Building a nuclear weapon turned out to be less complicated than Mario had expected, though significantly less powerful than he'd hoped.
On Earth, strict controls on fissile materials and the watchful eyes of the five permanent Security Council members made nuclear weapons nearly impossible for individuals or even small nations to acquire. The pressure from those governments alone was enough to crush any attempt.
But Ivan was on an alien planet now, millions of light-years from Earth and its restrictions. He could play with whatever toys he wanted.
Still, Mario felt compelled to establish at least one ground rule. "I don't care if you build nukes. Just don't accidentally blow me up with one."
The thought of Ivan getting excited one day and going a bit too far with his experiments on Endstar made his eye twitch. Sure, he could resurrect, but finding Ivan's body afterward would be a problem. If Ivan had been vaporized into atomic particles, would he have to cast resurrection on the scorched ground itself?
That would be awkward as hell.
In the distance, the battle raged on with increasing intensity. Ivan's combat cruisers packed serious firepower, but they were hopelessly outnumbered. The regular mechanical army had been dispatched far from the combat zone to avoid getting caught in the upcoming "fireworks display."
The Grandmaster's scavenger fleet continued to grow, more and more blocky vessels converging on their position. Ivan's twenty-plus cruisers had been whittled down to barely ten, struggling to hold the line against overwhelming numbers.
To maximize the payload's effectiveness, Ivan had been carefully protecting the cruiser carrying the nuclear warhead, using it as bait to draw in as many enemy ships as possible.
"It's time."
Mario understood immediately. Without a word, he retreated back down the tunnel they'd excavated earlier and, very prudently, sealed the entrance behind him with multiple layers of obsidian blocks.
He didn't know exactly how much damage a nuke could do, and he had no interest in finding out firsthand.
The moment he finished sealing the tunnel, BOOM.
The ground shook like the planet itself was having a seizure. Humanity's ultimate weapon had just bared its teeth on Sakaar for the first time in the planet's long, garbage-filled history.
In an instant, a burning fireball appeared in the sky, visible to every scavenger within a hundred kilometers.
"What the—"
Screams erupted from the scavenger reinforcements. Then the scorching heat wave and shockwave hit, robbing them even of the ability to scream. Bodies were flash-fried, ships were tossed.
A few minutes later, everything within a ten-kilometer radius of ground zero had been completely obliterated. Only smoking, blackened earth remained. The mountains of garbage that had covered Sakaar's surface had been blasted away.
The scavenger ships that had been in the sky were simply... gone. Vaporized, scattered across half the planet, or possibly blown into low orbit. Whether any of the pilots had survived was purely a matter of luck and distance from the blast.
The reinforcement fleets that were still en route came to a sudden, unanimous halt.
"What... what just happened?"
"Are these people trying to kill everyone on the entire planet?"
"They used a weapon of mass destruction. They're completely insane."
Every ship that hadn't been caught in the explosion immediately turned around and fled back toward the safety of the Grandmaster's city. None of them wanted any part of fighting lunatics who were willing to use nukes.
Even rebel forces typically avoided such weapons. After all, they wanted resources, power, and status, not a lifeless rock floating in space. Besides, in the Marvel universe, alien technological development had long ago diverged from practical warfare. Most advanced civilizations focused on enhancing individual power rather than building bigger bombs.
Nukes were considered primitive and barbaric.
Two minutes after the blast, Mario started digging his way back to the surface. When he finally emerged and looked at the colorless, devastated landscape stretching to the horizon, he couldn't help but feel a complicated mix of emotions.
"Blowing things up is fun, but cleaning up afterward is going to be a nightmare. We really shouldn't make a habit of this."
Just as he was about to climb out of the tunnel for a better look, a notification sound suddenly rang through his mind:
[INDUSTRIAL CRAFT 2 MOD LOADING...]
[ADVANCED SOLAR PANELS MOD LOADING...]
[SUPER SOLAR PANELS MOD LOADING...]
[GRAVITATION SUITE MOD LOADING...]
[ALL LOADS COMPLETE]
He stood there in silence. His brain finally caught up with what had just happened.
Could it be... because Ivan set off a nuke?
He opened his crafting interface and saw an enormous number of new items from the Industrial Craft 2 mod tree. High-tech machinery, advanced power systems, electric tools, and most importantly, quantum armor.
If I'd known setting off a nuke unlocked industrial modules, I would've done it way sooner just for the fireworks.
