Chapter 172: Pass Update! The Blacklight Virus!
Time flew by, and in what felt like the blink of an eye, half a month had passed.
Umbrella Corporation's lowest level, the testing ground.
Crackle—
A sound like flint striking steel rang out across the testing ground, and a ring twice the height of a person, sparking continuously around its edges, materialized out of thin air.
Through the interior of the ring, an entirely different scene was visible.
An endless black ocean, stretching beyond the horizon.
At the far edge of the water, a massive offshore drilling platform rocked back and forth in the churning waves, and every so often, seawater surged through the portal into the testing ground.
About two minutes later.
Matthew stepped slowly out of the portal.
The intense heat radiating from his body instantly evaporated the seawater clinging to him.
He turned to glance at the portal behind him and couldn't help remarking, "No matter how fast you move, nothing beats a spatial teleport for convenience."
"In terms of pure practicality, portals are basically in a different league entirely," Matthew muttered to himself.
Half a month ago, the portal incantation and usage tips Wong had given him had been thoroughly memorized.
After repeated attempts and practice, Matthew had discovered that magic wasn't actually all that difficult.
The Marvel universe genuinely did run on "mana," and using magic genuinely did consume mana.
For Matthew, who had no mana of his own, learning the "portal" technique quickly required "borrowing" energy from various deities or dimensional lords across this world.
The most typical example was the Vishanti, the Triune deity.
Since Matthew had effectively been learning Earth's most orthodox form of magic, many of the incantations he recited began with something along the lines of, "By the sacred name of the Vishanti..."
That opening let him borrow mana even without possessing any of his own, allowing him to cast spells regardless.
Of course, borrowing another being's mana wasn't simply a matter of asking nicely.
First, you needed powerful spiritual strength to back it up.
Only with sufficiently powerful and resolute willpower could a practitioner communicate smoothly with other entities through the incantations.
Beyond the portal spell, the most basic magic he'd learned, Matthew had also been picking up other spells and methods for building up his own mana reserves from Wong over the past while.
With the Ancient One's orders behind him, Wong had been holding nothing back when it came to teaching Matthew.
After explaining how to draw "mana" from the cosmos, Wong had gone on to teach him a number of other minor spells as well.
Things like basic illusions, protective wards, and spells for invading other people's minds or manipulating various natural elements.
And in the process of learning these spells, Matthew discovered he could significantly amplify his own magical output by coordinating the stored consciousness of the Megamycete and the consciousness of the Las Plagas host he carried.
It was as though, whenever he cast a spell, those consciousnesses cast the same spell along with him, the additional castings layering on top of his own in a different form, stacking onto whatever magic he was using.
The simplest example was the fireball spell he'd learned.
At his absolute limit, the fireball Matthew could produce on his own was about two meters across.
But with the simultaneous boost from the Megamycete and the Las Plagas host's consciousness, he could expand that fireball to fill an entire football field.
Because of this, his progress in learning magic had been remarkably fast.
So fast that he'd been showing up at Wong's place every couple of days lately.
In Wong's own words: "If you keep coming back like this, I'm probably just going to have to send you straight to the Sorcerer Supreme."
"And I have no idea when you'll get around to teaching me some of the forbidden magic."
"Things like the Dream Walking spell, for instance..."
Having fully evaporated the seawater off himself, Matthew raised a hand and closed the portal.
With the boost from all those stacked consciousnesses, Matthew no longer needed the ring to open or close portals, which was about as convenient as it got.
He figured that before too long, he wouldn't even need to raise his hand to open or close a portal at will.
Brushing off the residual sea salt clinging to him, Matthew slowly clenched his fist.
After learning about the various powerful enemies awaiting him in the future, he'd recently restarted his demonization training.
The reason he had sea salt on him in the first place was that he'd been out at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, "working out."
Using the pressure generated by the seawater itself, combined with his own gravity manipulation, his physical strength had climbed another level.
The current version of Matthew was fully confident that, on raw physical strength alone, he could overpower the Hulk the same way Thanos had once beaten him down.
"At this point, this body's fully adapted to the deep sea and the gravity I generate myself. If I want to push this body's strength and durability any further, Earth probably can't offer me much more..."
"If I get the chance, I should spend some time on Venus or Saturn. Not like it matters, I can survive in an oxygen-free environment as it is now."
To prepare for the powerful enemies on the horizon, Matthew was steadily working his way toward the top of the cosmic food chain, one step at a time.
Just as he was planning his next round of self-enhancement...
A System notification chime suddenly sounded in his ear.
A moment later, the long-dormant glowing interface abruptly appeared.
[Pass duration has ended.]
[Updating Pass theme—]
[Update complete!]
[The current Pass theme is now the "Blacklight Virus" theme.]
[Blacklight Virus Themed Pass]
[Stage 1 reward: Blacklight Virus DX-1118C x1, requires a cumulative total of 120,000 System points.]
[Stage 2 reward: Blackwatch Super Soldiers x10, requires a cumulative total of 130,000 System points.]
[Stage 3 reward: Alex Mercer (Blacklight variant) x1, requires a cumulative total of 140,000 System points.]
[Stage 4 reward: Blackwatch Super Soldiers x30, requires a cumulative total of 160,000 System points.]
[Stage 5 reward: Elizabeth Greene (Blacklight variant), requires a cumulative total of 180,000 System points.]
[Stage 6...]
Listening to the notification and watching the text appear on the System's glowing interface, Matthew froze on the spot.
In disbelief, he looked again at the theme of this new Pass...
Yep. No mistake.
It really was the Blacklight Virus!
Once he'd confirmed he wasn't seeing things wrong, Matthew's breathing immediately quickened!
It wasn't hard to understand why he was reacting like this. The Blacklight Virus's reputation was simply too massive to ignore.
So massive that he couldn't just shrug it off, and couldn't calm the feeling rising in his chest.
This was the Blacklight Virus!
A super-virus more powerful than the G-Virus, with even greater evolutionary potential, capable of evolving to the point of withstanding a nuclear strike within just two weeks!
This virus could genuinely be called comprehensively powerful, more refined than any virus currently in Umbrella's possession.
Of course, it would be even better if its disproportionately high lethality could be ironed out.
But to Matthew, that flaw barely registered as a flaw at all.
As long as you were willing to spend the money, there was no flaw that couldn't be optimized away!
The only thing that mattered to him right now was this.
Make money! Make money! Make money!
More money, damn it!
Get his hands on the Blacklight Virus, and get there sooner rather than later!
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