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Aside from teleportation, Ron had gained another ability—energy absorption.
He could absorb unclaimed energy from the universe, slowly increasing his own energy reserves.
Ron had a similar ability before, but it had limitations. No matter how much energy he absorbed, he could never surpass his natural upper limit.
But now, he had a way to grow stronger—though it was painfully slow.
If he wanted to rely solely on energy absorption to reach the Shadow level, it would take at least 20 years.
In 20 years? Who knows how powerful he'd be by then? He'd probably be piloting a Gundam and stomping on a thousand-handed Buddha.
"Well, better than nothing."
Ron shook his head, putting the thought aside. He then took out a vial of blood and sighed.
"Happy, I don't know if it's your luck or mine… but running into Azazel's corpse? That's something else."
"Even the heavens don't want you settling for an ordinary beast serum."
Mutant serums were different from beast serums. The genetic structure was entirely different.
Ron needed to test it to determine the effects.
But in this world, if there was one thing in abundance, it was scum who deserved to die.
Leaving a quick note for Happy and Gwen, telling them he'd be back in a while, Ron teleported straight into a prison.
He picked out a few prisoners with unforgivable crimes—lifers who were never getting out— knocked them unconscious, and teleported them away.
With his test subjects ready, he went into his private space and created the first batch of serum.
Smack!
A hard slap woke up one of the criminals.
"You are… Mmph! Mmph!"
Before he could finish speaking, Ron gagged him and injected the serum.
As the man's skin cycled through red, orange, green, blue, and purple, Ron sighed in disappointment.
"Damn, extracted the wrong genes."
"All I got was a color-changing ability?"
Without hesitation, he smacked the man dead and moved on to the next batch.
Each time he successfully created a serum, he adjusted it based on the results.
One guy sneezed and teleported—no good.
Another could only absorb energy—useless.
One had weak teleportation—trash.
Finally, on the last attempt, Ron fused Azazel's and a brown bear's genes into one serum.
It granted the powerful strength and resilience of a brown bear, rapid healing from minor injuries, energy absorption, and a weakened version of teleportation.
The weakened teleportation had a shorter range and higher energy cost. It could carry passengers, but the energy consumption doubled for each person.
The more passengers or the farther the distance, the higher the cost.
How effectively it could be used depended on how Happy developed it himself.
With everything ready, Ron wasted no more time.
He stowed away his Iron Man suit.
Seriously, why even bother flying when you can just teleport?
In an instant, he vanished.
The mountain forest was left with nothing but lifeless bodies of criminals.
Not long after, rustling came from the bushes as wild animals, drawn by the scent of blood, crept closer.
Hospital Room
Gwen and Happy barely had time to react before Ron appeared before them in a blink.
"Sorry, took longer than expected."
Creating the brown bear serum took an hour, then tweaking Azazel's serum delayed him another hour. Including all the back-and-forths, nearly three hours had passed.
"Not long at all! Ron, did you succeed?"
Happy rubbed his hands eagerly, eyes scanning Ron up and down.
"Stop looking around."
Ron instinctively covered himself.
Sure, even at rest, his size was impressive—
But come on, it's not the serum!
With a flick of his hand, he took out the enhanced serum—the ultimate PlusPlusPlus version, now infused with Azazel's abilities.
Happy quickly grabbed it. "Ron, what's in this? Tiger? Lion?"
Ron raised an eyebrow. "Wild boar."
"Huh?" Happy's face fell.
He hesitated for a moment but then clenched his jaw.
"Wild boar, fine. I trust you. You wouldn't screw me over."
"There must be something special about this wild boar serum."
Without another word, he jabbed the syringe into his shoulder and injected the serum, waiting anxiously for the transformation.
Gwen, standing beside Ron, watched closely.
She had gained her powers from a spider bite, so this was her first time witnessing a direct serum
injection. She was curious.
Ron, however, had seen this plenty of times.
That said, the hospital wasn't the best place for this.
Grabbing Happy with one hand and pulling Gwen close with the other—
Whoosh!
The three of them vanished from the hospital room and reappeared in a remote forest.
"AAAAAHHHH!!"
Before Gwen could even comment on the sudden change in scenery, Happy let out a guttural roar.
His veins bulged as thick, brown fur sprouted all over his body.
His muscles swelled rapidly.
In just moments, the once chubby Happy had transformed into a towering, three-meter-tall
muscle-bound bear-man!
Watching the transformation, Ron muttered to himself,
"Looks like we're ready to head back to Malibu."
"....."