2074: To Interfere or Not to Interfere

To Interfere or Not to Interfere

As for the discreet knowledge that T'Challa's father had killed Erik's father, Luke had a faint idea of it.

But Colonel Zemo, who had been part of the Sokovian Armed Forces and was a B-grade professional at most, had almost gotten T'Chaka killed.

As an elite member of the special ops ghost unit, it was strange that Erik hadn't found an opportunity to kill T'Chaka before this.

If Luke hadn't locked onto Zemo, the latter might not necessarily have ever been exposed.

In comparison, it would be even harder for Wakanda, with its sealed borders, to detect an even bigger professional like Erik.

If Erik had seized the throne during this period of time, T'Chaka's death would have become a small issue that nobody cared about.

Ultimately, Erik chose to seize power first before killing T'Chaka.

That alone made Luke look down on him.

This person was more focused on calculations and interests than on avenging his father.

Since he was bright red in the system and disdained moral integrity, did Luke need a reason to kill him? Obviously not.

However, he still had to wait a year or two. Nobody on Wakanda's side would remember Erik by then, and he would die on a mission or in some revenge kill.

In any case, Eric had killed a lot of high-ranking politicians and military bigwigs; it would be normal for him to run into people who wanted revenge.

…

Luke had secretly gotten involved in this Wakandan royal crisis, and he got the benefits almost instantly.

T'Challa expressed his gratitude later, and the number of sparring sessions returned to normal.

He had been too busy to spar after he ascended the throne.

After what happened with Erik, however, T'Challa realized that he had overlooked how important his own combat ability was, and was wasting a precious learning opportunity.

How many people in the world could get one-on-one combat training with the Dark Knight? It was just the old members of the Bat Squad.

Even with the Ursa Minor kids team, Luke only beat them up regularly to suppress their arrogance.

Want regular training? Dream on. Knight wasn't that free.

Tony was the only other person who had the opportunity, but he refused because he didn't want to be beaten up long-term.

Also, Luke had achieved Elementary Combat Proficiency, and he was an overall combat master with no shortcomings.

He had stayed in Wakanda for so long in order to follow Vision's surgery closely, exchange technical insights with Shuri, and negotiate a vibranium deal.

Wasting some time to train with T'Challa could be considered a way to promote their friendship.

Fine, the king did have some skills; it was a little too much to say that the combat training was a waste of time.

However, it was at most 20% important, while the tech pointers Luke exchanged with Shuri was at least 40% important.

As the chief technology officer for the development and application of Wakanda's vibranium, Shuri really was more important than her brother.

After all, as long as T'Challa didn't go back on his word, and even if the cooperation only lasted a year or two, Luke would basically be able to obtain enough vibranium.

In contrast, just like Tony's talents when it came to the Mark suits, Shuri's talents in the development of vibranium would continue to improve.

If there was a chance, he had to make this little girl like him enough! Luke muttered to himself that he had to find an opportunity to spar with her. Only then would she be eligible to undergo the system's teammate evaluation.

That way, he could refresh Shuri's list of abilities at any time.

T'Challa was still thanking Luke for his selfless instruction, and didn't know that he had actually become an 'extra' to his sister.

But as someone who doted on his sister, he probably wouldn't mind such a small matter.

…

From the moment the Avengers split up to when the Dark Knight started to cultivate a good relationship with the siblings, something very important happened in New York, but Luke didn't need to do anything.

Dr. Strange, whom Alfred had been monitoring, finally got into a car accident, and his hands were crippled.

Hearing this news, Luke wore a complicated expression.

Luke still felt some trauma when he recalled how the Ancient One specially came to say hello, as well as how he had almost gone mad in 2023 trying to guess what Sorcerer Supreme Strange's 'one finger' meant.

What he hated the most was this sort of super 'mystical' master with mystical knowledge, abilities, and thoughts.

What was even scarier was that this Sorcerer Supreme played with time, and that this was an ability passed down to all Sorcerer Supremes.

If Luke were to face Thanos again, he wouldn't feel helpless.

In comparison, he had no confidence at all in turning the Sorcerer Supreme into his teammate.

Who the hell knew when they might run into some weird and scary thing!

For example, in the eyes of the Ancient One, Old Mephisto from Hell was nothing more than a cockroach that had snuck into her house.

Apart from the fact that this disgusting person was a pain to kill, Old Mephisto was no threat to the Ancient One.

The Ancient One couldn't be bothered to target Old Mephisto. At most, when she sensed traces of him, she would stomp on Old Mephisto, like an ordinary person squashing a cockroach before throwing it into the trash.

Did Luke have the ability to stomp on Old Mephisto like he was a cockroach? Obviously not.

Credit and the power of faith were useful, but technically speaking, they made up the extraordinary energy collected by the system, which was the only reason why Luke could restrain Old Mephisto.

The Ancient One didn't need a system at all to stomp on Old Mephisto; all it took was a few moves.

Luke had long made up his mind that if the Sorcerer Supreme really did become his teammate in the future, then it had to be with his clone.

For an enemy that could make Sorcerer Strange rally his teammates for a coordinated attack, however, the Level 1 clone definitely wouldn't be enough. The Level 2 clone was half-crippled and couldn't be used, so it could only be the Level 3 clone.

Each death was worth ten million credit points! Just thinking about it made Luke's heart ache.

The only thing that could be considered a boon was that a mission which required Sorcerer Strange to call in reinforcements should be worth a massive amount of experience and credit points.

It might be a mission at the level of world destruction. Just thinking about it… gave him a lot of pressure.

Although Luke didn't harvest as much from ordinary bad guys on Earth, this was a long-term sustainable route, and wasn't a danger to humans as a whole.

On the other hand, he could easily earn hundreds of billions of experience points from this one mission, but if he made a mistake, he would lose everything.

A race that had been destroyed wasn't even qualified to make a comeback if it didn't have a planet to live on.

Even if he whisked his family and friends away beforehand, they would only become alien nomads.

Without human society to earn experience and credit points from, his path to graduating at level 50 would be cut off.

In the future, he would only be able to rely on himself to slowly figure things out. After mucking around for 8,000 years, he might be able to raise his strength to a new level.

For a young man in his thirties, this was a nightmare.1

Thus, Luke would have to deal with any missions he received from Sorcerer Strange seriously and do his best.

At that moment, Dr. Strange, who had crippled hands, was feeling extremely unlucky.

He had been a top surgeon with immeasurable wealth, but a car accident had destroyed his most precious hands.

He didn't dare say he could perform surgery with his shaking hands.

After a week of exploding emotions, he finally remembered something he had heard before. He went to ask a magnate who owed him a favor about a 'life potion.'

That first night, the magnate said that he would give it a try, but the next morning, he called Dr. Strange and said that the bigshot who supplied the medicine had no plans to sell it for the time being.

Any hope of treating his hands was instantly dashed, and Dr. Strange felt his world go dark.

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