As the popular saying goes, the subjective initiative of human beings is impressive, and Shiller's is even more so.
In the past, whatever commotion Shiller stirred up often ended up propelling human development, or benefitting his friends. However, seeking fun was his instinct, and it was not considered extremely proactive.
But this time, it was different. For instance, scientific achievements tend to occur in clusters: either numerous geniuses compete within a single century as a certain field experiences explosive growth, or there is complete silence as though all scientists have decided to take a break.
On one hand, this was due to the limitations of the era. On the other hand, geniuses would be inspired by other geniuses in the same field, generating more inspiration. Some of them even considered their contemporary geniuses as rivals, feeling the need to compete against them. As the saying goes, pressure instigates productivity.
In the past, Shiller felt no pressure in the academic field. Others were either unknowingly pushed forward by him, or worked together with him to cause a stir. While friends with a common goal, as well as collaborators who progressed together, were nice to have, ultimately, Shiller had no real competitors in this world.
Another saying goes that the heretic is more detestable than the heretic's followers. Shiller's friends were either people who valued everyday life, such as superheroes, or people driven by personal interests such as Nick and Loki. There were hardly any who appreciated fun in the purest form like Shiller did.
Transcendents were individuals purely motivated by fun. However, if their idea of fun differed from Shiller's, and they didn't expect Shiller to enjoy it, then Shiller had to figure out a way to prevent them from enjoying it too.
The motivation derived from religious doctrines far surpassed that from the progress of human civilization, the development of Earth's technology, or mundane labor. Shiller's subjective initiative was at full strength. He returned to Earth and, without lingering for more than two hours, immediately went off to catch a Molecular Man.
Molecular Man was a result of power stacking. The setup seemed absurd, but Shiller wasn't a superhero. There was no need for an honorable duel with the adversary. He simply ambushed them and, furthermore, in the vast majority of universes, the Molecular Man was a rational, intelligent creature. This was exactly Shiller's area of expertise.
Molecular men from different multiverses looked mostly the same, as they were products from an assembly line. But the one man from the Prime Universe was a bit unique, having played a part in several subsequent secret wars as well.
His name was Owen Reese. He used to work for a nuclear company and suffered from severe psychological issues. While repairing an atomic device for the company, he experienced a blast, opening a pinhole in his body that stretched across countless universes, allowing him a glimpse of the Transcendents.
After the accident, Owen discovered that he had the power to control molecules and thus began calling himself the Molecular Man.
Naturally, just like most superheroes, Owen had a tumultuous childhood. He grew up in a single-parent family, had an unhappy childhood, and was bullied in high school.
Later, in the comic books, his main adversaries were the Fantastic Four, and also his girlfriend, who was conveniently named Martha as well.
Having known about Owen's background, Shiller conducted a thorough investigation on Earth, but failed to find any information about Owen Reese. It seemed like the Molecular Man in his universe appeared out of thin air without any background information.
This left him with only one eyewitness account and no other clues. Shiller followed the trail of the last sighting.
But Greed rarely made direct moves and hardly did detective work. His method of finding people continued to be leveraging situations, controlling by strategizing, and winning in the end.
For example, if there were leads in a certain star area of the interstellar society, he would assume an identity to gain access. Once in position, he would use his wide array of contacts to search for clues, confirm them, and then repeat the process.
Experience proved that a motivated Greed could be terrifying. In a short span of two weeks, over sixty royal succession battles were initiated in civilizations surrounding the Star Area, along with more than forty party usurpations, over twenty uprisings, and more than a dozen individual assassinations.
This number might not seem significant considered over the whole of the interstellar society, but just considering the political and cultural center at the Star Area, the economic civilizations in its vicinity had been well-established for a long time. Although they could not compare with the Three Great Empires, their combined power was not to be dismissed.
Shiller's method of leveraging situations involved these exact people.
Shiller's leveraging methods were quite straightforward: sustaining the chaos no matter whether the ruling system was constitutional monarchy, republic, feudal dictatorship, or developed communism.
Others conducted a thorough search while Shiller directly unraveled everything. Even though his speed of creating complications was fast, his speed of untangling them was equally swift. Regardless of whether it was royal contention, party interest, family disputes, or internal struggles in the harem, he was able to comprehend the intricacies of their interests after only a few encounters.
To gain a position, power vacuum needed to be created. The best way to clear a piece of land in a dense forest was to chop down trees, and setting a fire was the most effortless way to do so.
Shiller spent those days stirring up trouble and sparking fires everywhere. The conflicts he initiated were countless, the internal strifes he incited were immeasurable. In just over a ten-day period, the political and cultural center of the economic society turned into a complete mess.
Shiller was in a rush and didn't take the time to inform anyone on Earth. It was only after half a month had passed that people began to realize Shiller was missing, and this stirred up quite a commotion.
Nick picked up the phone and yelled, "How is it that he's been missing for half a month, and only now you thought of looking for him? What do you agents eat? I've said it so many times: if he doesn't show up for three days, report it immediately!"
Just as he put down the phone, Natasha popped her head in through the door, saying, "When I went there, Spider-Man and Pikachu were playing games. They both said they knew nothing. I think they were telling the truth."
