As Alex dealt with Tony's situation and prepared to take over Earth-199999, one of his bodies was currently in its astral form, traveling to the core of the planet.
Soon, however, he encountered a formless barrier that blocked his astral form from descending further. Looking at the endless molten metals all around him, he frowned thoughtfully. Right now, he was well over five thousand kilometers deep into the surface of the Earth, and with the reference of Wanda's Earth, he knew that the incubating Celestial was going to be at the core. But the blockade hampered him from moving further.
"It seems that this Celestial has some sort of innate defensive mechanism," he spoke to himself, pausing in thought. It wasn't that he was unable to breach the barrier, but he was worried about what would come after.
He was currently operating under the assumption that all of the higher-end universal entities were in a deep slumber, but he had no real way to prove if the Celestials were also part of that assumption. Wanda might have desecrated the corpse of a Celestial, but Alex's current plan was countless times worse since he was dealing with a live incubating Celestial.
Between hesitation, Alex glanced at his skill acquisition panel.
«Skill Acquisition»
«EP/Bioenergy» :: 867,574 Units
«Cosmic Energy» :: 0 Units
«Soul Energy» :: 84,563 -> 234,563 Units
«Manipulations» :: ‹Lightning Divinity› ‹Basic Blood Manipulation›
«Innate Abilities» :: ‹Biological Manipulation› ‹Host Enhancement› ‹Devour› ‹Copy›
«Derived Abilities» :: ‹Cosmic Physique Creation› ‹True Sixth Sense› ‹Inventory› ‹Intangibility› ‹Elemental Immunity› ‹Hypnosis› ‹Secondary Consciousness (Gaia)› ‹Psionics Manifestation›
«Magical Abilities» :: ‹High Magic Affinity› ‹Hyperspace Affinity› ‹Wielder of Chaos› ‹Soul Devour›
«Authorities» :: ‹Time (7.5%)› ‹Mind (10%)› ‹Soul (7.5%)› ‹Reality (7.5%)› ‹Power (5%)› ‹Space (5%)›
«Cosmic Abilities» :: ‹Low Cosmic Manipulation (Incomplete)› ‹Ambient Cosmic Manipulation›
Since his ambush by Kobik, the sentient Cosmic Cube, Alex had been in a frenzy in terms of collecting Bioenergy, forcefully ramping up its extraction at the farm at the cost of an increased number of resources that needed to be used for the residents' recovery. His production had straight up doubled, but the cost of maintaining the Gaia Penitentiary had increased ten times and was showing a further upward trend. And this increase was calculated per person. If Alex considered how he'd almost doubled the capacity over the past day, the farm's maintenance cost had increased by over twenty times.
Prisoner Farm — 29154 -> 40653
Mary Jane Watson - 0.5 EP/day Silvija Sablinova | Silver Sable - 0.5 EP/day Average Prisoners (27949 -> 37,819) - 0.0001 -> 0.0002 EP/day Qi Awakened (1203 -> 2834) - 0.05 EP/day to 0.5 EP/day -> 0.1 EP/day to 1 EP/day
Over the two years that had passed in the span of a single day outside, Alex had generated almost four hundred thousand units of Bioenergy. Factoring in his increased expansion costs, he had made a net gain of over three hundred thousand units.
The rest of his Bioenergy came from his assault on Earth-Z. While his road trip to South America with Laura was proving to be both enjoyable and somewhat eventful, he was preparing to take absolute control of the planet's Abomination production for his future with the Apex Empire. To that end, he had gone on a massive killing spree, essentially obliterating every single Abomination in Africa and discovering two Bastions that still remained, resisting the endless assaults. One was Wakanda, which was barely holding on as their supplies and greenhouse production dwindled, and the other was a crumbling facility with barely any living people who had already lost all traces of humanity, having turned to cannibalism to survive. Taking over Wakanda allowed him to get his hands on another large deposit of Vibranium as a small bonus while he harvested tens of millions of weak Abominations all over the continent and sucked them dry. Not only did that provide him with a large amount of Bioenergy to use, but it also allowed him to collect a large amount of Soul Power by using the ability of the Dweller-in-Darkness from Ta Lo.
