Drex Valen appeared personally at the tritium reactor demonstration as the project's primary investor.
Since he already knew sothing was likely to go wrong, he deliberately avoided inviting reporters, investors, or outside observers.
Not that he'd found any obvious flaws during inspection.
But this was still the Marvel Universe.
By now, Drex had seen more than enough impossible nonsense to stop trusting logic completely.
Doctor Otto Octavius, anwhile, looked extrely confident.
He interpreted Drex's decision not to invite dia or scientific peers as simple caution.
Which, to Otto, was a good thing.
A cautious scientist was a competent scientist.
So he didn't hesitate to install the chanical arms ahead of schedule in order to personally demonstrate the experint for his employer.
Nearby, his wife watched him proudly.
"Boss," Otto said, visibly excited, "even with the palladium reactor and the Valen Elent reactor already existing, I still believe humanity enters a new era today."
His voice trembled slightly.
After all, he was presenting the culmination of his life's work to a genius centuries ahead of the modern scientific world.
Perhaps soday, his na would stand beside legends like Planck and Einstein in humanity's history books.
Then the experint began.
Using the reactor system, Otto initiated thermal excitation on the tritium fuel.
And sohow...
Fusion actually occurred.
Drex stared at the reaction in disbelief.
At this point, he was almost getting used to this universe ignoring physics entirely.
According to everything he knew about nuclear physics, helium-3 should've been the ideal fuel for practical fusion systems.
He'd always suspected the original writers had simply confused tritium and helium isotopes.
Two protons and one neutron.
Two neutrons and one proton.
Not exactly a minor difference.
At least helium-3 fusion had theoretical papers supporting it.
Tritium-only fusion like this?
That belonged entirely to Marvel logic.
Drex suppressed a violent urge to start criticizing the science out loud.
This was basically just a miniature sun shoved into a laboratory.
What part of this counted as "controlled"?
That much tritium undergoing fusion directly should've vaporized the building instantly.
And the radiation output alone should've killed everyone nearby.
Not to ntion the ridiculous solar flare effects erupting from sothing this small.
The temperature should've been catastrophic.
At that scale, standing this close should've roasted every person present alive through thermal radiation alone.
Even Otto's equations had made Drex want to tear his hair out when he first read them.
Yet none of that mattered.
Because sohow...
It worked.
Otto and the other researchers stared at the reaction with absolute excitent.
"Mr. Valen," Otto said proudly, "the experint was a complete success."
"...Yes," Drex replied slowly.
"It succeeded."
Emotionally, he felt like reality itself had punched him in the face.
Then his expression changed.
The gravitational and magnetic interactions inside the miniature solar reaction suddenly shifted.
Objects around the laboratory began trembling subtly.
Drex's eyes narrowed.
"Doctor Octavius," he said imdiately, "you need to leave. Now."
Otto hadn't even processed the warning before two War Machines grabbed him and forcibly dragged him away.
The chanical arms attached to his spine attempted to resist automatically.
Drex casually disrupted their magnetic systems mid-motion.
"What's happening?"
Otto's wife looked terrified.
"The experint's destabilizing," Drex answered while staring at the miniature sun.
By now, loose paper and lightweight objects throughout the laboratory were already drifting toward the reaction sphere.
Then heavier equipnt followed.
Everyone realized sothing was very wrong.
"It can still be saved!" Otto shouted desperately.
"No," Drex said calmly.
"The entire approach was flawed from the beginning."
After Otto and his wife were evacuated, Drex walked directly toward the unstable tritium reaction.
Toward the miniature sun itself.
"Solar energy..." he murmured.
Then he extended one hand into the reaction core.
The scene looked insane.
But between his bioelectric aura, magnetic field manipulation, and gravitational control, Drex's defensive capabilities had beco monstrously powerful.
Comic versions of Magneto could already survive inside nuclear blast zones using magnetic barriers.
Drex's control was even more terrifying.
Unfortunately...
The result disappointed him.
The fusion core lacked the specific stellar components Kryptonian biology truly needed.
The composition was close.
Very close.
But "almost" ant worthless.
One missing elent ruined everything.
Otto took the failure badly.
Completely badly.
By the ti Drex visited him in the hospital, the brilliant scientist looked spiritually crushed.
"Pull yourself together, Doctor," Drex said.
"At the very least, you proved one path doesn't work."
"That's how science advances. Failure after failure."
"Blade Technology Industries won't cut your funding. I want you to continue exploring other directions."
Otto lay silently on the hospital bed.
His eyes were dull.
But when he heard the funding would continue, a faint spark returned.
"I've already wasted so much of my life on this," Otto said quietly.
"Starting over now... I may not have the strength left."
"Your investnt could easily beco worthless."
He genuinely felt moved by Drex's continued support.
At the sa ti, he didn't want Drex carrying unnecessary risk.
Drex smiled slightly.
"Doctor, money beca aningless to a long ti ago."
"If humanity advances because of it, then it's worth spending."
Then he looked directly at Otto.
"And more importantly, I trust your ability."
"What? You don't trust yourself?"
Otto stared at him for several seconds.
Then his old pride finally reignited.
"In nuclear physics," Otto declared firmly, "I won't lose to anyone."
Drex nodded.
"I look forward to your next breakthrough."
The world itself was beginning to change because of Drex Valen's existence.
Especially in China.
Probably nobody else on Earth fully understood what was happening there.
Countless ultra-precision components that were either impossible or prohibitively expensive to manufacture chanically were now being completed entirely by hand.
Master craftsn equipped with new tools forged from secondary Kryptonian alloy had started breaking through their own physical limits.
One legendary technician nicknad "Two Threads" had reportedly begun approaching near-zero manufacturing tolerance.
Elsewhere, replacent cutting components forged from secondary Kryptonian alloy reduced precision deviation across critical systems by multiple levels.
And every microscopic reduction in deviation translated into kiloters of improved accuracy after launch.
Reducing error margins ant reducing wasted correction ti.
Strategically, the value was enormous.
As research into secondary Kryptonian alloy deepened, more and more advanced industries began integrating it into production systems.
The results were explosive.
Over a dozen major aerospace projects accelerated dramatically, so saving at least six months of developnt ti.
Nurous research institutes previously stalled by material limitations resud experints that had been frozen for years.
And deep inside a classified research facility...
Engineers finally succeeded in constructing a prototype engine that had sat abandoned in storage for decades because its design had simply been too advanced for existing manufacturing capabilities.
Until now.
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