The next day, just as the sun peeked over the horizon, the air still carried the cool dampness of morning dew.
Levi called Carol to the open space behind the house. Maria and Monica didn't come out; they watched from afar through the kitchen window.
"Your problem isn't a lack of power," Levi said bluntly, his tone devoid of warmth. "It's that your mind is a mess. Your joy, anger, sorrow—everything is wired straight to the energy switch. Get happy and it spills out. Get angry and it goes berserk. That's not controlling power—that's being turned into a puppet by it."
Carol frowned, lips pressed into a thin line, saying nothing. She knew he was right. These past few days, whenever she got even slightly emotional, the lights in the house would flicker and the TV would fill with static, like her body had become a massive electromagnetic jammer.
"Watch closely."
Levi raised his right index finger.
A speck of golden light appeared at the fingertip.
It was tiny—smaller than a firefly—but terrifyingly stable. It hovered half an inch in front of his finger, unmoving, unblinking, like a miniature sun embedded in transparent amber.
Carol held her breath.
Then the speck of light began to move.
It stretched, forming a perfect square less than a centimeter across, every corner razor-sharp as if measured with a ruler. The edges then melted smoothly, transitioning into a flawless sphere with a mirror-like surface. Finally, the sphere flattened and extended, becoming a tiny butterfly with wings spread wide.
The golden patterns on its wings were clearly visible in the morning light—down to the fine veins.
The entire process was eerily silent. No excess energy leaked out. No glow diffused. The surrounding air didn't even ripple.
Carol stared, eyes wide. She could release energy too—but hers was like a flash flood, roaring out in vast torrents that even she feared. Levi's energy, by contrast, was like a scalpel in the hands of a surgeon—precise, cold, and outrageously stable.
"Your energy is a barrel of gasoline," Levi said, lowering his finger. The golden butterfly vanished soundlessly, leaving not even a mote of light behind.
"You just dump the whole thing out and set it on fire. Mine is gasoline inside an engine. I want it fast, it's fast. I want it slow, it's slow. The difference is this—you drive with emotions. I drive with my brain."
He tapped his temple.
"Willpower," Levi said. "You need to learn to command it with your will, not be dragged along by its instincts. Forget combat techniques. Forget the garbage the Kree taught you. From now on, learn to feel it—and then order it."
"How?" Carol asked hoarsely.
"Start by calming down." Levi pointed at the back of her neck.
"That suppressor is like a half-closed valve. It limits your flow and distorts your perception. But it also gives you a chance—to learn how to control the valve before the water really starts roaring."
Over the next few days, Levi taught no techniques and explained no theory.
He simply had Carol sit cross-legged on the grass, eyes closed, feeling the golden river of energy flowing within her.
On the first day, she couldn't calm down at all.
The moment she closed her eyes, she saw Hala's cities, Yon-Rogg's fake smile, the six years of her stolen life. Anger, betrayal, confusion—like boiling water churning inside her mind. Her energy surged wildly, crashing through her body and splitting her head with pain. Several times, she nearly lost control and set the house on fire.
"Anger and hatred are part of power," Levi's voice came coldly from a few meters away, precise as an ice-cold probe piercing her thoughts.
"Don't suppress them. Don't indulge them either. Just watch them—like a dog snarling at your feet. You know it's there, but it can't bite you unless you let it."
Levi had his own eyes closed as well. His newly acquired Willpower Barrier had turned his inner world into an impregnable fortress. He could project his will outward, forming a thin, invisible buffer around Carol's consciousness. He didn't interfere—he simply filtered out the most violent emotional noise, giving her a relatively quiet space to look inward.
Carol, of course, didn't know this. She only felt that, under Levi's cold guidance, the boiling water in her head wasn't quite as scalding anymore.
She began trying not to fight the anger, but to observe it—watching it churn and roar, then slowly subside.
It was incredibly hard. Like watching someone else go mad inside your own mind.
But gradually, she found the rhythm.
On the fourth day, she managed to decouple her emotions from her energy fluctuations for a full minute.
On the seventh day, she successfully held a thin strand of golden light at her fingertip for three seconds. It still trembled like a candle in the wind—but it didn't explode out of control.
"It's time," Levi said, nodding at last.
He took Carol to a much more open wasteland, several kilometers away from Maria's house. There was nothing there but sand and sparse shrubs.
"That suppressor," Levi said, "you remove it yourself."
"Myself?" Carol froze. "I don't know how—"
"Use your energy," Levi cut in.
"It's connected to your central nervous system. Rip it out with brute force and you'll probably be paralyzed. You need to use your energy like the finest surgical blade and sever each connection one by one. This is your final exam. Fail—and you'll spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair."
There was no encouragement in his words. Only cold reality.
Carol took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
She could clearly see the cold metal plate, like a mechanical leech bloated with blood, embedded deep within her body. Countless energy filaments thinner than spider silk extended from it, wrapping around her spinal nerves like roots—draining her power while feeding false signals into her brain.
She mobilized her energy with extreme care, compressing it into a needle thinner than a strand of hair.
Sweat seeped from her brow, quickly soaking her golden hair.
This was an incredibly delicate operation. A slight deviation could sever vital nerves. A little too much output could incinerate living tissue.
