Marvel's whitewashing cop, you want me to save the world?

Chapter 140 Science is Outdated

Li En glanced at the marks left in the desert.

He turned to face Coulson, Natasha, and Hawkeye Barton, who had just emerged from the tent.

"Steve has obtained the complete list of Hydra agents, and S.H.I.E.L.D. is now practically defunct."

"You three need to think carefully about what to do next."

He paused for a moment, his gaze sweeping from Coulson's face to Natasha, and finally settling on Barton.

The three of them stood still, and no one spoke.

Coulson's jawline was taut, and Natasha crossed her arms in front of her chest.

Patton stared down at his boots, his fingers unconsciously fiddling with the buckle on his quiver.

Li En didn't wait for them to finish processing the news before continuing.

Tony Stark is willing to continue advancing the Avengers' plans.

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"If you still plan to continue in this line of work, you can go directly to him and talk to him."

"He's in need of a few people who aren't Hydra."

Coulson took a deep breath, his chest heaving more than usual.

He didn't spend too much time processing the words "S.H.I.E.L.D. is practically defunct".

It started with a phone call from New Mexico to Stemyna.

He had already rehearsed this ending in his mind repeatedly.

The thing that truly needs time to digest is something else entirely.

He looked up at Li En, his voice carrying a subtle, almost imperceptible stubbornness.

"I still want to find Chief Nick Fury. He's probably not dead, but we don't know where he's hiding."

Li En shrugged indifferently.

He didn't exactly like Nick Fury, that black bastard, but he didn't hate him to the point of wishing him dead either.

An old fox who has survived so many years in Hydra without being killed wouldn't be so easily defeated at a time like this.

They're most likely hiding in some safe house that even satellites can't detect, waiting for the situation to become clear before emerging to start a new game.

He didn't particularly appreciate this way of doing things, but he didn't intend to stop Coulson from going.

He turned and walked toward the helicopter. The rotors had already started spinning again, and the wind whipped up by the blades made the hem of his coat flutter.

He walked to the cabin door, grabbed the handrail, put one foot on the landing gear, turned his head and threw out his last words in Coulson's direction.

"If you need any help later, feel free to contact me. I'll be a bit busy lately, with a bunch of documents waiting for me to get back and stamp."

Coulson stood there watching him, then suddenly laughed.

"I will vote for you, Mayor Lee Eun."

Li En's lips curled up slightly, and he casually waved his right hand in mid-air.

"Thanks then."

He climbed onto the helicopter and closed the door.

The roar of the propellers suddenly rose, the fuselage shuddered slightly, and then it smoothly lifted off the ground and flew towards New York.

Umbrella School Laboratory.

When Li En pushed open the glass door, which had been upgraded several times with its access control system, the first person he saw was not Tony Stark, nor Banner, nor Connors.

It was Pepper Potts.

Little Chili sat on a folding chair that had been temporarily moved to the corner of the lab, with a thin and light work laptop spread out on her lap.

Holding the phone to his ear with his left hand, he was discussing the contract terms of a supplier for Stark Industries with the person on the other end of the line in an extremely restrained tone, but with each word enunciated very clearly.

She kept her voice very low, probably so as not to disturb the people working in the laboratory.

But every time she finished speaking, her eyes would involuntarily lift up from the screen and glance towards the lab table.

On the other side of the lab table, Tony Stark was sitting on a high stool.

The holographic screen in front of me projects a row of densely packed candlestick charts and real-time stock price data.

Stark Industries' stock is still falling.

He rested his chin on his hand, his expression not particularly serious, but rather somewhat absent-minded.

It's like watching a dog that refuses to go home, rolling around in a mud puddle in the yard—annoying, but not something that can't be solved.

Li En did not go over to disturb him.

He walked straight past several running centrifuges and the wall-mounted display screen filled with real-time data streams, and arrived at the main lab bench shared by Banner and Connors.

With a flick of his wrist, the metal box slid from the storage space into his palm, placed it on the control panel, and he opened the lid.

The four tubes, still containing blood samples at the body temperature of Asgardians, were neatly embedded in the constant-temperature sponge tank.

The labels on the pipe walls bear the names of Sif, Vostagg, Hogan, and Fandall.

"You all know what's going on in New Mexico, right?" Li En pushed the box forward a few centimeters.

Tony peeked out from behind the screen, his face beaming with excitement.

"Jarvis has already sent over all the footage from the scene; I watched it all while you were flying in the sky."

His tone noticeably lowered slightly when he mentioned the words "on-site footage".

He swiped his finger across the holographic screen a few times, bringing up several combat recordings extracted from the surveillance equipment at Coulson's temporary camp.

In the video, Thor is swinging Mjolnir. Every time the hammer hits the ground, the energy reading on the screen jumps up dramatically, so much so that the dynamic range of the sensor is completely overloaded, and the entire waveform becomes a blinding red overload zone.

In another video, the Destroyer armor, which Coulson described as a "big iron lump," is seen spitting out a blazing beam of light from the cracked armor plates on its face.

Where the beam of light swept across, the sand was instantly burned into a translucent, glassy solid.

His prized Mark armor couldn't withstand more than a few rounds against these two levels of power.

This is not a problem that can be solved by upgrades and iterations; it requires a completely new path.

And now, Li En placed these four vials of Asgardian blood in front of him.

One of the paths has been found.

Banner and Connors had already walked to the control panel.

Connors pushed his goggles up to his forehead and his fingers flew across the keyboard.

We re-examined the previous analysis model for Thor's blood and adjusted the parameters to suit the Warriors Four of Asgard.

Banner put on gloves and carefully took one of the blood samples from the constant temperature bath in the box, then held it up to the fluorescent light and shook it gently.

