That said, it was possible others had purchased Infinity Stones as well — just that the number would be negligible.
To be blunt, the Infinity Stones were external objects, and using them came with a cost. Angel Yan hadn't bought the Infinity Stones for their abilities at all — she was after their practically infinite energy supply.
Beyond that, the Angel Civilization also had an interest in investigating the internal structure of the Infinity Stones.
Great Qin Ninth Prince: "The Reality Stone's power to reverse the virtual and the real genuinely does hold an unimaginable appeal for certain people."
Great Qin Ninth Prince: "Pay the price, and you could turn anything you imagined into reality."
Great Qin Ninth Prince: "But that price is more than most people can bear."
Ying Zi'nian had once harbored thoughts about the Reality Stone too.
It was a fantasy he'd had back when he was still an ordinary person, before being transported to another world — the notion that if he had the Reality Stone, he could materialize things from anime and novels in real life.
Devil Fruits from One Piece, Noble Phantasms from Fate, Kamen Rider transformation devices, and so on.
But the deeper he understood the Reality Stone, the more he realized that was impossible.
Using the Reality Stone required a cost that was far from trivial. Otherwise, Thanos wouldn't have needed to run back and forth with the Avengers — he could have simply used the Reality Stone to shift the other Infinity Stones directly into his hands.
Or even created additional Infinity Stones out of thin air.
So why didn't Thanos do that?
Because doing so would require a cost too enormous for even him to pay.
Great Qin Ninth Prince: "And besides, items materialized by the Reality Stone are like water without a source, a castle built on air."
Great Qin Ninth Prince: "Whatever gets materialized will necessarily require some form of energy to sustain it — the moment that energy is cut off, there's a strong chance it'll vanish."
Great Qin Ninth Prince: "Items brought into reality through the Stone cannot exist permanently."
Great Qin Ninth Prince: "If you genuinely want to turn Earth into SAO, you'd either need a personal energy source that could be freely consumed by the Reality Stone, or you'd need a physique as overwhelming as Thanos's — along with the Infinity Gauntlet and all six Infinity Stones."
Great Qin Ninth Prince: "And then… snap your fingers."
Great Qin Ninth Prince: "Since the scope is limited to Earth, however massive the cost, it couldn't possibly be larger than Thanos's."
Heathcliff: "."
Did he need to have it explained in such excruciating detail — or be given two options, for that matter? Which of these two options could he possibly fulfill?
Especially the second one.
A body comparable to Thanos's, all six Infinity Stones, and the Infinity Gauntlet? One Infinity Stone alone cost a hundred million points!
Richest Man: "There might've been some lingering hope before, but now even that should be completely gone, right?"
Richest Man: "To satisfy those conditions, you're not talking about just a few hundred million points — that wouldn't even be enough."
Richest Man: "If you actually had that many points, the obvious move would be to buy things to upgrade yourself first. Nobody in their right mind would spend it reshaping some world."
Why obsess over reshaping the world when you could just let it develop peacefully on its own? Did walking the path of technology委屈 you or something?
Ordinary Group Leader: "I can feel Tony's resentment from right across the dimensional barrier."
Su Yunqing couldn't help but say in the chat group.
Tony didn't deny it.
Richest Man: "Damn right I resent it."
Richest Man: "Before, it was for the sake of his own plan — shutting down the logout function, forcing them to play a death game."
Richest Man: "The game was cleared, sure, but plenty of people died."
Richest Man: "Now he's thinking even bigger. Whole world."
If Kayaba Akihiko's approach had actually benefited humanity — using them for experiments to create something where the crime belonged to the present generation but the merit stretched across a thousand years — Tony might have called Kayaba crazy, but he wouldn't have had much to say.
Because in a sense, that was a form of purity unique to researchers.
But the crux of the matter was that Kayaba Akihiko's approach served nothing but his own desires. It wouldn't benefit anyone else, and it wouldn't do a thing for civilization's advancement.
He'd just be getting people killed for nothing.
Completely and utterly meaningless.
He had thought Kayaba Akihiko had completely abandoned this line of thinking. Turns out this time the ambition had scaled up even further.
Tens of thousands of players weren't enough anymore — the target was the entire planet.
Heathcliff: "."
Heathcliff: "Then what about you? What thoughts do you have about your own future?"
Heathcliff: "You've already seen your future through the memory replica — you definitely won't die the way that copy did. So tell me — what kind of future are you trying to create?"
Kayaba Akihiko turned the question back on Tony.
Richest Man: "I don't know."
Richest Man: "The memory replica the Group Leader posted is just what she watched. How do I know there weren't more events after my death?"
Richest Man: "I'm not so arrogant as to assume my world would return to normal just because I died."
The Group Leader had posted four entries of the Avengers memory replica.
Not because there wasn't anything beyond — it was simply that before being transported, the Group Leader, Brandon, and Ying Zi'nian only had access to these four installments.
Who knew whether more would surface later.
The fourth installment was Thanos's end, its conclusion, and Captain Lighthouse's ending. But for those who survived, it was perhaps the beginning of a whole new journey.
Great Qin Ninth Prince: "I heard your storyline with Captain Lighthouse ended because they didn't want to keep acting."
Great Qin Ninth Prince: "Otherwise, you might not have stayed dead."
Great Qin Ninth Prince: "The Infinity Stones were still around, the Hulk was still alive, Captain Marvel and Thor were all still around."
Great Qin Ninth Prince: "It was just a matter of snapping your fingers again."
What with the time machine, they could pick whichever time point suited the return. The Infinity Stones could stay with them for a while without issue.
The Hulk at the time had one arm completely crippled — but the other was still functional.
Even if he wasn't an option, there was Thor, and Captain Marvel.
If all else failed, they could simply wait until the Hulk's arm healed before snapping.
So Tony's death was entirely avoidable.
It was purely because of the actors that Tony never got brought back.
Richest Man: "."
Richest Man: "Let's not bring that up again."
What could he possibly say?
There was no way he could leave the Marvel universe, fly into the real world, flip off his own actor, and shout "fuck!" at him.
Then grab the script and force the screenwriter to rewrite it.
Ordinary Group Leader: "Sigh… It's been so boring lately."
Ordinary Group Leader: "Though we just completed Loki's rescue mission not long ago, a rescue mission isn't a transmigrator mission."
Ordinary Group Leader: "No bonus rewards, no fifty-percent success rate enhancement chances."
Ordinary Group Leader: "Why aren't any new transmigrators showing up these days?"
Su Yunqing lamented.
When she'd read chat-group web novels in her past life, it certainly hadn't been like this. Transmigrators had appeared one after another — system flow, Lord of Mysteries, Nightmare Space, you name it.
———
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