Chapter 4: Your Geography Lessons Must Have Been Taught by the PE Teacher

Coulson and Melinda exchanged a glance, feeling that the vibe was slightly off. Things seemed to be heading in an increasingly skewed direction, and it appeared to be slipping beyond their control.

The two of them had merely been sent by the Director to make contact with a young girl who might be a mutant, evaluate her level of threat, and perhaps extract some useful intelligence along the way. The final step was to decide, based on the specific circumstances, whether to abduct the girl or simply knock her out, bundle her up, and take her to a specialized facility for containment. After that, they were supposed to find a way to notify her parents, and the incident would have ended perfectly.

As for everyone else, those who needed to be silenced would be silenced, and those who needed to keep secrets would keep them; SHIELD naturally had specialists for that. Agents were already highly experienced in handling such matters; there were plenty of enhanced individuals held in the Fridge, and this little girl certainly wouldn't be the first or the last.

However, now that the conversation had reached this point, and judging by the intelligence extracted from the girl's mouth, Coulson felt that if they handled this according to the standard procedure, it would absolutely not end here. If you catch the small one, the big one comes out; who knew what kind of power they would be facing in the future? Therefore, he felt it would be better to be more cautious.

"So, that Valoran continent? I didn't misspell it, did I? Where is this place called Valoran? How big is it?"

Coulson organized his thoughts. He felt the spelling "Valoran" was somewhat obscure and likely wouldn't be found in a dictionary. However, he felt a bit foolish asking a little girl such a question; what was the point of asking a girl who looked only a few years old? Coulson swore he had never heard the term "Valoran Continent" before! Even though he used to zone out during geography class, his geography teacher certainly wasn't a gym teacher!

"You don't know? Fine! This is the Valoran continent! Look!"

Annie ignored his thoughts and extended her tiny little finger, tapping an empty ice cream cup on the table. A surge of magical energy radiated out, and the cup immediately floated above the table, melting into a hollow, transparent sphere about twenty centimeters in diameter, like a small globe. On the surface of the glass sphere, a continent and several islands were clearly visible.

This was the planet where the Valoran continent was located. This spell was an advanced manifestation of *Mage Hand*, which only powerful mages with high magical capacity and exceptional talent could perform! It could transform certain materials into any shape and make them levitate without any additional offensive power; Annie had learned it when she was three! She usually used this spell to mold toys, though she rarely used it anymore now that she had Tibbers to play with.

"The Valoran continent looks just like this!"

Annie said, pointing at the instantly created planetary model. She still remembered how she had accidentally broken one of her mother's astrological models while playing with it, and her mother had actually punished her by making her use magic to create a hundred identical ones! That was a full hundred!!

To this, the Shadow Witch, Lady Amoline, had grandiosely called it: "Training my lovely daughter's spellcasting abilities!" Thinking back on it now, Annie felt that her mother was truly, truly annoying back then!

"This... this is... what is this?! How did it change? Is it your superpower?"

Coulson and Melinda stood up in surprise, failing to notice their chairs toppling over. They simply stared wide-eyed at the crystal sphere floating above the table; they were truly caught off guard.

"It's magic! I don't have superpowers!"

Annie didn't understand why they were reacting so strongly. These things were perfectly normal on the Valoran continent, weren't they? As for superpowers? She thought she had heard her dad say that people in the world outside the Shadow Isles had them, but Annie knew for sure she didn't have superpowers. This was magic, absolutely not some damn superpower!

"Magic?! Alright."

Coulson also felt he shouldn't be so shocked. Since mutants had all sorts of diverse abilities, he felt he shouldn't make such a fuss just because a little girl had an extra trick.

"So, this is the Valoran continent?" Pointing at the floating crystal sphere on the table, Coulson felt this was the most valuable intelligence gathered today. He quickly signaled Melinda to record the scene with her device. "Where is your home?"

Annie blinked her beautiful large eyes and reached out to the lower-middle part of the Valoran continent on the planetary model, using a finger stained with ice cream cream to draw a small circle.

"Right here! This is the Shadow Isles! My home is right here!"

"Hmm..." Coulson studied the planetary model carefully, pondering for a moment. Beside him, Melinda was recording with her camera. Looking at the clearly visible geography of the continent—mountains, swamps, lakes, and deserts—it was all laid out at a glance, crafted with such exquisite detail that it certainly wasn't something a little girl could have fabricated.

He was now almost certain that the probability of this little girl being an extraterrestrial was as high as 99.999%. Looking at the small area Annie had circled with ice cream—the Shadow Isles—Coulson thought for a moment and then pointed to a castle-like structure marked above the Shadow Isles.

"Then, what place is this?"

"Oh, that's Noxus."

Annie didn't like Noxus because her mommy and daddy hated Noxus, so Annie didn't like it either.

"Noxus? Is it a country? What kind of place is it?" Coulson didn't recognize the script on the planetary model, so he could only guess.

"Daddy says the people in Noxus are a bunch of crazies; all they know how to do is fight, fight, fight all day long." Annie still remembered her father's assessment of Noxus; it was said they had crossed the Grand Barrier to move to the Shadow Isles specifically because they didn't want to fight all day.

"Fighting? War maniacs?" Coulson mentally conjured the Germans of WWII; well, Hitler was getting caught in the crossfire here.

"Then what about here? Is this also a country? What is it like?"

He continued pointing to another area on the map, directly opposite Noxus on the left, which showed a model of a city. Based on the unfamiliar text marked there, Coulson assumed it was another country.

"That is the Kingdom of Demacia!"

"Demacia? What do they do? What kind of country is it?"

"They get beaten up by Noxus all day long!"

"..."

Then Coulson pointed to several more large areas, clarifying the basic situation of this place called the Valoran continent. Although the information obtained from little Annie wasn't extremely detailed, he still learned a lot about the customs and geography of various places.

For example, the Freljord in the far north of the continent, where it was very cold and there were snowmen; Annie said she always wanted to go catch one to play with, but her parents wouldn't let her. To the right of Freljord were Piltover and Zaun, where the people were a bunch of biochemical maniacs and chemical crazies! They would mess around with potions even when they lacked the proper knowledge!

Then there was the Shurima desert in the middle of the continent. According to Annie, there was a man with a dog's head there who claimed to be the Aspect of Death; he had sucked away the souls of every living creature in the entire desert, and a single attack of his could shatter a great mountain! Her mother strictly forbade her from playing in the desert!

Then, to the southeast of the Shadow Isles, across the Black Mist Mountains, was Bandle City. Annie had been there with her mother; there was a group of furry people called Yordles there, and they were very short! "Like a bunch of little mice"—that was Annie's exact wording—but these Yordles could build robots, and there was something called an airplane that could fly around in the sky. Coulson felt that the technological level of these "Yordles" must be quite impressive.