Shangri-La, a timeless and mystical legend from the East, represents a distant land of purity both in the ancient and modern times, an Eastern version of Utopia.
Unlike mere wealth, influenced by religion, Shangri-La embodies the sanctity of a flawless heart, a pearl on the Snowy Plateau, symbolizing vastness, peace, and a mind free of distractions.
The tale, passed down by high monks, has endured over time, inspiring many novels. Countless adventurers, carrying their faith, have found their own tranquility here after overcoming numerous hardships.
In fact, there is a real basis to these legends, unknown to many. At an altitude of four thousand meters, not only barren mountains and perpetual snow exist. On the southern slopes of the Himalayan Mountains, under the feet of Mount Everest, warm and humid currents from the Indian Ocean create an oasis known as Mini Jiangnan of Mount Everest.
Besides the lush vegetation and verdant trees, a human community has resided here for generations, known as the Sherpa people.
Sherpa essentially means people from the East. They mainly live along the China-Nepal border, predominantly within Nepal, but there are also more than a thousand in China.
Further up from the Sherpa villages, deeper into the Himalayan ranges, several villages nestle within the subtropical jungle. They are unaccounted for in demographic data, merely because they are the descendants of the Guardians of Shambhala and are, by the Chinese dynastic timeline, people of the Ming Dynasty.
The Shambhala of legends is none other than Kamar-Taj led by The Ancient One. The mysterious villagers, who have not contacted the outside world since the Ming Dynasty, are compatriots of The Ancient One, having their village transformed by The Ancient One and Kaecilius since they started their journey.
Under the influence of magic, hunger and poverty were eradicated in the village, by Ming Dynasty's standards, of course.
The villagers here hardly worry about food and clothing, most still follow the natural rhythm of working at sunrise and resting at sunset, having avoided numerous wars till today, still living a contented agrarian life.
Of course, with the passage of time, they naturally began to exchange with the outside world, mainly trading with the Sherpa people at the foot of the mountains, mostly through the barter system.
The residents within Shambhala, nourished by magic for generations, mastered magical arts beyond the grasp of the average person, producing small quantities of precious medicinal herbs, leather, and ores. Their medical practices were richer than ordinary folks, basically reviving anyone as long as they still breathed.
To avoid inbreeding, they also intermarried with people outside of Shambhala, mainly with the Sherpa people, and occasionally with magicians or foreigners who found their way here, especially adventurers who stumbled in, because reaching this place after so many trials proved not only their resolve but also their robust health and superior genes.
This situation continued until the modern era. Many of the beautiful tales about Shambhala were spread by adventurers who had visited, and the residents neither confirmed nor denied these stories. Far from considering outsiders an intrusion, they welcomed more to help them improve their gene pool.
Of course, even to the inhabitants of Shambhala, the more profound domain of Kamar-Taj was beyond easy reach. However, a number of children born in Shambhala were gifted with magic talent. The Ancient One couldn't possibly stop them from visiting their homes, so for many years, the mages of Kamar-Taj lived harmoniously with the residents of Shambhala.
Mages could generally sustain themselves, but they also needed to buy certain things from the Shambhala villages. Although the villagers longed for magic, they knew it was a double-edged sword. Delving too deep would only bring misfortune to ordinary people.
For hundreds of years, they lived peacefully, maintaining a pattern of trade where mages exchanged goods with Shambhala residents, who in turn traded with the Sherpa people. Everyone obtained what they desired, and life was pleasant.
However, after the foundation of the New China, this scenario gradually began to change. The Sherpa within China's borders saw their villages electrified, roads built, and the green vans of China Post began to bring all the necessary supplies for every resident's needs.
From village to small town, schools and hospitals were gradually established, and severely ill patients could be transported by car to major cities for treatment. People's reliance on barefoot doctors and magical medicine decreased.
With the development of the times, tourism also began to flourish. Establishments like teahouses, guesthouses, and theaters that did not produce essentials began to emerge, signaling the town's escape from its previous isolation and march towards modernity, just like most other small towns in the country.
This led to a problem: the townspeople were no longer as reliant on the remote inhabitants of Shambhala nestled deep within the Himalayan ranges. The elderly who once witnessed the miraculous appearances of the Shambhala Guardians were learning to flick electric switches and turn on taps.
Newly built roads allowed modern cars to drive in, unlike the old days of carrying loads by hand and shoulder. Younger generations ceased doing heavy labor, with most engaging in live streaming or rehearsing Sherpa songs and dances for national tours.
Improved sanitation reduced disease rates, lightened workload benefitted lifespan, and with widespread education, everyone knew to take fever reducers for a fever, antibiotics for serious illness, disbelieving in the arcane herbs most had never seen.
As for trinkets like tools, animal hides, and amulets, they were readily available in the shops along the tourist routes, considered nothing special. Neither the sellers nor buyers expected to get the real deal for such small change, so nobody cared about authenticity.
