Chapter 303 |
“This is…vibranium? Why does it smell like the ocean?” Looking at a piece of ore that Carter brought, Josh frowned slightly and asked in confusion.
“Because it was fished up from the sea!” Carter replied.
“Hm? Fished up from the sea? Was it accidentally lost in the ocean, or…” Hearing Carter’s words, a possibility surfaced in Josh’s mind.
“That’s right. According to the analysis from my subordinates, they believe the sea area where this ore was found very likely contains an undersea vibranium mine!” Carter nodded, confirming the possibility Josh most hoped for.
“This is an incredible piece of news, isn’t it?” Hearing this, joy appeared on Josh’s face.
Although wiping out Wakanda had allowed him to secretly acquire a large amount of vibranium—earning far more than the major countries who actually contributed—for Josh, it still wasn’t enough.
After all, vibranium is a top-tier product whether for personal use or for interdimensional trade.
Now, the remaining vibranium Josh had was basically being fused with various metals from other worlds to create alloys.
Forging a full set of pure vibranium equipment for Carter like he did at the beginning? That was no longer possible.
Countries like the U.S. and Russia, who actually occupied Wakanda, had even less to work with.
Firstly, because they only obtained the mines themselves, and with mutual interference and restrictions, the annual output hadn't increased much.
Secondly, due to improper usage of vibranium—initially, countries like Josh tried to use it to create weapons and gear—but lacking Wakanda’s relatively advanced tech, they could only make some cold weapons or core components of various arms.
But they soon found out that this was a complete waste.
Vibranium-made gear was certainly strong, but if it was only used to build weapons, it just became something all the big nations had. It didn’t provide a major advantage—let alone enough to outfit entire armies.
For example, during the recent merger of Austria and several countries, elite troops armed with vibranium were sent in by Russia, the UK, and France, but they were quickly subdued. Not only were the people lost, the vibranium gear also ended up in Austrian hands.
This not only exposed that Austria possessed vibranium, but also proved that once everyone has it, it offers no advantage.
Moreover, unlike Josh, other countries didn’t have the technology to recast vibranium. Once something was built, it couldn’t be modified—leading to tremendous waste and loads of useless junk.
Fortunately, after years of research, countries have now figured out the real use of vibranium: for scientific research.
Although American and Russian weapons were still far behind Austria’s, they were more advanced than in the original timeline. Aside from Josh’s influence, vibranium played a huge role.
Lasers, mother machines, particle accelerators—there were so many places where vibranium could be used but this also meant that vibranium was consumed more rapidly.
Right now, Earth truly lacks vibranium.
Even Josh, the “landlord,” didn’t have much left.
So now, with Carter telling him there might be a vibranium mine under the sea—how could that not be incredible news?
“Yes, so as soon as I got the news, I came to report it to you. Also, all those who were aware of the situation have been handled.” Carter nodded.
Her words made Josh glance at her in surprise.
Although Carter had publicly pledged her allegiance to him, Josh was still a bit surprised that she would ruthlessly take out all the informed IMF personnel—those were her colleagues, after all.
But what she said next cleared up the misunderstanding.
“Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t do it—after that team discovered the possible underwater vibranium mine, they were attacked and wiped out. Other than their leader leaving behind this piece of raw ore and a message at a secret location before dying, nothing else remains!” Carter rolled her eyes at Josh’s look.
While Carter might have done what Josh suspected had the team reported it through normal channels—she didn’t, so she wasn’t about to take the blame.
“They were all attacked?” Hearing this, Josh realized this matter wasn’t as simple as he’d thought.
“Yes, and every site had large amounts of seawater. Also, the vibranium gear that some agents had was all missing!” Carter shrugged. As one of the U.S.’s key intelligence agencies, the IMF was supported by Josh when founded, and received a set share of vibranium annually.
In fact, a lot of the early vibranium gear that was wasted was handed over to intelligence departments. So it wasn’t surprising that some veteran IMF members had one or two vibranium items.
That stuff could save lives if the enemy wasn’t too strong.
“That part makes sense—anyone who knows vibranium wouldn’t let it go—but seawater at every site? That’s not normal.” Josh commented.
“It’s more than that. From the bodies of agents who had vibranium gear, I found that they all had penetration wounds—and the spots where they were hit were exactly where the vibranium gear should’ve been!” Carter shook her head, rejecting the idea that the attackers just wanted the vibranium for its value.
“You mean…they didn’t take the gear for its worth, but to cover up the fact that they broke through vibranium defenses?” Josh grew even more intrigued.
According to Carter, the agents had probably tried to block fatal attacks with vibranium-covered parts—but were still pierced through. And very likely by physical force.
That’s astonishing!
Using extreme energy to overload and destroy vibranium? That didn’t surprise Josh.
But to break it with physical attacks? In the whole MCU, only Thanos had done that.
What, was there someone on Earth as strong as Thanos?
No, that was unlikely.
Which left only one other explanation—the attackers had extremely advanced vibranium technology. They understood its properties so well that their weapons could break through it.
And with clues like “ocean” and “underwater”…
Could it be Atlantis?
But he had already sent people to search for Atlantis. There was nothing there!
That’s right—being a transmigrator, how could Josh forget about Atlantis?
In fact, from the memories of the Eternals, and from Kamar-Taj and Attilan’s texts, he had seen records of Atlantis.
It was indeed a very prosperous civilization in ancient times and its rulers had some supernatural powers.