Time ticked by, second by second.
Levi stood dozens of meters away, hands in his pockets, watching calmly. He did nothing—except weave an invisible safety net with a one-kilometer radius using pure willpower. He could feel the vast energy building inside Carol, like a volcano on the brink of eruption. His job was simple: if it blew, the lava wouldn't reach anywhere else.
Finally, amid agony that felt like her mind was being torn apart, Carol's eyes snapped open.
Beneath the skin of her neck, the metal plate emitted a final, faint click.
All connections—severed.
Silence fell.
One second of absolute stillness.
Then—
BOOM—!
Like a cosmic singularity detonating at the birth of the universe.
An unimaginable amount of energy, suppressed for six long years, erupted from Carol's body!
No longer a gentle golden glow—it became a pure, destructive pillar of white light blasting straight into the sky, like a sword of creation tearing through the clouds and leaving a massive black void in the blue heavens, its edges still burning with golden flames.
A raging energy storm exploded outward from her, stripping layer after layer from the ground. Grass, soil, rock—all vaporized on contact, leaving behind an ever-expanding, glassy circular crater.
"Ah—!"
Carol collapsed to her knees, clutching her head and screaming in agony.
It was too much.
Far too much.
She felt like an overinflated balloon about to burst, every cell stretched and torn apart by endless energy. Sound vanished. Vision vanished. Her senses were replaced by a pure torrent of power. She saw the universe—birth and death of stars, the flow of time, countless parallel versions of herself.
Eons of information flooded her mind in an instant, threatening to shatter her consciousness entirely.
She was afraid.
For the first time, she felt genuine fear toward the power inside her.
She feared becoming a monster—an unthinking mass of destruction.
"Ah—!"
She screamed uncontrollably as gold-white energy surged outward like a tidal wave.
At that moment, Levi moved.
He crossed dozens of meters in a single step, appearing before her. Within the apocalyptic storm, he walked as if through a gentle breeze. The raging energy parted automatically within a meter of his body, forming an absolute vacuum.
He placed a hand on Carol's head.
"Look at me."
His voice wasn't loud, but it struck her chaotic sea of consciousness like thunder echoing across time.
Carol struggled to lift her head and met his eyes.
What kind of eyes were they? Calm. Profound. Like a star-filled night sky. In them, she saw her fear, her anger, her confusion—but all of it was nothing more than dust drifting through the cosmos.
"The essence of power is neither creation nor destruction," Levi said, his voice carrying unquestionable authority straight into her soul.
"It simply is. You fear it because you still think of yourself as a weak human. You hate the Kree because you're still looking at yourself through the lens of the past."
"Forget the soldier named Vers. Forget the pilot named Carol."
"From this moment on, you are you—a lifeform that wields the power of a star."
"Now stand up. Embrace it. Command it. Let it know who the master is."
Those words were the final key.
The last shackle in Carol's heart shattered.
Yes.
The past didn't matter anymore.
What mattered was now—and the future.
She slowly stood up from the glass-like ground, letting the immense power surge through her as if riding a wild, untamed steed. She no longer resisted. No longer feared it. She spread her arms, as if embracing a long-lost friend.
The fear and confusion in her eyes faded, replaced by unshakable resolve and confidence.
The pillar of light receded. The raging storm calmed. The gold-white glow softened and drew inward, settling around her like a magnificent mantle woven of starlight.
She rose into the air, feet leaving the ground, hovering effortlessly.
In this moment, she was no longer a Kree weapon.
No longer a pilot of Earth.
She was Captain Marvel.
Levi stood below, looking up at the radiant figure, and nodded in satisfaction.
Being a mentor wasn't easy—but watching your "work" finally take shape felt pretty damn good.
…
That night.
Carol had already gained basic control over her new power and was excitedly showing Monica various light tricks in the backyard—shaping glowing ponies out of light, or making her hair blaze like a Super Saiyan's—while Monica watched in open awe.
Levi, meanwhile, sat inside the house and turned on the computer he'd spent a good chunk of money buying.
The screen displayed Yahoo's finance page.
He logged into his brokerage account with practiced ease. Looking at the funds—now multiplied dozens of times into a seven-figure sum—his expression remained flat.
To him, this was just the beginning.
He created a new document and typed a single line:
"Future Investment Memorandum."
Below it, he listed a string of companies destined to dominate the next twenty years—along with their critical breakout points.
Doggo — search engine and advertising giant; buy aggressively after the dot-com crash.
Apple — the smartphone revolution; wait for the release of the iPod and iPhone.
Tesla — the future of electric vehicles and new energy; requires long-term布局.
…
As he typed, part of his mind sank into the system.
With Shapeshift Mimicry, he could register countless clean identities across the globe and build layered financial firewalls.
With Willpower Barrier, his mind remained perfectly calm and hyper-efficient even while handling absurdly complex financial operations and data streams.
And his memories—twenty-plus years ahead of this era—were his greatest, irreplaceable cheat.
A vast global business empire, spanning continents and reaching into every cutting-edge tech field, was quietly taking shape in his mind with its very first stroke.
This world needed heroes to save it.
And he—
He was preparing to buy the world.
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