Chapter 330 S: Splendid Event (10) _1

"What did you say? Alien fleet lost an escort ship... dimensional jump? Peter, even though you've got your license, you shouldn't drink so much during the day..."

"...Alright, but I'm an adult, you know? And I haven't drunk that much... Jarvis said I spent all day wasted? Jarvis! Jarvis! You traitor! I only had one bottle this month..."

"Alright, where is this fleet from? Of course... of course I know aliens exist, but what are they doing here?"

Stark, who was on the phone, suddenly heard a "sizzle" sound behind him. He turned around to see a teleportation portal appearing in the middle of the lab, and the first ones to fall down were Strange and Nick.

Nick fell hard on the ground with a thud, and Strange landed on him. The S.H.I.E.L.D Director let out a scream, clutching his waist. He staggered to his feet and yelled at Strange, "You're a lousy mage! Can't you open the teleportation portal on the ground next time?"

"Oh, damn, my arm..." Strange replied, clutching his arm. "I've only been learning magic for a few months, you can't expect too much!".

Then the two men got up, Stark walked over, and the three of them stood together, looking at the portal, waiting for the next unfortunate one to fall.

Shiller stuck half of his body out of the portal, glanced down at the three people below, and then turned into a puff of gray mist, gently descending and landing unscathed. The three let out a sneer.

The next one to fly out was Loki. Stark's eyes widened, and before he could voice his confusion, Loki beat him to it: "Don't be surprised, I am Loki, do you have a problem with that?"

"I..." Stark made a gesture indicating he was thinking, then said, "No, nothing. You're pretty attractive, really."

Strange and Nick cast a sidelong glance at Stark and scoffed.

"Alright, now that all the morally deficient are here, did Peter call you?"

"Hey, Mr. Shiller, I'm here!" Peter's voice shouted over the phone. "Did you hear what I just said? Kree fleet!!!"

"Got it, your phone conversations are routed through the Holy Sanctuary, Strange just heard your conversation."

"There really is an alien fleet?" Stark was a bit surprised. "Are the Kree the same as the Asgardians?"

"I thought you wouldn't be surprised, after all, aliens with a fleet are more in line with your idea of aliens, right?"

Stark nodded in agreement, "My surprise is why the alien fleet is coming here? Did these aliens agree on a date or something? Either they don't show up for thousands of years, or they all arrive at once?"

"That obviously has to do with the big events in the cosmos recently, didn't you all know? The cosmos is at war, and those aliens with a fleet must have been affected."

As he spoke, Strange turned to Loki and said, "Tell us about the Kree, what's their story?"

Loki shook his head, "I don't know much about their history. I just know that they are a large cosmic empire, led by the Supreme Wisdom. They are similar to Asgard, a militaristic society, with every citizen a soldier."

"Their Temple series of spacecraft are renowned in the cosmos and referred to as planet warships because they are transformed from entire, intact planets. Even in the economic society, such technology is very advanced."

Stark stroked his chin and asked more skeptically: "What race do they belong to? Do they use technology or magic?"

Loki sighed and said: "You still don't understand, there's never been a difference between tech and magic."

"Let's say, if you could travel back to prehistoric times and show off the power of electricity to humans who were still using stone tools, would they also think the electricity you used is some sort of magic?"

"Asgard is like that. From your perspective, we are using magic energy, but it's not actually like that. There are many manifestations of the origin power in the cosmos. However, humans at your level of life cannot directly extract this power to use."

"The power of thunder controlled by Odin, the Father of All Gods, is one of the origin powers of the cosmos. Because his life level is high enough, he can use this power directly. Wind and fire are just the same. Humans are actually using this energy too, but you have not reached the origin level, and thus you seem to need to use various tools, which you call 'technology'."

"So, using the methods that directly point to the origin is more advanced?" Stark asked Loki.

"No, it's not that simple. Asgardians also use tools. We also have cosmic fleets, conveyance devices, and even amenities like air conditioning and elevators, along with appliances similar to yours."

"We separate these into two categories: one is the improvement of our own life level, allowing us to have stronger physical qualities and control more powerful abilities."

"On the other hand, we use this power to produce more efficient tools. For instance, our elevators don't run on 'electricity', nor require pulley tools, ropes and such that you use. They just need floating magic, and floating magic comes from the origin power of the wind..."

"I see, so your life level surpasses technology, hence you use a higher level of energy to enhance your own technology, right?"

Loki nodded. She found that speaking with smart people like Stark was truly effortless. So, she continued explaining: "On the other hand, humans have technology serve life. Your bodies are too weak, so you need to develop medicine to prolong life. Your strength is too feeble, thus you need to use various engineering machines to construct buildings..."

