Drex had never encountered a genuine demon before.
From a scientific perspective alone, Morgan had become an unbelievably valuable specimen.
Even unconscious, Morgan shivered faintly on the ground.
"Don't worry," the Ancient One said calmly. "She won't be harmed. I'll also teach her how to control this power properly."
Drex relaxed slightly.
The female version of the Ancient One wasn't nearly as fond of bizarre lessons and psychological games as the old-man interpretation from certain universes, so he trusted her judgment enough not to interfere.
"How long before she comes back?" he asked.
"That depends on her," the Ancient One replied. "She can return once she learns to control her power."
Drex immediately caught the implication.
That probably meant a very long time.
Still, the Ancient One was the expert here. As a scientist himself, Drex hated when uninformed outsiders tried to lecture specialists about their own fields.
So he kept his opinions to himself.
Soon afterward, the Ancient One departed with Morgan.
The shattered walls inside Blade Tech Industries had already been restored, presumably by magic. Drex instructed Black Queen to fabricate nearby surveillance footage while he personally altered the memories of every witness in the area.
"A child of a dimensional god..." Drex muttered thoughtfully.
The deeper he dug into this world, the stranger it became.
Fortunately, there was still Wanda.
Compared to Morgan, Wanda Maximoff's potential was on an entirely different level.
A future version of Wanda could overpower Thanos alone. In universes where mutants existed openly, she had once erased nearly all mutants and superpowered beings from existence with a single sentence.
Even Spider-Man's powers had vanished under her influence.
Morgan's father was probably only around Skyfather level at best.
Maybe single-universe level if being generous.
Marvel's absurd cosmic hierarchy ran something like this:
Planetary.
Skyfather.
All-Father.
Single-Universe.
Multiversal.
Megaversal.
Omniversal.
Then the truly ridiculous entities like OAA, OBA, the Beyonders, and TOAA.
Compared to that scale, Drex himself hadn't even reached planetary level yet.
Still, he wasn't worried.
His potential ceiling was terrifyingly high.
Besides, the Ancient One still had many years left before her death. That gave Drex more than enough time to grow stronger.
At his current pace, he might even reach Skyfather level before she was gone.
After Morgan left for Kamar-Taj with the Ancient One, Wanda quickly came looking for answers.
"Where did Morgan go?" she asked worriedly.
"She went somewhere important for training," Drex explained.
Technically, that wasn't even a lie.
Kamar-Taj was absolutely a school.
A school dedicated to borrowing power from dimensional entities while simultaneously learning how to beat those same entities into submission when they came demanding repayment.
If Morgan mastered that system properly, she might not need to fear her "father" anymore.
Then another thought hit Drex suddenly.
Wait.
The Ancient One wasn't planning to raise Morgan as the next Sorcerer Supreme instead of Stephen Strange... was she?
Theoretically, a child born from a dimensional entity could absolutely become Sorcerer Supreme.
After all, the Vishanti themselves had once ascended into becoming higher-dimensional beings.
Still, after thinking about it for a moment, Drex decided it was unlikely.
The Ancient One was too responsible for that.
Morgan was still young enough to get manipulated into opening dimensional gates for free candy and emotional validation.
Speaking of Stephen Strange...
At this point in history, Strange was merely an extremely promising rising star in the medical world.
Unlike his future self at the height of his fame, current Stephen accepted almost every high-risk surgery available without hesitation. He was still building his reputation and wasn't yet worried about failure rates damaging his ego.
Later, once he became famous, he would begin rejecting dangerous procedures to preserve his flawless record.
Drex paid attention to Stephen Strange almost as closely as he monitored Tony Stark and Reed Richards.
Tony, meanwhile, wasn't particularly complicated at the moment.
He had barely finished constructing his first Iron Man armor before terrorists immediately demanded he build more.
Tony had already expected betrayal from terrorists, so he wasn't especially shocked or emotionally devastated by the situation.
Honestly, the fact they hadn't killed him outright was almost reassuring.
Now he endured a daily existence that resembled a forge.
Pain.
Pressure.
Exhaustion.
Mental torture.
Tony Stark was being hammered repeatedly like molten steel.
And when he finally emerged from the fire, he probably wouldn't develop the crippling anxiety problems that plagued him in another timeline.
Compared to this?
Future panic attacks would feel laughably mild.
Drex's carefully designed vegetarian nutrition plan combined with constant physical labor forging armor components had also transformed Tony physically.
He had developed real muscle now.
Lean.
Defined.
Athletic without becoming bulky.
Exactly the kind of physique Tony had always dreamed of having.
Muscles tightened beneath his skin as he hammered metal relentlessly, every motion sharp and deliberate like forged machinery.
Then there was Reed Richards.
Reed had already begun final launch checks for the upcoming cosmic storm mission. The rocket launch was scheduled roughly one month away.
Which meant Victor von Doom's bankruptcy countdown had officially begun.
Honestly, Drex almost pitied him.
According to Black Queen, Doom had liquidated enormous portions of his personal assets and borrowed staggering amounts of money from banks to support Reed's project.
That was how much faith Doom placed in Reed's genius.
More faith than Reed himself possessed.
Unfortunately, Reed Richards had a supernatural talent for dragging everyone around him into catastrophic disasters.
Doom had also sought investment partnerships from numerous organizations, including Blade Tech Industries.
His proposal had been rejected outright.
Victor von Doom had apparently been furious that Drex Valen ignored him.
Unfortunately for Doom, reality remained cruel.
Today, Drex might not care about him.
Tomorrow...
Doom still wouldn't be remotely capable of standing on equal footing with him.
The gap between their achievements was simply too large.
Even Doom's ambitious aerospace project probably couldn't match a third of Blade Tech Industries' current influence.
Meanwhile, Blade Academy for Advanced Science and Technology had become one of the most coveted educational institutions in the world.
Blade Tech Industries had invested one hundred million dollars into constructing the academy, and graduates received hiring priority within the company itself.
That alone made elite families desperate to secure admission for their children.
After all, Blade Tech Industries was now widely considered the most powerful industrial corporation on Earth.
Talented people from every nation wanted inside.
Granted, Drex estimated that at least half of those applicants were probably spies, undercover agents, intelligence operatives, or corporate infiltrators.
Still.
Talent was talent.
Honestly, those people might work even harder than legitimate employees.
Natasha Romanoff had practically evolved into an "eight days a week, seventeen hours a day" workaholic recently.
Of course, she also received an absurd salary.
According to rumors, Natasha had become a full-blown shopping addict.
Years of staring longingly at luxury handbags and designer shoes she could never justify buying had apparently snapped all at once.
Now she bought everything in sight.
As a result, Blade Academy received overwhelming numbers of applications.
Unfortunately, the entrance standards were brutally high.
Very few students qualified.
Jessica Campbell technically bypassed those requirements through special privileges, but even she was struggling badly.
Not because she lacked intelligence.
The problem was that Blade Academy's curriculum looked completely insane.
Cellular engineering.
Genetic programming.
High-energy physics.
Astrophysics.
Spatial mechanics.
Theoretical physics.
Energy systems.
Jessica had barely even heard some of those subjects existed before arriving.