The main feature of the S.H.I.E.L.D.'s conference room is its size, occupying approximately five thousand square meters, almost the size of a schoolyard. The room has an oval shape, divided into three floors. The second and third floors are circular viewing seats, while the first floor is the main meeting area. A giant projection screen close to fifty meters high occupies about two-thirds of the semi-circular area at the front of the meeting room.
The meeting seats on the first floor are not arranged in straight lines, but are arranged around round tables each having about twelve seats. There are more than two hundred round table groups on the first floor, and each round table has a small projection screen above it. Computers, tablets for displaying information, intercom devices, seat phones, and smart translation devices are all available in front of the chairs.
This arrangement is mainly beneficial for project groups to discuss during the meeting. The participants are top scientists of the human race. Most of the time, they not only have to listen to the meeting, but also make remarks.
Because each academic conference is comprehensive in nature, not focused on one aspect, the scholars each have their own expertise. When facing complex topics, they inevitably need to discuss with experts in other fields. If seats are arranged like in a classroom, it would not only inconvenient to find people but also lead to the disturbance of others by the discussion.
Although Nick set the assembly time to ten minutes, it was apparent that it was not enough time to gather global experts. Even though the Grand Mages used portals to bring people here, it still took close to forty minutes to gather all the available experts from Earth.
The entire conference hall was packed. The first floor was mainly filled with elite experts and scholars who have achieved results. The second floor was occupied by their doctoral students, graduate students and assistants, while the third floor was composed of younger potential talents in science.
The audiences on the second and third floors do not participate in the discussion. They mostly communicate with their tutors over the phone, providing them with assistance, occasionally exchanging information with assistants of other tutors, or forming groups to collate information for a certain project.
Students on the second and third floors were mostly quiet, even though there were also groups of students whispering amongst themselves.
However, the first floor was a completely different scene. There was a commotion like a festival, filled with voices, waving banners, and large crowds. More importantly, the voices of discussions or arguments were so loud that they seemed to be about to lift the roof of the meeting room.
A spider silk shimmered in the sunlight, Spider Man jumped in from the second floor window, landed on the railing, and looked down to see familiar faces.
Without a second thought, he performed a graceful diving motion, performing two and a half spins in the air before landing. He then started to squeeze through the crowd like a nimble fish.
"You must understand what I'm saying. The anti-gravity property of this material can have a huge impact on our new port and space station projects. Our next property analysis must focus on this."
"But we must first understand how the magic loop on this material works. The apprentices I brought have reproduced it on similar metal, but it didn't work, meaning that your conjecture on the influence of magic on this material may be incorrect…"
Stark was standing next to the frontmost round table, arguing fiercely with a female mage. Stark was focusing on the physical properties of the material, while the mages cared more about how magic had altered the properties of this metal. They were talking past each other.
Behind him, Stark's technical researchers were distributing freshly printed reports, the ink still hot, to other people's hands. This was the latest material test report.
Stark took a copy from a researcher, put on his glasses, and after reading it from start to finish, shook his head and said: "Their equipment is not up to it. If it was in Stark Building… Jarvis! Jarvis! Go ask your little girlfriend if they have more professional equipment. The range of property monitoring is too narrow, we need more detailed observations."
Spider Man took a copy of the report from a researcher's hand, read it as he walked forward, and heard Miles Warren's voice again.
"Our main focus in the upcoming research is how this kind of radiation affects the human body, especially the brain. I once said that I understand magic as a kind of radiation, and you disagreed with my statement that may cause public panic. Now you see…"
"But that doesn't mean you have to use them to create your evil clone army." Riley's voice came from next to Miles.
"I'm not interested in clones right now. If there are more alien life forms for you to study, you'd find that humans are so weak that even if you want to form an army, what's not stronger than humans?"
Miles, with his white hair, pushed up his glasses, waved at his research group and said: "Go and ask Nick if he can get some symbiotic factor over here. We'll try to replicate its radiation frequency and see if this kind of radiation can affect or mutate the symbiotic factor."
Moving past Miles Warren, up next was Bruce Banner who was intently staring at the data on a computer. Next to him, Otto was quickly typing with the upper two tentacles.
"I'm contacting the lab. We're going to observe from an optical perspective whether this special radiation is the key to completely blocking out the sunlight in this magical city. But it's not for developing some kind of sunlight masking, we already have that from the Dark Elfs."
"I think we can reverse this technology to enhance the penetration of sunlight. If it can be applied to the technology of the artificial sun, it will greatly improve the controllability of artificial sunlight."
