Luke spun the scepter once in his hand, the blue crystal humming quietly.
"So, Pietro," he said casually, "are you ready for your superpowers?"
Pietro stood a few steps back in the garden, arms half-raised like he wasn't sure whether to be excited or run for his life. His eyes kept drifting to the scepter—and then away again. He had a bad feeling—Luke's expression clearly said he was planning something.
"…Before I say yes," Pietro said slowly, "can you explain how I'm supposed to get them?"
Luke tilted his head, thinking. "Honestly? No."
Pietro frowned. "No?"
He didn't know the exact process Hydra had used in the original plot to give them their powers, so he had no choice but to experiment. That meant trying different methods to see what worked.
"So," Luke continued, calm as ever, "one of the methods I'm considering is hitting you with this and seeing if it does the job."
There was a long pause.
"…You're joking," Pietro said.
Luke shook his head. "No."
Pietro stared at the scepter, then at Luke. "You want to beat me with that thing?"
"I said try," Luke corrected, completely unfazed.
Pietro took one look at the glowing scepter and immediately backed off half a step. "On second thought," he said quickly, "I'm perfectly okay with having no powers."
Luke raised an eyebrow. "Be a man. Don't be scared of a little pain."
The gem pulsed brighter.
Before Pietro could react, Luke vanished from his sight and reappeared behind him in a blink. There was a sharp thwack as the scepter smacked squarely against his ass—not hard enough to cripple him, but definitely hard enough to make a point.
Pietro yelped, jumping forward and clutching his backside. "HEY—! MY ASS!"
"It didn't work," Luke said, looking genuinely disappointed.
Pietro was still rubbing his ass, glaring at him. Luke ignored that and shifted his focus back to the scepter.
"Try touching the gem,"
Pietro hesitated, every instinct screaming at him that this was a terrible idea. After a long second, he slowly reached out and tapped the glowing stone with one finger.
For a brief moment, nothing happened.
Then the gem pulsed.
A sharp blue glow raced across Pietro's entire body, crawling over his skin like living electricity. The air around him cracked faintly as energy surged through him in a violent jolt.
His muscles seized, breath catching in his throat as he staggered back before collapsing onto the grass, body trembling uncontrollably.
Pietro lay there gasping, chest rising and falling too fast, heart hammering far beyond normal limits. His nerves buzzed, every sense overloaded, like the world itself had suddenly sped up while his body struggled to keep pace.
Luke exhaled slowly.
"Yeah," he muttered. "That's definitely something."
It seemed his guess was right.
Pietro did have latent potential after all—the kind that only needed the right trigger. The gem hadn't given him power; it had simply unlocked what was already there. Touching it had been enough.
For a moment, he felt a bit conflicted. He'd spent more time than he cared to admit thinking up alternate methods—tests, simulations, controlled exposure, even a few very questionable ideas. All of that planning, and the answer turned out to be this simple.
'…Sigh. I really should've tried the obvious options first,' Luke thought, glancing at the still-trembling Pietro.
At least it worked.
Luke looked down at the scepter in his hand. With Pietro's awakening complete, there was no longer any reason to keep it.
A prompt appeared in his vision.
[Do you wish to sacrifice the Mind Stone?]
'Yes.'
The blue glow at the tip of the scepter flickered—then vanished completely, like a light being switched off. The metal shell dulled, becoming nothing more than an empty casing.
A second later, the system reacted.
[You have gained 10,000,000,000 EXP.]
[Trait acquired: Infinite Mind]
[Your Intelligence and Wisdom attributes are being influenced by the new trait.]
Luke froze.
"Hmmm… Infinite Mind?" he muttered.
He then opened his status to see what changes it had made to his stats.
[Status]
[Class: Arcane Warrior]
[Race : Wraith-Born ( Evolution not available )]
[Level: 40 (Class change required)]
[EXP: 536,032,895 / 536,032,895 (Excess Stored: 36,343,687,934)]
[HP: 1,878 / 1,878]
[MP: Single-universe level ]
[Stamina: 884 / 884]
[Strength: 93]
[Agility: 75]
[Endurance: 117]
[Intelligence: Single-Universe level]
[Wisdom: Single-Universe level ]
[Luck: 7]
[Unallocated Stat Points: 0]
[Unallocated Skill Points: 20]
[SP: 7000]
[Traits: Pseudo-immortality, Regeneration (Advanced), Arcane Mantle, Telekinesis (Intermediate), Lord of Fire (Advanced), Infinite Mind (Single-Universe level)]
[Skills: Basic Martial Arts, Fire Fist, Fireball, Fire Kick, Flame Sweep, Heat Burst, Blazing Dash, Stone Spike, Stone Skin, Quake, Meteor Flame Strike (Intermediate), Flame Pillar (Intermediate), Combustion Field (Intermediate), Meteorite ( Advanced ), Breath of the Dragon ( Advanced ) ].
[Cataclysm Skills (One that can destroy continents and planets) : Divine Cataclysm ]
[Heart of the Infinite Well] (Passive)]
"Wow…" Luke muttered, staring at the floating panel in front of him.
"The stats literally jumped from numbers to… something else."
For a moment, he honestly wasn't sure how to read it anymore.
His MP bar no longer looked like a normal value. Until now, it had always been displayed as a number—but now it simply read Single-Universe level.
That was when it finally clicked why it was called an Infinity Gem.
As the Mind Stone, it hadn't just increased his reserves—it had driven his mental stats straight to their upper limit, beyond anything that could be measured normally.
Intelligence. Wisdom. MP.
None of them were being measured anymore—they were being classified.
Since the Infinity Gem's power level itself operated at a single-universe scale, it seemed his stats had reached that same level as well.
Then another prompt appeared.
[A New Class Update Quest Has Arrived]
*****
The next world will be the X-Men, and after that comes The Lord of the Rings. Honestly, Marvel doesn't feel complete without the X-Men.
*****
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