Noah didn't bother pretending anymore.
He was in an exceptionally good mood.
He'd expected this trip to go smoothly. But even so, the sheer lack of trouble still caught him off guard.
Thinking back, every time he obtained an Infinity Stone, it had been a mess.
The Space Stone took him seventeen or eighteen years to acquire-legally. The Time Stone had been easier by comparison, but only after years of effort and the Ancient One's approval. The Mind Stone was relatively simple, yet still involved a battle that sank all of Manhattan Island.
Compared to all that?
The Power Stone was absurdly easy.
Thor invited him out. He happened to run into Peter Quill. And by sheer coincidence, Quill hadn't even started the mission yet.
At this point, all the "easy" Infinity Stones in the universe were basically in Noah's hands.
The Soul Stone was powerful, and its effects were practical, but it required a sacrifice.
That was a line Noah wasn't willing to cross.
"Honestly," Peter said after staring at the Orb for a long time, "this thing doesn't seem as dangerous as you said."
He'd already been fiddling with it.
At first, Peter had been scared. But after watching Noah casually play with it for so long, completely unconcerned, curiosity got the better of him. He picked it up, turned it around, and found that it felt harmless.
"Of course it doesn't," Noah said, spreading his hands. "It's locked."
"You can think of the Orb as a password box. It seals the Infinity Stone inside to prevent direct access."
"To open it, you either need the correct password or a specialized decryption device."
It was the same principle as the Tesseract. Both were shells.
The difference was that the Power Stone was sealed much more thoroughly. Its power was too unstable. Noah even suspected it had developed some form of consciousness, like the Soul Stone.
Otherwise, how would it judge whether someone was qualified to use it?
Or maybe it was just picky.
"So," Wong asked, holding the Orb, "you're planning to find this device?"
"Why bother?" Noah said. "There are plenty of ways to open it."
"You could even do it yourself."
"...What?" Wong froze.
"For example," Noah continued calmly, "just use spatial magic and extract the gem directly."
Wong went silent.
After a moment, he realized that was absolutely possible.
He immediately handed the Orb back, afraid that if he kept holding it, curiosity might get the better of him.
"Then what's the plan?" Thor finally asked. "And are you certain which Infinity Stone this is?"
"I'm not," Noah shrugged. "But we'll know soon enough."
They didn't wait long.
After the Milano left Morag and put some distance behind them, Peter stopped the ship on a planet completely unsuitable for life.
Storms raged nonstop. The environment was catastrophic.
Everyone put on protective suits and stepped out.
Noah casually erected a defensive barrier. The storm became irrelevant.
The Orb rested in Noah's hand.
Originally, he'd planned to simply extract the Power Stone with spatial magic.
Now, he changed his mind.
He wanted to test this container.
Just by looking at it, he couldn't tell what it was made of. But something designed to seal an Infinity Stone clearly wasn't ordinary metal.
Or perhaps the material itself suppressed Infinity Stone energy.
Golden magical energy flowed into the Orb.
Noah paused.
"...Huh?"
The shell itself was surprisingly ordinary. Just slightly tougher than most metals.
The real problem was inside.
The interior was covered in dense, incomprehensible runes-high-level suppression arrays specifically targeting the Power Stone.
They were extremely powerful.
What surprised Noah wasn't the runes.
It was the metal.
He could twist it apart effortlessly.
"No wonder there were imitation Orbs," Noah muttered. "They probably didn't have these runes."
He studied them closely.
They were far beyond his understanding.
"No wonder it could lock the Power Stone. But who made this?"
He didn't linger on the question.
Instead, he had the system record every rune, every connection, every trajectory.
Who made them didn't matter.
What mattered was their value.
As for why the Collector's device could open it?
That was obvious.
The rune structure had deliberate gaps.
It was designed to be opened someday.
"This is interesting," Noah said quietly.
Once the data was recorded, he filled the gaps with his own magic.
He might not be able to brute-force it like specialized equipment, but understanding the essence allowed him to bypass the mechanism entirely.
The runes began to glow.
The Orb moved on its own.
Layers separated. Components unfolded with mechanical precision.
In moments, the shell disassembled completely.
A purple gem hovered in the air.
The moment it appeared, immense power erupted outward-not destructive, but overwhelming.
It wasn't attacking.
It was declaring itself.
The Power Stone.
Wild. Violent. Like a beast ready to explode.
"Wow," Thor said, staring. "I think I know what this is."
He looked... pleased.
"Looks like our luck's good," Noah nodded. Even knowing what it was, he still felt its pressure.
"This is the Power Stone?" Peter and Wong leaned in, then quickly backed away.
"Damn it. This thing feels oppressive."
"That's normal," Noah said. "Its true danger is beyond imagination."
"At least," he added, "it's perfect for certain natural-born warriors."
At the same time, the system began extracting its energy.
Noah hadn't forgotten his long-term plan.
Four stones done.
Two remained.
The Mind Stone wasn't urgent. It was on Earth.
The Soul Stone... would have to wait.
Probably another two years. At least until the Ancient One completed her divine transformation.
"Alright," Noah said, clearing his thoughts. He looked at Thor. "Try it."
"This is yours."
Thor scratched the back of his head. "I just came out to hang out with you. Didn't expect something like this."
"Enough," Noah waved him off. "We're in this together."
"I'm the future Sorcerer Supreme."
"And you're the future King of Asgard."
"Of course," Thor grinned. "So... how do I use it?"
"Use it?" Noah scoffed.
The world shattered like glass.
Wong and Peter vanished.
They were dragged into the Mirror Dimension.
Thor was left alone.
Peter didn't even have time to ask what happened.
Thor understood immediately.
He took a deep breath.
Then grabbed the Power Stone.
Instantly-
Unimaginable power exploded outward.
Even from the Mirror Dimension, they felt it.
A vortex formed. More terrifying than the planet's storms.
The force was tearing reality apart.
"Holy hell!" Peter shouted. "This thing is insane!"
"It's fine," Noah said calmly.
"This is the tame version."
"That stone can destroy a planet."
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