Chapter 0199: Mind

As the battle in Hydra Earth was going on, Alex decided to get a head start on his Infinity Stone collection. The first one that he targeted was the Mind Stone in the MCU since he was sure of its location. Most of the other stones though, not so much.

It took him getting control over Cosmic Energy to be rid of whatever influence kept him ignorant about the different timezones throughout each planet. It wasn't farfetched to think that he was also being manipulated to ignore the Infinity Stones consciously by the same influence. However, now that he knew what he wanted, he was going to start collecting them to the best of his ability.

In the Avengers compound.

A portal opened through which a blonde woman walked out of, "Oh this is a nice place," She spoke while chewing gum. She was wearing a sleek black leather combat suit that highlighted all of her right curves while having multiple weapons strapped to spots where she could grab them in an instant.

[You've already triggered five alarms with your appearance and speech. Vision will be on you in a second, just get him to grab you. Or just come in contact with him momentarily. I'll take care of the rest.]

"Miss Yelena Belova," The blonde heard a robotic yet oddly normal-sounding voice and turned to face the red hunk of Vibranium that was The Vision.

"Hi there," She waved at him.

"You have not been registered to enter the Compound," Vision said, "May I ask what brings you here?"

"I'm here to get myself registered," She said while looking around, acting casual, "Nat sent me."

"Through what appears to be a Mystic Arts portal?" Vision asked. If he had brows, one of them would be raised right now.

"Yeah," Yelena nodded, "Natasha has access to a lot of interesting stuff."

"From what I'm aware of, Miss Romanoff and Mr. Stark are currently in Kamar Taj. Their current statuses are unknown, so I don't know how you are here." Vision pointed out the holes in Yelena's story.

"Oh, how about you detain me for a bit until you reconnect with Stark?" She asked, "It shouldn't be too much of a problem, right?"

Vision gave her a look, "I expected resistance," He didn't say anything more and walked toward Yelena, "Please move your hands up, I need to cuff you if I'm detaining you according to the procedure."

"Sure," Yelena raised both her hands up so that it would be easy for the Vision to slip handcuffs on her. It only made the synthetic android more suspicious, but he still approached the woman to cuff her.

The moment Yelena's hand came in contact with the Vibranium hand, The Vision's movements stopped abruptly. She stepped back apprehensively and saw a familiar black substance covering the glorified robot that quickly got absorbed into it and returned it to the same state as before.

At this time, Alex was groaning inwardly as all his 'real' hosts, namely the two Gwens, MJ, Laura, Wanda, and Jane, were feeling the effects of his new acquisition. His soul also gained the tinge of yellow that was reminiscent of the Mind Stone forming a third layer over his soul following the red from Wanda's chaos and the green from the Time Stone. Following a similar procedure as before, the new Infinity Stone settled in the center of Alex's soul, right beside the Time Stone.

«Authorities»:: ‹Time (2.5%)› ‹Mind (2.5%)›

He had now gained the Mind Authority.

With the Gem still active, when Alex looked at Yelena, he saw a tether that entered her mind from the Mind Stone. Focusing further on the Mind Stone, he saw that a nigh-infinite number of threads were extending out of it, presumably connected to every single living being in the universe. Alex looked through some of the threads, noticing that each of them contained a profound connection to their respective minds.

Deciding to test something, Alex brought his focus to the thread that was connected to Yelena's mind. What he saw made him raise a brow. Most of her mind was occupied by thoughts of how Alex would reward her for her work. She even had multiple different scenarios in mind for her reward that made Alex want to get down to do those things to her right at that moment.

He held himself back, for now, wanting to finish his testing the Mind Stone.

He then brought his focus to other aspects of the Mind Stone than just reading people's minds. Utilizing the authority of the Mind Stone, Alex established a connection to Yelena's tether. He then felt himself in her body. It was different from his usual presence where he was just using her body as a vessel. Right now, Alex was in complete control of her body, and Yelena didn't even realize it.

'I should be able to make her do something that she will think is her own will, but I'm controlling her like a puppet.' Alex realized. He was going to continue testing more abilities but felt his soul itself straining from using the Mind Stone like that. With his EP also being consumed at a rapid pace, he was forced to stop his actions.

He examined his current status to see the exact situation.