The tales of Shambhala residents left behind began to fade. The youth were more concerned with revitalizing their hometown, earning money through tourism for themselves and their peers, while the elderly enjoyed the full benefits of modernized life. Aside from recounting legends of Shambhala to their grandchildren, they remained silent about the magical wonders they had once witnessed.
But the number of residents in Shangri-La was too few; all three villages combined didn't even number five hundred people. Although they had enough land to grow sufficient food for themselves, the absence of any constructed roads, coupled with the severed trade traditions with the Sherpa people, meant that some necessities that they couldn't produce on their own were now unreachable, significantly impacting their lives.
But don't get it wrong—although they lived deeper in the mountains, the place where the Sherpa people resided was already remote enough, and if roads could be built there, then Shangri-La wasn't impossible either.
The land they were on and the country they belonged to had a kind of strange fervor for road construction. The Sherpas often said that the little green car would eventually make its way to the top of Mount Everest one day.
The problem was that Shangri-La was shrouded by the protective shield of Kamar-Taj. This was the main reason why only a handful of lucky individuals had stumbled upon this Utopia over the past several hundred years. No one else had discovered it. With this protective shield in place, it was impossible for people to even realize its existence, let alone build roads to it.
Yet, after Supreme Magician Strange assumed his position, there was a boom of infrastructure projects at Kamar-Taj. He first established the Kamar-Taj Magic Academy, followed by the Kamar-Taj Magic Research Institute, the Magic Experimental Zone, and the Magic High-tech Cooperation Zone.
Although the majority of building materials were transported through teleportation portals, there were still some sundries and living supplies that were traded with the congenial residents of Shangri-La.
After the Kamar-Taj Magic Academy was established, it took in students from around the world. The needs of these students were extremely varied.
The students from America needed party supplies for their gatherings, those from Nepal required Buddhist ritual items for their devotions, the Chinese students were constantly experimenting with cooking in their dorms and needed countless ingredients and spices, and even the students from India were searching everywhere for spices.
It was an unavoidable situation; Kamar-Taj indeed had a great environment that was thoroughly primal, where the quality of ingredients was decent. But a bunch of kids raised in modern families, spoiled with no internet connection, were full of energy with nowhere to vent, causing the Grand Mages much distress.
To release their energy, Strange had no choice but to follow the example of regular schools by granting them holidays based on the festive calendar.
The problem was that the Himalayan Mountains were far too distant from their homelands. Even the nearby villages of Nepal were troublesome enough to visit, and Strange could not simply arrange a teleportation door for each person to go home. Thus, the students still stayed near the Himalayas.
Keeping them confined to the school wouldn't serve the purpose of releasing their energy and reducing stress, naturally leaving them to venture into the villages. It's only fair to say that Kamar-Taj had its own Hogsmeade.
But Shangri-La simply couldn't supply what the students wanted. They were there to relax, not to farm. Consequently, the Sherpa town became their first choice.
Although it was indeed a bit far from the school, it was still at the foot of the Himalayas. Except for the younger students who couldn't perform the Teleportation magic, most preferred to travel farther to enjoy themselves in the Sherpa town.
This place was a completely different world compared to Kamar-Taj, with cafés, internet cafes, love hotels, and they could even join travel groups on the Sichuan-Tibet route—it was the best place for the students to spend and have fun.
A few years after the popularization of the sky transportation routes, this small town became one of the endpoints of the Sichuan-Tibet Sky Train transportation line. Sky trains started running here one and a half years ago, and despite needing to make a few stops, it took only two and a half hours to reach Chengdu.
Thus, during long vacations, the students preferred to queue for the sky train to the big cities for leisure, while during shorter holidays, they would stay in town to collect packages, invite a few friends to the internet cafe for a few rounds, or while away the time at a café.
Many of the town's residents recognized these students. They thought the students were studying at universities in Nepal, a tale that the students themselves propagated. They were young and willing to spend money on food and drink, becoming the main source of consumer spending during the off-season for tourism, and were very popular with the townspeople.
The students spent money for entertainment and the townspeople earned money; it should have been a win-win situation. But the people of Shangri-La played an awkward role in this, resembling an elder left behind by time.
These three villages couldn't provide the students modern amenities nor could they maintain self-sufficiency with their traditional bartering system as they used to. Life was becoming increasingly difficult.
About half a year ago, the head of one of the villages found his daughter who had married out and summoned the census worker who was visiting the Sherpa town to his own village.
The worker was young and unaware of the relationship between these towns and villages, merely assuming that there were fewer people living here and they had been overlooked in previous censuses, so he casually added these few hundred people to the count.
Now, the head of Tingri County, to which the town belonged, suddenly discovered that he had three extra villages within his administrative jurisdiction.
