CHAPTER 77 - INTO THE QUANTUM REALM II

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My journey, if it could even be called that, to the Quantum Realm was short, pun intended. More so to the point that I had to play it at steady repetition in my head in order to give everything I saw an analytical once-over.

Unlike the Ant-Man's suit, my ability didn't shrink me at a decreasing pace, instead it was more like a downward hill slope – I just kept going until I hit rock bottom.

'Where the hell am I?'

The place I landed after shrinking down for who knows how long, or how short, looked as if it was a mishmash of the different seasonal cycles.

It looked trippy as fuck.

It was as dark as a starless night and yet I could see very well, even without any aid. The laws of physics really took the backbench when it arrived here.

"Do you know how long we've been here?"

[Negative]

[It feels as if every single point of distance-space in the Quantum Realm runs through different time cycles. It'd be best if time is calculated based on the individual rather than the chronological flow of this dimension]

"Well, that's a bummer." I kept a stopwatch running just in case before flying in a random direction to see if I can pick up anything.

I don't know how long it took me but I had the sudden feeling that this place was alive. It was just a feeling but it definitely felt like that was the case until I used the Mind Stone to confirm if my guess was wrong or right, which surprisingly didn't give me anything useful it couldn't exactly tell if the whole realm was sentient or not. Hopefully not.

The reason I came here other than wanting to solve quantum travel and building a worldwide instant teleportation network, and possibly hopping through universes, was to see if I can find Hank's wife.

I was already releasing a signal identical to that of the Ant-Man suit to see if anything could pick it up so I can backtrack to give me a direction but so far nothing.

No longer caring for the time I spent here, I started learning as much as I could about the Quantum Realm given how it was some sort of nexus to all other universes.

I was in the midst of pulling up sequences after sequences to find a way to power up a portal from the Quantum Realm to any point in my universe, but after another round of repeated failure, I finally felt something that was running its way towards me and it felt huge. Like way too huuuuge!

It was some sort of rocky, fleshy, vibrating mass that looks like something that came out of a cross-breeding session between a scorpion and a praying mantis and it was then that I finally understood that I might have shrunken down even further and my size became more diminutive than I'd thought it was.

Weirdly enough, it felt as if it was coming for me and despite it having no eyes, antennas or any sensory organ that I could identify, it still paused and turned in my direction before letting out an ear grating sound that honestly irritated me so much so that I just blasted the thing to quantum dust or whatever.

'Maybe it was tracking me because of the frequency?'

I didn't think much and turned off the signal. Have I been broadcasting my location since I stepped in here?

Hmm, thoughts for later.

I shot off in the direction that thing came from since it's the only clue to any sense of direction I've gotten since coming here.

I met a few more things, some outright phased through any obstacle in their way, all coming for me. I didn't try to hide from them since I wanted to know where they were coming from so I just blazed my way through those poor suckers.

It was interesting to note that some of them actually melded partially into the ground after being killed. "That's something you don't see everyday."

°°°°°°

"How the fuck did these things sense me all from wherever the hell they are still coming from?" I asked no one in particular which only stoked my frustration even more. If we were to go by earth's time cycle, then I'm pretty sure I've been following their trail for over a day and a half now but I still haven't found where they are coming from or how they came or even aim for someone from such a long ass distance.

I got so frustrated that I started spamming my triggers every time I caught a glimpse of them from the never ending horizon.

"Figured anything out about these critters yet?"

[Negative]

[Biological signature tells that they're not alive but since that is clearly wrong, it must be that we simply do not understand anything about the Quantum Realm as it laws completely differs from human science]

"What about the fusers? We can classify them as energy-type organisms right?"

I walked towards one of the carcass that had sunken halfway into the ground and raised my hand over it.

It pulsated for a few seconds before it started breaking down and dissolving into some type of dark energy cloud before being promptly sucked into my body.

"So that's Quantum-siphoning. I wonder what I can do with it?" I can already Quantum-shift and since the former is classified as an entirely different ability instead of being tagged as a subset of the latter then it has another branch of application that I simply haven't started using yet.

"Highlight any new feature that came with me absorbing whatever that was."

Even with everything I know and my large computing power, trying to understand something one has no data and information on is almost impossible, of course unless you're Reed Richards or his warlord descendant. Luckily for me, I am able to skip a lot of steps when it comes to analyzing and processing data and information.

"Let's try this."

The Mind Stone hovered over my palms as I prepared to do something pretty stupid, or pretty wild depending on the preference of whoever cares.

Instead of siphoning quantum matter as energy or even shrinking down to greater quantum degrees, I used the two aspects of Quantum-shifting and Quantum-siphoning, which was reducing distance and absorbing the quantum energy between these subatomic distances, and made them act on each other.

The result was a swirl of a perpetually shrinking subatomic distance within the very quantum energy that was directing it.

"Here goes nothing." I took a deep breath and let the Mind Stone get sucked inside while also focusing all my attention on the connection between the two of us, waiting and waiting for something to happen but it didn't.

Nothing happened!

"Yes!"

Despite the ever sinking feeling I was getting from it, the fact that I was 100% connected to it perfectly solved everything. With those two abilities, I can always draw whatever amount of power or energy from it without any lag since I'm connected to it at a quantum level. Hopefully it works out well on the off chance that I get stranded in another universe.

With that problem solved, a lot of my reservations bled out so with the effect of those two abilities, I shroud myself with the same fog and then shot forward but instead of moving at thousands of miles per hour, I actually teleported!

"Oh, I'm so going to love this!"

With the constant teleporting which I later found out was just the subatomic way of diffusion, involving me hiding or covering myself with quantum energy and just let it permeate and then reappear from wherever it permeates to. I don't think I can do this on earth but I'll be fixing that very soon.

Under the novel experience of teleportation, I was quick to notice the conglomeration of different organisms thousands of miles away from me.

"You've got to be kidding me." This is not what I wanted in any way because what I picked up, even without seeing it physically and just based on the energy readings that were definitely sentient and biological, well they were not the Quantumnauts which means I'm currently heading towards the base of the rebellion.

Do I want to deal with Kang? Fuck no!

I actually want to avoid the guy if possible since anything that puts me in his path means a future of unending troubles for me.

"Being a hero is damn hard." I whined at my wish to save Janet since I cheated Hank of his chance to get his wife back. "No wonder heroes are called trouble magnets. I just had to put my nose in where I had no business being."

It was easy to single out Janet since she was the only human here and was also the person I was looking for.

Turning invisible, I dashed inside the vicinity of their hideout and then shrouded myself in quantum energy for a short teleportation that took me to her side and before she could react, I whisked her thousands of miles away from the base after a few teleportations.

'Great, now I'm kidnapping her.'

Unfortunately my thoughts were cut short when she tapped something which actually forced me to separate from her.

"Relax, if I wanted to kill you then I wouldn't have carried you all the way out here."

'This is going to take some explaining.'