At present, at nineteen years old, Rilley had only a single doctorate and nearly two master's degrees—certainly little when compared to other extraordinary geniuses, yet by no means insignificant in academic circles.
The presentation of the research results and the final round of human trials formed part of his evaluation for passing his second master's degree with distinction. And with Dr. Connors working alongside him, the results would undoubtedly carry even greater weight in his final assessment.
Rilley did not allow himself to be blinded by either his academic or professional accomplishments. With both feet firmly planted on the ground, he avoided falling into complacency. Most of the time, he was harshly demanding of himself. He did not behave like some extraordinary genius—that was far from the truth—and he knew his own limits very well, at least in this regard. After all, the role he played did not need to be exceptional. If it were, it would be much harder to make it seem believable. His disguise was only that of a brilliant young genius—not an unprecedented one, but at least someone slightly above average. It was enough that his parents believed it.
It was nothing more than an act, a life built upon illusion, a performance driven by the desperate need to control his own destiny and protect those dear to him. The only reason he had been able to keep up the charade was because the foundation built in his first life had been high enough to accelerate his academic journey in this second life to its current level.
If one thought about it carefully, the reality was not all that extraordinary. Without the knowledge from his past life, he was not at all sure he could have achieved what he had now. After all, he was not like the prodigious Toni Ho, with her three doctorates at the age of twenty, nor was he remotely comparable to the monstrous Reed Richards, who by fourteen had already accumulated doctorates from multiple universities.
What truly distinguished Rilley were the knowledge and experiences of his previous life, along with his firm will, great tenacity, and resilience in the face of adversity. Perhaps someone else in his position would not act with such confidence, knowing the kind of world that lay ahead.
…
[Empire State University, Biological Sciences Building, Biogenetics Laboratory].
Rilley arrived at the entrance to Dr. Connors' laboratory. After handing his pass to the guards, they allowed him inside. Security was at its highest level. No one could afford to neglect the most important presentation of research results for a new medical treatment capable of completely revolutionizing the healthcare sector throughout the world.
Looking at his watch, he realized he had arrived ten minutes before the presentation was set to begin.
Rilley then walked toward a middle-aged man with blond hair and blue eyes, dressed in beige trousers, a white shirt, a white lab coat, and a light blue tie around his neck. The man turned to look at him while adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose with his right hand, an action that made the empty left sleeve of his coat visible, revealing the absence of his arm.
This man was Dr. Curtis Connors, the mentor who had guided him over the past several years. Rilley believed that while some men learned how to teach over time, in Dr. Connors' case it seemed entirely natural. Even though he had not held a teaching position before, he possessed a kind of calm authority that did not seem to come from rank or prestige, but from a genuine dedication to teaching.
He was the kind of man who knew when to speak, when to remain silent, and when to push someone beyond their own limits. He was not merely a competent instructor, but a true teacher—the sort who left a lasting mark on the lives of his students without question.
He had proven himself to be the kind of man for whom teaching did not appear to be an effort, but rather a natural extension of his character. He did not need to raise his voice to command respect, nor resort to grand speeches to make himself heard. He possessed the rare virtue of making the difficult understandable and of pointing out mistakes without humiliating others.
He had the makings of a true teacher. Not only because of what he knew, but because of the way he looked at others, as though behind every clumsy mistake he could already see a possibility yet to be refined. He knew how to demand without breaking someone, correct without wounding, and guide without dragging.
That same man, whom Rilley respected deeply, now looked like an excited child awaiting the most anticipated gift of his life. Smiling, he patted him on the shoulder and said, "Rilley, my boy. You've arrived just in time."
Then he turned to look at everyone present, showing Rilley his solitary back. His eyes swept across the crowd—all those gathered there, from major investors to government officials who were waiting impatiently for his presentation. "You should be proud. This achievement is not mine alone. It has a great deal to do with you as well."
Rilley understood perfectly the reason for the enthusiasm and the broad smile on the face of the usually composed Dr. Connors. Anyone who did not know him might have assumed he was thrilled by the prospect of fame or fortune, or perhaps by the recognition he would gain for his research results.
But only Rilley, who knew him well—not just because he had been his principal assistant for several years, but also because he knew his story and intentions from the Marvel comics—understood the truth.
He understood that this happiness came from the successful results of the research. He knew that to Dr. Connors, this was not merely a successful project, but a hope clearer than ever before. It was his great work, the one to which he had devoted a large portion of his life, to the point where it had become an unquestionably obsessive drive. Into it he had poured more than hope and steady effort—he had poured years of his life, his joys and his sorrows. Even the guilt of not spending enough time with his family had been overshadowed by that same obsession to recover what he had lost.
For someone like Connors, losing his arm was not merely a physical disability. It also meant losing part of his identity. Rilley could never truly understand what Connors felt—not now, even after years of working closely with him as disciple and mentor, and certainly not back when he had only read about him in comics.
In the comics, Dr. Connors had been driven by a mixture of trauma, desperation, professional pride, and personal need. He had lost his arm in combat, and as a consequence his career as a surgeon had been cut short. Feeling as though his world had collapsed, he had thrown himself into the deep study of cellular regeneration, drawing inspiration from reptiles—creatures that had fascinated him from a very young age—in an attempt to reproduce that extraordinary process within human genes. Connors' burning desire had always been to become whole again and to reclaim the life he believed had been taken from him by that incident.
