bsaa (End)

Terragrigia is a high-tech city located in the Mediterranean Sea, built as an artificial floating island, funded by the United Nations with contributions from numerous countries.

It has now become a crucial branch for both the FBC and BSAA. The reason it isn't their headquarters is that this is the front line in the fight against biochemical weapons, gathering experts in biochemistry from around the world to research vaccines against biochemical viruses, countering the increasingly rampant threat of such weapons.

"Long time no see." As Shen Fei stepped off the plane with the crowd, he immediately spotted Rebecca waiting for him, with Jill standing beside her.

"If Rebecca hadn't mentioned it, I really wouldn't have guessed it was you. Welcome to BSAA." Jill looked genuinely surprised when she saw Shen Fei.

Even though she had already heard about Shen Fei from Rebecca, seeing him in person still shocked Jill—the little boy from back then had grown to this level.

"You two are the ones worthy of admiration. Rebecca told me everything you've been through." Over the years, Jill and Chris had been fighting on the front lines against biochemical weapons. This was reality, and those weapons were deadly—one misstep could mean death. Shen Fei truly respected people like them.

Compared to them, Shen Fei's reasons for joining BSAA were a bit less pure.

It had been a year since Shen Fei visited Stark's villa in New York. He had spent that year at New York Empire University, and thanks to his Op-Op Fruit abilities, he had gained some reputation in medicine and biochemistry.

This time, he came to BSAA for an internship. Originally, Shen Fei had plenty of options for internships without traveling this far—there were plenty of companies in New York willing to take him, like Stark Group or the FBC.

He could even skip the internship entirely. By now, Shen Fei was a billionaire in his own right; revealing his identity would let him bypass this step entirely.

The new company was progressing smoothly under Pepper's leadership, thanks largely to Stark Group's support. Without it, the company couldn't have grown so quickly.

If this were the old Shen Fei, being this rich would mean coasting through life, but this was the Marvel world—coasting was hardly an option.

Shen Fei was considered a genius in this world, graduating from Empire University in a year, but once he entered this circle, he realized geniuses weren't worth much.

The reason he hadn't encountered geniuses before was that he wasn't in this circle. Now that he was, he found that while geniuses weren't as common as dogs, there were far more than he'd ever imagined.

At his level, Shen Fei was impressive among ordinary people, but among geniuses, he wasn't outstanding. That made it impossible for him to join BSAA on his own merits—but he knew the right people.

Rebecca.

Originally, Rebecca wanted Shen Fei to join the FBC. The outside world wasn't very clear on his abilities, but Rebecca knew them well, since the two often discussed such topics.

At first, Shen Fei had been the one asking Rebecca for advice, but now they could discuss things on equal footing—a huge leap forward.

In the end, though, Shen Fei refused the FBC and chose BSAA instead. First, because the FBC was an organization under S.H.I.E.L.D., and not to mention Hydra, it was packed with countless experts. At his age, joining would only let him be an ordinary researcher.

Second, it was the biochemical viruses. That was the main reason Shen Fei gave up being a billionaire to come to BSAA. Here, he'd have far more opportunities to access viruses. As for stealing viruses to study on his own, his magical abilities made that possible, but without understanding biochemical viruses, blindly stealing them was too dangerous.

Even if he stole them, without a proper isolation lab, studying viruses was impossible—these were viruses, after all, and a leak would be disastrous.

Having focused on studying for the past year, Shen Fei hadn't built such a lab, and it wasn't something you could just set up casually.

"I'll take you to your place first. We'll have dinner together tonight." In the car, Rebecca said.

"Sorry, I might not make it. Chris needs backup." Before Shen Fei could respond, Jill spoke up.

"Trouble?" Rebecca asked, her expression serious.

"Yeah, Chris seems to have found him." Though Jill didn't name who, the change in Rebecca's face made it clear she knew who was meant.

"Be careful, then." After a long silence, Rebecca said.

The atmosphere in the car grew tense, leaving Shen Fei unsure what to say, so he stayed quiet.

"See you tonight." After dropping Shen Fei off at his place, Rebecca drove away with Jill.

"Nice place." The room wasn't huge, but it had everything he needed. Shen Fei was satisfied.

Even though he was very wealthy now, he hadn't moved to a bigger, fancier villa in New York. He lived alone and didn't need that much space.

Maybe it was just a habit from his past life.

"Time to really get into viruses." A few years had passed, and his strength was steadily growing, but since the Raccoon City incident, he hadn't encountered any viruses.

Back then, he didn't understand the structure of viruses. Now, that wasn't an issue.

The more he learned about viruses, the more terrifying they seemed. For someone with the Op-Op Fruit, destroying the world wasn't hard—there were too many deadly viruses in the human world, like Anthrax Virus and Ebola Virus, which weren't much weaker than the T-Virus.

There were plenty of research institutes in the U.S. studying these viruses.

Fortunately, these viruses were generally hard to obtain. Otherwise, the news wouldn't be about terrorist suicide bombers, but human biochemical bombs.

So Shen Fei decided never to abuse his Op-Op Fruit abilities. At most, he'd use them to enhance his own strength, not to try and evolve all of humanity. That choice should be left to nature.

During his year at New York University, Shen Fei had seen plenty of scientists who claimed to act for all humanity, but most were just chasing fame and success.

Individual heroism was rampant among many American scientists. They all thought they had plot armor, that they were the smartest, and everyone else was an idiot, and their research would change the world.

Even Tony wasn't immune to this. His sharp tongue was only tolerated because his last name was Stark—otherwise, he'd have been beaten up long ago.

While lost in these thoughts, Shen Fei opened his briefcase, took out a small box, and set it aside. Instantly, the box expanded to the size of the briefcase. Opening it revealed it was filled with drinks.

After pulling out several bottles, Shen Fei shrunk the box and put it back in the briefcase.

Just like most capital companies don't release their most advanced technology to the public, the potions Shen Fei partnered with Stark on weren't his best products.

His best product was the drink in his hands—a potion that continuously enhanced physical fitness and restored mental fatigue. He had synthesized it using his Op-Op Fruit after purchasing all kinds of traditional Chinese medicine on the market.

The ingredients were rare herbs like ginseng and polygonum multiflorum. Unfortunately, century-old or millennium-old herbs were hard to find these days, or he could have done even better.

"Time's up." Seeing it was almost time to meet Rebecca, Shen Fei grabbed a bottle of wine and headed to the agreed-upon restaurant.

This wine was a gift from Stark, a rare vintage worth hundreds of thousands. After Shen Fei refined it with his Op-Op Fruit, it would be worth even more if sold.

Why did aged wine taste so good? It was because of the microorganisms inside. Others couldn't do much about those microorganisms, but the Op-Op Fruit could.

The more knowledge he gained, the broader his application of the Op-Op Fruit became. It wasn't limited to medicine—it worked on wine, drinks, and even crops and food.