[-420 billion! Talent upgrade successful! Account balance: 77.1 billion USD]
Buzz!
The moment the talent finished upgrading, Corin felt a faint vibration coming from his body.
At the same time, the lights in the hotel room flickered on and off. Sparks burst from the wall sockets. Tiny currents formed in the air, weaving together before flying into Corin's body.
Crack!
The bathwater that had just been boiling instantly dropped to freezing point, letting out a faint sound of ice forming.
Meanwhile, the entire Manhattan area fell into darkness within a few seconds, then returned to normal about ten seconds later.
The well-seasoned citizens of New York were not affected at all. They just went on with their business, at most grumbling, "When the hell are they going to fix this lousy power grid?"
The culprit, Corin, stepped out of the bathtub.
After upgrading the Black Emperor talent, there had been a brief moment where his body uncontrollably plundered all kinds of surrounding energy.
But that state did not last long before it ended.
Corin opened the status panel and found that his energy value had dropped from 103% to 68%.
"So that means..."
His guess was confirmed.
The upgrade had caused him to passively absorb the surrounding energy, and the total energy inside his body was definitely not less than before.
But energy that previously registered as 103% was now only 68%. What did that mean?
The peak capacity of his body's energy storage had increased.
In other words, energy equivalent to a strategic weapon accounted for less than one third of his total storage capacity.
This discovery made Corin feel like he had made a huge profit.
If he had not unlocked the energy indicator and Charging Physique, relying solely on the Black Emperor's power, the amount of energy he could absorb would probably have been very limited.
Now it was completely different. The new talent not only filled the gap in energy absorption methods, but also greatly raised the upper limit of his body's storage capacity.
How could he not be thrilled?
He tried releasing a bit of energy from the surface of his body, planning to evaporate the water on himself.
Boom!
A flash of light burst out. In the blink of an eye, the luxury suite in the Manhattan hotel that had accompanied him for months was reduced to a few load-bearing walls struggling to keep the entire building from collapsing.
"Damn it! That was too much!"
The wrecked room barely retained the outline of what had once been a room. All the original facilities had turned into fragments.
Standing in the center, Corin felt extremely awkward.
Cracks spread out from his feet in a radial pattern, stretching all the way to the walls.
"Cough! Cough! Boss, are you okay?"
At that moment, Alyssa, who had originally come to find Corin about something, heard the loud explosion from his room. Covering her nose, she ran over and asked.
Corin realized that this time he had caused quite a commotion. The hotel manager was already panicking and calling the police.
Before long, the place would be surrounded by police and firefighters. Not a good place to stay.
Since Alyssa was here, it was the perfect chance to check out the newly built base.
"AHHH!"
With a lift of his hand, Alyssa flew into Corin's arms. The next second, the two of them flew out through the shattered window frame.
Leaving behind the dust-covered hotel staff in the corridor staring at each other in shock.
———
Meanwhile, in Asgard—
Thor destroyed the Rainbow Bridge, and at the same time cut off the connection between Asgard and the other Nine Realms.
Without the ability to send troops to support the realms, various rebel forces took the opportunity to gather and launch uprisings.
Loki and the Chitauri invading Earth was one such rebellion.
Fortunately, they were defeated by the Avengers team and Corin.
After the battle, Thor brought the Tesseract back to Asgard to repair the Rainbow Bridge.
Many people did not understand how Thor managed to travel to Earth when the Rainbow Bridge had clearly been destroyed.
The movies never explained it, but the official comics later revealed that Thor was sent to Earth by Odin using dark energy.
Dark energy was actually a powerful spell that consumed one's own life force and caused severe damage to the body.
That was why Odin had only sent Thor alone to Earth.
After the war, Loki was also taken back to Asgard by Thor to await Odin's judgment.
Seeing that Loki showed no remorse at all, Odin was deeply helpless. He ordered Loki to be locked in prison, never to be released for eternity.
As time passed, Loki could not endure the loneliness and eventually went mad. That was a story for later.
Although Loki had been imprisoned, the chaos caused by the destruction of the Rainbow Bridge had not ended.
After the bridge was repaired, Thor did not immediately go to find his Earth girlfriend, Jane Foster. Instead, he traveled from realm to realm, constantly putting down rebellions.
His body was gradually being drained.
"Roar!"
On a battlefield, a rock giant let out a furious roar at him.
"I accept your surrender."
Thor, hair messy and face weary, tilted his head and squinted at the arrogant creature in front of him.
His words caused the scattered rebels behind the giant to burst into laughter.
Thor also smiled and thought to himself, "These country bumpkins probably have no idea how hard Mjolnir is."
At the same time, he gripped the leather strap of the hammer and began to swing it.
After only a few rotations, the hammer flew out of his hand, striking the rock giant upward from below straight in the jaw.
Crash!
The seemingly fierce rock giant instantly shattered into a rain of pebbles, scattering everywhere.
"Anyone else?"
Thor spoke lightly, his tone casual.
The rebels in front of him immediately dropped to their knees in large numbers. Survival first.
Odin seemed worried that Thor was not exhausted enough and was trying his best to push forward a marriage between him and Sif.
But Thor's heart belonged only to Jane. He had even secretly asked Heimdall to keep an eye on Jane's situation at all times.
It should be known that Heimdall was Sif's brother.
That day, Heimdall did not even look at Thor when he came again. He simply said calmly, "The person you asked me to watch… has disappeared."
"What?"
Following Alyssa's directions, Corin arrived at their newly built base.
Passing through a hidden entrance, a luxurious base converted from an abandoned air-raid shelter appeared before his eyes.
Technology, intelligence, luxury.
Other than lacking natural light and cross ventilation, it was almost flawless.
"It's been finished for a few days. I planned to use up the hotel's monthly rent before moving in."
Alyssa led Corin around while explaining why they had not moved in yet.
Corin did not care about such trivial matters at all. If he had not suddenly destroyed the hotel room, he would not even have remembered this base existed.
"Didn't you have something to tell me?"
Thinking back to how Alyssa seemed about to say something at the hotel, Corin asked curiously.
"Ah, right!"
Only then did Alyssa remember that she had indeed come to find Corin for a reason.
As the only liaison for the Crimson Silver Duke, she had been hired by S.H.I.E.L.D. and granted a certain level of clearance, equivalent to a Level 5 agent.
She was specifically responsible for receiving and relaying various mission information shared by S.H.I.E.L.D. on Corin's behalf.
Of course, for important matters, Nick Fury would call Corin directly.
Earlier, while browsing related information using her agent privileges, a different message had popped up from Stark's AI assistant.
Tony Stark's J.A.R.V.I.S. had once been hacked by S.H.I.E.L.D., which was how Agent Coulson had appeared before him.
Likewise, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s system had also been hacked by Tony. That was how their super weapon project had been exposed.
So Stark's AI program contained built-in cracking code, allowing it to almost ignore S.H.I.E.L.D.'s firewall.
Alyssa herself was already a computer expert.
Now, not only did she have official clearance, she also had something like a cheat tool as assistance.
Without exaggeration, relying on herself alone, her intelligence-gathering ability was not inferior to any major force.
While roaming through all kinds of confidential information, she found something Corin had told her to pay attention to before, the Mind Scepter.
It was now labeled as a subsidiary resource of "Project Insight" and had been transferred to a secret location.
Officially, it was said to be for energy weapon research.
"Sokovia! The Mind Scepter is in Sokovia!"
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