Author's Note: Examining the mystical a little more here, also giving the Ancient One a back story that also helps explain why no one questioned her immortality. Originally without Dormammu she would have just been exceptionally long lived.

Also how do you guys like X-man/Trunks focused chapters? I was thinking of alternating to denote passage of time. I've just given Gohan way too much Mystical responsibility to have him doing the kind of Monster of the Week thing a normal Superhero might.

First two chapters of this are re-proofed btw.

Chapter 21: Strange Magic

"And what," The Ancient One began, "Do you need to learn exactly? More encompasses...quite a bit."

Gohan worried his bottom lip, "Magic detection, the Mirror Dimension, and a little bit more about connecting with my Artifacts I guess? I still cannot counteract magic the way I want to. I fought some kind of demon earlier in the month and it did seem hurt by anything I did."

"Hmm..." The old master thought to herself, "Yes you Artifacts may be a good focus to overcome this issue. I once found myself in a similar position to you, Gohan. When I first sought out my Master."

Gohan's eyes widened, "Really?" Honestly at this point Gohan thought she had basically been Merlin's teacher or something.

"Oh yes, for you see, and this is something I have revealed to very few, my true name is Arianrhod MacLlanllwyr. And my grandmother was the Tuatha de Danann named Rhiannon."

No big deal, Gohan thought, he had just found out that the Ancient One was a demigoddess.

"It was...oh about two centuries before Camelot that my family and I found the demon Y'Garon plotting nefarious things for the world. We banded together, my father, grandmother, a few allies, and I and banished him back out of our realm. Afterwards, my family close to decimated and myself blaming myself no small amount for my powers of healing not being enough, sought out further mystical training. And so I found Kamar Taj in the year three-hundred and forty of the Gregorian calendar. I was a hundred and sixty-five then. And I looked around as old as you do now."

Yes, well, being part fairy-god will do that to you, Gohan thought.

"It was here actually that I met the young Myrridin, or as you might know him, Merlin."

Of course you did, he thought.

"He actually was the successor to our master, Yao the Ancient, who was himself the heir of Hermes Trismegitus, another demigod known to the humans as Pythagoras. But Merlin did not prolong his life, he allowed his own death after his failure with Camelot around a century later. A pity, for he was just as powerful as they say. And so I was the successor to my peer, and in the two centuries since I had arrived at Kamar Taj I had well mastered the mystic arts. Healing was my forte in those years, before I delved into the greater mysteries. But like you it was a battle with a dread fiend from the Hyborean Age that led me here."

That was a lot for Gohan to take in.

"So uh...you'll help me then?"

"Of course young Champion, though not directly. With your Artifact focus in particular I believe Master Minoru would be the best to aid you over the coming months. I will have her come over from the Hong Kong Sanctuary for the duration."

That appeared to be his dismissal so Gohan made his way to his guest quarters, which were not all that dissimilar to the normal quarters for students.

Two days later Master Tina Minoru stared at him critically.

"The problem is that you view your Artifacts more as aesthetic than having useful functions," She flatly told him, "Your own personal strength with Ki flatly overrides the need for two of the four pieces of the set. The only use you get from the Golden Mail is some magical resistance, and you can fly faster than the Cloud Walking Slippers could ever provide you."

Tina Minoru, Master of the Hong Kong Sanctuary, was a striking and somewhat severe East Asian woman of indeterminate age. Her face and skin showed no wrinkles, but her eyes and expression showed great responsibility and experience. If Gohan had to say she seemed even more ageless than the Ancient One, who admittedly probably had almost a millennium on every other living humanoid being on the planet.

As far as Gohan knew at least.

"Which is why during our training you will not touch your Ki," The woman flatly declared, "You will fly with the Slippers, you will take blows on your Mail, you will predict and sense your enemy through the Phoenix Feather Cap, and you will fight with either spells or the Riyu Jingu Bang!"

And that was when Gohan knew he was in trouble.

"It is flatly irresponsible that all you can do magically is spout theory off at me," She continued her berating, "We will be brushing up on doing all the magical techniques you applied to your Ki back to a magical energy source, and then and only then will we move on to combat techniques. You will have magical communication, magical object creation, magical telekinesis, and magic sensing all down to the letter. Do you understand me, Champion?"

"Y-yes ma'am!" She scowled at him a bit, "Uh, Master!"

"Very good, now you know how to meditate, correct? Instead of looking inward for your Ki we will be expanding our senses outward to find and draw in the magical energy that seeps in from the space between dimensions..."

And so his lessons began in earnest.

It was late March by the time he had the basics that she wanted down and they were able to move into combat with his Artifacts.

Master Mordo was his opponent in these spars as often as Master Minoru was, for Gohan even while not using his Ki was still physically powerful enough to shatter boulders, dart around with the speed of a diving falcon, shrug off bullets, and weather the most strenuous physical blow.

And Mordo had a level of martial talent that when combined with his magic and Artifacts actually gave Gohan a significant challenge in a magic only spar.

It was here that Gohan learned to use the Riyu Jingu Bang properly, being taught proper bo-staff techniques by Master Minoru whose own favored weapon was a mighty staff called the Staff of One.

"An item I one day plan to pass down to my daughter as my mother did to me," She explained one day as they were going over the Natures, a deep mystical concept apparently, of certain Artifacts Gohan was familiar with.

"So you have a family? Are they back in Hong Kong?" Often he and Master Minoru spoke in Cantonese so that he could bring his skills in the other Chinese dialect up to the same level as his Mandarin.

"In a way, Nico stays in the Hong Kong Sanctuary with the students and servants while I am away on business of either mundane or mystical natures. She is well on her way to becoming a Master and worthy successor to the Staff," Tina explained.

Gohan noticed that she began to light up in a way he had never seen her before when speaking of her daughter, "And...her father?"

That darkened her face once more, "He...left with Kaecilius."

Her face and eyes were stormy with anger as Gohan's own widened. A few years before Strange had become a student a Master named Kaecilius had rebelled against the Ancient One's ways with a dozen or so acolytes of his and stolen pages from an ancient text, killing a few Masters along the way.

"The last I have heard of him he had splintered off from Kaecilius himself and was involved with some dubious dealings with unaffiliated Magisters in California," She finished and that was the last Gohan would hear of Robert Minoru for a long time.