Other than that, there wasn’t anything special—and a few thousand years ago, it was wiped out by earthquakes and floods.
The seabed where it used to be only had ruins left. Even its greatest treasure, the Life Tablet, ended up in Odin’s collection—and was now with Loki.
This led Josh to mistakenly think that Atlantis didn’t really exist in this world.
But now, based on what Carter described, the clues left behind by the attackers were hard not to associate with Atlantis.
Could it be that he missed something important during his previous search?
“Was this ore found in the North Atlantic?” Josh asked.
“Eh? How did you know?” Carter replied, clearly surprised.
“…Could it really be Atlantis…?” Josh couldn’t help rubbing his forehead, feeling a bit of a headache. It seemed he had indeed made a big mistake.
“Atlantis? That legendary kingdom really exists?” Carter was a bit surprised at first but then relaxed.
They had already been to space, and just yesterday they’d met the gods of Asgard—now the appearance of Atlantis didn’t seem so unusual.
“Of course. I even specifically sent someone to investigate before. It’s in the outer sea area of the Strait of Gibraltar! But at that time, the investigation only found a seabed ruin, so I didn’t pay much attention to it. Now it seems that both I and the person in charge of the investigation made a big mistake!” Josh nodded and explained.
He still remembered the location of Atlantis quite clearly, because it wasn’t far from the Canary Islands where Tiamut was located.
But the moment he thought of Tiamut, Josh also felt something was off. If such an underwater kingdom truly existed that close, there was no way Tiamat wouldn’t know about it!
At this point, Peggy Carter also raised a doubt.
“The outer seas of Gibraltar? But that can’t be right. According to the message left by that team leader, the place where this mineral was discovered is in the Bermuda region!” said Carter.
“Bermuda?” Carter’s words stunned Josh for a moment, and then he shouted, “Pangu, open the world map!”
Pangu was a powerful new intelligent terminal system created by Yuri by integrating his own world’s technology, the I Robot world, and the Star Wars world’s AI tech.
Its functions were powerful and highly reliable.
Of course, “Pangu” was a name Josh came up with himself.
Originally, he wanted to name it Cortana, but then he thought about Cortana’s betrayal in Halo 5 and felt it was bad luck, so he casually picked the name of an ancient god instead.
After confirming the coordinates Carter mentioned and comparing them with the location of the Atlantis ruins he knew—
Good grief, though both coordinates were in the North Atlantic, one was in the east, and the other in the west—the two locations were over 4,000 kilometers apart.
That clearly didn’t match the location of Atlantis.
Although in his previous life, many content farms and pop-history writers often linked Bermuda with Atlantis, in reality—just like various kinds of Western historical forgeries—it was merely a self-aggrandizing move.
That’s right, the seabed area around Bermuda did indeed have underwater ruins, but they were remnants of the Mayan civilization and had nothing to do with Europe’s Atlantis!
Whether it was in terms of geography or architectural style, there was no relation at all.
“Here?” Looking at the marked location on the holographic map, Josh seemed deep in thought, then gave an order to Pangu: “Pangu, search the database for all legends related to this sea area!”
“Searching…relevant information found!” With Pangu’s deep electronic male voice, a few pieces of information were listed.
One of them immediately caught Josh’s and Carter’s attention.
Talokan, the underwater world described in the Aztec Codices, a water realm ruled by the Rain God, and the resting place for souls of those who died from storms or drowning!
“Looks like it wasn’t me making a mistake—this just isn’t the same place at all!” After reading that information, Josh and Carter exchanged a look, and Josh spoke.
“What do you plan to do? Judging from what we’ve seen so far, if this civilization really exists, it’s probably not simple!” said Carter.
“What’s there to be afraid of? No matter how complicated, I don’t believe they can withstand an endless mechanical army!” Josh snorted lightly.
That’s right. Compared to land or even space, Josh’s forces—including his robots—were perhaps not as convenient in underwater operations as beings that could move freely through the sea.
But just from their desperate attempts to stay hidden, it was clear this Talokan, like Wakanda, was a civilization with a small population because a civilization with a large population wouldn’t avoid expansion.
Vibranium might be great, but you can’t eat it.
Of course, that can’t be said too absolutely—after all, Earth’s oceans have far more resources than the land.
But even if he was mistaken, with Josh’s current strength, he had nothing to fear.
“You don’t need to get involved in this matter. After all, you won’t be able to do much underwater!” Josh said to Carter.
Not just Carter—most of Josh’s subordinates would be of little use in the process of making contact with this Talokan civilization.
Underwater combat is a nightmare for ordinary land-dwelling lifeforms.
Never mind the breathing issue—even the immense water pressure was enough to crush most people.
And the enemy’s weapons could pierce vibranium defenses, which meant that even wearing power armor underwater would just amount to putting yourself into an iron coffin.
So if the two sides really did go to war, Josh’s main force would be his powerful, breathless robots.
The divine warriors, who would be affected but to a lesser extent, could act as support.
Though robots would also suffer from resistance underwater and wouldn’t be as nimble as on land, at least normal firepower output wouldn’t be an issue.
Besides that, Josh also needed to borrow a naval force from Yuri!
Hmm? No, perhaps he could also borrow a special naval force from young Abbendis!
“I understand.” Carter didn’t reject Josh’s arrangement. She truly couldn’t imagine fighting in water—that sounded like a nightmare.
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