Spider Man greeted Otto, and Dr. Banner saw him but was too busy to acknowledge him. It seemed he was immersed in his own ideas. Holding his arms, he said: "I've tried irradiating metal with gamma rays, but this special kind of radiation seems to only affect carbon-based life forms. I once applied to expose the symbiotic factors under gamma rays, but Nick rejected the proposal."
"Perhaps the emergence of this special radiation may persuade Nick to loosen up on my experiment application, but I'm uncertain about whether to change the center of my research topic. After all, the previous one was rejected, and the data has already been archived by me."
"Spider Man! Spider Man!" A familiar voice called out. Spider Man looked up to find another Stark, whom he suspected might be a disguised Skrull scientist.
At this time, he was buried in a pile of experimental data, impatiently waving at another Spider Man on the other side: "Help me get the sample of Quasi-Wave 13 metal left in laboratory 23 at the Stark Building by the Skrull spaceship. I suspect it has an effect on the super metals of the Skrull Empire too. These two data show that it is likely to solve the bulky problem of Quasi-Wave 13 molecular structure. If successful, we are one step closer to zero mass materials."
Spider Man finally found Gwen through the crowd. Gwen, Gwen Spider and several other Spider Man were staring intently at the computer screen next to the round table. Gwen frowned, her face not looking well. Spider Man walked over to her and asked, "What happened, Gwen?"
"Another lab sent back a message. The reproduction failed again. The Grand Mages practically perfectly replicated the energy circuit, but it doesn't work with the metals here."
"Could it be due to the physical rules..."
"No, it does hint at a reaction, but it's not stable, and each time the tested range is different. This indicates that this method may be effective, but it's completely impractical."
Spider Man understood what Gwen was saying. He also pondered over whether they missed something. Even if the properties of energy materials are all different, a reaction suggests that reproduction is possible, and they must have had a problem at some step.
Just then, a figure hurriedly rushed through the crowd to the front of the meeting room, picked up the public broadcast device, and slapped the microphone energetically, "Listen to me! Everyone listen! I've found the key!!!"
Everyone stopped their work and looked towards the front of the meeting room curiously, wondering who was so impolite to interrupt everyone's discussions. However, when they saw who the person was, the entire meeting hall quietened down, everyone listened to his speech.
The speaker was Reed Richards.
"Alright, you've given me the most difficult experimental conditions. There is neither a physical object nor an observational method, and even the experimental data is second-hand. But the great Richards has drawn a conclusion nonetheless!"
"If you have some results, just fucking say it!!" Nick roared at him, "My time is money, you've wasted three seconds of the golden brain power of the world!!!"
"Alright, alright." Reed raised his hands to calm Nick down, hinting him to take it easy. Then he cleared his throat and said, "You all made a big mistake in thinking this thing is enchanted metal, not a product made by influencing ordinary metals with magical energy like some of your research projects."
Everyone gasped when they heard this. Stark frowned, but he was very logical in discussing the matter, saying, "But it still shows a state of being influenced by some energy. The conclusions were drawn based on the data we have."
"Sure enough." Reed did not deny it, he said, "From the external phenomenon, it does seem so. But I believe that this is likely an 'alloy', a product that results from a metal beyond our understanding mixing with ordinary metal."
"Why do you think so?"
"You consider the energy circuit patterns seen under magical vision as traces left by magic energy influencing the metal. But after my careful observation, I found that these seemingly mysterious and complex patterns are not the result of careful design, but merely traces left by simple stirring."
A discussion broke out below. Reed shouted a few times, quieting everyone down. Then he projected several of his sample pictures on the large screen.
"Look here, this spiral-like pattern appears four times in the same area. So you take it for some special rune. But after I logically inferred all the patterns, I found no similarities in their scenarios, their relationships with other patterns, and the functions that could be inferred."
"So I boldly guess these are just coincidences. Then why are there so many repetitive runes? It's likely that some people used the same method to stir when they were mixing metal materials."
The hall fell silent for a while. The scientists present pondered the possibility of this guess. Then Reed proposed an even more astonishing idea.
"But when I say this special metal is metal, it's because like the materials for making alloys, they do need to mix with ordinary metals of the material world to achieve the effect of influencing the real world. But it does not mean that its nature must be a material recognized by physics."
"You mean it is a magical material?"
"I prefer to call it 'Solid Magic'." After a bit of thinking, Reed said, "Considering its displayed nature, I named it 'Solid Darkness'."