Hydra

"Here's the situation, Mr. Cheng. Have you heard of Hydra?" Coulson asked, his expression grave.

Jiang Xiang could only marvel.

They were planning to pass the buck.

"Hydra? That monster has come back to life?"

Old Man's words nearly made Coulson jump.

Did a legendary monster like the Hydra actually exist?

Good grief. Are you serious? There really is a nine-headed water monster out there?

Coulson had only been talking about an organization, and suddenly Old Man had brought a giant monster into it.

Frank leaned close to Old Man's ear and briefly explained what kind of organization Hydra was.

"Aiya, Frank, why didn't you tell Old Man sooner? Now I've embarrassed myself." Old Man calmly gestured for Coulson to continue.

Coulson finally steadied his emotions and stopped drawing things out.

"According to our secret investigation, the evil organization Hydra has already discovered the Wraiths, lured them away, and begun experimenting on them."

(ノ⊙ω⊙)ノ Whoa!

Jiang Xiang couldn't help grumbling inwardly. Passing the buck like this was bound to come back to bite them.

"A few days ago, we raided this secret laboratory and discovered that the Wraiths they were studying had undergone major changes.

Originally, Wraiths would only begin attacking people after they finished beguiling them, but the Wraiths being studied no longer had that restriction.

Once they developed, they became aggressive toward almost everyone around them, indiscriminately."

"When did you discover this?"

"Around the day before yesterday."

Coulson answered honestly. Then, as if remembering something, he pulled out a very advanced-looking communicator and handed it to Old Man. "Here's the approximate timeline of the experiments."

Jiang Xiang stepped forward and took the display.

S.H.I.E.L.D. still dares to claim innocence? They've even produced a timeline.

"Is there any surveillance footage?"

"Sorry, give me a moment."

Coulson took out his communicator and made a call.

"Sorry, the surveillance equipment was destroyed. No footage survived."

As if S.H.I.E.L.D. would ever hand over footage that would be almost impossible to explain away.

"A Hydra monster?"

Nick Fury slapped the desk, staring intently at Coulson.

"Coulson, do you know what you're saying?"

Coulson replied solemnly, "Yes, sir. Mr. Cheng mentioned the Hydra monster very casually today. There's a strong possibility that such a monster really exists."

"Destroy the audio recording of this conversation. Don't put it on file. Forget about this Hydra monster, Coulson."

"Yes, sir."

S.H.I.E.L.D. had provided quite a bit of emotional value lately.

Jiang Xiang looked at the three thousand-plus emotional value in his system.

It wasn't a lot, but it wasn't a little either.

All his strenuous acting hadn't been wasted.

Jiang Xiang planned to keep opening boxes. He urgently needed a clone-type skill, even if it only let him create one extra body.

His next operation required several identities to appear at the same time.

Besides, the more miraculous and beyond ordinary human limits an ability was, the easier it would be to earn emotional value.

Right now, Jiang Xiang desperately needed a major incident to establish the Foundation and the other factions as real.

S.H.I.E.L.D. was clearly skeptical and had spent the past few days probing, so he urgently needed proof.

"The best way to solve these problems-open a box!"

This time, Jiang Xiang planned to open a [Silver Box] worth three thousand. Two thousand emotional value let him add a keyword, so what would three thousand do?

Jiang Xiang focused on the system and redeemed a [Silver Box] worth three thousand.

Jiang Xiang had redeemed plenty of [Silver Boxes], but the description for this three-thousand-value box was different.

(Can select one keyword to guide the box's contents. Expanded variety of card types.)

"An extra thousand emotional value expands the card types, huh? Then adding more after this should give me more keywords and even more types."

"Keyword: clones."

"Open!"

The familiar light shone in Jiang Xiang's eyes once again.

[Item: Inexhaustible Stamps]

[Effect: Envelopes bearing these stamps can be delivered silently to the designated address, subject to certain conditions.]

[Special Incarnation Card-Iruka Umino]

[Rank: C]

[Special effect: Other abilities are weakened or removed, emphasizing cloning abilities.]

[Skills: Shadow Clone Technique, chunin-level taijutsu...]

[Description: The first teacher of the so-called "Child of Prophecy," with excellent teaching abilities...]

[Opportunity Card-Fusion]

[Rank: D]

[Effect: Can fuse items of rank D or below, producing an item up to rank B. Can be used once.]

Of the three items, the cloning skill was the best. The Fusion Card was a gamble.

The only uncertain one was the stamps.

What can this thing do?

Forget it. At least it's a supernatural item.

That would hardly do its status as a supernatural item justice.

Jiang Xiang read the item description over and over, as though something had occurred to him.

S.H.I.E.L.D.

Outside the entrance to the Triskelion.

A letter silently appeared in the mailbox.

Recipient: Yinshenger.

This was, of course, Jiang Xiang's handiwork. He didn't know where the Wraiths being studied by S.H.I.E.L.D. were, so he had put down the address of every S.H.I.E.L.D. base to see whether the letter could be sent.

In the end, some of them went through. More precisely, they were distributed to bases across the United States.

At the same time, the stamps dimmed, temporarily unable to send any more letters.

Nick Fury sat in his office chair. His dark face and solemn expression made the atmosphere feel heavy.

He turned to glance at the entrance, then his gaze lingered there as he stared blankly at the door.

Knock-knock-

"Come in."

Nick Fury snapped out of his daze.

His trusted subordinate Coulson opened the door and entered.

"Director, what happened?"

"Take a look at this."

Nick Fury pushed something resembling a letter across to Coulson.

"What's this?"

Coulson opened the letter.

[To Yinshenger]

[Above the graveyard, the laughter of the living rings out over our sighs. We can hear it! We should hear it! And so, we should return!]

[With regards, Freddy]

"Sir, what is this letter?" Standing across the desk, Coulson was bewildered by its contents.

"How is the handling of those Wraiths in New York coming along?" Nick Fury asked in a low voice, raising a seemingly unrelated subject.

"We're dealing with the Wraiths step by step, just as planned. It's going fairly smoothly." Coulson focused as soon as the conversation turned to work. "On average, we can handle three or four Wraith incidents a day. The main reason we can't handle more is lack of time. Wearing down a single Wraith takes almost two hours. Excluding the time spent finding and capturing them, that's already quite fast."

Nick Fury nodded and asked without a ripple of emotion, "Has Mr. Cheng revealed anything about how to learn magic?"

"No." Coulson shook his head. "Whenever learning magic comes up, he either falls silent or changes the subject."