It wasn't that Zod wanted to be so complicated—it was just a common researcher's affliction. Itching to chase new prey, quick to abandon the old for the new, and with Zod's breakneck speed at finishing research projects, that was why the Burning Legion's powers seemed so numerous.
Others—probably even Tony—couldn't match that speed. Otherwise, his Mark series wouldn't have stalled at the current nanotech armor without further improvement.
But diversifying power had its advantages too: it made you harder to bring down by targeting a single weakness.
Take the Dark Elves who once rampaged across the Nine Realms. In the early days, they used fragments of the Aether particle to build legions of Cursed Warriors, sweeping through everything in their path. Even Asgard was no match for them. Then Thor's grandfather discovered the Aether was their weak point, raided the Dark Elves' home realm of Svartalfheim, seized the Aether, and tried to destroy it. When destruction proved impossible, he chose to seal it away instead.
And because the Dark Elves lost the Aether and could no longer produce Cursed Warriors, they were utterly defeated.
Inspired by the Aether particle, Zod figured the other Infinity Stones might also be able to create some kind of super soldier.
Of all the Infinity Stones, the one most likely to produce super soldiers had to be the Power Stone.
After all, that stone tells you straight up: it's all about power.
A Cursed Warrior possessed two to four times Thor's strength, and they were terrifyingly powerful. If not for the black hole grenade—a real plot device kill—Thor probably would have met his end right there.
…
The Burning Legion's mercenaries had become quite famous across the universe lately, because they took on basically any job and their mission completion rate was sky-high. In a short time, this allowed the Burning Legion to amass a huge fortune—even enough to buy a planet.
Its volume was a little over four times that of Earth, and it had three moons.
One moon was about the size of Earth, half its surface covered in solid white ice. It could practically count as a life-bearing planet in its own right. The other two moons fell somewhere between Earth and Earth's Moon in size, but they were bare and barren. Clearly, their volume and gravity were too small to hold onto air or liquid, and they'd long been scoured dry by the solar wind from the nearby star.
The nearby star was likewise a scaled-up version of the sun. Its enormous size and the distance to the life-bearing planet formed a delicate balance, keeping the planet's temperature between minus fifty and plus fifty degrees Celsius. For Earthlings, that kind of temperature would be extreme, but for a Kryptonian, it was nothing.
After acquiring his own planet, Zod lost interest in Earth.
Aside from most of the rank-and-file who stayed behind on Earth, the rest of the Burning Legion relocated to this new world, which Zod named "Emperor Star."
Zod discovered Emperor Star still had some "natives": enormous, dinosaur-like creatures.
That didn't matter. To the Burning Legion, these creatures were at best a source of meat.
Zod arrived at a small stretch of badlands.
The patch of desert wasn't large. A few hundred meters behind him stretched an endless primeval forest; in front of him, a cliff rose several dozen meters high. Below lay the deep blue sea.
The planet's atmospheric composition was close to Earth's, and its oxygen content was more than double Earth's. From now on, he could do experiments without a care.
"How are the mineral deposits?"
Zod asked the survey robots, all linked to Black Queen.
"Exceptionally rich. The surface-exposed minerals alone already cover every mineral type found on Earth. We are currently probing underground."
Black Queen replied.
It had left a sub-unit on Earth, while its main body had followed to Emperor Star.
Before long, Black Queen sent Zod a very pleasant surprise.
"You've detected minerals resembling vibranium and adamantium-type ores?"
Zod was a little surprised himself. Although his matter manipulation could operate at the subatomic level, meaning he could have as much of either metal as he wanted, this kind of windfall still felt very nice.
"Over a thousand meters underground. The guess is it's a meteorite buried by tectonic activity. If the seller who sold this planet found out, their guts would turn green with regret."
Black Queen even used a Chinese saying.
"How big exactly?"
Zod asked with interest.
"Very big. A conservative estimate puts it not much smaller than the one in Wakanda—possibly even larger. As for the mineral capable of synthesizing adamantium, we've also found a fair amount."
Black Queen was still multitasking the survey, but it could still answer Zod's questions.
"I'll help."
Zod's super vision and x-ray eyes pierced through the surface. Once he saw the molecular structure of vibranium, he could gauge how large this meteorite was.
It was much bigger than Wakanda's—at least twice the size of Wakanda's vibranium meteorite. At that scale, normal mining would take who knows how many years to finish digging. And most importantly, vibranium was damn well a renewable resource, meaning it would never run out.
He gave Black Queen a model, and Black Queen instantly completed the simulation.
As for the mineral that could synthesize adamantium, there was much less of it, but it was still a very good haul. After all, adamantium far surpassed vibranium in hardness. It was just that vibranium suited armor while adamantium suited weapons.
The main reason was that although adamantium was far harder than vibranium, it had no shock-absorbing ability. If you used it to make armor, it could block any attack without issue—but the wearer would probably be shaken to death.
Only vibranium, with its ability to absorb all forms of energy, was truly indestructible and provided perfect shock absorption. That was why a thin layer of vibranium-weave fabric could stop a punch from the immensely strong Hulk.
In this regard, even the raw Kryptonite that Zod himself had synthesized in the DC world couldn't match vibranium's perfection. Raw Kryptonite merely had strong resistance to various attacks, plus the ability to absorb energy and self-repair.
"All this primeval forest—so much and so vast. We need to be careful about fire prevention. I don't want a wildfire that burns for tens of thousands of years."
Breathing the fresh air, Zod felt that even after basking a whole day under Emperor Star's sun, he was fine. The star here was probably quite stable.
Otherwise, if he mutated any further, he had no idea what kind of Superman he'd turn into.
"I'm already making preparations against forest fires," Black Queen said calmly.
Then it fell silent. Zod took in the scenery. Though the ocean on Emperor Star covered only about a third of its surface, its depths were probably deeper than Earth's oceans, teeming with many enormous, ferocious creatures.
/-\
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