What caused his blood pressure to soar instantly was that these three villages had no access to water, no electricity, and not even a single road.
Strange was invited to the county government.
At the time, he was celebrating the festival with the residents of Shambhala, when a village chief quietly pulled him aside and covertly asked Strange to meet someone.
Strange didn't share the same approach as his teacher, The Ancient One; he never played mysterious and lacked that innate dignified aura, but the upside was that he could easily blend in with the villagers.
Strange didn't really want to go, because the village chief always tried to set him up with a girlfriend, and he thought the chief was tricking him into another matchmaking situation—a recurring annual event. Knowing that the people of the East place great importance on family and clan, and that they meant well, Strange always went through the motions to get it over with.
Today was no exception. Knowing the chief was likely happy about the festival and probably wanted to introduce him to some young woman, Strange didn't wish to argue and followed behind him as he walked outside.
Little did he know that the path led further and further away, and before he realized it, he had reached the foot of the Himalayan Mountains.
Then came the expected tribunal.
The issue with the residents of Shambhala wasn't so simple; they weren't just a generation unaccounted for—they had been off the records for five to six hundred years.
These few hundred people seemed to have just popped out of thin air; there was no mention of this branch in any historical records.
It might have been plausible during the early days of the nation, when roads and satellite technology were underdeveloped, for some remote mountain villages to be overlooked.
But what time was it now? It was already the 21st century, with Beidou satellites shining clearly above; there were simply no such three villages on the Himalayas. What was going on?
The county magistrate couldn't figure it out, so he reported it to the city mayor, who, in turn, couldn't figure it out and reported it to the governor of the autonomous region. After being reported up the chain of command, they finally found someone who knew that it had to be something to do with Kamar-Taj.
Strange thought they were under the impression that Kamar-Taj was holding these people captive, so he quickly began to explain, but after a long, convoluted conversation, he found out that they didn't care who these people were or their history, but rather what they were doing now.
Strange was still very confident; Kamar-Taj had never mistreated the three villages below. Their farmland was enchanted, the crops grew in succession without the need for human care, the scenery was beautiful, resources were abundant, and they were free from disease and disaster; this was a paradise many sought after.
However, he was rendered speechless by a question from the county magistrate—It's the 21st century, don't you use the internet?
Strange wanted to say he also wanted to use the internet, but there was no signal; what could he do? He couldn't just ask Stark to throw a satellite into the sky for his personal use, could he?
With the village chief's translation, Strange finally understood that they were referring to the outside villages that had modernized, while inside they were still practicing a small-scale subsistence economy. You say you're managing, but you don't even have a clear picture, always lacking here and short on there; what kind of life is this?
Strange had no choice but to look at the village chief, who also felt a bit embarrassed, since sneaking around to find outsiders behind the back of the Supreme Magician was indeed not very honorable, but they really couldn't continue living like this.
The biggest problem with Shambhala was its isolation; but it wasn't completely isolated. In order to marry outsiders, they accepted foreigners, and even quite a few girls actively went out to choose men, returned to the village pregnant, and sometimes brought their men back with them.
These people had seen the outside world, knew what modern society was like, and how even the lowest tier of common people lived.
Farmers toil under the midday sun, sweat dripping onto the soil; while many in modern society complain about their tiresome work and wish to return home to farm, those who have actually farmed know how grueling it is. Traditional agriculture is the least rewarding industry, with a year of hard work barely amounting to half a year's wage in the city.
Shambhala was the same; their farming was not tiring, since the fields were magically enhanced, crop yield was not a worry, there were no natural disasters, and the weather was always pleasant. If they couldn't handle the excess grain, mages were there to help.
But farming always involved the most basic labor; they couldn't say they'd have food without tilling the land or watering the fields, and they had to tend to these matters all year round, with not much else to do.
If it had always been like this, it might have been fine, but who would want to return to the hardships of an outdated agricultural economy after experiencing the benefits of modern society?
The village's only entertainment was singing and dancing, and daily life was just eating, sleeping, and having children. With no survival pressure, they didn't even care about education; as long as a child could grow up and farm, that was enough.
This generation's village chief's father was an American explorer from the last century, so he spoke Mandarin, Tibetan, and English. He had long yearned for the developed American society he heard about from his father and had always wanted to go see it.
The new Supreme Magician was an American; he was said to be quite prestigious even in ordinary society. The village chief couldn't bear the thought of himself and his children living out their lives like this, but he also dared not outright quit in front of Strange.
After all, no Supreme Magician had ever treated them poorly, and he couldn't just enjoy the benefits without taking responsibility.
After much deliberation, the village chief decided to find a third party to help, and since his daughter had married into a town at the foot of the mountain, he thought of asking the mayor to intervene, to see if Strange would allow the villagers to go out and wander occasionally just like the students do.
