"This is the story of your birth, Salomon," the Sorcerer Ancient One said, stroking five-year-old Salomon's fluffy, curly long hair.
The Ancient One had always been very satisfied with Salomon's performance because he never showed the capricious crying typical of a child; the Ancient One could always see Salomon deep in thought.
The Ancient One was not surprised by this behavior. After all, Salomon's birth was the work of Heaven, and although the Sorcerer Ancient One had intercepted him midway, his special qualities would still manifest.
For example, he possessed some magic without needing to make a pact with Vishanti.
This ability manifested when he was five years old, around the millennium, and it caused a bit of trouble.
Indeed, there were casters on Earth who used their own magic; ordinary people, with the right methods, could refine magic from life force.
In the West, this power was called magic, while in the East, it was called Qi, but regardless of the name, it was the necessary energy to drive magic.
However, those casters who refined life force were, without exception, not particularly powerful; aside from a few exceptionally gifted mystics, they were all self-taught casters.
Casters who generated their own magic had very special identities, often connected to the Outer Dimension.
Because of this, many Kamar-Taj casters inquired about the matter to the Sorcerer Supreme, fearing that this source of magic might have a negative impact on the gifted child.
"This is because he possesses more life force," the Sorcerer Supreme explained, pulling Salomon, who was sitting beside her in a daze.
She spread his palm open, allowing the apprentices to see the unsealed stigmata that only special vision could perceive.
"The essence of magic is an energy that exists in all forms of life; because he is a natural-born saint, his body has been strengthened by positive energy, and therefore he possesses a stronger life force.
Excessively vast life force was automatically converted into magic by the stigmata; his magic is merely the use of his life force and has no connection to the Outer Dimension.
Therefore, even before signing a pact with Vishanti, Salomon possessed the ability to cast spells autonomously, and not only that, his body also had greater strength and senses than ordinary people."
However, the Sorcerer Supreme did not reveal everything about the stigmata; she felt that the other apprentices did not need to know these things.
Salomon's clothes were more conspicuous than those of the other Kamar-Taj apprentices because his clothes were made by the Sorcerer Supreme from dark red holy shroud cloth, intended to prevent the stigmata on his hands from going out of control.
After putting on this garment, the stigmata were no longer visible to ordinary people.
"Is it Heaven? Or does it originate from Vishanti?" an apprentice asked.
"No, it's just the positive energy plane, not Heaven, nor does it originate from Vishanti," the Sorcerer Supreme replied.
"The magic we obtain is also positive energy, and Mount Heaven is also a positive energy plane; there is no difference.
If his body had been exposed to negative energy, that is, black magic, then he wouldn't be able to gain weight."
Salomon Damnett puffed out his cheeks in dissatisfaction; he had always insisted that he had baby fat, which made several female apprentices unable to resist pinching his chubby cheeks a few times.
The Sorcerer Supreme had consistently worked to eradicate the worship of Vishanti within Kamar-Taj, even though Vishanti was Kamar-Taj's and her own suzerain.
However, one reason Kamar-Taj could obtain magic from Vishanti and not from other magical entities was the intervention of the Eternal Great God—one of the five great cosmic deities—and it was also due to the Eternal Great God's guidance that the Ancient One was able to sign a pact with the magical entity Vishanti.
In fact, the Sorcerer Supreme was initially hesitant to accept this disciple, because even Vishanti had its own ulterior motives.
Although the Sorcerer Supreme had the Eternal Great God standing behind her, Vishanti was the suzerain providing magic, and Vishanti had already designated the next Sorcerer Supreme: the trinity of Agamotto, Oshtur, and Hoggoth all wanted to bring Kamar-Taj, which had effectively broken free from their control, back under their sway.
They wanted to choose a sufficiently obedient Sorcerer Supreme—but the Sorcerer Ancient One was simply too powerful and too closely connected to Eternity.
Vishanti could not guarantee that if they tore up the pact, the Ancient One would not be pushed towards Dormammu, becoming their enemy; they couldn't afford to take that gamble, so they could only quietly wait for the Ancient One to die naturally.
The birth of Salomon Damnett gave the Sorcerer Supreme new hope—hope that could ensure Earth's independence and autonomy before the new Sorcerer Supreme grew up, preventing Kamar-Taj from becoming merely a puppet of Vishanti.
She also told him the story of Jezebel, attempting to place Salomon's affections on the Earthling people; she told Salomon that his existence was the continuation of Jezebel's love.
"How did you do that?" the Ancient One asked Salomon after the apprentices left.
