[This Chapter Is Sponsored by truckKunFan! Everyone, please thank him in the comment!]
Bi Xiao returned to the manor. After a pretty maid greeted him, she poured him a glass of iced fruit juice.
She was evidently well-acquainted with Bi Xiao's habits.
"Sir, what cuisine would you like today?"
"Add a serving of Hong Kong-style roasted goose, and arrange the rest according to the usual schedule."
"Very well, I will notify the kitchen immediately."
The maid left, and Bi Xiao carried the juice to the top-floor balcony of the manor's residence. He sat on the edge of the balcony in a chair, with a new laptop on the table in front of him.
He casually browsed to see if there were any interesting news items.
Of course, it wasn't news from the media, but rather secret information from S.H.I.E.L.D. that he accessed using his hacking skills.
His hacking skills had been improving day by day. Additionally, he had instructed the housekeeper to build an advanced server room in the manor's underground area, which cost a fortune. As for money, let's just say that several vampire families in other cities had suffered losses in the past two years.
With top-notch hacking skills and state-of-the-art servers, he could easily invade any confidential database.
Regarding S.H.I.E.L.D.'s classified data, it was primarily due to a former director. Since that foolish ex-director tried to cause him trouble, Bi Xiao simply used mind control on him. Having such a major insider made it very easy for him to access S.H.I.E.L.D.'s confidential database through a backdoor.
Although the outside world seemed calm over the past two years, quite a few things had actually happened.
For instance, a year ago, in 2001, under Hydra's influence, S.H.I.E.L.D. entrusted the "Project Distant Star Return" to a company controlled by Gideon Malick.
S.H.I.E.L.D., together with NASA, arranged for four astronauts to join the project. They were transported to a desert planet through a black stone portal for a year-long scientific expedition.
Then, the four astronauts lost all contact, and the project was completely shelved. In fact, Bi Xiao knew very well what happened afterward.
There was a top predator, the "Hive," which had destroyed the advanced civilization on that Earth-like planet. Three astronauts died, leaving only one, Will, surviving in the desert, struggling against the Hive.
This had later connections with Hydra's history.
This all happened after S.H.I.E.L.D. was disbanded and Coulson became the new director of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Moreover, two days after the 9/11 attacks, Thaddeus Ross proposed to the U.S. military to start the "Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Project," attempting to replicate the research results of the "Project Rebirth" to mass-produce super soldiers in response to the new century's anti-terrorism situation.
The Hulk was about to be born.
Today, in 2003, S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy opened in September, with Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons joining the Academy's Science and Technology division. They were the youngest students in the Academy's history and started a rivalry of academic excellence. S.H.I.E.L.D. also paid great attention to these two young researchers.
Apart from that, there wasn't much other news.
After briefly browsing, Bi Xiao closed the laptop.
He drank the juice and reflected on his achievements over the past two years.
In the first year at Kamar-Taj, he quickly read through the entire library of over 13,000 books, recording them in his super brain, and then began analyzing and exploring. He progressed systematically from basic to advanced magical knowledge.
With the help of the Ancient One and other senior sorcerers, he had already surpassed others by the end of the first year. Aside from the Ancient One, he had the greatest knowledge and magical mastery in Kamar-Taj.
In the second year, he began to explore creating his own magical system based on Kamar-Taj's magic framework.
This process wasn't difficult; on the contrary, it was quite simple. The hardest part was the initial breakthrough from zero to one. Once that was achieved, progressing to two, three, or even ten was much easier.
The core element of magic is to construct a program code with magical energy, and then release the magic with specific codes.
The Ancient One envied Bi Xiao mainly because he solved the two biggest innate problems for sorcerers: energy and cognition.
Bi Xiao was born with immense magical energy and a highly powerful mind, allowing him to learn and memorize magic extremely quickly. He only needed to modify the process of communicating and drawing magic from other dimensions, adapting it to release magic using his own magical energy.
He mastered all the low-level and high-level spells of Kamar-Taj.
Additionally, he created many spells tailored specifically for himself.
One of these included his imitation of the "Gate of Babylon," which he used to kill the Lava Demon.
The biggest challenge of the "Gate of Babylon" was the treasury. Gilgamesh's treasury represented the archetype of human wisdom, a concept created by humanity, incorporating the technologies and civilizations of other celestial beings.
Although it seemed mysterious, it was essentially a conceptual weapon storage. The weapon storage would automatically detect and incorporate new weapons as human eras evolved.
Modern aircraft and submarines would also be included in Gilgamesh's treasury.
Similarly, Bi Xiao constructed a vast dimensional magical space using spatial magic and barriers, built with his immense magical energy to form a stable dimensional space.
This space could only be accessed by him.
Moreover, through an extensive and intricate magical circuit, he crafted weapons with materials, inscribing them with magical runes, commonly known as enchantments.
These weapons became powerful magical artifacts.
In the dimensional space, these weapons were continuously nourished by magical energy, gradually increasing their power.
He could open the dimensional space at any time and launch the weapons using an automatic construction and ejection method, similar to a railgun, with a maximum launch speed reaching the speed of light, making the destructive power imaginable.
This process required minimal magical energy from Bi Xiao, mainly consuming a small amount of energy to open small dimensional portals, earning him the nickname (self-proclaimed) "Human Shaped Apocalyptic Demon King."