I've accumulated nearly enough Ability Points. It's time to make up for the most obvious weakness in my current strength.
After the match ended, he left Starlight behind to give a post-match interview and slowly turned to walk backstage.
A few days ago, he had displayed abilities different from Homelander's. Vought should have realized this and begun suspecting whether he had truly inherited all of Homelander's strength.
They might test him soon. If the answer was no, he would lose the freedom he currently enjoyed at Vought.
Because Vought could use Homelander as a weapon to suppress and control him.
In terms of defense and destructive power, I'm not far behind Homelander.
With his other abilities added in, if they fought at normal human speeds, Homelander would not be able to take him down easily either.
But Homelander would never deliberately slow down to fight him.
With the Black King's ability, as long as I have enough energy, my speed far surpasses that of ordinary people, but it isn't especially fast.
At most, he could cover several dozen meters in a second. If he included the Survival of the Fittest ability, he might be able to keep up with A-Train and Shockwave, who could break the sound barrier, but he was still far behind Homelander.
If they fought, he would suffer a huge disadvantage in speed and might even be utterly defeated.
That won't do.
He shook his head slightly.
Spend 2,000 Ability Points to return to specific spacetime coordinates in the X-Men universe?
Yes.
Backstage, Ron selected yes, and his figure vanished.
This time, he was not only traveling across universes, but through time as well, so it required a few more Ability Points.
Still, it remained well within what he could easily afford.
X-Men universe, 1963.
Five months.
Five months had passed since the super fleet at Earth's poles had been destroyed. The entire world had been shocked, and the existence of mutants had been exposed to the public eye across the globe.
People had suddenly discovered that a group of genetically mutated humans with all sorts of powers had always been hiding among them.
Quite a few of them looked strange, like monsters, and most possessed bizarre abilities. Some could read minds, create hurricanes, or even easily conquer a small nation.
Ordinary people appeared pitifully weak before them.
Panic spread across the globe. Governments everywhere grew nervous and swiftly began targeted research and actions to guard against and deal with potential disasters caused by mutants.
"Ron is back.
And we've turned things into this mess."
New York, inside a safe house.
Raven and the White Queen were in a room, their faces bitter and their brows tightly furrowed. They had been forced to stay here for seven or eight days.
They had just received Ron's call announcing his return. Raven had only been happy for a moment before sinking into disappointment and self-reproach.
Because something had gone wrong with the plan Ron had entrusted to her to execute and oversee.
"What happened, Raven, Emma?"
Wearing a silver-gray suit and an imposing silver-gray helmet, Ron slowly walked in. Calm and composed, he smiled lightly.
"The last time I came back, I remember you two were still at the top floor of the commercial building you had acquired, one as president and the other as vice president handling company affairs. Why are you here now?"
Worried about matters in the X-Men universe, he had returned once during that time. Along with comforting Raven, whom he had been apart from for more than two months, he had stayed with her for several days before leaving again.
When he had returned last time, the two women had followed his plan and acquired a technology company, renaming it Umbrella. On that foundation, it had risen rapidly to become one of America's leading technology companies.
It had built connections with giants across numerous industries, expanded its scale, recruited talent, and was in a period of rapid growth.
But upon returning this time, Raven had told him over the phone that the company had encountered a problem. Even their meeting place had changed. They were no longer at company headquarters, but in a safe house prepared against emergencies.
Still, he knew there was a problem, but it was nothing too serious.
If there was a problem, they would find a way to solve it. As long as the person who formed the foundation of everything was still here, it was fine.
"Ron, something unexpected happened."
Raven, tall and slender in a long-sleeved shirt and blue trousers, walked up and embraced him. Her eyes reddened slightly as she spoke with guilt.
It was clear that after this period of business training, she was no longer the little girl who panicked whenever something happened. She had become much more mature and strong. Her every movement carried a touch more competence and decisiveness, giving her something of the bearing of a female CEO.
Raven's reddened eyes were more because she had run into trouble and then seen her lover again after more than two months apart, leaving her unable to fully control her emotions.
"Where did this unexpected turn come from?"
After gently patting her back and offering Raven a few comforting words, Ron wrapped an arm around her waist and leaned back onto the sofa with her. Then he looked at Emma and slowly asked.
"In this country, there are few things Smiling Boy can't handle, especially when the early stages of the plan only involved business.
Could it be that his mutant identity was discovered and implicated you two?"
His usual calm tone seemed to affect them as well. As if they had found their backbone, the two women gradually calmed down.
Kenny had been so willing to cooperate because he had no other choice. Mutants were inherently special, and the first mutant to expose mutants to the public had been the world's greatest terrorist. The world's vigilance and wariness toward mutants would likely be raised to the highest level.
As president, he probably could not hide it for much longer. Everything he had built over years in politics would collapse sooner or later. So he had joined Ron's side, followed his orders, and traded that obedience for a future.
"No, there hasn't been a problem on the president's side for now."
The White Queen, Emma, was a blonde woman in her thirties with the elegant air of a mature woman. Dressed in a simple white women's suit, she knew who Ron meant by "Smiling Boy" and reported with a frown.
"Ron, after you left last time, we had been developing very smoothly until we were attacked a few days ago."
Ron had rescued and subdued the White Queen. Between the two of them, he held the dominant position, so she was effectively his subordinate.
"Attacked?"
"Were your identities exposed?"
If the attack had come from ordinary people, the two women would have dealt with it long ago.
Emma began recounting what had happened during this time.
With the foundation established by Emma's Hellfire Club and her Psionic Ability, the technology company, which had originally been merely sizable, had continuously acquired other companies after being renamed.
In less than half a year, it had become one of America's leading technology companies. It had also secretly begun reaching into fields such as medicine and national defense, advancing at an astonishing rate toward becoming a global technology giant.
But a few days ago, someone had suddenly attacked them.
"A few nights ago, after Raven and I finished handling company matters, we were driving home when we were suddenly attacked. The entire bodyguard team was ruthlessly killed, including several mutant compatriots we had recruited."
"There was only one attacker. His mouth looked like it had been sewn shut, his eyelids had been cut away, and he could extend long blades from his hands. He had multiple abilities and was cold and mechanical, like an emotionless biological weapon."
"I nearly died. Raven used a newly copied teleportation ability to take me and escape."
"Oh? His mouth was sewn shut, and his eyelids were cut away..."
Ron raised an eyebrow slightly. Hearing that description, he immediately thought of a certain miserable chatterbox and understood who was plotting this attack behind the scenes.
"I copied many different abilities from that biological-weapon-like man.
But I wasn't familiar with how to use them, and there was one powerful ability related to bones that I could never copy."
Raven frowned as she recalled the incident and added.
"Because of that, I wasn't his opponent and could only flee."
Before you continue