He desperately wanted to pull the quantum armor out of the crafting menu and put it on immediately. As long as it had power, the suit was practically invincible against physical attacks. Not to mention all the new materials now available, when Ivan built his next armor iteration, it would be exponentially more powerful.
A sound from outside the tunnel pulled him out of his daydreaming about quantum equipment.
A ship had crashed not far from the tunnel entrance. The hull was already a twisted wreck, sparking and smoking from multiple breaches. With a screech of tortured metal, a woman leaped out of the ruined cockpit and hit the ground in a combat roll.
Mario looked over and a smile appeared on his face. "What are the odds?"
The Valkyrie of Asgard. After barely surviving Hela's massacre of her sisters and feeling abandoned by Asgard's royal family, she'd fled to the edge of the universe and ended up on Sakaar, becoming one of the Grandmaster's scavengers.
She'd planned to live out her days in anonymity, but then she'd run into Thor after he was accidentally transported through time to this era. Eventually, he had talked her into returning to Asgard, making her once again a Valkyrie and helping him save their people during Ragnarok.
Maybe I should capture her and gift-wrap her for Thor. Put some pressure on Loki while he's still adjusting to his new identity.
Mario vaulted out of the tunnel.
His appearance immediately caught Valkyrie's attention. She didn't waste words, just drew her sword from its sheath and lunged at him.
He had been considering whether to capture her peacefully, but seeing her attack so aggressively made the decision for him. He pulled out his battle sign and blocked her strike.
Pain shot through Valkyrie's sword arm from the impact, but she ignored it and continued her assault. Her blade slipped through a gap in the shield and stabbed straight toward Mario's exposed torso.
Just as she thought she had him, CLANG.
The same blocked sound rang out again. Looking down, she saw an invisible barrier of magical energy stopping her strike cold.
She looked confused, but as an Asgardian warrior with centuries of combat experience, she didn't stop. She thrust again, this time aiming for Mario's exposed face.
CLANG.
The same metallic sound, the same result.
Feeling the pain accumulating in her hand from each failed strike, she flipped backward, putting distance between them. She held her weapon defensively and demanded, "Who are you? Are you here to overthrow the Grandmaster's rule, or are you trying to wipe out all life on this planet?"
Seeing Valkyrie stop her attack, Mario also put away his battle sign. Instead, he pulled out a purple-glowing magic wand and tapped it lightly on the ground. He looked at the former Valkyrie with a faint smile.
"I amfrom Earth. My ship arrived here by accident, and we received a generous welcome from the Grandmaster's scavengers. Former Valkyrie, if you were me, what would you do?"
Valkyrie's first thought was that her secrets had been exposed.
Her second thought was: Are you kidding me? Earth? Since when do peple from Midgard travel through space?
As a Valkyrie, she'd been away from Asgard and operating in the Nine Realms for at least two thousand years. When Hela had been sealed away, Thor hadn't even been born yet.
But now wasn't the time for reminiscing.
With a flick of her wrist, she tossed a thumb-sized object at Mario.
BOOM.
The explosion was loud, smoke billowing outward in all directions. But when it cleared, Mario stepped out completely unharmed. Even the smile on his face remained unchanged.
"Nice try. Decent damage on those. For Thor's sake, I'll give you one chance. Surrender."
Her answer was a longsword swinging straight at his head.
He stopped talking. A lightning-shaped beam blasted from the tip of his wand, striking Valkyrie. While she was stunned and twitching from the electric shock, he lunged forward, drawing a massive cleaver from his inventory and swinging it ruthlessly at her neck.
CRACK.
Even though Valkyrie's enhanced physiology allowed her to break free from the paralysis effect faster than a normal person, Mario's blade was already at her throat.
There was no way to dodge in time.
Instead of showing panic, her eyes remained cold. She threw up her armored bracers.
THUNK.
The impact of her bracers managed to deflect the blow, but at a steep price.
Mario glanced at the severed forearm that had fallen to the ground, then watched as Valkyrie used the recoil to turn and flee.
"If you wanted to die, why bother running?"
He quickly used the Blink spell to step directly into her escape path, the cleaver sweeping out. Valkyrie's agility allowed her to dodge the blow by rolling under it, but the moment she came out of the roll, he was already stepping forward for another swing.
Ignoring her missing arm and the blood streaming down her side, she flung several miniature grenades in Mario's direction.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The chain of explosions rocked the area. Mario's health bar dropped by over a hundred points, these bombs packed a serious punch.
