Chapter Three: London, the Reality Gem!

Arriving in New York through the temple portal, Haoyun bid farewell to the temple guardian and took out his phone to call Tony.

“Uncle Tony…”

“Haoyun? You’re back!” Tony’s voice brimmed with excitement on the other end. They all knew the developing Marvel storyline—the Dark Elves aiming to destroy the Nine Realms, a villain far beyond their current abilities to handle. Even with Tony’s nanotech armor, repeatedly upgraded, he could not hope to match the warships of the Dark Elves, formidable adversaries in the universe.

“Uncle Tony, where are you? Is my mom there too? Send me your location, I’ll come right away.”

“Alright, use Skybreaker directly. I’ll have Jarvis secure an air corridor for you!”

One minute later, Skybreaker successfully connected with Jarvis’s channel. Coordinates and passage information arrived instantly.

Haoyun opened his system pack, and the nanobots of Skybreaker surged forth, morphing into a silver and white armor that propelled him skyward.

Ten minutes later, he reached the factory where Jane Foster vanished in Thor 2, and immediately encountered the Illuminati.

“Mom, I’m back!”

No sooner had he removed his armor than his mother enveloped him in a warm embrace—followed by Tony’s teasing from the side.

“You rascal, isn’t there a saying in your homeland that children shouldn’t travel far while their parents are alive? Where on earth have you been, you reckless kid!”

Angel rushed over and showered him with loving slaps; Haoyun scratched his head and endured it obediently.

Tony chimed in, adding fuel to the fire, “He deserves a good lesson! Running all over the place before graduating college—do you think you’re me? Having earned thirteen PhDs at your age?”

“Hey, Tony, that’s a bit offensive!”

War Machine Rhodes, a notorious underachiever, grumbled nearby. Tony’s intent to flaunt his academic achievements was painfully obvious.

Haoyun went around hugging everyone, even ruffling Thor’s shaggy hair—he missed them dearly after ten years apart.

“Everyone, it’s been so long!”

...

Once the greetings were done, Tony, unable to wait to ask what treasures Haoyun had brought back, dragged him straight to a massive experimental machine.

“Hi, Dr. Selvig, Dr. Banner.”

Haoyun greeted the two, intending to chat, but Tony pulled him toward the giant screen of the machine.

“Look at this.” Tony pointed eagerly at the monitored data, his eyes alight with fanaticism. “Do you know what this means? This is the first naturally occurring wormhole detected on Earth! If we can crack it, we’ll be able to develop artificial wormholes for starships, enabling instant travel anywhere in the universe!”

“Tony, I told you, that’s impossible!”

Banner interjected as soon as Tony finished. “Opening a wormhole requires colossal energy. The only suitable power source on Earth is your new element reactor. But the new element can only be synthesized by machines—it’s nowhere near feasible for regular use!”

“Isn’t it just a matter of money? I’ll build a few more!” Tony asserted confidently, wealthy enough to supply a starship with ease. Yet Banner was thinking about wider application; after all, no conventional energy source requires synthesis to function.

Synthesis consumes more than triple the energy originally needed. Triple—not accounting for other losses. With that much power, one could build a thousand starships capable of traversing natural wormholes!

“Tony, calm down! Cost-effectiveness matters!”

Rhodes had clearly realized this too and hurried over to restrain Tony.

Tony shrugged off Rhodes and looked at his friend with disdain. “Do you even know what it means to be the richest man? The richest only buys expensive, not right!”

“You’re describing an idiot, not the richest,” Angel retorted without turning her head. “You lot can keep tinkering with your chaotic space. We’ve already located Jane—Pepper is carrying her out.”

As she spoke, deep within the factory, Pepper emerged, clad in a blue suit, carefully carrying Jane in her arms.

Tony frowned and stepped in front of Pepper, his expression full of grievance.

“You’ve never carried me like a princess…”

Jane nearly lost her composure in Pepper’s embrace and quickly jumped down. “Ms. Potts, I’m really fine, please believe me.”

Pepper shot Tony an enchanting glance and insisted on supporting Jane to an open area.

“If you’re fine, why is your health monitor flashing red nonstop?”

(Health Monitor: invented by Tony, a portable device that tracks the health of his loved ones. Any abnormality triggers an immediate alert to emergency contacts. If life-threatening, it calls for an ambulance and provides location tracking. Now distributed among the Illuminati and their friends.)

“This…” Jane looked at the wristband blinking red and was puzzled. “I really don’t feel anything wrong.”

“Dr. Banner, could you take a look?”

Pepper called over Banner, whose knowledge in biology and medicine was trustworthy—especially now that he was nearly fully merged with Hulk, becoming the Green Doctor.

Banner took Jane’s wristband, glanced at it, and with a swipe, a 3D projection appeared.

He reviewed the data, and his expression subtly shifted.

“Dr. Banner, am I alright?”

Jane leaned in for a look; though her expertise was astrophysics, she could understand medical data.

Banner shook his head and gave Jane an answer that shocked her.

“No, your body is in terrible shape! Your cells are dying and regenerating at an alarming rate. You know cell division has limits, but your metabolism is now over ten times higher than normal!”

“If this continues, you may only have one or two years left…”

Haoyun moved closer, twisting the knife further.

“Simply put, your body’s energy can’t sustain the Reality Stone. Your life force is being drained by the ether particles you just absorbed.”

“Damn it! Why me? I didn’t even want to absorb those damned particles!”

Jane Foster shouted in fury. She wasn’t some cute, helpless girl—she was a frontline scientist!

“How do I fix this?”

Jane’s face was grim as she asked.

“Well…” Banner hesitated. “With our current scientific capabilities, we can’t control the Reality Stone. Naturally, we can’t extract it from your body.”

Jane looked to Tony and Selvig, but both could only offer helpless expressions; their expertise didn’t match, and they truly couldn’t help.

After all, it was a cosmic artifact—they had only seen the Space and Mind Stones.