Learning that Norman intended to invest, Dr. Otto was overjoyed and immediately laid out all his research findings.
"Norman, my research has succeeded. All I need now is tritium!"
Dr. Otto clasped Norman's hand excitedly, a fanatical gleam in his eyes.
The two hit it off immediately. After all, a completed giant reactor already stood in Dr. Otto's nuclear physics laboratory. Once he optimized and upgraded the plasma confinement system and added tritium, everything would run.
Three days later.
With the many media reporters Norman had invited as witnesses, the presentation officially began.
Dr. Otto stood before the control console, his expression composed, his eyes harboring the same fervor and ideals he had held for decades.
Behind him, four gleaming black mechanical tentacles with extraordinarily precise joints extended from a back-mounted harness, hanging quietly in midair.
This was the fusion assistance apparatus he had poured his heart and soul into building.
These four mechanical arms featured independent intelligent computing, ultra-high-precision operation, and heat-resistant, antimagnetic materials, allowing them to reliably perform every delicate operation under the extreme conditions of fusion.
To counterbalance the mechanical intelligence's autonomous consciousness and ensure the human brain retained absolute control, Otto had also embedded a silver inhibitor chip at the spinal interface behind his neck.
This tiny chip was his final safeguard, designed to lock down the machines' intelligence and prevent them from turning against him.
In the viewing area, his wife Rosie watched him quietly, her eyes filled with joy, though they also held a barely perceptible trace of worry.
Below the stage, all the media reporters invited by Oscorp were in position.
Everyone held their breath, waiting for a demonstration that could rewrite humanity's current energy landscape.
Otto raised his hand, his fingertip resting on the final startup command. His steady, resonant voice rang throughout the hall:
"Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, I will ignite humanity's first artificial star."
"It will provide more energy than Mr. Stark's Arc Reactor, a more inexhaustible supply."
"Controlled nuclear fusion, endless clean energy, a future that belongs to all humanity!"
As his words fell, he pressed the unlock button.
The safe slowly opened, and a mechanical arm precisely picked up a crystal-clear sealed container glowing faintly blue. Sealed inside was tritium.
A mechanical tentacle slowly delivered it to the very center of the spherical magnetic confinement chamber. Otto put on black radiation-protection goggles, drew a deep breath, and entered the final activation code.
Fusion sequence initiated!
The annular superconducting coils powered up instantly, and a blinding white light suddenly illuminated the entire hall.
An invisible magnetic grid interwove inside the chamber, densely locking down the central space. Guided by the magnetic field, tritium particles spun at high speed, stripped apart, and collided.
The next second, a dazzling speck of golden-red light suddenly appeared at the center of the chamber and rapidly expanded.
The artificial sun had ignited!
A dazzling, fist-sized plasma fireball simulating a stellar core hovered at the very center of the magnetic field.
It grew rapidly, expanding to nearly two meters in diameter in just ten seconds. Golden-red flames swirled as a searing halo spread across the hall.
The entire laboratory hall instantly fell deathly silent. Everyone's pupils trembled as they stared blankly at the hovering artificial star.
It had worked. Humanity really had ignited a sun on the ground!
After a brief, deathly silence, the entire hall erupted in irrepressible cries and applause. Reporters' camera shutters went wild, and the researchers' faces were filled with astonishment.
Otto stood at the front of the stage, his face joyful, his eyes growing hot. Yet before long, just as he thought this "artificial sun" had become completely stable, something suddenly went wrong!
The gravitational field of this "artificial sun" was surging uncontrollably, growing faster and faster.
Otto's newly optimized and upgraded magnetic confinement could not contain the increasingly powerful gravitational field at all.
At first, the anomaly was barely noticeable. A tiny steel nail on a tabletop trembled slightly, then silently lifted off the surface and was pulled through the air toward the central fireball.
Then metal lampshades, screws, instrument components, and fragments of steel framing all began shaking violently.
Humm...!
A low, resonant rumble filled the entire hall. The ecstasy on everyone's faces instantly froze, replaced by utter terror.
The artificial sun's gravity had gone out of control!
It was no longer a stable body of energy locked within a magnetic field, but a ravenous gravitational vortex, madly devouring every piece of metal around it.
Otto's expression changed drastically. In an instant, he plunged from ecstasy into an icy abyss.
He immediately forced the magnetic field into lockdown manually, increased the superconducting power, and urgently compressed the plasma volume.
"Doctor, the superconducting coils are overloaded! The magnetic confinement system doesn't have enough power! The parameters are out of control!"
The researchers behind the scenes screamed shrilly. The data streams descended into complete chaos, and red alerts flooded the screens.
Countless reporters and researchers discarded the metal objects tugging at their bodies and fled desperately from the laboratory.
Norman's face was now as black as thunder. Everything was over. Everything he had gambled had been destroyed just like that.
Gritting his teeth, he too fled frantically with the crowd.
"Impossible! How could this happen? I already did the calculations! My calculations can't be wrong! Why has the gravitational field grown so much?!" Dr. Otto roared in despair.
He had been too hasty. The magnetic confinement system operated on an independent power circuit, separate from the fusion reaction chamber. Its power consumption was terrifyingly high, making it the single greatest energy drain in the entire experiment.
Although he had upgraded the magnetic confinement system, he had overlooked the limits of the physical materials.
More importantly, he had miscalculated the gravitational field of the "artificial sun."
But it was all too late. The magnetic confinement failed, and human intervention could no longer suppress it.
The high-temperature plasma violently burst through its magnetic cage, and raging torrents of energy instantly swept through the entire experimental chamber.
Boom...!!
A violent burst of energy tore through the air. Searing plasma turbulence punched through the protective layer, and a savage heat wave instantly swept across the hall.
The glass curtain wall shattered inch by inch, sending countless sharp fragments flying wildly.
Standing at the very front of the viewing area, Rosie had no time to dodge. A storm of shattered glass swept toward her, viciously slicing through her body.
With a soft sound, her body suddenly crumpled before she could even cry out.
Otto caught the scene out of the corner of his eye. His heart instantly stopped, and his mind went blank.
"Rosie...!!"
Utter devastation and despair instantly engulfed him.
This time, Spider-Man was not there to unplug the power, and besides, it was already too late to do that now!
In the instant he lost focus, an out-of-control plasma current slammed into the mechanical harness on his back and the chip behind his neck.
Zzzz...!!
The piercing sound of electrical scorching erupted. The inhibitor chip instantly melted under the intense heat and was completely fried. Dr. Otto passed out on the spot.
More terrifying still, the artificial sun had now gone completely out of control, its gravity becoming a vortex that devoured everything.
The more metal was drawn into its core, the more violent the fusion reaction became, and the stronger its gravitational field grew.
It was a vicious cycle with no solution.
In an instant, the entire laboratory collapsed, and all its metal was devoured.
The artificial sun expanded again. Its terrifying heat sent the surrounding temperature soaring, and the unconscious Dr. Otto and his mechanical tentacles all perished in that horrific heat.
At that moment, every car and metal building on the nearby streets flew toward the artificial sun. Even the people inside the cars were swallowed into it, further intensifying the fusion energy!
Everyone screamed in terror and fled for their lives.