Marvel's Kryptonian Scientist Chapter 202 202

It wasn't that Drex Valen intentionally made things overly complicated. This was simply the curse of every scientist who moved too fast for their own good.

The mont one project succeeded, another possibility appeared on the horizon. Curiosity devoured focus. New discoveries buried old ones before they had ti to mature. Combined with Drex's absurd research speed, it made the Burning Legion's arsenal look almost ridiculous in scope.

Very few people in the universe could keep up with that pace.

Even Tony Stark probably couldn't.

Otherwise, the Iron Man armor line wouldn't have plateaued at nanotech so long ago.

Still, diversification had its advantages. The broader your power base beca, the harder it was for enemies to exploit a single weakness.

The Dark Elves had learned that lesson the hard way.

Back when they terrorized the Nine Realms, they'd dominated through the Aether. Fragnts of the Reality Stone had allowed them to mass-produce Kursed warriors, monsters powerful enough to overwhelm even Asgardian forces.

Then Thor's grandfather discovered the flaw.

The source of everything was the Aether itself.

Asgard launched a surprise assault on Svartalfheim, seized the Aether, and attempted to destroy it. When that proved impossible, they sealed it away instead.

Without the Aether, the Dark Elves lost the ability to create Kursed soldiers.

Their empire collapsed almost overnight.

That history fascinated Drex.

If the Reality Stone could create sothing like the Kursed, what about the other Infinity Stones?

The Power Stone seed like the most obvious candidate.

It practically advertised its purpose in the na alone.

The Kursed possessed strength several tis greater than Thor's. Without that black hole grenade ending the fight, Thor likely would've died there.

Which ant the Infinity Stones still held enormous untapped potential.

Recently, the Burning Legion's rcenary forces had beco surprisingly famous across nearby sectors.

Mostly because they accepted almost any contract.

Piracy suppression. Monster extermination. Escort missions. Corporate warfare. Black ops. Retrieval jobs.

And they completed those missions with terrifying efficiency.

The result was a flood of wealth large enough for the Burning Legion to purchase an entire planet.

A massive world over four tis Earth's size, accompanied by three moons.

One of those moons was nearly Earth-sized itself. Half its surface lay buried beneath endless white glaciers, but it still qualified as a habitable world.

The other two moons were smaller, sowhere between Earth and Luna in scale. Both were barren wastelands, stripped clean by stellar radiation. Their gravity was too weak to retain atmosphere or liquid water.

The nearby star resembled an enlarged version of Earth's sun. Its imnse size, combined with the planet's orbital distance, created a narrow but stable balance.

Temperatures ranged from negative fifty to positive fifty degrees Celsius.

Extre for humans.

Completely irrelevant for Kryptonians.

The mont he obtained a planet of his own, Drex lost most of his attachnt to Earth.

Aside from much of the Burning Legion's lower infrastructure remaining behind, the organization's core forces had already relocated to the new world.

Drex nad it:

Imperium.

The planet wasn't entirely uninhabited.

There were native lifeforms roaming the wilderness, gigantic reptilian creatures resembling prehistoric dinosaurs.

But that wasn't really a problem.

To the Burning Legion, they were little more than dangerous livestock.

Drex stood atop a stretch of rocky badlands.

The terrain only lasted a few hundred ters before giving way to an endless primordial forest. Ahead, a cliff dropped dozens of ters straight into a dark blue ocean.

The atmosphere here was remarkably close to Earth's composition.

The oxygen concentration, however, was more than double.

Perfect.

Future experints would beco significantly easier.

"How are the mineral surveys progressing?" Drex asked.

The scouting drones were all connected directly to Black Queen.

"Extrely rich," Black Queen replied calmly. "Surface analysis alone has identified every major mineral category known on Earth. Subterranean scans are ongoing."

A secondary instance of Black Queen remained on Earth, while the primary core had accompanied the Legion to Imperium.

A few monts later, another report arrived.

This ti, even Drex raised an eyebrow.

"Possible vibranium and proto-adamantium deposits?"

That was unexpected.

Not that he lacked those materials himself. His matter manipulation already operated on the subatomic level. If he wanted vibranium or adamantium, he could simply manufacture them.

Still, finding them naturally buried beneath a newly purchased planet felt like winning a cosmic lottery ticket.

"The deposits are located over one thousand ters underground," Black Queen explained. "Preliminary analysis suggests teorite impact remains buried beneath tectonic layers. If the previous owner knew this existed, they probably regret selling the planet already."

"How large?"

"Massive. Conservative estimates place the vibranium teorite at a size comparable to Wakanda's."

A brief pause.

"Possibly larger. We've also identified significant quantities of the mineral required for synthesizing adamantium."

Black Queen continued processing survey data while speaking.

"I'll take a look myself."

Drex's heat vision and x-ray vision pierced through the crust of the planet.

The mont he identified the molecular structure, he understood the scale imdiately.

It dwarfed Wakanda's teorite.

At minimum, it was more than twice the size.

Mining sothing on that scale through conventional thods would take ages.

And vibranium was effectively renewable.

The tal continuously absorbed and redistributed energy. In practical terms, it was almost impossible to exhaust completely.

Drex transmitted a structural scan to Black Queen, who instantly completed a full geological model.

The proto-adamantium deposits were far smaller by comparison, but still extrely valuable.

After all, adamantium vastly surpassed vibranium in hardness.

The problem was impact transfer.

Vibranium excelled as armor because it absorbed kinetic force. Adamantium didn't.

An adamantium breastplate might survive virtually any attack in existence.

The person wearing it, however, would likely die from the shockwave liquefying their organs inside the armor.

Vibranium's energy absorption made it uniquely suited for defense. Even thin vibranium fiber could withstand blows from the Hulk for that exact reason.

By comparison, the primitive Kryptonian tal Drex had synthesized back in the DC universe still fell short in one area.

It possessed extraordinary resistance to damage and could absorb energy to repair itself, but its force dampening properties weren't as perfect as vibranium's.

Drex inhaled the crisp air slowly.

The sunlight here felt stable.

He'd spent an entire day beneath Imperium's star without experiencing any further mutations.

Good.

At this point, even he wasn't entirely sure what kind of Superman he would eventually beco if the transformations kept escalating forever.

"The forests cover an absurd amount of territory," Drex said while staring at the endless green horizon. "Make fire prevention a priority. I'm not interested in watching a wildfire burn for ten thousand years."

"I've already begun implenting counterasures," Black Queen replied.

Silence returned afterward.

Drex stood at the cliffside, overlooking the ocean.

Although water only covered roughly a third of Imperium's surface, the seas appeared far deeper than Earth's.

Sothing enormous moved beneath the dark waves.

Ancient.

Predatory.

Waiting.