CHAPTER 46

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Training has always been a time I liked. It was just a moment between my and my ability, to figure out how they worked and how to use them efficiently.

I had always taken training seriously, ever since my transmigration and it was with that mentality that I was able to grasp how to properly utilize my abilities which was why-

"Why does your backyard look like the fucking North Pole?" was the first thing Fury say after seeing the frozen landscape I called my backyard.

"Oh, hey there." I called out from my frozen form.

"'Hey' yo mama! What the hell happened here?" Fury as me as he saw me, or rather saw the icicle form of me.

"I was trying to shoot iceballs from my hands and unknowingly cranked the output to… whatever this is." I said with a strained smile.

"You look like Pinocchio if he was made of ice." Fury said before he went back inside. Rude!

"Meaning?" I asked back with a shout making sure he heard me.

"You look stupid." Was the reply I got for my inquiry.

With but a thought of will, the ice started melting as the one encasing me completely broke down.

'Energy Assimilation. It works faster if the energy was already mine to begin with. Figures.'

It wasn't just coating weapons and shooting beams I have been learning in my free time. I also learned how to consciously absorb energy from different properties like heat and cold. While my body is constantly absorbing these energies without me knowing, the quantity of it was rather small. Like fetching a drop of water from a lake. Minute the amount was.

While I couldn't actively absorb these energies for every second of the day, whenever I actively do, the assimilation rate increases over a hundred fold, letting me take in bulks of energy as long as there is a sustaining source. But the caveat was that I was familiar with this energy. So there was no me going to assimilate cosmic or whatever energy there was in the wild universe anytime soon.

I walked into the room and saw Fury attacking my bar.

"So what are you here for? I know it's definitely not for the drinks." I inquired from him as I sat down on my all too comfy couch that I paid a lot for.

"The council is getting jumpy. They want you to come under S.H.I.E.L.D so they can observe and make sure your actions are in the country's best interest." Fury said with a scowl on his face. He hated bringing this topic up.

"Something tells me you didn't tell them what I said the last time you told me this." I told him with an amused expression on my face.

"No shit. How am I supposed to tell them 'Fuck you' huh?" This time the frown on his face fell deeper.

"How about I help you out a bit? Got any recording device on you?" I waved my hands in a 'gimme' gesture at him even as he gave me a doubtful look as he handed over the recorder.

I took the small device and cleared my throat. "Motherfucker! You wouldn't dare!" Fury said but he couldn't hide the amused sparkle in his one good eye.

"A message from Mr. Draul St. Cross to the councilmen of S.H.I.E.L.D *cough* FUCK YOU!" I gave him back the device after recording what I said and looked at the all too smiling Fury.

"That all what you want?" I knew he didn't just come here for this when he could have just given me a call and as if proving me right Fury lost the smile on his face as a serious expression took its place.

"My team found his body just like you said… and he's still alive." Fury said before he let out a sigh. "How in the frozen hells did you know this?"

I just smiled as he said that, not telling him anything. I once debated whether letting Steve Rogers be dug up during this time was a good idea. It was currently 2003 and Endgame wouldn't be for a whole 20 years. I doubted whether letting a late 40s 50-ish(physically) man fighting such a war was a good idea but then I remembered how poor Steve's meme knowledge was and said 'fuck it! Time to scoop up the capsicle.' And gave Fury the go ahead to scoop him up.

And besides with the X-Men and Calamity Four here, I doubt Rogers' participating efficiency would matter all that much, heck a particular noddle man might just end the world in a few years for all we don't know.

"What are the council saying about that?"

"I haven't told them yet."

"Oooh, looks like someone's being bad."

"Fucking hell you want me to tell them? I just managed to sco- dig up THE war hero after living him to suffer hypothermia for 50 years? Then I have to face their stupid mugs and explain why I kept it a secret from them." Fury barked back. I guess he really needed that drink.

"Or you could just say you picked up a whatever you want to call it and had you team check the area before the stumbled upon the American treasure." I said freely.

Fury just gave me a 'seriously?' look before he asked me, "You think that'll work?".

"It might not, probably won't, but they'll get the message." I gave him a Cheshire grin.

He just gave me a deadpan before he sighed once more and relaxed into the chair.

"Do what the hell has your freaky ass being up to?" After a while Fury opened up the conversation.

"Nothing much. Just trying to efficiently open a future multi-billion company and training my abilities." I told him while turning a drink for both of us.

"Good luck about the first one." He scoffed. Well I wouldn't hold him against it, not now at least.

"C'mon that's not an encouraging sentiment now is it?" I sipped from my glass of Old Fashioned cocktail.

"And also not very realistic." He didn't even care and just continued being -

"Typical Nick Fury."

"The fuck do you mean by that?"

"I mean it wouldn't hurt to believe in me is all."

"I would rather believe a rat doing backflips than that opportunist dream you got there." He said.

