Support me by leaving a comment, review and vote
visit my pat**on at CaveLeather
"Boss, the silver bracelet you asked for has arrived~"
Hearing the voice, Luca turned around to see Raina holding a jewelry box, waiting respectfully at the door.
She only stepped inside carefully after seeing him nod.
However, when she placed the jewelry box into Luca's hand, Raina lightly tickled his palm with her fingertip.
Startled, Luca almost dropped the box on the floor.
"Cough, cough. Uh, I got the stuff. You can go now!"
"Boss~~"
"Remember to close the door!"
Watching her walk out of the room with a resentful expression, Luca quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
That woman...
But Luca knew exactly why Raina had been acting this way recently.
It was purely because she could barely suppress her desire for superpowers anymore.
Actually, long before the Mind Scepter was used to synthesize the [Yuri Construction Yard], Luca had already released her from mind control.
By then, HYDRA had been integrated under Luca's command. Since Raina didn't have much loyalty to HYDRA to begin with, she naturally stayed in Sokovia, continuing her research on superpower development.
She had joined HYDRA for these things in the first place. Now, with the unlocking of Yuri's technology—both psychic and genetic—her experiments were nearing their final stages. Coupled with Luca demonstrating some demonology knowledge and testing the Pink Dragon Fruit's abilities...
In her eyes, he was the fastest shortcut to gaining superpowers.
Raina, who had always viewed superpowers as a divine blessing, had practically abandoned all her lab work recently. She ran over to curry favor with Luca in every possible way, even returning to her post as a secretary.
She just wanted to be the first subject when human trials began.
It could only be said that her obsession had somewhat devoured her reason.
But the timing was about right. He'd arrange for Raina to activate her powers alongside the Maximoff twins.
In Luca's view, although the current experiments still carried risks, using plot characters who already had potential for superpowers should make success much more likely.
He just wondered if Raina would still end up as a precognitive porcupine this time.
But even if she did, it wasn't a big problem.
Sherry was developing the Blacklight Virus project, which happened to have excellent capabilities in gene modification and appearance alteration.
After noting these matters in Hakimi's follow-up plans, Luca took out the collapsible bow he had traded from Hawkeye.
The beam saber components stripped from the husky-mech were ready. He drew the circle, placed the items, and began the synthesis.
A white light flashed, and the collapsible bow vanished.
Only a silver-white cross bracelet remained in its place.
Picking up the bracelet, Luca examined it, turning it over in his hand, then shook his head helplessly.
"I can't even use this. Is it really just going to be an ornament?"
As the words fell, Luca subconsciously imagined himself forming a spiritual longbow, unwilling to give up.
Unexpectedly, the silver bracelet in his hand actually began to flicker with blue light.
As the light stabilized, more blue particles seemed to flow out from Luca's body, converging bit by bit.
Before Luca's dumbfounded gaze, these blue particles slowly formed into a pale blue mini shortbow, only about the size of a palm.
"Huh? What's going on?"
Do I have Quincy blood??
Just as this thought rose in Luca's mind, the unstable mini shortbow in his hand immediately disintegrated.
However, the pale blue particles from the shattered bow didn't disappear. Instead, they slowly reintegrated into Luca's body.
"Wait, why does that look familiar?"
Watching the flowing pale blue particle effects, a new idea quickly formed in his mind.
Clearing his mind of distractions, Luca focused his spirit on the [Quincy Cross] in his hand once again.
Soon, blue particles surged from his body, flowing down his arm to form a shortbow identical to the one before.
No matter how hard Luca tried, the bow remained palm-sized, looking suspiciously like those toothpick-launching children's toys.
But Luca could clearly feel that he could actually draw the string, nock an arrow, and fire this mini 'spirit' bow to cause harm.
However, Luca didn't attempt an attack test. Instead, once the bow stabilized, he immediately called out to the room's AI system.
"Hakimi, scan the shortbow in my hand!"
As soon as he spoke, three or four different types of probes extended from the room, scanning Luca's left hand from various angles.
"The shortbow is confirmed to be formed by Hextech particles. Function unclear. Presumed usage is similar to traditional bows and arrows. Its core is the silver bracelet in your hand, suspected to possess..."
"I knew it!"
Ignoring the long string of analysis Hakimi provided—information he already knew—Luca narrowed his eyes and stared quietly at the 'Hextech Shortbow' in his hand.
"It really is HN particles!"
The first time the shortbow shattered, the pale blue particle effect looked very familiar to Luca, who had been holed up in the lab debugging the 'Boxer Gundam' recently.
After condensing it again, Hakimi's monitoring results confirmed Luca's guess.
So, actually, this Quincy Cross doesn't just condense Reishi? Or maybe, I can't even judge what Reishi is right now.
But more importantly, why are these Hextech particles floating out of my body?!
Recalling the scene just now, Luca decisively dispersed the 'spirit bow' and tried condensing it several more times.
Sure enough, every time the 'spirit bow' shattered, the scattering particles would re-converge into Luca's body.
At the same time, he was shocked to discover that this process seemed to have zero consumption.
Even after shattering and reforming multiple times, the maximum size of the 'spirit bow' never changed.
Even when Luca tried firing a 'spirit arrow,' causing the 'spirit bow' to shrink slightly...
After the 'spirit arrow' hit a distant target and dissipated a moment later—even without the 'visual effect' of particles returning due to low concentration—the shortbow in his hand would still return to its original size.
"Could it be? Am I actually a Hextech Particle Perpetual Motion Machine?"
A lightbulb went off in Luca's head. He grabbed the Aurantius Haro from the console base.
"Let's go! To the hangar!"