Gaining Superpowers

This Underground City was made up of countless concentric circles from the inside out, with the center being her destination. Daisy had been walking for an hour and felt that even someone with no sense of direction could not get lost here; she only had to follow the straight paths.

Still, she did not let down her guard. Following what she had seen on television, whenever she passed an intersection between a curved path and a straight one, she drew an arrow on the ground to mark her direction of travel.

The empty passageway held nothing but the sound of her footsteps. To keep herself alert, Daisy stopped every two hours to rest, drink water, and recover her strength.

And so, she had descended from the watchtower at noon. Now, her mechanical watch showed exactly eight in the evening, and she felt as though she had done nothing but walk.

Sitting on the ground and eating compressed biscuits, she took two bites before tossing them back into her backpack. She really could not stomach them! Too dry! Nor did she want to waste too much drinking water. She had to ration it carefully; after all, Quake was not Superman. Once she gained her powers, she still had to return the way she came.

Closing her eyes briefly to ease her tense nerves, she discovered that gripping the Obelisk restored some of her strength. It was not much, but in this godforsaken place, every bit counted.

Gritting her teeth, she stood and continued deeper inside.

Though she had not seen a single soul along the way, she still kept a tight grip on her pistol. It was currently her only means of survival.

By midnight that night, she still had some physical strength left, but she was mentally exhausted.

Daisy had no choice but to end the day's journey.

After taking care of her personal business from a distance, she sat with her back against the wall, placed her backpack against her chest, held the Obelisk to keep herself warm, closed her eyes, and fell into a deep sleep.

This silent, gloomy Underground City, untouched by human presence for thousands of years, was clearly no place to sleep. There was no comfortable bed, no pillow or blanket. She curled up pitifully like a refugee.

Her consciousness drifted between clarity and confusion. Half asleep, she dreamed one moment that her new book had flopped miserably, and the next that Thanos had knocked her to the ground, leaving blood spilled everywhere.

After sleeping on and off for three hours, she woke to discover that she really was bleeding. It just had nothing to do with Brother Thanos—it was purely a problem with her own body...

Her face full of embarrassment and bewilderment, she cleaned herself up using the memories of her former self. Unable to keep sleeping, she decided to continue toward the city center.

"Oh my God! I finally made it!" Daisy was now filthy and disheveled. Forget being a sixty-point beauty—if not for her long hair, it would have been hard to tell her gender. After stumbling along for three days, she had finally reached the very center of the city.

Six towering stone doors stood in a ring, each two meters apart, supporting the stone chamber within. At the center was a one-meter-tall stone platform. Daisy looked up at the ceiling, unable to figure out how this structure had been designed. A faint beam of light had been refracted several times, falling precisely onto the stone platform.

Rubbing her somewhat stiff cheeks, Daisy first surveyed the surroundings.

According to her memories, once the ritual began, the stone doors around her would close automatically and form a sealed environment. The Obelisk would shed its metal shell, exposing the Terrigen Crystal within and releasing a mist.

What worried her now was whether those stone doors would open automatically once the evolution was complete. They would not stay shut forever, would they?

After studying them carefully for a long time, she still found nothing. There was no mechanical transmission and no power supply. She truly could not see how these stone doors would move on their own after the ritual began!

A woman had to be ruthless with herself. She put aside what she could not figure out. Once she had powers, she would not be afraid even if the stone doors sealed completely. Those who evolved useless abilities had reason to worry, but she was Quake—there was no need for her to worry!

She took out her last two bottles of water, poured a little into her palm, and wiped it over her face, making herself look a bit more refreshed.

Daisy placed the Obelisk at the very center of the stone platform, stepped back two paces, and waited for the ritual to begin.

Amid rumbling tremors, the six stone doors began moving slowly along some predetermined path. Three minutes later, they had fitted together completely. The room's area had shrunk by half, and the sealed environment was complete.

The Obelisk gathered the light shining down from above and began rotating with the stone platform before Daisy's excited eyes.

With crisp cracking sounds, the Obelisk's metal casing scattered in all directions, revealing the pale-blue crystal inside. The crystal seemed alive, sprouting countless branches on its own. In merely ten seconds, a single crystal had become a crystal cluster.

Daisy watched the wildly growing crystal cluster nervously, veins bulging on the back of her hand as her nostrils twitched slightly. Without blinking, she stared at the cluster. In the original timeline, another Inhuman had taken half the crystal's energy, and later some kindhearted person had shattered the evolution crystal. It could be said that version of Quake had fallen far short of the height she should have reached.

Now that she alone would enjoy this evolution, everything would be different.

Daisy waited silently. Before long, the stone platform stopped spinning, and the wild growth of the crystal cluster gradually settled. The surroundings fell silent, with no sign of anything unusual.

Was that it? She could hardly believe it.

She took one step forward, and the change came suddenly.

The stone chamber was somewhat dim, and Daisy could not see clearly. She vaguely saw what seemed to be a burst of gas spraying from within the crystal. The gas rapidly spread through the sealed environment, carrying a sour smell.

The air was somewhat foul. Daisy dared say that the PM2.5 levels here had definitely gone through the roof. She had no idea whether breathing this stuff into her lungs was harmful.

As her mind ran wild, she felt her body go numb. Looking down, she saw that her fingers and wrists had begun turning to stone.

Anyone who did not know the truth would have been scared shitless...

Honestly, she was not much better off. Her body grew increasingly stiff as blackish-gray stone rapidly crawled across it.

Stay calm. It's fine. This is all part of the process! She tried her best to encourage herself, but her mind was blank. The petrification spread incredibly fast. She lost all perception of the outside world and became a complete stone statue.

The ritual did not stop. The crystal continued releasing mist, and with nowhere to go in the sealed environment, more than half of it was ultimately absorbed into Daisy's body.

Only when the crystal had exhausted its energy did it unscientifically evaporate into the air, and the stone chamber fell quiet.

"Thump... thump..." After an unknown amount of time, the faintest heartbeat sounded from inside the stone statue, gradually becoming clearer.

Crackling sounds rang out as the stone statue began to break apart, starting with her fingers. Her fingers, stained from days of hardship, became fair once more, faintly gleaming.

The cracks grew wider, spreading from her fingers to her palms, arms, and finally her cheeks.

Daisy felt that the entire world had changed within her perception, though she did not yet know how. Something had also appeared inside her body, but all of it was blocked by an unbearably uncomfortable layer of stone skin.

"Ah—!" she shouted. A force burst from her cells, like floodwaters that had accumulated for ages. Once stirred, it surged forth with irresistible fullness. Like thunder exploding on level ground, the stone skin violently burst apart from within.