And though Dr. Connors was not wrong in saying that the successful outcome of the research had much to do with Rilley, the truth was that the greater merit belonged to Connors himself. The research carried out up to the present day was none other than the very same work in which Dr. Connors had invested years of his life.
The same work in which he had constantly and deeply studied reptilian genetics, all for the sole purpose of granting human beings that extraordinary regenerative ability—the same research that, in the comics, had been destined to fail and give birth to one of Spider-Man's villains, «The Lizard».
But thanks to his close collaboration with Rilley, that disastrous incident would never come to pass. This had been made possible through what Rilley regarded as his greatest invention to date, a tremendous source of pride earned by his own merit. What any professional might call the first great achievement of his career.
It had all begun when he was fifteen, the moment he first came to see genetic modification as a viable path toward becoming something extraordinary. Rilley was not foolish enough to blindly use radioactive elements at random in order to alter his DNA. The fact that he could doubt such a reckless course and consider better options was, without question, a sign of clarity. It showed how firmly he remained committed to moving step by step in the safest way possible.
Rushing forward was never an option worth considering. If he were among the lucky few, perhaps he might come through unscathed and gain powers. But there was also a great chance that those powers might be weak—or perhaps even useless. Worse still, he might have the misfortune of becoming some grotesque mutant. And if luck truly abandoned him, then he might die at the slightest exposure to radiation, perhaps by developing a dangerous cancer that would slowly kill him in prolonged pain until his final breath.
Rilley left nothing to fate. So he devoted part of his time to researching a stable and safe genetic catalyst, one that would serve as the key to modifying and altering genes with the minimum possible risk in the event of uncontrollable outcomes.
After all, it was well known that most superheroes in Marvel comics had acquired their powers through situations involving certain genetic catalysts, most of which were highly radioactive, terribly dangerous, and impossible to control.
In Marvel, radiation was one of the most dangerous and unstable catalysts of all, and in most classic cases, powers arose as the accidental consequence of exposure—not as the direct goal.
With that in mind, he chose to investigate the different sources of radiation in an attempt to understand their foundations, as well as their effects on genes, and also the reason they had demonstrated the ability to awaken other special genes lying dormant within the bodies of certain individuals. His research was broad, encompassing electromagnetic radiation, cosmic radiation, and even radioactive chemicals and organisms.
In order to use a relatively safe genetic catalyst, he requested an immense amount of resources, both money and manpower. His father did not hesitate. By that point, he believed his genius son was working on a truly important project. Even if he failed, he would not say a word and would continue to provide those resources all the same.
In that situation, the good results of Rilley's exhaustive performance became clear. No one questioned a genius. Far from thinking he would waste the money on luxuries or trivial things, they naturally assumed the resources were being directed toward a project of enormous importance. And so they were. In GIG's central research laboratories, deep in the underground levels, Rilley—with his father's approval—had an exclusive particle collider built for his personal use.
Without question, the spending habits of the rich would have made anyone envious.
With the help of that machine, Rilley hoped to detect particles or unusual phenomena with great energetic potential, so that he could develop a new energy catalyst based on those discoveries. He believed that once the first step of the project had been achieved, he could then study the effects of that energy under specific conditions and determine whether it could be used for his purposes.
After multiple tests and experiments, in which enormous quantities of money, time, and materials were consumed, not even the smallest breakthrough could be achieved. The project was stalled. It did nothing but burn money in vast amounts like an old locomotive feeding endlessly on coal. The analysis charts were clear: the project had a high rate of investment and absolutely no return.
Even the initial hope for a successful outcome had never projected a favorable return, not even if the most optimistic goals of the first stage were met. This project had not been undertaken with the intention of short-term profit, but rather to maintain a firm foundation that could drive future technology forward. Even so, it was still surprising to Rilley that he could not achieve even the slightest progress.
At first, he carried out conventional particle-collision tests, convinced that in such an extraordinary world he would find some clue leading him to a particle or type of radiation capable of meeting his requirements. However, after a long سلسلة of failures, he was forced to change his approach.
He then abandoned standard collisions and redirected his work toward fixed-target experiments, bombarding samples of stable elements under controlled conditions in order to analyze the secondary particles, the emitted radiation, and any energetic anomalies that might reveal a new phenomenon.
After a year and a half of burning through money, the outlook was more discouraging than ever. Rilley soon began to feel the pressure, squeezing every last thought from his mind in search of an escape from that dark path. He had carried out conventional tests and countless experiments, yet none had given him the result he wanted. Later, he turned to other materials, and while that was not a complete loss—since it allowed him to acquire knowledge useful for improving certain compounds—he was still far from what he truly sought.
The project refused to move forward, no matter how many different methods Rilley tried. He even turned to his father, to Dr. Connors, and to other scientists from different specializations, hoping to obtain guidance from various perspectives. Unfortunately, he still could not achieve what he was after.
After two years of failure, Rilley could not help but feel ashamed. Had he been an ordinary researcher backed by investors, by then he would already have been facing lawsuits for fraud. And yet, even with those absurdly high expenses, his father never tried to stop him. On the contrary, he continued supporting him and even increased the amount of resources he gave him each month.