Tony Stark looked deeply suspicious. "You've seen my Arc Reactor before? Is your company planning to copy my product?"
006 put on an impressively mysterious act. As an elite agent, he knew at least a little about everything from astronomy and geography to physics and chemistry—the problem was that he never knew very much. Showing off in front of Tony Stark was exceedingly difficult. Fortunately, he knew Anton Vanko and Ivan Vanko and had heard a great deal about Arc Reactors from father and son. By selecting a few key points, he could bluff his way through without difficulty.
He merely smiled and said nothing.
With assistance from 006 and Doctor Yinsen, Tony Stark constructed a somewhat crude Arc Reactor. They used it to replace the original electromagnet setup, tossed the car battery aside, and began discussing serious matters.
The enemy possessed tremendous firepower. Even 006 was not confident he could fight his way out, and doing so while protecting two other people would be more dangerous still. An agent was not a special-forces soldier. The latter could be considered a warrior; the former was at most a thief—fragile and easy to kill once hit.
"Mr. Weyland, how many enemies can you handle?" Tony Stark asked.
006 estimated for a moment. "In our current environment, I can deal with four at once. Any more than that would become dangerous."
Tony Stark raised one finger and said proudly, "Then you can only provide support. I'll still be the main force. This is what we'll do…"
They began constructing a suit of powered armor in every spare corner of the cave. Meanwhile, 006 repeatedly drove the virus cells in his body against the energy barrier around his heart. Every attempt left him in pain for half an hour, but with enough slow, grinding effort, he should be able to wear away the strange energy the tall old man had left in his chest.
If Tony Stark completed the powered armor and 006 recovered his full strength, their chances of breaking out would improve enormously.
The three of them began preparing to escape the cave.
They had almost no tools at hand. Building an entire suit of powered armor manually was extremely difficult, and above all, the work had to remain concealed from the enemy.
In the movie it had taken three minutes of hammering. In reality, the work could not possibly proceed that quickly. Tony Stark allowed himself three months. 006 thought that sounded about right. In three months, he too should have recovered completely. Perhaps someone would even rescue him before then. A man had to have dreams, didn't he?
…
The outside world knew nothing about their disappearance. Tony Stark's abduction was itself shrouded in conspiracy. Even though James Rhodes reported it to his superiors, the matter was suppressed under all manner of pretexts. As for 006, the existence of the Assassin Brotherhood meant his organization would not collapse the moment he left. Everyone continued performing their own duties, and no one sensed anything amiss.
Bella spent more than ten days in deep discussion with the Ancient One at Kamar-Taj. Having such a teacher was extraordinarily convenient. Whenever her psionic level increased, she could seek out the old woman for a conversation and gain new experience and understanding every time. It helped her tremendously.
The Ancient One looked down on Earth's gods and god-kings. The old woman might disdain them, but Bella did not!
If someone offered Bella apotheosis right now and told her to go call Odin "Dad," she did not think it would trouble her conscience in the slightest. If necessary, she could even call him "Grandpa."
According to Bella's own classification of her power, the 1st through 3rd circles constituted the beginner stage, the 4th through 6th circles the intermediate stage, and the 7th through 9th circles were unquestionably the advanced stage.
When she had advanced from the 3rd circle to the 4th, she had encountered an enormous bottleneck. Only after a narrow escape from death and obtaining part of Calypso's knowledge had she advanced by sheer luck. Now, as she attempted to move from the 6th circle to the 7th, the bottleneck had appeared again, ten times more severe than before. She had no idea how to proceed.
The Ancient One had no particularly good solution either. The old woman believed Bella could slow down, reorganize her knowledge, teach disciples, adjust her state of mind, and travel through other worlds, the Astral Plane, Heaven, Hell, and similar places. That was how the Ancient One herself had proceeded: ten years, twenty years, thirty years. In the end, Bella would certainly achieve a breakthrough. She possessed the talent and brilliance for it. But how could Bella possibly wait thirty years?
With the war between angels and demons about to erupt, and with vampires and people from the future gradually emerging into the open, Bella felt an intense sense of urgency. She needed greater strength and more powerful spells.
The Darkhold corrupted the soul too severely. Even the Book of Cagliostro, a secondary work, carried an overwhelming aura of darkness.
Bella temporarily shelved her plan to kill vampires and seize the remaining pages of the Darkhold. To keep her strength growing at high speed, she turned her attention to a particular group: gods.
Godhood was not a profession, but a form of life.
Loki was both a sorcerer and a god. The two identities did not conflict.
Bella was no longer the weakling who had first crossed into this world, and she had ample power at her disposal. Advancing from the 3rd circle to the 4th had depended on Calypso. Now the leap from the 6th circle to the 7th required far more insight. Since there was no sense troubling two different people for the same problem, Bella began considering godslaying first and apotheosis afterward. Becoming a god would grant her a tremendous amount of inspiration and understanding. Raising her level of existence would likewise accelerate the growth of her inner world.
A craftsman who wished to do good work must first sharpen his tools. If Bella wanted to slay a god and take her place, she needed a fine weapon. She had never possessed much in the way of weapons. Normally she had no use for them; her staff and pistols were little more than accessories. Now that her level had risen and she had acquired substantial knowledge of dark magic, she immediately placed the creation of a new weapon on her agenda.
After leaving Kamar-Taj, she first returned home. Natasha had gone out to enjoy herself over the past two days. Her nominal younger sister had been stifled throughout the pregnancy. Bella had no time to stay home and look after the child either, so she entrusted little Elsa to little Katie… or rather, to little Katie's mother!
Bella then traveled to Jotunheim. After searching the endless white wasteland and confirming that no one was nearby, she first drew the Mortal Blade to open a passage, then took out a dragon tooth.
Lu Xun once said that every part of a dragon was treasure. The statement was absolutely correct. Comrade Smaug had not possessed a single useless part anywhere on his body.
The dragon tooth she produced was more than two meters long. Smaug had been a fire dragon, and after years of being scorched by his internal flames, the tooth still radiated searing heat.
The Mortal Blade was a famous sword in its own right, yet it appeared somewhat inferior beside the dragon tooth.
Using techniques from the Book of Cagliostro, Bella forcibly extracted the dead souls and corpse-awakening property within the Mortal Blade, completely ruining the katana. Then, shutting out all distractions, she drove those souls and that property into the dragon tooth.
The dagger she had used to kill the demon Ruby had been made casually. Now that she was taking the task seriously, she naturally could not rely on such crude methods.
Bella ran her hand slowly along every inch of the dragon tooth to understand its internal structure. She then used her ice magic as a medium to suppress the heat within it. Finally, using her psionic power as the core, she began engraving incantations inside the tooth with the dead souls extracted from the Mortal Blade.