Everyone knew.
The great Dr. Erskine had died the very day Captain America was officially created, and all the data had been destroyed.
But when Luca was a child, because he had shown extraordinary talent,
Howard had explained the Super Soldier Serum formula he had reverse-engineered to him and Tony.
Their father had strictly forbidden them from trying to make or inject it, though.
Because the serum was extremely unstable.
And its fatality rate was extraordinarily high.
The young Luca had listened to his father, but the information had been etched deep into his mind.
Although he was a bastard who loved parties and beautiful women, he had always kept his father's words in mind.
Even after he took over Stark Industries' biotechnology division and turned it into Stark Pharmaceuticals, the world's most valuable medical company by market capitalization,
he had never considered touching that taboo.
But strangely, when he saw this document, his mind inexplicably couldn't help dwelling on the possibility.
His inner voice had told him countless times that the plan had a fatality rate as high as 99 percent.
But the strange thing was that once the idea took hold, he couldn't forget it.
It was as if he were possessed.
Since he couldn't forget it, he might as well go for it.
Luca looked at the information the terrorists had provided on absorbing energy to evolve.
He discovered that combining the two sets of information could perfectly solve the Super Soldier Serum's instability!
The instability was caused by the human body being unable to withstand the load when the serum erupted.
But if he added the ability to absorb energy and evolve, allowing human cells to actively devour external energy to neutralize that load, the serum could fuse perfectly!
He got straight to work.
He called the serum project: Superman Serum!
To save himself and keep anyone else from stealing his research,
Luca had taken a large vial of his own blood at the very start of the experiment, while no one was watching, and put it into the core cultivation chamber.
What he intended to make was a custom Super Soldier Serum that only he could inject!
The serum's genetic lock was completely bound to his DNA.
Anyone in the world other than him, Luca Stark, who dared inject it would meet only one fate.
Genetic collapse, with every cell in their body dissolving into a puddle of sludge.
That was also why he had deliberately stalled for time.
A customized genetic serum needed a great deal of time to cultivate and adapt.
Every day, he had to pretend to cooperate with the terrorists on their experiments, while getting a few of their men killed as guinea pigs.
Fortunately, two months had passed.
The progress bar had finally reached 98 percent.
Luca took a deep breath and drew himself out of his thoughts.
He turned to face the few researchers remaining in the lab.
"All right, guys, all the work that needs doing is done. Now, all of you, get out."
Luca waved his hand as if shooing away a few annoying flies.
"I'm going to start adjusting the final core data. I need quiet for that. Come back in an hour, when the experiment officially starts."
"If anyone dares open that door even one minute early, I'll pour that bottle of concentrated sulfuric acid down his throat."
No one said anything.
Over the past two months, they had long since come to know this big shot's strange temperament.
He also always liked to be alone at critical moments.
They quickly filed out, and the door closed tightly behind them.
Only Luca remained in the lab.
The test subject who had just died had been taken away long ago, though a faint stench still lingered.
Luca stared at the screen and watched the progress bar jump to 99 percent.
"Hurry up. The yacht party in New York won't be postponed for me. And there's Anna, or Cindy. Whatever, who cares what her name is? Those long legs are still waiting for me to measure them."
As Luca watched the screen, he began reviewing his escape plan in his head.
The plan had to be perfect. One wrong step and he'd die here.
First, inject the serum.
Once injected, it would lie dormant in his body like plain water, as long as no energy activated it.
Then, open the door as usual and cooperate with the bald leader on the experiment.
Grab some unlucky terrorist and give him a shot of useless waste liquid.
He wasn't the one dying, anyway.
These terrorists murdered and robbed people every day. They deserved to die.
At a time like this, it was enough just to keep himself alive. He didn't have the saintly compassion to pity the people who had kidnapped him.
Next, once the waste liquid was injected, that henchman would definitely die a horrible death.
The experiment would fail again.
The hot-tempered bald leader would definitely fly into a rage and think he was a useless piece of trash.
Finally, given the bald man's habit of disposing of bodies to destroy the evidence,
he would surely have someone drag Luca out to the cliff outside the base and shoot him.
