"So tired! Who knew eating a meal would be more exhausting than a fight."
Having finally returned intact from the 'Asura Field,' Artoria's exhaustion was not physical, but mental. In the fight between these four women, only Susan and Hope fought the most fiercely; both were the type of women who refused to lose. Helen Cho and Maya couldn't compete with their aura at all. Finally, when the atmosphere between Susan and Hope turned sour, Artoria chose to end the farce.
"You have an email, master."
"Open it and see. Is it my brother having issues again?"
Thinking of Tony and Pepper's lovey-dovey appearance, Artoria felt a toothache. The feeling of constantly being shown affection by the two was quite unpleasant, but there was nothing she could do. One was her brother and the other her sister-in-law; she wouldn't set them on fire!
"This is?"
Artoria was very surprised to see this email. What surprised her wasn't the content—the email was very formal and had nothing special about it. The main thing was that the sender was an invitation from the 'Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters,' and the sender's name was Jean Grey. Isn't this one of the sanctuaries for Mutants? To think they would find her. She couldn't quite figure out what that Big Bald Head Professor X was thinking.
But how could she not go see such an interesting thing? Artoria thought about it and had Saturday send a reply, saying she would visit Professor X in a couple of days once she had rested. On her end, she had only traded once with that old man Magneto when she was a child, and since then, she hadn't deliberately contacted Mutants. It was hard to say whether this invitation was a public request for sponsorship from a consortium or a private gathering of supernatural powers.
"Mutants, huh! It seems like a good idea to get in touch with them."
Recalling that she had traded for Rogue's blood sample to use as a neutralizing component for the Sentinel Serum, although it hadn't increased the success rate to one hundred percent, it had improved it quite a bit and brought a breakthrough to the technical bottleneck on her side. This could be considered an invisible bond formed between them.
Amidst her reflections, Artoria fell into a sleep, leaving only Saturday's electronic eye recording Artoria's sleeping posture. Who knew what this intelligent program had learned? It actually liked to play with video recording, documenting its Master's life. Fortunately, Artoria didn't have the habit of checking the memory; otherwise, she would have discovered long ago that her smart butler seemed to have learned something extraordinary.
"Brian, coming back so late last night and bringing such an antique item. Tell me, did you go and do something you shouldn't have?"
At this moment, the girl named Elizabeth had anger in her eyes toward her brother's behavior. It seemed she had imagined quite a lot. But the aggrieved young Brian really had no way to explain. Was he supposed to tell his sister, 'I was hit and killed by a car last night, but in a dream, I met a white-haired old man. He saved me and gave me an amulet, but asked me to deliver something to a king named (Wang).' Who would believe such a fairy tale?
To be honest, he didn't quite believe it himself, but the facts were right before him. Isn't the fact that he was still alive the best evidence? The car that hit him, his unlucky motorcycle, and the bullet holes in the tires all proved that all of this was real.
"Things aren't as you believe, Sis."
"This is something the director asked me to deliver to his relative in New York. I didn't steal it! You have to believe me."
Seeing his sister prepare to pull out a baseball bat, Brian quickly used his clever brain to come up with a plausible reason. After all, the matter of helping someone deliver something couldn't be faked; it just wasn't the director but that white-bearded old man instead. After seeing his sister hesitate, Brian breathed a sigh of relief. He almost got domestic-violenced again. Although he didn't know why his body seemed to get stronger day by day since yesterday, the psychological shadow his sister had left on him since childhood wasn't something strength could solve.
"You should know how serious the consequences of lying are."
Elizabeth said to Brian with a frown. Although she was a bit puzzled, she still believed her brother's explanation in her heart. After giving Brian a final warning, she returned to her room and continued organizing things. There were many things she really couldn't bear to throw away; they were all precious memories.
"Finally didn't get a beating."
Watching his sister leave, Brian breathed a sigh of relief and put the ornate wooden box into his suitcase. He would be shipping these things soon. Better to organize his own affairs first! As for finding Wang, he'd wait until he had a clue.
"Lord Chu."
In a sparsely populated place within China, a man wearing a green robe had his hands covered in colorful gemstone rings like a total nouveau riche. These gems seemed to have life, emitting faint glows. From him, you could feel an ancient aura. This man's eyes shone with unparalleled arrogance and madness as he quietly looked at the subordinate kneeling on the ground.
"I didn't expect you to disappoint me time and time again. You can't even handle a playboy. You useless lot."
He spoke in a very flat tone, but the guy kneeling below was already pale with fright. He perfectly understood the consequences that awaited him; he just hoped his family wouldn't be threatened.
"Useless people must die."
The figure sitting on the dragon throne spat out cold words. With a flick of his left pinky, a blue light beam shot rapidly toward the kneeling subordinate. Without even a struggle, the man became an ice statue, and then the ice shattered into dust; the person inside no longer existed. Such an attack caused the surrounding temperature to drop by several degrees.
"It seems I need to take action personally this time. Tony Stark, your wealth and Iron Man Suit are important steps for me to become the King of the world. Soon, this world will be mine."
Standing up from the dragon throne, the man called Lord Chu by his subordinates toyed with his rings. An arrogant smile appeared on his face as if the whole world was about to fall into his palm. His age was much greater than one would imagine. For some reason, something had gone wrong with his cultivation, and he was often in a state of madness. At this moment, he was in one of his rare states of clarity. It was just unknown when the next bout of madness would come. This temporarily had nothing to do with Tony, who was living a sweet life, but his big trouble was arriving soon.
Just as Artoria had thought before, it seemed The Mandarin of the Ten Rings Gang was about to reappear before the world.
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