The village chief's request was actually just to go out for travel, but the mayor and the county chief obviously would not think it was that simple.
Shambhala is the essential route to Kamar-Taj, and one must pass through these three villages to enter Kamar-Taj.
Kamar-Taj is actually within the boundaries of China, but in reality, it belongs to no country; it is a piece of the magic realm, an enclave that was established as per the treaty made when the Hong Kong Temple was built, with no need or possibility to go back on it.
However, it wasn't said that Shambhala also belongs to Kamar-Taj. Beyond the boundaries marked by Kamar-Taj, all the land is under Chinese sovereignty, so naturally, Shambhala is a Chinese village. Now that even the towns at the mountain base are connected by the Sky Train, it should also mean having actual control over Shambhala.
The county chief expressed his demands, and Strange hesitated a bit. Originally, The Ancient One included these three villages within the range of the magic protective shield to defend her hometown.
Back in ancient times, some might think that even in ancient times, it wasn't likely that anyone could reach the Himalayan Mountains, but don't forget, in Marvel's history, magic also plays a significant role.
Chinese ancient history was almost completely magically altered; during the chaotic times of several dynasties, the Chinese mainland was not only a battleground for the human race but also for all kinds of demons and ghosts. The Ancient One's village was remote, yet the mountains were rife with demons, and the villagers lived a life of extreme hardship.
If it weren't for her and her fellow villagers discovering the secrets of magic, the villagers would have been barely scraping by for survival. Thus, after establishing the Kamar-Taj Sanctum, named after her village, The Ancient One immediately enveloped her hometown within the protective shield.
But her purpose was protection, not imprisonment. The people of her generation knew how dangerous the outside world was, so they chose not to venture out.
The later generations mostly had no idea about the outside changes. They only felt that staying there was quite nice, so they stayed.
To be honest, Strange felt he had never stopped anyone from going out. Although the villagers didn't know magic, it wasn't impossible for them to leave if they wished to.
After the village chief and the county chief explained, Strange finally understood; it's the same old story—Easterners value family and clan, with a stronger sense of collective consciousness. If a village unanimously upholds a certain decree, then no one can defy it, and curiosity about the outside world isn't enough to permit someone to leave.
In other words, some villagers now wanted to leave, but they dared not, because leaving would mean never being able to return. If the outside world wasn't as good as said, they would have no fallback.
So, they were hoping for an external force to intervene, preferably an outsider initiative to break this isolation, to rid the village of a custom that had long been regarded as absolute, to let more people avoid succumbing to the internal pressure.
The village chief also shared his helplessness; the village was too small, incomparable with the vast outside world. Many of the younger generation who had heard about the outside from their parents clamored to go see for themselves. The village chief was at an impasse, torn whether to agree or not, stalled in a deadlock.
But a decision on the matter had to be made eventually—one way was for the various factions within the village to completely divide, those who wanted to stay stayed, and those who wanted to leave did so, or an invisible hand physically had to break the state of Shambhala's isolation from the world.
The division of the village was something Strange absolutely didn't want to see. Not to mention that if there were no village, where would the mages go to shop, but just his teacher, The Ancient One, could come back and punch him so hard he'd be embedded in a wall, impossible to dig out.
As a true modern man, Strange understood that the tide of modernization was nearly unstoppable, and the trump card of modernization wasn't a brighter light or cleaner water, but the speed of information flow.
Once people have tasted this speed of information, they can never go back to the slow pace of receiving it. Even he was the same; otherwise, he wouldn't have had apprentices turn all the magic tomes into e-books and then read through them at double speed.
Though often criticized, the fast pace of life isn't necessarily bad. Regularly residing in Kamar-Taj and feeling drowsy due to the endless daytime and nothing to do, Strange thought a life too slow-paced might not be a good thing either.
Finding himself back in the swift-paced New York after being in that state, Strange even felt his brain was struggling to keep up.
Yet, Strange had some reservations about building a road to Shambhala. He decided to first visit the town at the foot of the mountain and then determine whether or not to develop Shambhala.
Students from Kamar-Taj often went to the town and eagerly volunteered to guide Strange, so he set off with a few Grand Mages, and they had fun in the town at the mountain base for two days and nights.
Before leaving, Strange hadn't thought there was much to enjoy about a town. He himself came from a small town; how could he not know what it was like?
But the town at the foot of the mountain, inhabited by Sherpa people, wasn't quite what he expected. They lived a life that fused modernity with tradition.
It sounds contradictory, but it was indeed so. Each household had water, electricity, and the internet, yet they still lived in stone houses, had modern agriculture machines but still hand-threshed barley, had modern hotels but also many guesthouses converted from residential homes.
It was only after being taken around by students playing tour guides that Strange realized the reason behind it all. Simply put, the whole town was one giant Truman Show; almost everything was performed for the tourists to see.