chapter 🙏
