That Certain Inhuman Black Braised Egg Never Acts Human

Richard just returned to New York.

Phil Coulson's call came through immediately.

"Doctor Richard, do you have time this morning?"

Richard raised an eyebrow, thinking to himself that several days had already passed before a call finally came.

"I do, Agent Coulson."

"Around nine o'clock, someone will come to pick you up and take you through the onboarding procedures."

The corners of Richard's mouth curled into a smile as he bantered, "Agent Coulson, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s operational efficiency is a bit low..."

A sincere apology from Phil Coulson came from the other end of the line: "I'm sorry, Doctor Richard. This was an oversight on my part."

"Heh~" Richard chuckled softly and said, "You're too serious, Agent Coulson. I was just joking."

"I'm at the Greenpoint Apartments. Have your people come over earlier."

"Right, where is the onboarding location? New York?"

"No!" Phil Coulson added, "I've already arranged a plane. It will take you directly to your destination."

Richard sighed inwardly.

As expected of a veteran agent, his words and actions left no room for error.

"Alright, I'll wait for your people to pick me up."

Hanging up the phone, Richard opened the door and reached out to grab a copy of "Detailed Explanation of Elemental Magic" from the Kamar-Taj library.

"Sorcerer Richard, it's you again!" This was the exasperated scolding of the librarian, Sorcerer Daniel.

"Sorry, Daniel~" Richard offered an apology without a shred of remorse and promptly shut the door.

For the sake of his sorcerer's dream of flames in his left hand and frost in his right, Richard had been studying elemental magic diligently over the past few days.

However, the energy utilized by Kamar-Taj sorcerers was all borrowed from various dimensions. Therefore, the spells here basically originated from various dimensional demons and gods.

Consequently, Kamar-Taj sorcerers were jokingly referred to as dimensional mages by the magical community.

And for this very reason, the Kamar-Taj library contained very few records of elemental magic.

Even so, after studying for the past few days, Richard had already preliminarily created two elemental spells.

The first was the fire-type Pyroblast.

It was evolved from a Fireball recorded in the Kamar-Taj library.

Yet the spellcasting process of the original Fireball was immensely complex, and even after being simplified over and over again by Richard, it still fell short of being cast with a mere wave of the hand.

Having nothing left to modify, he simply started from scratch!

First, he intercepted the energy-gathering rune array of the original Fireball.

After a round of refinement and simplification, Richard unexpectedly created a fire element rune.

Building upon the fire element rune, he further embedded rune structures for energy absorption, compression, and the like.

At this stage, the released Fireball was already comparable to the original.

However, Richard, who believed in the creed that firepower is justice, was hardly going to be satisfied with this.

He simply gathered the rune arrays of three first-edition *Fireball*s, recombining them into a second-edition Fireball rune structure with a stable triangular configuration.

During testing in the mirror dimension, a single orange-yellow Fireball directly blasted a tank to pieces.

This destructive power was quite formidable, but it still failed to meet Richard's demands.

Thus he went on to create the third-edition Fireball!

Five second-edition Fireball rune arrays were arranged in a five-pointed star.

Through continuous fine-tuning of the rune arrays, the converged fire-type energy successfully gathered right in the center of the pentagram.

The color of the central Fireball shifted from yellow to white, and finally turned blue-white.

After testing its might, Richard directly decided that this was the final version.

In the end, the first-edition, second-edition, and third-edition *Fireball*s were all taken by The Ancient One and placed into the Kamar-Taj library.

The second was the frost-type Ice Block.

Originally, what Richard wanted to create was Frostbolt.

Yet the Kamar-Taj library contained no records of frost-type elemental magic.

Nor could Richard conjure something out of nothing.

So he made modifications based on the fire-type.

After being injured by exploding runes more than a dozen times, he finally managed a barely usable ice-gathering rune.

Yet this rune was utterly fragile; every time it was assembled into an offensive rune structure, it would invariably disintegrate halfway through.

Richard mulled it over in his mind: since Frostbolt could not be brought into being, he might as well forge a self-preservation skill.

Thus the frost-type Ice Block was born right then and there!

The principle was simple: gathering and compressing frost-type energy.

This spell could be cast upon oneself or upon others.

Richard had tested it, and two *Pyroblast*s failed to breach the Ice Block encasing a tank.

There was just one issue: if cast on ordinary people, the temperature was far too low, making it easy to give someone frostbite.

And if not dispelled in time, the person inside would suffer from oxygen deprivation...

Half an hour later, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents arrived.

Richard was escorted all the way to the airport and boarded an aircraft.

The plane flew for about an hour before landing at a tarmac situated in a desert region.

Stepping off the plane, Richard sensed that this must be one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secret bases.

The base director was a lean middle-aged man named Andre Berkeley.

He was responsible for handling Richard's onboarding procedures.

The entire onboarding process was simple.

Sign his name, collect a specially modified cell phone.

And that was it...

Yet the moment Richard's phone reached his hand, it suddenly rang!

When he answered, Phil Coulson's tone on the other end of the line was extremely anxious.

"Doctor Richard, emergency mission! Five critically injured patients are flying toward the base right now. Please do everything in your power to save their lives!"

(Fu—)

Richard hung up the phone, cursing fiercely in his heart!

You really don't act human, you bald-headed bastard!

Three minutes later, an aircraft touched down.

Five wounded patients were lifted down from it.

Following a preliminary inspection by Richard, his brow instantly knitted into a tight knot.

These wounded individuals were all severe blast injuries that were immensely difficult to handle!

Wounds covered their entire bodies—heads, chests, limbs...

Tucked inside wounds of all sizes were irregular shrapnel fragments as well!

Richard's expression was exceedingly grim.

Could things really be such a coincidence?!

The moment he finished onboarding, five of the trickiest critical casualties arrived?

And playing fast and loose with the lives of his subordinate agents, too?!

What an inhuman scumbag!

"Does the base have an operating room? Are there doctors and nurses?" Richard asked in a cold voice.

"Yes! I'll have them arranged right away!" Director Andre's efficiency was remarkable.

In a mere five minutes, the wounded had already been wheeled into the operating room.

The assisting doctors and nurses had all arrived as well.

Richard took a deep breath and spoke to the accompanying doctors.

"I'll handle the head and chest wounds of the patients first; leave the rest to you, okay?"

The doctors nodded.

"Scalpel!"

Richard began to work with swift precision.

Incise, extract the shrapnel, suture.

Complex injuries that left other doctors with nowhere to start

became these three simple steps in his hands.

However, treating the wounds required absolute concentration.

In this state, Richard's mental stamina depleted rapidly, and sweat constantly beaded on his forehead.

To prevent sweat from slipping into his eyes, every few minutes he had to bark out orders.

"Wipe my sweat!"

"Wipe my sweat!"

"Wipe my sweat!"

Each wounded person bore twenty to thirty wounds of varying sizes,

with over a dozen distributed across the head and chest.

Even with Richard's blistering hand speed and utmost precision and conciseness,

treating a single patient still consumed nearly half an hour.

By the time he finished with all five patients, over three hours had elapsed.

Richard's face was pale, his gaze fatigued.

"I'll leave the rest to you..."

Watching his swaying figure as he walked away,

the eyes of all the doctors and nurses were filled with admiration and respect!

At a certain secret base.

A certain one-eyed hero, Nick Fury, sat before the monitors, having watched Richard's entire surgical procedure from start to finish, and clapped in praise.

"Good job, Dr. Richard~"