Chapter 92: El Psy Kongroo

The Red Cube Project: the study of the enormous red crystal accidentally created by Soul-Devouring Hand.

After it released its excess energy that very day, it stabilized. Even now, Luke still found its formation utterly unbelievable.

He had Christina conduct an in-depth analysis of how it came into being, what properties it possessed, and what it might be used for.

In Dungeon and Fighter, there are six kinds of crystals defined by color: red, blue, white, black, colorless, and gold.

Red crystals carry the fire attribute and can infuse objects with fire energy. They serve both as casting materials and as manufacturing materials, making them widely useful.

Luke did not know whether this giant red crystal he had acquired by accident differed in any way from the true red crystals of Dungeon and Fighter. Yet it seemed to have opened a path he had never noticed before. A path that linked the two universes of Dungeon and Fighter and Marvel.

Luke had Tony to thank for that. Tony had created the beta element, allowing the magical energy of the Dungeon and Fighter universe to manifest in the Marvel universe in the form of science.

It was like a key, opening before Luke a door no one knew where it led.

One thing was certain: the appearance of the giant red crystal meant that the worlds of Marvel and Dungeon and Fighter now overlapped at the atomic level.

No longer did the connection remain merely on a macro scale, no longer was it only a matter of him pulling out a few skills.

Whether there was a deeper meaning behind this, Luke still had no way of knowing. He had a premonition that if Christina continued researching the giant red crystal, he might uncover something extraordinary.

Estimated completion time for this project: indefinite.

Christina had been especially active lately.

Besides often dropping in on the main server in Stark Tower, she had also visited Oscorp, an American laboratory called AIM, and a Korean research lab, from which she had quietly taken several sets of cutting-edge genetic technologies.

Luke remembered that the creator of Vision’s synthetic body in the films, Dr. Helen Cho, was Korean. So he had Christina narrow her search to that direction, and the results were indeed impressive.

Using those technologies as a blueprint, Christina estimated that within four months she could work out several methods for biosynthetic proteins, human cell reconstruction, and mature cloning techniques.

These were preparations for her own body.

With no better choice available, taking the half-biological, half-mechanical route was the best solution Luke could think of.

For the first phase, Luke intended to create something like the Terminator T-800 played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

That is, a robot with an alloy skeleton on the inside and an artificial biological outer layer.

The second phase was to research androids.

Not the kind of life forms in Dragon Ball or the Nasuverse that were little more than clones, but something closer to the intelligent mechanized soldiers of NieR: Automata.

Thus Luke named the project the 2B Project.

Truthfully, he thought A2 would have been fine as well.

On the computer screen, the countdowns for the six current adventure teams were displayed:

Pacific Rim Project, Phase Two: 5 months

Excalibur Project: 13 days

Cult Leader Project: indefinite

Red Cube Project: indefinite

Spider-Man Project: 20 days

2B Project, Phase One: 40 days; Phase Two: between 3 and 10 years.

Luke nodded in satisfaction. “This is the boundless possibility that artificial intelligence brings.”

All he had to do was provide the ideas and issue the orders. Christina would handle everything from there. He could just go back to doing whatever he had been doing and wait for the harvest.

Skye was already dumbfounded.

While the outside world was still endlessly arguing over whether strong artificial intelligence should be developed at all, who would have thought that in this shabby warehouse, in the hands of this action-oriented child before her, artificial intelligence had already been applied to such an extent?

For the first time, she felt that joining this organization was actually rather interesting. Every day brought new surprises. In just these two days, she had already seen far too many incredible advances.

She felt that Luke’s warehouse was at least ten years ahead of the outside world. No, at least twenty.

“Luke, could you make my issue into a project too? I mean, investigating my own origins,” Skye asked.

“My dear girl, you’re far too impatient!” Luke suddenly turned around.

He looked at her solemnly, and Skye found herself growing a little nervous under that gaze.

“Before you’ve proven your worth as a member of the organization, you have no standing to make demands. Yes, I did promise to help you investigate your parents, but only on the condition that you contribute something to the organization.”

“Contribute? I don’t know…” Skye was a little lost. She had no idea what she could possibly do here.

Her hacking skills were nothing before artificial intelligence.

“No need to worry too much! The New York Office of Arad, ahem, that’s a temporary name, don’t mind the details—will help you discover your value! But first, you need to understand yourself and straighten out your attitude. You have to truly see yourself as a member of the organization. You should feel excited, girl. The New York Office of Arad has agreed to officially take you in, and that is my decision as Lab Member No.001.”

Luke stepped onto a small stool, then climbed onto a scaffold platform much taller than he was. With a tiny hand raised in unquestionable decree, he said, “Christina, from today on, you are Lab Member No.002! This is your reward for being the first to follow me!”

“Thank you, Master!” Christina chirped with a grin.

“And you, Skye! From this moment on, you are Lab Member No.004, and officially one of my team!”

Luke looked down at Skye and said, yes, she had curves.

Lab Member No.004? What kind of strange title was that?

Skye looked up in confusion. “Why are there only one, two, and four? Who’s number three?”

At that moment, Luke was holding his phone to his ear, muttering to himself.

“What are you muttering about?” Skye asked.

Not a sound came from the phone receiver by Luke’s ear, not even static. It was utterly silent.

Yet Luke covered the mouthpiece with his hand and made a shushing gesture toward Skye.

“Are you talking to someone?” Skye muttered, watching him with bafflement.

“Luke is at it again,” Lotus thought, and continued watching television.

Luke put the phone back to his ear.

Still, nothing came from it.

“…No, it’s just a bit of trivial business on this end. No problem. Everything is proceeding smoothly according to plan.”

There was still no response from the receiver.

After all, the phone was turned off.

“No, you were right. Talking in a place like this really is too dangerous. The enemies of the organization are unimaginably cunning, and their eyes and ears are scattered through places neither you nor I could ever imagine,” Luke said in a low voice to the person on the phone.

Skye was slightly startled when she heard that and glanced around. Was he referring to S.H.I.E.L.D.?

Then she heard Luke continue, in a deep voice, speaking to whoever was supposedly on the other end: “Is that so? So this is the choice of Steins Gate…”

After a pause, he said solemnly, “El Psy Kongroo.”

Having spoken this apparently coded phrase, Luke kept his expression grave as he slipped the phone into his pocket.

Then he lifted a small hand, pointed at the floor, and said to Skye, “Lab Member No.004! Come here and help me with something. Carry me down.”

Skye opened her mouth, as if she wanted to say something, then thought better of it. In the end, she walked over and picked Luke up.

From start to finish, she wore a baffled expression: what on earth was going on?

That night, Luke’s aftereffects from talking too much were finally completely gone. He also reached one conclusion: at least a C.