Bruce Banner

June 1, 2004.

New York had enjoyed a rare stretch of peace for over a month.

During that month, Jiang Xiang had worked hard at his cultivation.

He had practiced chakra and Qi Magic.

His progress with chakra had been encouraging.

With Iruka's avatar card, combining spiritual energy and physical energy to produce chakra was not difficult.

His progress with Qi Magic was considerably slower by comparison.

But in Old Man's opinion, his pace was not actually slow.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had spent the past month busily running around.

Because of the previous incident involving the Wraith Yinshenger, S.H.I.E.L.D. had been forced to increase its funding for handling supernatural incidents yet again.

In truth, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s current ability to handle supernatural incidents was poor.

Ever since Nick Fury had brought back the Tesseract in 1995 and gradually taken charge of S.H.I.E.L.D., things had changed.

The supernatural forces within S.H.I.E.L.D. had rapidly departed.

On top of that, there had been no large-scale supernatural incidents in nearly a decade.

Who knew where the funds earmarked for supernatural incidents had ended up long ago?

They could no longer find Ah Xing, and Old Man could not be bothered with them.

Now, the only weapons S.H.I.E.L.D. could reliably use to counter these supernatural powers were, of all things, the energy guns Hydra had left behind during World War II.

While S.H.I.E.L.D. was tearing its hair out over how to deal with Wraiths, a curly-haired young man rode a little electric scooter up to the parking area outside the Liz Biochemical Technology Research Institute, which worked with the military. He straightened his clothes and entered the institute.

He was in a foul mood because his experiment was on the verge of being canceled.

The military had introduced a great many additional reviews.

Most importantly, unlike before, these were no longer mere formalities.

They genuinely intended to stop funding certain projects.

The reason was still connected to the Wraith incident.

Some politicians and military generals had lost their composure after seeing a small selection of the Wraith and magic videos released by S.H.I.E.L.D.

Thanks to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s maneuvering, the military and politicians had not yet obtained information about Old Man, but it was only a matter of time before they found him.

Naturally, the military intended to invest in magic and Wraiths.

This was a major matter directly tied to their personal safety.

As for everything else, they hardly considered any of it important.

With a new field like this unveiled before everyone, the sooner they invested, the sooner they would see returns.

That raised a question: where would the money come from?

Pouring money into a new field was the bare minimum. They even had to be prepared to spend any amount without getting anything in return.

Nobody was stupid. Who would willingly take on risks for nothing?

Of course, whether anyone was doing so behind the scenes was another matter.

Thus, after discussing it, the military generals who knew about magic decided to cut some projects with no apparent prospects to make room for investment in the field of magic.

Bruce Banner's primary research focused on the effects of gamma rays.

He had arrived early, but his girlfriend Betty had arrived even earlier.

"Morning, Betty."

"Morning, Banner."

Betty had helped Banner prepare the experimental materials for that day's demonstration ahead of time.

The experiment concerned the ability of gamma rays to promote wound healing.

By injecting nanomachines into injured laboratory rabbits and then exposing them to gamma rays, they could rapidly accelerate wound healing.

If the experiment could be extended to human applications, its value would undoubtedly be enormous.

Soon, the military reviewers arrived.

After all, Banner's girlfriend had a father named General Ross.

The experiment proceeded in an orderly fashion, and the wounds did indeed heal quickly.

Once the reviewers had seen the wounds heal, Betty found an excuse to lead them away.

It was best not to let them see the laboratory rabbits suddenly die afterward.

They had a rough idea of what happened later in the experiment.

They were not stupid, after all. It was not as though they could not understand the experiment reports at all; they could still recognize the words "success" and "failure."

Betty and Banner's experiment did not account for a particularly large share of the institute's funding. Out of respect for General Ross, they would let it slide.

After finally managing to "fool" the reviewers into leaving, Banner and Betty were still puzzled by the experiment's failure.

The theoretical calculations clearly indicated a decent chance of success, yet every experiment to date had ended in failure.

That day's military review had given them a sense of crisis. If they kept failing to produce a viable healing technology, their experiment really might be shut down.

That afternoon.

Banner and Betty discussed how to proceed with further experiments.

"Hey, Dr. Banner, could you help me sort out the wiring panel in here?"

A voice came from inside the gamma laboratory.

It was a newly built laboratory, and its equipment was still being calibrated.

"Oh, Gene. Sure."

Bruce Banner entered the laboratory, and together they checked which circuit had shorted out.

Seeing that they still had not found the problem, Betty said, "Bruce, I'll head back to the office first."

"Okay."

Not long after Betty left, the door suddenly shut. Banner walked over and tried to open it.

The two men in the laboratory looked outside, then exchanged a glance.

"Betty?"

When nobody answered, Banner asked Gene, "A friend of yours?"

Gene hurriedly shook his head. "I should be the only one on this floor today."

Bzzzz-

The alarm lights inside the laboratory flared urgently, and the alarm sounded.

The sealed door rapidly closed.

Both men felt a terrible sense of foreboding.

This was the signal that the equipment was starting up!

Bang-

"Is anyone there? Somebody, help!"

Unfortunately, it was too late.

Whoosh-

Gamma rays were released, bathing both men in massive amounts of radiation.

Gene soon stopped breathing.

Banner, however, underwent some subtle changes.

"Good luck comes, good luck comes."

In his bedroom, Jiang Xiang played this luck-summoning anthem over his speakers.

Today, June 1.

It was the auspicious day Jiang Xiang had chosen to open his boxes.

Another reason he had chosen today was that he had successfully accumulated another ten thousand Emotional Value.

Jiang Xiang had as much as 20,023 Emotional Value.

He could open two [Gold Boxes]!

Over the past month or so.

Thanks to Old Man's efforts, Kidd's efforts, and Jiang Xiang himself living off Gwen Stacy... ahem.

He had once again gained a substantial amount of Emotional Value.

System! Open the boxes!

Jiang Xiang shouted inwardly, brimming with heroic ambition.