As long as he reached the cliff and came into contact with sunlight,
everything would follow naturally.
That was Luca's entire plan.
He couldn't skip a single step.
Of course, one wrong step would also mean death.
It was a plan that carried both risk and reward.
He was doing this because the serum he had developed had one major flaw: it needed a vast amount of energy to activate instantly.
There was no energy source of that magnitude anywhere in this lousy base.
As for the nutrient solution chambers used for experiments?
The terrorists kept him under close guard. They only brought them out during experiments and took them away immediately afterward.
Luca's only hope was the sunlight outside.
But ordinary sunlight's energy was too dispersed, nowhere near enough to activate the serum.
So, to guarantee success, he had to find another way.
Over the past two months, Luca had not only researched the main serum but had also devoted a great deal of effort to developing another auxiliary serum, which he had mixed into the main serum.
This auxiliary serum had only one function, and it could only be used once.
The Photosynthetic Energy Amplifier!
As long as he was exposed to sunlight for photosynthesis within a certain time after being injected with the serum,
this auxiliary serum would activate instantly, amplifying the light energy absorbed countless times over!
With that amplified energy, the serum's properties and the ability to evolve would react instantly.
Then they would fully activate his body's potential, achieving a perfect mutation!
Each step depended on the last. These were all the cards Luca had to play.
One wrong step meant death.
If the bald leader suddenly changed his habits, decided walking to the cliff was too much trouble, and pulled a gun to kill him right there in the lab,
Luca would be completely done for.
He could only gamble.
Gamble on the bald man's perverse fixation on dumping bodies off the cliff.
The digital clock on the wall ticked silently.
Less than half an hour remained of the one-hour deadline the bald leader had given him.
"Ding!!"
A crisp electronic notification sounded.
The progress bar on the screen had finally reached 100 percent.
Perfect compatibility.
With a faint hiss, a lid in the center of the lab table slid open, and a vial of serum emitting a faint glow slowly rose.
Luca suppressed the excitement pounding in his chest, walked over, and snatched up the serum.
Without the slightest hesitation, he immediately went to the automatic injector nearby, placed his arm inside, and loaded the serum into the slot.
"Dad, even though you didn't want me to touch it, I have to go against your wishes now to protect the Stark Family. I hope this formula works. I don't want to turn into a puddle of rotten flesh."
Luca took a deep breath and pressed the start button.
The machine clicked, and the needle entered a vein in his arm.
The liquid flowed through the transparent tube and quickly entered his body.
Soon, the injection was complete.
Luca pulled out his arm and frowned.
Aside from the slight sting of the needle piercing his skin, he felt nothing.
No heat, no swelling muscles, not even a faster heartbeat.
But he knew that was normal, because it hadn't absorbed any energy to activate yet.
"How boring. I thought I'd feel as wired as if I'd chugged ten cans of Red Bull. Looks like this stuff's a dud most of the time."
Luca curled his lip and quickly began cleaning up.
He deleted all his genetic data, cleared away the traces in the cultivation chamber, then threw the empty vial into the incinerator and burned it to ash.
Soon, the hour was up.
The lab door was pushed open right on time.
The bald leader walked in with the researchers and two heavily armed soldiers.
The soldiers were also holding a terrorist henchman who was struggling desperately.
The poor bastard clearly knew what it meant to be brought here and cried out loudly for mercy.
"Time's up, Stark." The bald leader looked coldly at Luca.
"Show me what you've accomplished in this last hour. If you disappoint me again, you die."
Luca pretended to arrange the instruments on the console as he quipped,
"Relax, buddy. Science needs a sense of ceremony."
"Please get our volunteer onto the bed. Look how excited he is. Clearly, he can't wait to give his life for science."
The soldiers roughly pinned the henchman to the experimental bed and used straps to secure his hands, feet, and neck tightly.
Looking completely relaxed, Luca pointed at the experimental bed.
"Strap him in. It's time to witness a miracle."
Luca strolled unhurriedly to the console, casually picked up the waste liquid he had prepared earlier, and made a show of placing it in the injection device.
"Are you ready, ladies and gentlemen? What you're about to see is a great leap in the history of human evolution."