Sif's name was pasted on the pipe wall.

"Thor's blood data has already helped us run most of the cell structure models of Asgardians."

Banner placed the test tube into the centrifuge slot, closed the door, pressed the start button, and then turned to look at Li En.

"Therefore, the analysis of these four samples will be much faster than before."

The centrifuge started running, its low hum spreading throughout the laboratory.

Connors stared at the cell activity data that appeared line by line on the screen, his fingers tapping lightly on the control panel, each tap precisely timed to the interval between the data refresh sound effects.

Banner stood in front of the gene sequencing platform, arms crossed, toes tapping lightly on the floor unconsciously.

Tony slid off the bar stool and walked behind the two men. His coffee cup was already cold, but he made no attempt to get a new one.

After an unknown amount of time, Banner suddenly let out an uncontrollable exclamation, so loud that even Pepper, who was on the phone in the corner, looked up in their direction.

He turned around, his goggles pushed up to his forehead, the lenses reflecting the row of green confirmation marks constantly flashing on the control panel.

He looked as if he had just emerged from an extremely long tunnel and finally seen the light at the exit.

"It's usable! We can start making the upgraded version of the Dragon Blood Potion immediately. Using these four blood samples as transitional materials, the pathway is completely working!"

Upon hearing these words, Li En finally felt a tension that had been building up in his chest for so long.

He didn't make it too obvious; he simply put his hands in his coat pockets, slumped his shoulders slightly, and then asked.

"After using this upgrade, can I directly use Thor's blood?"

Connors turned his chair away from the screen, took off his gloves and placed them on the edge of the console, then shook his head.

His tone was calm, as if he were correcting a bright student in class for making a slightly presumptuous assumption.

"Thor's blood level is not on the same level as these four warriors."

Even if we manage to create an upgraded version of the Dragon's Blood potion and use it to absorb Thor's cellular energy, there's still at least one transitional level missing.

Based on current data models, at least one more sample is needed—someone between these four warriors and Thor, but not so powerful as to overpower the potion's base—to ensure the entire upgrade chain runs smoothly.

"I understand." Li En nodded, not surprised by the answer.

No matter how brave and skilled the Warriors Four were, they were still just warriors of Asgard, and could not compare to Thor, whose bloodline was blessed by Odin, the king of the gods, from birth.

It's normal to have a step in between; it would be abnormal if there wasn't.

"If everything goes smoothly, we should be able to get Loki's blood soon, and then we'll see where he is stuck."

"Loki and Thor are brothers, right?" Tony walked to the control panel with his coffee, glancing at the continuously updating cell activity comparison data on the screen.

"Their blood strength is roughly the same, probably in the same category."

"Then we'll have to find another way to find a middle ground."

"They are indeed brothers," Li En said with a slight smile, "but they don't necessarily share the same blood."

Tony let out a drawn-out "Oh".

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His tone went from high to low, taking several turns, and a look of "I didn't expect you to know even this kind of thing" appeared on his face.

He didn't press further. Although he hadn't known Li En for very long, he had already learned one thing.

When someone says something in this tone, it's pointless to ask further questions.

It's better to wait for him to take the things out himself.

Li En took a step forward and patted Tony on the shoulder twice.

The force was not strong; the hand did not immediately move away after it landed.

"I've seen how hard you've worked during this time."

"The Dragon Blood Potion is finished, but you still haven't gone to the hospital to get rid of those hidden problems in your chest."

"You only have one thing on your mind: how to prevent this planet from being destroyed when aliens come."

Tony's hand, holding the coffee cup, froze in mid-air. He didn't refute, nor did he utter any stubborn nonsense.

He simply shifted his gaze from the screen to the four vials of blood samples on the control panel.

"Actually, there has always been someone watching over us on Earth."

Li En pulled his hand away from his shoulder. "It's not because of any Asgardian mercy that we've survived until now."

This man is known as the Sorcerer Supreme, and his power is not much weaker than Odin's.

So don't rush things, don't jump around in your actions, just take a steady and methodical approach.

He released his grip and turned to walk towards the laboratory door.

He took a few steps, then stopped, turned his head, and added a sentence.

"I have to go back and prepare my speech, so I can't stay up with you all."

"By the way, Bright said they found a lot of things when they were cleaning up S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters."

There's a box inside with Howard Stark's name on it; I've already had it delivered to you.

Tony's fingers tightened slightly on the side of the coffee cup.

"Tony." Li En's hand was already on the doorknob. He didn't turn around, but his voice came back through the half-open glass door of the laboratory.

"From a cosmic perspective, we are all Earthlings, and this burden should not be borne by you alone."

The door closed behind him, and the sound of footsteps faded away down the corridor.

The laboratory was quiet for a while.

Banner and Connors emerged from behind the control panel and stood on either side of Tony.

Banner reached out and patted Tony on the other shoulder. The movement was a little clumsy, probably because he rarely did this. His palm landed slightly off-center, but the force was very sincere.

"Li En is right. Protecting the Earth is not just your responsibility, it's everyone's responsibility."

Tony stood there, head down, silent for a long time.

Then he suddenly raised his head and stared wide-eyed at Banner and Connors.

"Did you hear what he just said? Sorcerer Supreme? Wizard?"

There have always been sorcerers protecting us on Earth, and we didn't even know it?

Banner and Connors were taken aback.

The two looked at each other, and then realized at the same time that they had been too busy processing the first half of the sentence, "Don't carry the burden alone."

Completely unaware that Li En had hidden this message in his words.

The three people stared at each other with six eyes, but no one spoke first.

Then Tony slammed his fist on the control panel, making the empty coffee cup next to him bounce.

"Science must not lag behind!"