The Magic Girl

The day after the gathering ended, the neighborhood organized everyone to visit Mrs. Weston, who had been hospitalized after being shot.

Rosalie and Mark went along with the other neighborhood residents.

Fortunately, Mrs. Weston's injury was not fatal, and her life was saved after emergency treatment.

With Mrs. Weston's case as an example, the security upgrades Mark's family carried out afterward no longer seemed so abrupt to the surrounding neighbors.

Rosalie submitted an application to the neighborhood property management, and construction began immediately after it was approved.

Under the guidance of professional security personnel like Faith, the renovations proceeded smoothly.

In just one month, all the upgrades had been completed.

The original iron-bar fence around the yard was torn down and replaced with reinforced concrete walls three meters high and half a meter thick.

A large number of concealed cameras were installed along the walls, topped with sharp anti-climbing spikes and coils capable of emitting electronic pulses.

A concealed compartment was set up on the roof of the second floor. Bodyguards took turns keeping watch inside with sniper rifles, monitoring the entire yard to prevent intruders from entering.

Alice controlled three drones at once, sending them on round-the-clock patrols of the surrounding area to search for dangerous targets.

Mark's yard had now been built entirely like a military outpost, vastly increasing its security.

Unless someone possessed superpowers, sneaking into the yard was impossible.

"As the number of targets Alice needs to control keeps increasing, her computing power is no longer enough."

Seeing that Alice's usual computing usage had already exceeded 60%, Mark knew he had to upgrade her equipment.

Fortunately, over the past month, Stardew Valley had sold another 1.2 million copies. After taxes, Mark's assets surpassed ten million dollars for the first time.

Mark opened Stark Industries' official website and spent five hundred dollars to order a million-core enterprise-grade supercomputer for Alice.

On the afternoon of the third day, the supercomputer was flown in aboard a plane bearing the Stark Industries logo.

Rosalie specially cleared out a room to house the massive machine.

After the accompanying engineers installed and calibrated the supercomputer before leaving, Mark immediately transferred Alice's core code onto its hard drive.

"Not bad! This supercomputer's processing power should be enough for Alice for now."

Seeing Alice's usual computing usage drop below 5%, Mark nodded in satisfaction.

The only troublesome part was that he would have to hire a computer engineer specifically to handle the supercomputer's daily maintenance.

"Tap, tap, tap..."

His fingers flew across the keyboard as he wrote security programs for the supercomputer, layering patch after patch of security protection onto it.

Afterward, he spent a week adding intelligent mechanisms to Alice's core code for automatically detecting and patching security vulnerabilities, as well as network tracking and countertracking, intrusion and counterintrusion.

Ordinary hackers could no longer hack into and take control of the supercomputer.

Even if someone tried to trace Mark's real IP address, they would be defeated by layers upon layers of nearly endless disguises.

Only an artificial intelligence like JARVIS could use overwhelming computational power to instantly break through every disguise and hack into the supercomputer.

"Mark, Director Caleb invited us to attend the premiere of Dreamland Children's Park at AMC Theatres tomorrow night!"

After receiving a phone call that day, Rosalie spoke to Mark excitedly.

She had attended movie premieres before, but she had undoubtedly been a peripheral figure every time, only able to sit in the back row of the theater.

But this time, Rosalie would be attending as the female lead for the first time, so naturally, it felt entirely different.

"Sure. I'll go with you, Mom."

Mark agreed with a smile.

This was an important moment in Rosalie's life, so of course Mark had to be by her side.

Besides, the premiere was being held at AMC Theatres on the Walk of Fame, the very heart of Hollywood. Stars and political figures appeared there all the time, so there was no need to worry about security.

The following afternoon, Rosalie and Mark both put on custom formal attire and headed for the Walk of Fame under the escort of bodyguards.

"Rosalie, Mark, welcome to the premiere."

When he saw the two get out of the car, Caleb warmly stepped forward to greet them.

Dreamland Children's Park was merely a low-budget film. No big-name stars had been invited, and only three reporters had come, making the venue look somewhat shabby.

Rosalie did not mind. Holding Mark's hand, she walked down the red carpet toward the theater screening room.

At that moment, Mark noticed a Chinese girl on a stage beside the theater, performing magic while wearing a yellow jacket and denim shorts.

The girl looked about fourteen or fifteen. She was pretty and had short hair like a boy's.

She extended her slender, pale fingers and repeatedly tapped the air in front of her.

Boom! Boom! Boom...

Brilliant fireworks kept blooming wherever her fingertips paused.

"Cool!"

"That's so beautiful!"

"..."

Quite a few passersby below the stage cheered excitedly.

"Something's wrong!"

Mark's pupils contracted as he sensed that something was off.

Everyone else assumed the girl's magic performance relied on props such as fireworks hidden in her sleeves.

But Mark had studied Electromagnetism and Plasma Physics. Judging from the colors of the fireworks at the girl's fingertips, he could tell that they were not fireworks produced by gunpowder explosions at all, but visible light released by particle collisions in plasma!

But plasma existed only in neon lights and display screens. With current technology, it could not be manifested directly in the air.

"Could this girl be a Mutant too?"

The thought flashed through Mark's mind.

And according to his memories, there really was a Mutant in the Marvel Universe who could manipulate plasma, and she happened to be a Chinese girl as well!

"Alice, send a drone to keep an eye on her!"

Mark gave Alice the order through the hidden microphone on his bow tie.

"Understood, Mark!"

As Alice's voice sounded, one of the drones that had been hovering above Mark flew out and stopped in midair above the girl performing magic.

Since he had encountered a Mutant, Mark naturally did not want to let the opportunity slip away for nothing.

He did not intend to harm the girl. He wanted to recruit her.

After all, the future Marvel Universe would be filled with dangers. Even if Mark became a powerful Superman someday, he would still need to recruit people to work for him or protect his family.

For now, the magic girl seemed to have only mastered cold plasma, which could only be used for magic tricks and had no real destructive power.

But if she could master hot plasma in the future, she would gain control over lightning, and her destructive power would be considerable.

Mark soon followed Rosalie into the theater screening room and took a seat in the front row.

Then the movie began.

As he watched the movie distractedly, Mark took a display screen from his pocket and observed the movements of the magic girl outside.

After finishing her magic act, she accepted a hundred-dollar bill from a middle-aged man beside her, then turned and left.

The drone hovered a hundred meters above her head, silently following her the entire time.