Before Carol learned of Lucas's existence from Coulson, Lucas already knew she had returned to Earth.
A beam of photon energy with such a massive energy fluctuation, heading straight for Earth from outside the Solar System—it would have been difficult for Lucas not to notice it.
However, although he noticed Carol, Lucas didn't pay much attention to her.
Carol's combat power was average, she had no world-destroying ambitions, and she wasn't a Dimensional Lord, so there was no dimensional energy to exploit. There was nothing worth focusing on.
Recalling his attention, Lucas continued to tally his gains.
The Tesseract, and the Space Stone within it.
Lucas already had quite a few spatial magic abilities.
Portals, Mirror Dimension, space distortion, space folding, and so on.
He even made a portable dimensional space for his clothes. After all, he didn't have a battle suit. In high-intensity combat, clothes would always get damaged.
It seemed that Lucas possessed all the abilities of the Space Stone but the difference lay in intensity.
The Space Stone could significantly enhance his spatial abilities.
Faster teleportation speed, easier ability release.
"These three Infinity Stones are all divine artifacts." Lucas sighed, shaking his head, feeling quite regretful.
"Unfortunately, their effect in my hands will be greatly reduced."
Indeed, Lucas not only had no battle suit, but he also had no weapons. Or rather, his growth rate was too fast. Battle suits and weapons couldn't keep up with his growth.
Even the Infinity Stones were the same.
For the first time in a while, Lucas opened his panel and looked at the 'Description' section.
[Description: Upgrading, estimated upgrade time 9 months, remaining 3 days.]
On Earth-404, it was already November 6th.
The upgrade was not far from completion.
And was three days a long time?
During frequent events, three days felt very long. When nothing was happening, three days felt very short.
Out of consideration for Earth, Lucas moved to a different location before the upgrade.
Mars, the large crater where Lucas and Thanos had their epic battle.
Lucas sat quietly, waiting for the upgrade to complete.
The first time is unfamiliar, the second time is familiar. This was his third time, so he was quite experienced.
[Name: Lucas (Elder God)]
[Points: 15,574,396]
[Sacred Body: 5]
[Talents: Energy Absorption, Stat Transfer]
[Energy Absorption: Can absorb any energy and convert it into points.]
[Stat Transfer: Points can be converted into Sacred Body.]
[Description: None.]
Lucas took a deep breath and spent the collected points.
[Points - 3,000,000, Sacred Body + 1]
The consumption of points and the growth from each stat point were still increasing proportionally.
Essentially, 1 point still corresponded to 10kg of strength.
The next moment, Lucas swiped his hand, opening an energy channel, and retrieved the 2 billion units of energy from Mephisto, stored with the Ancient One.
Crimson energy continuously flowed out from the channel, entering Lucas's body. Instantly, it vanished without a trace.
On the other end of the channel, the Ancient One's gaze projected over. Seeing it was Lucas, she smiled meaningfully and nodded.
Lucas didn't respond to the Ancient One, he was currently focused on the flow of the crimson energy.
After he reached the fourth stage, Lucas finally saw how dimensional energy was converted into points.
His body seemed to be connected to a strange, dreamlike pure white space. All dimensional energy, upon entering this space, would be instantly converted.
The time consumed was zero!
Or rather, in this pure white space, the rules of space-time were completely different from the outside world. Space-time could be infinitely stretched or infinitely compressed.
Half an hour later.
[Points + 2 billion]
The energy from Mephisto was completely devoured by Lucas.
Although the time he spent absorbing energy was zero, the time it took for the energy to be transmitted was not.
Looking at the balance of points, Lucas waved his hand.
[Points - 282 million, Sacred Body + 94]
Terrifying power flowed through Lucas's body. This was a million tons of pure physical strength. If divine power were added, it would increase geometrically again.
A sudden urge arose in Lucas's heart to try punching Mars.
In the past, he had tried to destroy a planet twice, but that was by relying on the talent [Energy Absorption] to draw on stellar energy.
Huh?!
Lucas noticed something, the Description section was still blank, with no prompt for upgrading.
He had a guess and checked it.
[Points - 3 million, Sacred Body + 1]
In the fourth stage, the upper limit of the Sacred Body stat was no longer 100?
What would it be?
Lucas looked at the remaining 1.7 billion-plus points and smiled confidently.
[Points: 574,396]
[Sacred Body: 676]
Lucas never expected that after more than a year of arduous struggle in Marvel, he would return to the predicament he faced when he first transmigrated.
Not enough, points were simply not enough.
Hmm... Ancient One still had over a billion units of dimensional energy.
With a thought, Lucas opened the Ancient One's energy vault, re-established an energy channel, and extracted energy.
The Ancient One, naturally, discovered Lucas, the energy thief, immediately.
"Is Mephisto's energy not enough?" The Ancient One asked, puzzled, without stopping Lucas.
She had calculated the energy Lucas needed for each stage of his upgrade.
In her calculations, about 300 million units of energy should have been enough for his current stage of upgrade.
"Just a billion points short."
Ten minutes later, the Ancient One, seeing Lucas still hadn't stopped extracting energy, asked, "A little bit?"
"A billion points." Lucas said seriously.
He guessed that the limit of the Sacred Body should be a multiple of 10.
That would be neat.
A moment later.
[Sacred Body: 1001]
Successfully broke through the 1000-point mark.
"A billion points?" The Ancient One asked again.
"Maybe a trillion points." Lucas replied.
Then, he stopped extracting energy, leaving several hundred million units of energy for the Ancient One for combat.
"Continue."
Seeing Lucas stop extracting energy, the Ancient One urged him.
"If there's a fight, I'll just leave it to you."
"Master, you're not trying to skip work, are you?" Lucas asked, startled and wary.
He had just taken a big step on the path to invincibility and hadn't had enough fun yet. To be able to wander freely in the Multiverse, he had even deliberately spent effort to deal with Thanos, that unstable factor.
"Master, although I promised you to succeed as Sorcerer Supreme, that will have to wait a few more years. I'm still young and need experience. (Waiting for Tony, Wanda, and Loki to grow up)"
The Ancient One chuckled and shook her head. "Don't worry, I'm not in a hurry." (As long as you do my work for me, why would I skip work?)
Hearing the Ancient One's assurance, Lucas relaxed and continued to extract energy.
Finally...
[Points: 262,800]
[Sacred Body: 1122]