Before anyone realized it, a month had gone by. While the completion of the radar and the subsequent revelation that so many of Alex's Infinity Stones had been stolen from under his nose was alarming to say the least, he didn't let it affect his time with Gwen. Having her worry about something like this would be pointless. If anything, it would distract her from her research, which was far more vital for Alex.
Unfortunately, Gwen had been mad at him for the past few days because of his decision to postpone making their bond deeper. She didn't care too much at first, but somehow, she found out that the real reason for the delay was that he'd prioritized forming the skin bond with Susan, which led to her giving him the silent treatment for two days.
He didn't have any real problems with her tantrum. If anything, he enjoyed coaxing her.
With the short vacation over, Alex was once again in his office, with Gwen on his lap, though with a visibly resistant expression. Her cheeks were puffed up as she looked away, refusing to rest her head on his shoulder. Contrastingly, she seemed to have no intention of moving away from her position either and was comfortably leaning her torso against his chest.
Sitting across the table were Reed and Ben, both of whom tacitly refrained from commenting on what seemed like personal matters between Alex and Gwen. Ben was now sitting on a normal chair, having reverted back to his human self, without any trace of rocky mineral deposit on his skin.
"I've been preluding to our next research direction for a while without letting you in on its contents," he said. "It's something that Gwen has been working on with me behind the scenes for a while, but frankly, we haven't had any progress. I'm hoping Reed might be able to give us a fresh perspective on how to tackle the issue."
"What exactly is it?" Reed asked. "Isolating a single frequency of gamma radiation was complicated enough. What challenge do you have for me now?"
The man's words revealed a hint of pride and newfound confidence that had been lacking ever since he'd arrived on his planet.
"You seem like a new man, Reed," Alex said with a smile, shifting the topic. "Went on a journey of spiritual discovery, did you?"
"Do you even need to ask?" Reed asked, a hint of frustration crossing his eyes. "What kind of a monster of an artificial intelligence is Gaia? Even something as basic as spoofing my location was impossible. I had to leave the bracelet home…"
"I was still tracking you," Alex said. "After all, other people still wear the bracelets."
"Getting back on the topic…" Reed sighed in defeat before even bringing up his privacy concerns. He was well aware exactly how much of a tyrant the man in front of him was. He hadn't grown complacent after seeing the casual and approachable demeanor that Alex showed. He and Ben had firsthand seen both the unquestionable strength that Apex possessed, along with the man's utter disregard for life when they had first arrived on this planet. That event had left a psychological shadow on both men.
Of course, that was something Alex had deliberately arranged, going so far as to use a targeted yet extremely subtle hypnosis method that he'd acquired after devouring Doctor Faustus during the major battle against Captain Hydra. After all, Reed was far too capable, and far too dangerous for him to simply let the man loose in what he believed to be his playground. Though that was before he knew that this playground of his was already compromised.
"What is the project?" Reed finished his words with an inquisitive expression.
"We have been working on a way to generate Cosmic Energy," Alex said, continuing before Reed could speak. "I'm talking about the purest form of Cosmic Energy. The Cosmic Cloud was merely a derivative of real cosmic energy. To put it into perspective, your cosmic cloud was likely nothing more than an energy-infused breath that was released by a Celestial. Crassly, it was more likely that it was the result of a Celestial's equivalent of a fart."
"Ugh…" Gwen grunted at him, glancing with a disgruntled expression before regaining her cold, pouty expression and looking away.
"That's an…image," Reed said. "Do you mind telling me what a Celestial is?"
"A god," Alex said bluntly. "Not the spiritual, pray to them kind of god, but the kind that creates life itself. They are the ones who seed barren, unlivable planets with life, gradually terraforming them over millions of years. They are some of the closest entities in the universe to actual gods. And the Cosmic Energy that I'm talking about is their power exclusively."
"That is…a frightening goal, Apex," Reed frowned. "Do you wish to become God?"
"As fun as creating life sounds, my immediate goal is to preserve my own," Alex said with a scoff. "The sheer might of the entities at play here is far bigger than you can even imagine right now. I need power to protect those I care about. And that care extends to these planets under my command and their inhabitants. Am I clear?"
"Crystal," Reed nodded. "Do we have a direction to follow? How do these entities generate this Cosmic Energy in the first place?"
"Emotions," Alex said. "Or at least that's the working theory. The larger the population of the universe and the more emotional those living beings, the greater the Cosmic Energy that the Celestials command."
"Emotions?"
"For you to understand that, you need to first learn about the incubation of a new Celestial," Alex said. "Their birth involves inseminating an egg at the core of a life-bearing planet. Millions of years later, the infant Celestial, after gaining a sufficient amount of Cosmic Energy, bursts through the planet's core, destroying it in the process."
"Are you sure these so-called gods are creators and not destroyers?" Ben said with a skeptical expression that Reed shared.
"That newborn Celestial will go on to bring life to countless barren planets in the future," Alex said. "This process is as natural as the death of a star after millions of years. It's a part of nature itself."
Reed quickly calmed himself down and posed a question. "Do you want to stimulate the birth of a Celestial and collect this Cosmic Energy?"
"That's the rough idea at least, but not exactly," Alex said. "The main issue is that this goes even beyond the basic metaphysical stuff. There is no special frequency released by living beings that comes remotely close to meeting our requirements. Looking into emotions is our current working theory, but we haven't had any success yet. That is also where this comes into play."
Alex brought out a basketball-sized sphere that had a perfectly even red color on it, unmarred by the effects of any light that struck it. No matter the angle or the shadow cast at it, the red color stayed the same, without any reflection despite looking like a glossy glass ball.
"This is the core of a destroyed super dimension," Alex said. "This will be the core of our Cosmic Energy generation system. I will share the documentation with you so that you can get up to speed on how much we know about it."
"Can this replace a Celestial's method of absorbing raw energy from emotions?" Reed asked, extending his hand toward the core. "May I?"
"By all means," Alex said, letting the man hold the sphere. "And it can achieve that, but in a limited fashion. This core only works for those that are tagged to it, i.e., the inhabitants of a dimension. Now that it is in the main material plane, this is no better than an indestructible red ball. Getting this to work is our first hurdle. Then, we need to upgrade Gaia bracelets to serve as a medium for collecting Cosmic Energy and preferably refine whatever is generated before it is collected by the core. Because if it is actually dependent on emotions, then the Cosmic Energy we collect will essentially be the same as a poison. Anyone who harnesses it will be poisoned by everyone's emotions."
"But it must be the same for Celestials then…" Reed said.
"Over an incubation period that lasts millions of years, these whispers become nothing more than a fleeting thought for the Celestial. Don't try to apply common sense to them. It's meaningless."
"I see…" he said. "This is quite a bit of order…"
"We'll all be working together for it. Don't you worry."
…
As work on Alex's Celestial energy project started, he collected the Time Stone fragment from Hydra Earth, bringing his Time Authority up to 5%. With that, his first thought was to enhance the time dilation aspect of the Gaia cluster, bringing it from one year a day to two years a day.
While it would increase his consistent Bioenergy cost, the gain would be far greater since this increased factor included the farm. That meant his Bioenergy production would essentially double from now on, giving him over a hundred thousand units every day even after factoring in the increased cost.
Without further ado, he enhanced the Time Dilation factor. Not only would this increase his Bioenergy generation, but it would also significantly bring up the timeline of his Cosmic Energy project. Of course, not a single occupant of the planets realized that this change happened. Susan was the only one who might be able to identify the change, but she would need an outside view of the planets from space, which wasn't happening for a while.
…
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/addyctive