{ «Skill Acquisition»

«EP: 54478 -> 54587 -> 54236»

«CP: 0.0000»

«Manipulation Abilities»:: ‹Advanced Lightning Manipulation› ‹Basic Blood Manipulation›

«Innate Abilities»:: ‹Biological Manipulation› ‹Host Enhancement› ‹Devour› ‹Copy›

«Derived Abilities»:: ‹Low Cosmic Physique Creation› ‹True 6th Sense› ‹Inventory› ‹Advanced Camouflage› ‹Elemental Immunity› ‹Hypnosis›

«Magical Abilities»:: ‹High Magic Affinity› ‹High Chaos Affinity› ‹Host of the Scarlet Witch›

«Authorities»:: ‹Time (2.5%)› ‹Mind (2.5%)›

«Cosmic Abilities»:: ‹Low Cosmic Manipulation (Incomplete)›

}

He'd used up more than 300 EP just for the testing phase, bringing him down to 54236 EP. It had increased a bit after he devoured some of the enhanced Individuals in the battle on Hydra Earth. None of them gave him any useful abilities other than Doctor Faustus' hypnosis knowledge either.

With the high EP consumption along with the strain on his soul, Alex realized that he needed to work with these stones in a systematic manner.

'I need the Power Stone,' He concluded. The Infinity Stones work as a circuit of cosmic proportions. They all have unique powers that complement each other.

The Power Stone's job is to power the other stones. Without it, they would be depleted sooner or later, causing Alex to have to fuel them himself. Considering how much EP it took for him to just continue channeling their power, empowering the stones by himself was a no-go, at least not without a sustainable model to generate Cosmic Energy.

The low efficiency of EP also had to do with the fact that it was strictly a kind of biological energy. Even though it could be considered to be the purest form of Life Energy, its effects worked best on living beings. Powering cosmic artifacts like the Infinity Stones was not something that Life Energy specialized in. On the other hand, Cosmic Energy would be a ridiculously efficient source of energy for the stones since that's what its main purpose was, in addition to creating life and all those other things that Alex didn't care about right now.

It was the same case with Cosmic Energy when it came to the job that Alex's EP did. He wasn't going to waste his time using Cosmic Energy to empower his hosts. Using it would probably bring about some unique effects, without a doubt, but the efficiency would be ridiculously low, not to mention the huge risk factor.

This was also the reason that even though Chaos Energy was on a similar scale of power as Cosmic Energy, it had its own set of uses and worked better with some things than others. Alex was sure that Chaos Energy would go hand-in-hand with the Reality Stone, but that would be it. The other stones would have an even lower efficiency than when using EP due to the messy nature of Chaos Energy.

To be able to utilize the Mind Stone to its fullest potential, Alex needed the Soul Stone to offset the consumption of his soul. The Soul Stone would in turn require Alex to have mastery over reality to be able to manipulate the souls of other beings, which required the Reality Stone. For mastery over Reality using the Reality Stone, he needed the Time and Space Stones to control the authorities of Time and Space. All of these stones required the Power Stone to provide them with energy. Finally, to utilize the Power Stone to its fullest potential, he needed the Mind Stone since the immense power of that stone could corrupt the mind.

All the stones were bound together in a circuit and once all of them were assembled, the user could have absolute control over all existence.

Alex shook the thoughts of the stones away and decided to celebrate a little. He'd just gotten his second Infinity Stone. And what better way to do that than to reward the beautiful blonde spy who had done her best to help him out without asking any questions?

"Is it done?" Yelena asked for the tenth time as she waited patiently in front of the Vision who was floating slightly above the ground with its eyes closed.

"Yes, it's done," The Vision's eyes opened as he nodded, spooking Yelena out as she jumped back.

"Apex?" She asked hesitantly.

[Yeah, it's me. I'm in control of the Vision now. Your mission was successful.] He told her as Yelena almost seemed to deflate.

"Thank god," She said, "I was terrified that I would turn into a globally wanted criminal. Not that I couldn't handle it, considering that I'm already somewhat globally wanted because of my actions when I was — " She was unable to finish as Alex formed a gag in her mouth that slowly started getting larger while filling up her mouth like a balloon.

[Quiet down, do you want your reward or not?] Alex asked in her head with a voice that was familiar to Yelena.

"Yef Mafter~" She felt a pleasurable shiver pass through her body as her legs quivered from anticipation while the gag kept getting larger, almost to the point of hurting her jaw.

***

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