Nick rubbed his throbbing head and said, "Didn't Shiller just stir up a major incident? Logically, he shouldn't cause trouble again so soon. How is it that he has disappeared again?"
"Coulson is guarding the sanatorium, he will immediately report once Doctor Schiller returns, then I will go to the laboratory of Stark Group again."
"Go ahead, hopefully Tony knows where he's gone."
When Natasha boarded her shuttle at Stark Laboratory's isolated shuttle platform, she saw Stark hunched over checking the camera data, and she knew it was hopeless. Stark had only just found out that Shiller had disappeared.
But she went in anyway. Without waiting for her to speak, Stark, with his arms folded, looked at Natasha and said, "Keeping an eye on people is an agent's job, are you hoping to rely on me? What was said at the last meeting again, that if he disappeared for three days, you would report it?"
"Almost everyone was busy studying the data Loki got from Infinite Ultron, especially about the so-called 'Beyond the Gods', this news is too shocking, Nick needs to be very careful when he studies it."
"Don't give me that look." Natasha sighed, "All right, you may think you could keep an eye on Shiller, after all, you're not his only Iron Man now."
Stark rolled his eyes slightly, "I thought Nick would keep an eye on Shiller, he was the only one who didn't profit from this plan, he must be focused on the next one."
The two of them stared at each other, both speechless. Why couldn't they just keep an eye on him?
In fact, since Shiller's last disappearance made a huge fuss, everyone has held several meetings together, and the main content of the meetings was to keep a close eye on Shiller to prevent him from secretly pulling another heart-exploding stunt.
That's right, these parties include S.H.I.E.L.D., Stark Group, mutants, Spider Legion, Asgard, The Sanctum, and even gods like Eternity and Death, they all took turns supervising Shiller and agreed to notify each other and search separately if they lost track of Shiller within a maximum of three days.
Everyone knows this is the ideal scenario, so it was also agreed that if they still haven't found him after the deadline, they need to notify each other and prepare early to prevent Shiller from sneaking around and kicking them into a hole.
The "Watch Schiller Alliance" fell flat on its first implementation. Stark and Nick both thought the other would watch, Charles has recently gone to the Andromeda Galaxy, the Spider Legion is busy scoring points, Eternity and Death have no concept of time, and the end result was they only noticed Shiller's disappearance after half a month.
However, everyone knew that if half a month had passed, it was not a matter of being kicked into a hole anymore. Shiller probably had already dug a hole in Mariana Trench.
If he was found within three days, at least they could interrogate him about what happened; if his whereabouts were found within five days, they could also conduct a preventive excavation; even if they could only locate him after around a week, they could still carry out some kind of humane rescue.
But half a month? Let it go and carry on with your life.
After Stark and Nick searched around on Earth and didn't find him, they knew Shiller had definitely left Earth. There was no way to fill the hole now, they didn't care as long as the trench wasn't dug on Earth.
So, the two of them made calls to all parties following the alliance agreement. The gist was, Shiller was lost, it was too late when they found out, but they had fulfilled their obligation to inform you. If you got caught in a natural or man-made disaster, it would be due to your own lack of preparedness, so don't come looking for them.
Not to mention Eternity who had to go on a business trip soon, Death, when hearing this news was the first to realize what it was like to be livid. If she were a human, blisters would be rising on her lips by now.
Death hurriedly checked where Shiller was, oh no, within the Prime Universe, another glance, even worse, surrounded by the dead, a final look, totally screwed, still amidst the dead.
Death quickly asked Adam for a leave of absence at lightning speed, packed her stuff, left even the Realm of Death behind, grabbed her bag and took a spontaneous journey overnight.
Moreover, she was considerate enough to notify Oblivion before leaving. Oblivion, who was sleeping in a daze, was startled awake and, just like any college student who has a sudden whim in the middle of the night, he realized, youth is priceless, hard seat straight to Lhasa and he left overnight.
Infinity, who had been working overtime to the point of headache lately, was almost sick with anger when he saw this. Everyone has fled because of typhoon, I am the only one working overtime in the company, is this taking advantage of a fool?
He counted his annual leave and the compensatory leave from working overtime and barely cobbled together a decent vacation. He ran away too after handing Adam a leave slip.
The remaining Adam was dumbfounded. What about the servers with all the programmers gone?
Of course, he could maintain them, but Adam also had his own unspeakable distress. He knew that some of the emergency maintenance activities last time, which were completely out of responsibility, were likely to have offended Shiller. What if Shiller was targeting him this time?
Moreover, Shiller should have some restraint. He has caused so many incidents, at most he's messed up some files, but he hasn't actually damaged the server. The server is made of iron, not tofu, not checking it for a few days should be okay.
Adam hesitated for a moment and decided to follow his heart's longing for freedom. He packed up a bit and slipped away.
Coming back to the issue, while Shiller was looking for the Molecular Man, the Molecular Man was also looking for someone.
But after looking around, he noticed a puzzling phenomenon. It seems that the five major gods of the universe are absent from this universe.