Ch79. Stark-approved tweaks
Tony and Natasha were in the basement of Tony's base on Mars, surrounded by so many wards it was unbelievable. Tony finished all the calculations and preparations for his PLUS ULTRA, or in other words, his Perfect Latent Unshackling of Soul via Unequalled Legendary Tony's Ritualistic Alchemy, weeks ago but he didn't dare to start with it before he warded the place to the kingdom's come.
The entire ward scheme was powered by no less than three hundred badassium-based arc reactors so the energy that came into it was massive. Not even The Ancient One would be able to come to his Mars base, much less spy on them, right now.
Tony nervously smiled and looked at Natasha, tightening his grip on her hand.
He checked and rechecked the calculations and everything was correct. Moreover, JARVIS and FRIDAY would monitor the entire transformation and activate whatever of the over sixty failsaves he had built in just in case.
Tony was certain everything would go smoothly. He spent the last year researching and experimenting, using FRIDAY's and JARVIS's calculation power to do simulations and tests, while learning more and more about the fields of 'magic' he needed for this ritual. Using JARVIS and FRIDAY to do calculations and simulations for him was incredibly efficient.
But even with his total belief in his research and preparations, being nervous before stepping into completely new territory was human nature.
Tony knew this irrevocably would change them. For better or worse, he had no idea... despite doing his best to make mostly positive change... but it will definitely bring a change. A change he so desperately needed to be confident in facing someone like Thanos.
Sure, he could continue going through the path of technology but Tony was no idiot. He knew better and cherished realistic thinking rather than living in a fantasy.
Technology needed time to be developed and Tony, no matter how big of a genius, was just one person.
Thanos had civilizations under himself that were more advanced than Earth, civilizations that had millions of not billions of people advancing their technologies for thousands of years, if not more. Countless geniuses, countless advancements, countless years of research and progress...
Asking Tony to beat all that with not even a decade worth of time was ridiculous and was so not going to happen.
And then there was the fact Thanos had 'magic' users among his subordinates.
No matter how neat his weapons were, magic would always trump them. That's what Tony learned when he opened his first portal and the application for it flashed through his mind.
Pfft. He could send a nuke at The Ancient One and all she had to do was open a portal in front of it, sending it to some random uninhabited planet.
And that was just one random example.
The only way to defeat magic with technology was to either outgun the magic caster... which was possible but would be extremely hard on a battlefield where friendly fire would be a serious problem... or catch him off guard.
Quite hard considering the magic casters will be definitely prepared for a fight and on alert.
But even if Tony defeated the magic casters, there was still the fact Thanos's troops will most certainly have more advanced technology in their arsenal.
And then there were Thanos and the infinity stones...
No... pure technology would not be enough.
That's why Tony went for magic no matter how uncomfortable it was for him at first.
And so far, he was not disappointed with that decision. Mystic Arts... offered a lot. One just had to open his eyes and look for it.
At first, Tony hoped to learn something to augment his technology and make it better. Enchanting and Alchemy gave him a massive advantage in that. But then Tony realized that the Mystic Arts held a much more useful and direct path to power. A path that with his limited time, was more appealing.
A path to personal power. To make oneself better to a yet unexplored degree.
The Masters of the Mystic Arts were too set in their ways. They never went out of the guidelines set by their predecessors. Never breaking taboos, never researching deeper than the surface level. It was not something an inventor like Tony liked. That's why it was no wonder for him he was the first to invent a ritual such as this.
And even then, Tony had a sneaking suspicion the only reason the calculations worked for him and Natasha was their brief get-together with the Soul Stone. Whenever he put the parameters of other humans... and he tried to input Rhodey, Pepper, and many other randoms' parameters just to sate his curiosity... and the result was horribly fatal in every calculation.
They would have never survived the ritual, their body torn to shreds as their soul expanded... before it would have inevitably imploded on itself,
According to JARVIS and FRIDAY's simulations, not even The Ancient One would have survived. Even though her 'parameters' were strong. Better than others and her body and soul could resist the ritual better. She would have lasted at least a few seconds before going 'bye-bye' life in a blast.
It didn't take a genius to find out her resistance was because of her frequent use of the Time Stone.
That gave Tony the idea of why he and Natasha could do this.
Soul Stone...
The Ritual was all about the Soul and thankfully, Tony's and Natasha's souls were a bit special. They were... alterable for the lack of a better term.
And as Tony realized, the Soul was literally capable of holding a dimension of its own.
The human soul was basically an untapped well with potential. It was like a self-sufficient energy battery that produced said energy out of nothing.
There was a reason why all those Dimensional Demons like Mephisto wanted human souls. For them, these souls were just renewable energy sources. The amusement from torturing the foolish ingrates who made a deal with them was just added pleasure.
Then again, when suffering, the soul produced more energy at a quicker rate, but it would also cause the soul to deteriorate more quickly. That... might or might not have an impact on their treatment.
After all, the Demons definitely did not care about the state of their energy snacks since they could just get more.
But back to the ritual... Tony realized there is a massive untapped potential in each human soul. And he just so happened to steal Extremis, which turned out to be capable of activating a very, very, very small part of that potential, granting its user super regeneration and the capability to become one of the hottest humans while still staying alive.
Of course, there was a limit.
The treasure was not really Extremis but the knowledge of how it managed to grant its user these properties.
And the answer was... Dimensional Energy.
Tony had no idea from which dimension it came, but after so much research, he had a solid idea of how to recreate the phenomenon.
But borrowing power from some unknown dimension was not his end game. No... the soul had much bigger potential than that. Since it was both battery and storage, Tony would naturally strive to keep it that way. He didn't want to be leeching power. He wanted to produce his own power.
That's why, the ritual was so dangerous and would kill anyone who tried it.
Lucky him and Natasha that their souls were so...
Tony had no idea how to really call it. The Soul Stone did something to them.
It was the cause of Natasha's rapid advancement in the Soul related stuff in the Mystic Arts. She simply understood it on an instinctual level that baffled even The Ancient One. Much the same way he understood most of the energies that came from the infinity stones. It simply clicked for him. Nevertheless, Tony thought it was a good remuneration for sacrificing their lives.
He wasn't overly bothered by it. He was just glad their souls were capable of withstanding and would accept the change he intended to implement to them, to the very core of their being.
After all, Tony was going to do something never before seen yet. Something that would earn him the nickname of a complete madman in the Mystic Arts community if anybody knew what he was going to do. Something that not even the biggest nutcases would consider doing.
Yet, he was sure it would work... For them.
In simple terms, he was going to enable their souls to produce a different kind of energy... its very own Dimensional energy. And for that... he first needed to transform their souls into proper corresponding dimensions.
Who said only Dimensional Demons and powerful entities presiding over this or that energy could have one of those? Clearly, humans could too!
One just had to make a few Stark-approved tweaks...