Proofreader&Editor: Howard Wong
"What will the third template be?"
David's eyes burned with a fervent mix of anxiety and anticipation.
[Third template loading…]
[Loading 3%… 20%…]
Seconds later, amidst his excitement, a buzzing sound filled his head. David shook his head slightly and suddenly felt a strange force around him. He looked around, his gaze piercing into the void.
Things he had never perceived before, a vast and invisible presence that was everywhere, now opened its doors to him.
Unidentified insects chirped wildly in a green wasteland overgrown with wild grass.
Looking down at the ground, David twitched his fingers.
Several pebbles, as if seized by an unseen force, levitated off the ground.
Whoosh!
With a shift in his gaze, the pebbles shot out like sniper bullets, piercing through a large tree dozens of meters away.
With another motion, the several-hundred-pound backpack on his back gently fell to the ground.
"And that's not all…"
He closed his eyes to feel more intently, the sensation growing ever clearer.
An infinite and vast domain enveloped the planet.
David felt like an ant suddenly touching an ocean, but the most marvelous part was that he could borrow and control the power of this ocean.
Buzz!
His eyes snapped open, and the flowing air seemed to be under immense pressure, the atmospheric pressure skyrocketing.
Crack, crack, crack!
The wild grass drifting in the wind was suddenly pressed to the ground, the insects' cries turned to whimpers before vanishing, and the branches of trees snapped under the strain, falling to the ground, all enveloped by an invisible force that covered several miles around.
Whoosh!
At the same time, his feet left the ground, and David's tall figure soared like a deity ascending to heaven.
The pebbles on the ground rose like rings around a planet, ascending with him, and the sun's rays cast a golden sheen on his classical Greek-like features, adding a touch of divinity.
Amongst the clouds.
Having acquired the ability to fly, David opened his eyes with novelty, looking down at the now-diminutive wild wasteland below, a sense of grandeur spontaneously arising within him, feeling unrestrained and as if the world was his to roam freely.
"Since ancient times, flying freely in the sky like a bird has always been a human dream."
And now he had achieved it; he had conquered the skies, breaking free from the shackles of gravity.
"More accurately, I've manipulated gravity!"
With a sudden clench of his fist, David felt as though he had grasped an invisible world tightly in his hand, his eyes blazing with intense light.
The new template's power was evident, omnipresent, filling every corner of the planet yet often overlooked — gravity.
[Power King template loading complete, 30% integrated]
"Power King?"
David lifted an eyelid, searched his memory, and finally recalled who this person was, with a moniker similar to Magneto.
He and Magneto were alike; one primarily controlled magnetic forces with a touch of electromagnetism, the other mainly controlled gravity with a hint of universal gravitation.
"Power King, originally named Franklin Hall, was a physicist who, during an experiment with a particle accelerator, gained the ability to control gravity and later became one of the Avengers' formidable adversaries."
He flipped through the information and background of Power King in his mind.
Both bearing the 'Power' prefix, his strength was in no way inferior to Magneto's, and in normal circumstances, even stronger.
"He has defeated the Avengers multiple times, even once taking down all the heroes of Earth, including Hulk, Thor, and Scarlet Witch, in one go.
His failures were often due to his unstable mind, either giving up his goals or being manipulated into defeat."
It was a case of the software dragging down the hardware.
But he had no such weaknesses.
Familiarizing himself with his newly acquired abilities, David beckoned with his fingers, and the backpack on the ground flew to him.
Then, he stretched out his hand towards a mountain peak several miles away, towering eight or nine hundred meters high.
***
Baa-baa!
At the foot of the mountain, an old shepherd with a cross necklace and a white hat herded goats, swinging his whip as the goats hopped among the rocks, nibbling on the grass.
Rumble!
Suddenly, the ground shook, rocks tumbled, and the entire mountain began to sway.
"An earthquake?"
The shepherd looked up at the mountain in panic.
The next second, his jaw dropped in a scene he would never forget.
As if an invisible giant hand had grasped the mountain, the part where it touched the earth was torn apart, and the entire mountain was uprooted and lifted into the air.
The flock of sheep ran away in terror.
The shepherd stood frozen, utterly shocked.
"God, what am I seeing?"
He rubbed his eyes, but the scene before him remained unchanged; the mountain was uprooted, suspended dozens of meters above the ground.
"Is this… real?" As if struck by lightning, the shepherd stood rigid, witnessing the miracle, feeling as insignificant as an ant, and began to call out to God, kneeling to pray.
***
"It's a bit of a strain."
After a dozen seconds, David manipulated the gravity field to put the mountain back in its place and looked at his palm.
The power to lift mountains was nearly the limit of his current manipulation abilities.
Immersed in his newfound power, David was unaware that below, a shepherd had seen the mountain return to its place and thought God was playing a joke on him.
"To reshape lunar craters and lift islands and cities into the sky like Power King did in the comics, I'll need a higher degree of integration."
But this also caused his strength to surge. Now, with a wave of his hand, he could uproot mountains and alter the terrain.
His face couldn't hide the excitement, and he made a comparison in his mind.
"Compared to Magneto's abilities, gravity is undoubtedly more versatile than magnetism, easily manipulating all things in the world, not just limited to metals, and easier to control."
As for the ultimate reach of both powers, as one of the four fundamental forces of the universe, electromagnetism is stronger than gravitation.
David believed that an unreachable limit was no different from having no limit at all.
"Regarding the manipulation of gravity, there are some extended abilities.
For example, bending light to see distant objects, sensing things across oceans through the gravity field, negating the gravity of all things, creating gravitational fields to attract objects to each other, creating gravity field shields, inducing earthquakes, firing gravitational wave beams…"
There were too many extended abilities, some of which related to universal gravitation he was still unable to achieve.
But the most fundamental point was that within the range of gravity, he could manipulate everything almost like a deity.
"The planet beneath my feet is my weapon!"
Bang, bang, bang!
A series of sonic booms erupted, like white gaseous plates being punctured, creating persistent sonic boom clouds in the sky.
Manipulating the deflection of Earth's gravitational pull on him, David's eyes shone as he familiarized himself with his newfound ability to fly, breaking through the clouds and galloping freely in the high skies.
Ten times the speed of sound, fifty times… one hundred times, two hundred times!
In just a few seconds, David accelerated to two hundred times the speed of sound, reaching his speed limit at nearly two hundred and sixty times the speed of sound. A gravity field formed around him, protecting his clothes.
David laughed uncontrollably, streaking across the sky like a shooting star.
"I was worried that once I reached the depths of the ocean, I would be hindered.
Every move would be under the pressure of the deep sea, and attacks would be resisted by the water, greatly diminishing my strength."
He thought of Atlantis, his upcoming destination.
"But now—none of that is a problem anymore!"