As for Soul Energy, Alex didn't have any immediate use for it since his soul was already so immensely powerful that any worthwhile enhancements would require a massive amount ot it. So, he chose to keep the energy in case he ever wanted to do something intensely complicated which would quickly exhaust him. Soul Energy didn't have much of an enhancement effect on him, but it served as a very viable means of recovery.
"This is positively the craziest thing that I've ever done…"
With a simple application of Chaos Energy to warp space, Alex's real body manifested over his astral form as his perception of time resynced with reality. The heat, despite being over four thousand degrees Celsius, did little to affect him with his elemental immunity.
Before long, six Infinity Stones manifested all around Alex as they embedded themselves in various parts of his body—the Mind Stone taking up space on his glabella while the Soul Stone stuck to the back of his neck, the Power Stone went over his chest while the Time and Space Stones went on the back of either hand, leaving the Reality Stone to suddenly liquify as it poured into his eyes, dyeing them a glowing crimson.
The moment the stones took their respective places, an invisible wave of energy erupted from Alex that instantly enveloped the entire planet. The six stones all worked in conjunction to form a barrier around the planet. Alex went a step further to directly eliminate every single possible individual that might hamper his immediate plan. Fortunately, he didn't detect anyone and didn't assume foul play, considering he was using the authority of all six Infinity Stones combined.
With the confidence that there weren't any traps waiting for him in the immediate future, he amplified the Space Stone to its full potential and wrapped its authority around the Earth and its Moon. Instantly, it disappeared from its original spot, appearing on the other side of the cluster of Earths, right inside the massive shielding formation that encapsulated Gaia's four planets. The collective outer shield was large enough that it could easily accommodate the presence of a new planet without causing any disturbance to the other planets, but Alex's premature transportation caused a massive problem for the new Earth.
Unlike the others, the MCU Earth wasn't enveloped in a planetary shield. And now, outside the influence of the cluster, it was immediately in a precarious situation as countless natural disasters were on the verge of eruption. Alex used the authority of the stones to emulate a barrier for the time being while he prepared to take the next step. With his measures, the only indication of their planet's sudden displacement was the changed positioning of the planets and stars in the sky.
Now that the planet itself was stable and placed within the Gaia Cluster, Alex focused on spreading the influence of the stones to the outer barrier, cutting off the entirety of the Gaia Cluster from any methods of detection. Of course, knowing that the might of the Celestials was comparable, or arguably greater than the Infinity Stones, he treated the blockade around the Gaia Cluster as a sort of smokescreen to handle the aftermath of his gamble.
It was likely that his massive efforts in concealment might not even be necessary, but Alex had to take the necessary precautions. He had too much to lose in case his gamble failed or worse, attracted dangerous entities.
"If the worst-case scenario really happens, I will need to evacuate all of my people to the Sovereign…"
As Alex's best-effort blockade formed all around the MCU Earth and further around the Gaia Cluster, he finally brought his focus over to the mysterious barrier that was keeping him away. Even after he took his physical form, the barrier was the same in blocking him from going any further.
With a deep breath, Alex once again mobilized the authority of the stones, feeling the pinch of spending such massive amounts of his Bioenergy to mitigate the backlash of using the stones. Then again, he had already exhausted over two hundred thousand units of Bioenergy and planned to keep going until he either succeeded or was left exhausted.
Even under the assault of all six Infinity Stones working in conjunction, the barrier blocking Alex only slightly tore apart in front of him, allowing him to pass through before it reformed. It didn't matter, though. Alex still had access to the Klyntar Soul Dimension, which meant that he could now access this place whenever he wanted as long as he left a small piece of himself in here.
Finally, after crossing the barrier, Alex passed through more molten metal, finally coming upon a glowing metallic sphere, only the material wasn't metal. Frankly, the material was something he had never even seen before. Whether it was better than Uru was undetermined, but Alex could instantly tell that, whether it was the energy conductivity of the material or its hardness, it was incomparable to materials like Vibranium or Adamanium.
Back in Earth-21798B, when Wanda brought Alex to the core to see the dead Celestial, they had encountered this exact material when Wanda teleported him to the core with the Celestial, but it had already lost most of its properties and was equivalent to an inert rock. The special properties of the material that Alex sensed were all because of the fact that the incubating Celestial was actually alive.
"All right, Tiamat. Are you conscious, pal?" Alex asked, almost rhetorically, but also expecting to hear the response of the incubating Celestial in his head.
***
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