The Direction

After Norman Osborn left, Wei Xiuming opened a desk drawer and took out his ID card. He swiped it across the identity verification device inside. Once it was approved, a wall not far away opened, revealing a passage to a hidden laboratory.

The passage had several stages of sterilization, all highly effective. Walking straight through to the other end ensured the surface of his body was sterile. After exiting, Wei Xiuming changed into protective clothing with the help of the security staff stationed there. Only then was he allowed into the human enhancement laboratory.

The laboratory was brightly lit. Multiple light sources created a shadowless effect, leaving almost no shadows anywhere inside.

Dozens of researchers in protective suits bustled around a transparent life-support tank. Some monitored the various instruments connected to it, constantly collecting and analyzing data; others used the compiled data to prepare different compounds, then injected them into the tank.

A person floated in the tank's nutrient fluid. His eyes were shut, and a breathing mask covered his face. Dozens of cables of varying sizes were attached to his body, and his muscles kept twitching. It was obvious he was undergoing a human enhancement experiment.

This was the project in the laboratory that Wei Xiuming was truly devoted to. It was the key to making him stronger.

Anything from the mechanical laboratory outside would have been a world-changing invention if released, but that was just where he went to relax and tinker with little toys. It was a way of indulging his inner child, and those things were of little use to him.

Wei Xiuming had a feeling that the Infinite Flow Male Protagonist wouldn't let him off so easily. Protagonists like him were always vindictive. Aside from the young, beautiful female characters, everyone else was just a tool. After losing face to Wei Xiuming, he would definitely come looking for him.

If Wei Xiuming were a character in a story, his role would surely be the protagonist's arch-enemy. Killing him would send the protagonist soaring to success and put him on the road to a bright future.

Unlike Wei Xiuming, who was trapped in this world, the man who could freely travel between worlds had infinite possibilities. There was no telling how much stronger he might be by the time they met again.

To prepare for the threat that was coming, Wei Xiuming had to make every possible provision. As for the innocent people who would be caught up in his plans— they could blame the Infinite Flow Male Protagonist. If he'd shown mercy and spared Wei Xiuming back then, none of this would have happened.

Remember the website

Perhaps because of copyright issues, the longer Wei Xiuming stayed in this world, the weaker his abilities became. When he first arrived, he had captured a Skrull ship with ease. After a long voyage and landing on Earth, he could only wield power on the level of Weapon X. The only advantages he still enjoyed were the advanced technology recorded aboard the ship and the research on the X Gene stored on the USB Drive he'd taken from the Infinite Flow Male Protagonist.

Even without using his abilities, Wei Xiuming's physical attributes were at the limits of human potential. But reaching the pinnacle of humanity wasn't enough in the Marvel Comics world—unless you were Batman.

The gap between their genes meant Wei Xiuming couldn't benefit from the enhancement methods commonly used in this world. So he decided to start with what he could do and forge his own path, using Magnetic Field Rotation from the Hong Kong comic series The Storm Riders as his model.

Magnetic Field Rotation wasn't a martial art, but a superpower—a superpower that could grow stronger through training.

In the X-Men comics, Magneto had used a similar method to enhance himself, magnetizing his own body to increase his strength and endurance. He had even boosted his nerve response speed to fifteen times that of an ordinary person.

With some of Magneto's genes, Wei Xiuming was ideally suited to this kind of enhancement.

Cautious by nature, he didn't have the courage and boldness of the protagonists in classic web novels, who used themselves as test subjects—developing some technique and then testing it on themselves, or turning themselves into a hodgepodge of different power systems.

Having lived once already, Wei Xiuming valued his life too much for that. Even with his weakened self-healing ability, he still only had one life. What if the experiment failed?

After bringing Osborn on board, he had plenty of "volunteers" to serve as test subjects, along with specialists and equipment to assist them. Wei Xiuming would only begin enhancing himself once they had devised a sound plan.

"Dr. Clark, the test subject's condition has been brought to its optimal state. We're ready to begin the second phase of the experiment at any time." When Wei Xiuming returned, his assistant immediately came over to report.

Wei Xiuming took the tablet containing the experiment records from his assistant. The man in the tank was already very close to the limits of human potential in every measurable respect. He nodded. "Good. With the technology mature, we can enhance a homeless man to this level for just eighteen thousand dollars, with an eighty percent success rate. Human enhancement technology is ready to be marketed."

"But..." The assistant hesitated, then said, "Dr. Parker has been complaining about us. We used his technology in the second phase of our experiment without permission..."

Dr. Parker's full name was Richard Parker. He was employed by the Osborn Group, where he and his team studied organisms, especially spiders. Their goal was to treat diseases caused by genetic defects in humans. But when the project was close to succeeding, he grew concerned that the technology might be turned into a weapon, so he deliberately held up its progress.

Before Wei Xiuming arrived, Richard's project and the Human Enhancement Potion were Norman Osborn's only two remaining hopes. Even when neither showed results, he kept pouring money into them. But then Wei Xiuming arrived, and Richard's good days were over.

With resources redirected, the teams behind many existing projects were broken up. Some researchers couldn't keep up with Wei Xiuming's pace and were let go; others were put to work for him, filling in the data for his experiments and finding ways to cut costs and scale up production.

Richard Parker's team and project were spared because he had a son named Peter Parker. But their funding was drastically reduced, and Wei Xiuming even took the results of their unfinished experiments and used them directly. "Miserable" hardly began to describe it.

"Leave that matter alone for now. How are the preparations for the second phase?" Wei Xiuming asked as he studied the test subject's data. "Insects have already infiltrated our research base. If this keeps up, we'll eventually face a threat from them. We can't have our boss put on the Knight System and go fight them. He might as well quit being a boss and become a security chief. The experiment on Number Two must be completed as soon as possible. We need the power to defend ourselves."

"But the organism is still growing," the assistant said. "It needs time to mature before we can extract its bodily fluids. The organism has to be raised with specific genes implanted, and the cost is much higher than enhancing a homeless man. We'll need some time."

The second phase of the enhancement experiment was an attempt to replicate the process that turned Peter Parker into Spider-Man.

First, Richard Parker's cross-species genetic fusion technology was used to combine the subject's genes with those of a specific organism. The resulting organism, containing a specific gene sequence, was bred and optimized over several generations. Then its bodily fluids were extracted and injected into the gene donor. After undergoing changes similar to an immune response, the recipient of the extract would mutate into something beyond human.

Richard had chosen spiders. After Osborn poured a huge amount of money into perfecting the technology, Richard had secretly mixed his own Parker family genes into the spiders he bred. Then, several years after his own untimely death, his son Peter was bitten by one of them during a visit to Osborn Industries. Peter gained superhuman strength, then sacrificed an Uncle Ben and became Spider-Man.

But Wei Xiuming had no interest in making superheroes. His method was crude and simple. Using the information on the USB Drive, he replicated an immature teleportation device from The Fly. He shoved the test subject and an organism bred from the subject's genes inside together. One press of a button, and the teleportation was complete. The computer handled the genetic fusion and everything else. By the time they came out the other end, the enhancement was done.

As for the test subject's genes mutating and turning him into a monster—first, the organism used in the fusion already carried some of the subject's genes, so the transformation wouldn't happen quickly; second, that was exactly the result Wei Xiuming wanted.

If it wasn't tragic, could you even call it Kamen Rider?