The Sorcerer Supreme reached out and tousled Salomon Damnett's fluffy, soft, black curly hair; before human younglings fully developed, such a hairstyle made him indistinguishable as male or female, appearing especially cute, and even the Sorcerer Supreme couldn't help but pinch his chubby, rosy cheeks a couple of times.
"I just wanted to heat up the soup.
I was reading 'The Book of Raziel' and didn't have time to eat, so I just thought I'd finish the soup I didn't drink last night," Salomon said, spreading his hands, looking utterly innocent, and he was indeed not lying.
In fact, the moment Salomon gained self-awareness, he saw the Sorcerer Ancient One; he quickly figured out his location, but due to his extremely low-desire personality, he didn't even bother to be surprised.
Then Salomon carefully examined those golden fingers.
The ten stigmata on his fingers not only gave him physical abilities far beyond ordinary people but also contained the memories of ten deceased archmages, filled with vast amounts of magic knowledge and life experiences—he could, of course, discern where these memories originated from: either Faerûn or Greyhawk, either Eberron or Klein, and even the Inner Sea World.
But he still wanted to complain, why were there so many necromancy-loving casters in the memories he received!
Is it just because they were too evil that they got hammered to death? Also, why is the function of his golden finger similar to a demigod lich's Soul Stone! Does all this imply that he is destined to become a lich in the future?
While these golden fingers were a physical characteristic, they also brought some side effects—when unlocking the stigmata to gain knowledge, he would receive a massive influx of information, because these archmages were all beings with incredibly long lifespans, and he was merely a shut-in otaku; currently, his soul strength was not yet sufficient to receive all the memories.
This was a vicious cycle, so Salomon had to start learning Kamar-Taj's spells to improve his soul essence before he could receive the spells within the stigmata.
After Salomon received basic education, he was allowed to read some magic books in the library.
The book he was reading, "The Book of Raziel," also known as "The Key of Solomon," was not the original, but a translated version after decryption and translation; it had nothing to do with Solomon, and was purely written by medieval sorcerers.
The book encouraged blood sacrifices and killing, a typical example of black magic—however, because its content was all gibberish and contained no useful information, it was thrown into a corner of the library and used as one of the teaching materials for newcomers to understand the horrors of black magic, which is how Salomon was able to read this book.
The true "Book of Enoch," which recorded the knowledge of the Angel Raziel, was not allowed to be viewed by the current Salomon.
This was like parents scaring children by saying, "If you don't go to sleep, a big bad wolf/Witch/Voldemort or some other strange thing will come to get you," purely scare tactics.
However, Salomon read it with great interest; after all, he had only received memories of some simple tricks so far, and he had never encountered orthodox mysticism.
Salomon's natural personality and the excitement of the casters in his memories when they first tried magic also made him attempt to use magic tricks to heat water—in a world without spell slots or a magic net, he could only recite a long incantation and autonomously control the output of magic.
But not only did he fail to turn the cold soup into hot soup, but a burst of flickering sparks crackled out of the door, which greatly worried the casters who were practicing spells, leading to the scene at the beginning.
The Sorcerer Supreme gently patted Salomon's head again; she naturally knew that Salomon's origin was not simple, but she did not intend to tell anyone about it.
She even refrained from using the Eye of Agamotto to view Salomon's future, even though she had obtained the Eye of Agamotto from the Eternal Great God, but as a magical artifact of Vishanti, it was hard to say that Vishanti had not left any tricks.
The Ancient One seemed to be pondering something; one type of magic could only support one system of magic, just as Dormammu's cultists could not learn Kamar-Taj's teleportation portals.
The Ancient One knew that the stigmata would bring knowledge, but Salomon's magic seemed capable of supporting the operation of those spells…
"You need to practice more, Salomon," after a while, the Sorcerer Ancient One reached out and pulled Salomon closer.
She took a glass of juice from a portal.
"You can try to freeze this drink.
Come on, try it, don't be afraid, I'm with you."
Salomon was a little touched; he looked at the Sorcerer Supreme's encouraging gaze and did as she said… then the Sorcerer Supreme took out a straw, inserted it into the cup, and walked away with the cup covered in a thin layer of frost.
Salomon rolled his eyes—well, the Sorcerer Supreme was indeed a bit different from what he had imagined.
Initially, in his impression, the Sorcerer Supreme should have been an extremely dignified and benevolent caster, just like Dumbledore next door.
But what kind of mentor would say a bunch of touching words just to trick an apprentice into casting a spell to freeze a drink?
The Sorcerer Ancient One didn't look like an old man with a crooked nose who loved sweets either!