Unfortunately for Valkyrie, without her full Valkyrie armor and weapons, she couldn't display anywhere near her true combat potential. Even if she couldn't defeat Mario under normal circumstances, she wouldn't be fighting this desperately or taking this much damage.
The shockwave from the blasts sent her flying backward. She rolled twice on the scorched ground before coming to a stop.
But before she could react, BANG.
A bullet shot out from the lingering smoke and drilled into her chest. She felt sharp, burning pain as blood bloomed from the exit wound in her back.
Her Asgardian endurance was truly impressive, she was still conscious despite the catastrophic damage.
Mario walked out of the smoke, stepping over piles of debris. He approached Valkyrie, who was now missing half an arm and had a sucking chest wound. She no longer had the strength to resist and was kneeling weakly on the ground, covered in blood.
"I might sell you to Thor. Got any last words before you die?"
Hearing this, Valkyrie glared at him. She spat bloody saliva in his direction and said hoarsely, "I'm Scrapper 142, not some Valkyrie. I'd rather die than go back to that place called Asgard."
"Well, that's not really your choice to make anymore." Mario rested the cleaver on his shoulder. "Oh, and when you wake up, you can tell me what it feels like to be beheaded."
SCHWING.
The cleaver came down. And everything went dark for her.
Mario stored her corpse directly into his inventory. When he had time, he'd "rehabilitate" her properly and then deliver her to Thor as a gift.
Thinking about it made him pause and mutter, "Why do I feel like I care about Thor more than his own father does? Ah well, let's just call it an overflow of paternal instinct."
Heavy footsteps sounded behind him. Ivan had heard the explosions above and, worried that Mario might be in trouble, had flown up from the underground facility.
The moment he emerged, he saw Mario stuffing a dismembered corpse and its separated head into his inventory.
"..."
He chose to maintain a respectful distance from Mario's... hobbies.
"Ivan, how's the scavenger cleanup going around here?"
"Within a fifty-kilometer radius, no hostile life signs remain."
"That fast?"
Mario was genuinely surprised. The mechanized army hadn't been deployed that long, yet they'd already secured such a massive area.
"Leave a guard force behind and recall the rest. Clear this entire region. I need to build a new base here."
He pulled the remaining Iron Legion units and several cruisers out of his inventory, emptying his combat reserves completely.
"Understood."
Ivan didn't question what Mario intended to do, his job was simply to follow orders. Everything else wasn't his concern.
Mario set his crafting table on the scorched ground, then pulled out a waystone and placed it openly in the cleared terrain. He wasn't worried about anyone trying to destroy it.
"From now on, this will be the starting point of our industrial expansion. Wait here for a bit, I need to make a quick trip back."
Using the waystone, he teleported to Endstar where most of his supplies were now stored.
Rummaging through the storage area, he found the blackstone bricks he'd crafted earlier and walked toward the portal leading to the Twilight Forest dimension.
Without hesitation, he stepped through.
In an instant, he was transported into the twilight realm.
"Rubber trees... where are the rubber trees..." he muttered as he searched. As expected, with the new Industrial Craft 2 mod installed, the Twilight Forest now contained corresponding modded items.
Not far ahead were three rubber trees growing close together.
He jogged over, crafted a wooden tree tap extractor, aimed it at the yellow resin spot on the trunk, and mentally activated it.
Three pieces of sticky rubber resin dropped from the tree.
"The yield is pretty low. Looks like I'll still need Anna to purchase a batch of raw rubber on Earth. Once I set up a proper rubber plantation, it'll be sustainable. But before that, might as well gather some myself."
He had an army of robots anyway, it would be wasteful not to use them. Even if they didn't have inventory access, they could at least toss rubber into collection hoppers.
He harvested all the leaves from the three rubber trees, obtaining four rubber saplings in the process, then went searching for more trees. The Twilight Forest was entirely woodland, so rubber trees were relatively common once you knew what to look for.
After about twenty minutes of harvesting, he had collected several hundred pieces of rubber.
"First priority: craft extractors. This should be enough rubber for early-stage industrial development."
He pulled out his crafting table and got to work, already planning the massive industrial complex he would build on Sakaar. With Industrial Craft 2 now unlocked, the possibilities were endless.
Nuclear reactors for power. Mass fabricators for resources. Quantum armor for personal protection.
And maybe a few more nukes, just in case.