"And what's wrong with that? And besides it's not a dream but a fact. I stopped dreaming years ago." I was being literal and figurative with that statement. I haven't dreamt, not even a nightmare ever since I arrived in this world.

"So what do we do about the frozen beauty?" Fury asked.

"How the hell is any of that my business?" I looked at him confused. What the hell did Cap and S.H.I.E.L.D had to do with me?

"Why not decide after you wake him up? He has been asleep for the last 50 years y'know." I told Fury who had a thoughtful expression before he nodded.

"Anything else?"

"What you driving me away? Not like you have a girlfriend or something." Fury looked at me with disdain in his eyes. This bitch!

"You fucking didn't."

"I did you fucking pussy. So what?"

"When was the last time you got laid?" The way his eye widened at that question was hilarious and it took all I had in me not to laugh. Serves him right. How dare he look at me with disdain.

"I'll be taking my leave now." He said in an even tone before he got up and walked out the door with prompted me to laugh my sorry ass out.

If I didn't know what happened I would have thought that expression on his face was intimidating.

I calmed down after a while from my laughing fit as I sat on my couch and thought of what to do next.

'Continue training or reading. Maybe work on the codes? Decisions decisions.'

'Back to training it is.'

I walked back to my wet backyard, 'that's sounds wrong', and this time instead of trying to shoot an ice beam, I tried to create a ice construct which I was able to do easily.

I created a spear and after flooding it with ice energy I sent it out and watch as it pierced the ground only to freeze it seconds later.

It worked as a pseudo ice beam but I wanted the original. To be able to send out an ice beam like Bobby did was harder than I thought which was undoubtedly the opposite for Bobby.

For someone like him, freezing things would come very natural to him as opposed to manipulating and shaping ice constructs which came very easy to me. I still don't know why they had to be so polar opposites; heat and cold.

It was just shooting a normal ice ball but it was hard for me. Whereas shooting jets of flame was super easy. It only took me literal minutes to be able to do it.

If I was being objective, then I had already learnt how to shoot an ice beam in the form of a weapon or a literal ball but what I stubbornly wanted was the beam.

Anytime I tried it, either it would just be normal frost or it would freeze all through – possibly killing whatever I aimed to freeze if it was a fight. I was having a hard time gauging the amount of energy needed.

Since ice unlike fire had more volume and density, it was harder to know the fix amount to get what you want done since the energy condenses when it comes to cold energy as opposed to the spontaneous release of heat energy.

Taking a deep breath, this time I started small. I used the most minimal amount of energy I could muster to create a small frost layer on my palm and pushed it forward. The result was like pressurized gas being released, all fog-like.

From there I started upping the energy and watched as the smokey ice coming from my palm gained a clearer color. I continued like that until it felt like the now beam-like ice coming from my hand was very dense, almost viscous.

It was a form of success but it was slow, too slow in fact that I would never use it in a battle except target training.

I tried it again and again to somehow speed the time up and I had small successes. I was focusing on my ice because apart from my failure in flying, I was more adept in pyromancy than I was in cryomancy.

The day ran out and judging from the success I had in my ice beam venture, I'd say I would get it right before this week ran out.

I went back inside my house for a nice cold bath inside my ridiculously huge bathtub. Sometimes I can't help but wonder how I got such a house for 500,000$ but then I remember that the value of dollar wasn't as high as it was in the next 20 years. This house would definitely be worth over a million, maybe 2, in the next 15 – 20 years.

I got out of my bathtub and put on a robe as I made my way to the dinning to get a late night snack. With a bag of chips and a bucket of ice-cream I went upstairs and took out my laptop to start working on the Fmail app.

I haven't told Mark yet, but both will be released at the same time. While Facebook was for a more social undertaking, Fmail was different. In the future, almost everything was connected to an email account; banks, cards, lines, social media, national ID, everything. Email was the center of all social media. That alone was enough reason for me to create it.

Marky was going to release Facebook next month since we were able to finish it ahead of the original timeline, so I knew I would be making a hefty sum in less than a year.

Apart from the money mining, I was also learning how to hack. I doubt I would need it for much but since no knowledge was useless knowledge I figured 'why not?' and gave it a crack.

I didn't want to create an AI like JARVIS or FRIDAY, didn't have a need for them unless I was into snooping around people's files or I had daddy issues, which was neither. Rather than create an AI I would rather just create an hacking super code that would do all the job I needed. Call me old fashioned but I preferred it like that.

So my day were just full of training, coding and learning.

I was able to finish up the Fmail code by 85% with just some kinks, mostly themes and can't forget about the most important feature – dark mode.

Any app that doesn't have a dark mode was bound to fail. How can someone even use that. I couldn't help but laugh at that insinuation. Dark mode in apps had not yet been introduced, which on its own was enough to blindside the media companies of 2003 in astonishment. Now people will know the glory that is dark mode.