Happiness Came Too Suddenly (First Update)

The equipment had all been prepared. The Hand’s Five Fingers were still lying like corpses in coffin-like life-support pods—

Enjoying the pleasures of a high-tech version of "mind-reading."

Although brain mapping could be done with just a helmet, the five of them had far too many memories, and it would take too long. Without life-support pods, what if they starved to death before their brains were fully mapped?

Even kung fu masters could not go ten days or half a month without eating…

Most importantly, these people were quite powerful. They would resist if they wore helmets. They could only be put into dormant sleep inside the life-support pods, restrained by various devices, and kept in rare silence.

Carl was not even fifty yet, and her memory capacity was less than Whitehall’s. The Winter Soldier could be handled in half a day, so a helmet was enough for him.

Jia Ying might well have been over five hundred years old. She was practically a young calf eating old grass. Even if her memory capacity could not compare to the Five Fingers’, it was still beyond that of ordinary people. Naturally, she required special treatment.

Because of her Inhuman ability to "drain life," no one dared touch her skin. Old Wang could only place her into the life-support pod himself.

"Begin the mapping."

Fitz pressed the activation button. Looking at the estimated time on the screen, he was utterly stunned. "It’s… it’s even greater than Madame Gao’s memory capacity? Could she have lived for two thousand years?"

Then he glanced at Carl again, and Fitz found it completely incomprehensible.

Could such a huge age gap really work?

What was wrong with this world?

"That’s perfectly normal." Old Wang remained calm.

Youth and memory capacity were two different things.

Because he had close relationships with many ancient monsters who had lived for thousands or tens of thousands of years, Old Wang knew something about long-lived species. He knew that as age increased, memory capacity did not actually grow linearly. Its growth rate gradually declined—

Because many memories were repetitive, and only valuable information was retained. Repetitive, useless information was automatically filtered out and forgotten, making room for other memories.

The Hand’s Five Fingers had lived for a thousand years. They had long grown accustomed to everything in the world, so their memories had not increased by much. Besides—

Each of them had died and been resurrected dozens of times. There were gaps between every death and resurrection. Sometimes they had even lain dead for years or decades before reviving. Their actual memories did not amount to a full thousand years at all.

Compared to them, Jia Ying was practically a girl in the bloom of youth, but she had only died once in total. Her memory capacity was instead greater than that of the Five Fingers.

"Uh… it’ll take about two weeks. You know memories are complex. We have to complete the brain mapping before we can alter them."

Fitz glanced at Gordon, who kept flickering outside, as well as the Crimson Magic Belt constantly weaving through the area. He looked troubled. "The Laboratory has no food reserves, and there aren’t enough beds either…"

I really didn’t know that… Old Wang looked at Fitz, his expression somewhat strange.

Leaving aside why a scientist’s first thoughts were food and sleep.

The point was, wasn’t he right here? Why worry about food and drink?

More importantly, Gordon’s physical condition was no different from an ordinary person’s. He needed food and sleep too, so what was Fitz even afraid of?

"Gordon is being restrained by Little Red, so there’s no need to worry. There are only a few people with Inhuman abilities in Afterlife. Even if they all come, it won’t matter. Matt, Stick, and Elektra will handle them."

Old Wang tapped the life-support pod. "This is the perfect time to focus on scientific research. Skye, there’s nothing to worry about here. Go study virtual technology and treat it as a distraction."

"Mm." Skye also knew there was no point in simply watching. The more she watched, the more worried she became.

Besides, her father would wake up soon. Once he was watching over things, there would be nothing to worry about.

"Fitz, the next major research directions will be the Quantum Brain and new materials."

Old Wang asked, "Is the Quantum Brain difficult? Roughly how long will it take to complete?"

"Uh… I don’t know."

Fitz decided to tell the truth. "S.H.I.E.L.D. was already researching brain mapping and memory uploading. It can only be considered cutting-edge technology, and at best we’re twenty years ahead of the world. The ‘Framework’ is the future of virtual technology. It’s extremely difficult and fifty years ahead of the world. But the Quantum Brain… honestly, no one is researching it right now. No one even knows how to begin researching it. It’s only a concept."

Fitz was deeply troubled and had a terrible headache.

Some scientists believed that human consciousness was actually a quantum state.

Of course, that was merely what some people believed. Most remained skeptical and did not consider "quantum consciousness" to be science, because there was no way to study it. It could only be regarded as an unverifiable hypothesis.

And now the boss was directly telling him to research a Quantum Brain, a brain composed purely of quantum states!

It was far too advanced. If he had not read the relevant knowledge in the Darkhold, he would have thought the boss had gone insane.

Even at his level, he could understand only a tenth of that knowledge. Lucy and the others were completely in the dark.

How was he supposed to research this?

Forget one month or one year. Even if he were given ten years or a hundred years, he could not guarantee he would figure it out!

This was not something humans could accomplish!

"Human potential is limitless, and so is human wisdom. Don’t underestimate yourself, Fitz."

Old Wang fed Fitz a bowl of motivational chicken soup, then said, "Don’t worry. I’ll help you find an expert in this field, a genuine top-tier scientist."

You told Simmons the same thing. It’s been two months already, so where is this person… Fitz nodded heavily. "Boss, I believe you!"

After a pause, he cautiously asked, "And those new materials…?"

You never mentioned this before!

Other than the little Secondary Adamantium they had left, they had nothing on hand. They could only test Adamantium; they could not even slice it. What was he supposed to research?

Graphene? Nanocomposites?

"Not those things you’re thinking of."

Old Wang said, "They’re new elements you’ve never seen before, the kind that don’t exist on Earth."

"Like Vibranium?" Fitz’s eyes lit up. "I heard it came from a meteorite from outer space and has energy-absorbing properties?"

"That’s what you need to research."

Old Wang spent a full 0.1 grams of Azeroth Blood to exchange for a huge amount of precious materials unique to World of Warcraft. Together, they weighed a full ton. They came in every color and carried dense elemental auras.

"What are these?" Fitz searched through his memories and found that none of them matched anything he knew.

"The silvery-white one is Mithril."

"The silver-blue one is Adamantite."

"Those two pieces over there are Truesilver and Thorium."

"The one that looks rather like your director is Black Iron."

"These are more expensive: Arcanite, Demonic Elementium Bar, and Saronite. They’re worth about as much as Vibranium, so don’t lose them."

"This is Kryptonite, and this is Eternium."

"And this is Elemental Flux. It can help melt the metals above, so you may need it."

"These are solid elements: Eternal Earth, Eternal Fire, Eternal Water, Eternal Air, Eternal Life, Eternal Shadow…"

"These are somewhat inferior: Primal Elements and Elemental Essence."

"These are…"

Old Wang listed a huge number of things, more than a hundred materials in all, until Fitz’s head spun.

Boss, either you’re an alien, or you’re sick. Mentally sick!

"Study them slowly. These things are classified as top secret, especially the Eternal Elements, Saronite Ingots, Saronite, Kryptonite, and Elemental Flux. Only the few of you can study them. The newly recruited people absolutely cannot touch them."

Old Wang said, "I won’t put pressure on you. Just don’t sit idle. Tell Skye whatever equipment you need. Spend money however you like."

Fitz: "…"

What other scientists worried about most every day was having no research projects. Even if they had one, they could not secure funding.

As for him, he had so many research projects they were exploding out of his hands. More than a hundred had arrived at once, and he could use funding however he pleased.

For the first time in his life, Fitz understood what it meant to be so happy that it became worrying…

He took a deep breath and caught his breath.

Let the endless projects drown me!

Old Wang turned and left, soon arriving at the Biochemistry Laboratory.