"Wait, is it possible that..." Stark walked to the back of his workstation and sat down. He continued: "Because humans are too dependent on tools, our physical strength has evolved slowly?"

"No, at least in my view, the slow rate of human physical evolution might be related to the environment on Earth. As far as I know, even in the vast cosmos, the livability of the Earth is among the top."

"So we are all buds in a greenhouse?" Nick shrugged.

"But aren't the Nordic gods also from Earth?" Strange raised an objection.

"Hmm... this involves a very complicated history of mysticism which even I don't fully understand. I'm afraid only the Father of all Gods would know..."

"Alright, let's get back to the point." Nick reminded, "You haven't finished talking about the Kree people."

"There's a common saying in the cosmos, if you see people with blue skin, they must be part of a strong empire, because besides the Kree people, there's another race called the Skrulls who are also quite strong, they too have blue skin."

"But similarly, we really despise those blue skins, we call all races in the universe with blue skin 'Cosmic Locusts', because they are truly annoying."

"They scramble all over the universe, they don't respect local cultures, they start wars at the drop of a hat, and after creating a ruin, they don't clean up. When our fleet passes by, we have to clear the path on site..." Loki's tone seemed very impatient, evidently with some bad memories.

"Of course, from the perspective of Asgardians and a few other strong cosmic empires, it's just a bit annoying, but for civilizations that are a bit more backward, their annoying behaviors can be a disaster."

"We'll talk about their history later, but for now, we need to discuss what benefits they can bring to us."

"Hmm..." Loki mused for a bit, and said, "If Earth now had the power of Asgard, you could totally take down this isolated and injured fleet, but now you're far behind, I think it's going to be difficult..."

"Aren't you Asgardians interested in them?"

Loki shook his head and said, "As I said before, Asgard is a species that is a level higher in life than in technological power, but the Kree people are the exact opposite. They are more normal, and more human-like, their level of technology is higher than their level of life."

"Therefore, what they are best at is not of much use to Asgard."

"Let me give you an example, they are very good at extracting energy, in the center of their home galaxy, there's an energy generating device transformed from a super black hole, if I had to give an analogy, it's probably like your human wind turbines, just countless times bigger."

"Just this one device can supply the energy needs for their entire civilization's galaxy."

"What about the cleanliness?"

"Completely pollution-free, completely controllable, no danger at all, everything is fully automated, no operation required, and can last forever."

"Unimaginable." Nick commented.

"Indeed, for humans, it's a bit out of reach to develop to this level, but actually, this is just a standard configuration of a cosmic empire, any civilization that can have a say in the interstellar society, infinite energy is standard."

"Just like the Rainbow Bridge, although Rainbow Bridge might overheat, but the energy is unlimited, and no matter who is the master of Asgard, it will always continue."

Stark then said, "Can't we figure out a way to get a hold of some of their technology?"

Nick turned to look at him, and Stark said very seriously, "Out of the major challenges to human development, apart from Energy Science, there's Material Science, this is very critical for us."

"Oh, right, Kree People are also very good in material science, they can even convert a planet into a battleship, so there's not much more to explain about it, right?"

Nick pondered for a while, as everybody looked at him, after all, regardless of the situation, he was the leader of the official forces, and to some extent, could represent human civilization.

He looked at Loki and asked him, "Aren't you Asgardians planning to intervene in this matter?"

"Do you see us having the time to intervene?" Loki replied helplessly.

"Whose fault is it that you don't have time to intervene?" Strange glanced at Loki.

Nick ignored the two of them, turned his head to look at Stark and said, "Your state from last time..."

"Don't even think about it, it's not that easy." Shiller cut off what Nick was about to say.

He knew, of course, that Nick wanted Stark to turn into the Iron Demon God again. He explained, "Enough energy could indeed push Stark up a level, but if he can't fully accept this state and solidify it as an eternal state, then he can't achieve maximum output, otherwise he would've done more than create a mechanical army last time."

"Another problem is that if he does indeed transform into a cosmic sorcerer, would you let them fight directly within the Milky Way? You're sure it won't affect Earth?"

Nick thought about it and felt that Shiller was making sense. Shiller continued, "If we adopt this method, maybe we could win, but we would be overdrafting the possibilities of future development."

"Once Stark is solidified as a god, he will have to go and create and build a dimension that belongs exclusively to him. He won't be able to return to Earth for a short time. If they start fighting in the Milky Way, it might destroy a lot of resources that we could use in the future."

"If the Kree people had a full army at their disposal, then we would have no choice but to overdraft the future to protect the present, but now, it's just a Kree fleet wandering near the Milky Way..."