70 Nice

The first one to regain their consciousness was Cypher who slowly stood up to see blinking runes all around himself. He gently tapped on one of the runes in the air and a portal opened up instantly. On the other side of the portal, Cypher could see the moon.

On the moon, he saw a large city with what seemed like humans walking about. He also noticed a gaze looking at him through the portal, so he hurriedly tapped another rune and turned it off in panic. When he caught some breath and waved away all the runes, he found that there were three figures at the side.

Odin who had his eyes closed was being tattooed by the runes as they fell on his skin and melted into it. It looked magical but also very weird as thousands of runes were covering Odin's body.

He then turned to the other figure only to find that Savant was looking at him with a smile. "What does it feel like to become the master of the runes?" He asked.

"This is great! I can do all sorts of things now." Cypher excitedly said as he flicked his wrist and a rune appeared and disappeared over his palm only to be replaced with an apple.

"That's nice. It's a pity that you aren't acknowledged by Yggdrasil, or you would have become omnipotent by now. But having powers rivaling an all-father is not a bad start." Savant nodded.

A groan of pain interrupted the two as they looked at the eldritch horror that was supposed to be Doctor Doom. It was a mess of a lot of flesh and runes. The flesh was pulling at the runes stubbornly while the runes were tearing at the flesh, trying to destroy it.

"It looks very painful," Cypher said awkwardly while wincing.

"Of course it would be. He is being tested by the runes and Yggdrasil to see if he has what it takes to control that power." Savant replied without taking his eyes off Doom.

Cypher nodded and asked, "Why is it that only he is going through that?"

Before Savant could answer, Odin who was done with the transformation replied as he walked over, "I have already completed my sacrifice and passed the test. I already had some of this knowledge with me, this was just the process of getting the complete version.

As for you, your ability is compatible with the rune language so it is naturally inclined toward you. And since you are only channeling the runes, you don't need the test. But he is just a human who is trying to get all the knowledge and power that comes with the runes. So he is being tested."

"What if he fails?" Cypher asked with some worry.

"I doubt that he will. But if he does fail then I guess the Earth Federation will have to find another Chancellor and prepare a funeral for the first Chancellor in history." Savant answered flatly.

Odin nodded, "I have high hopes for him, of all the humans I know about, if anyone would be able to get control of this power then Doom would be on the top of that list."

Odin turned to Savant, "What about you? What did you gain?"

He refused to believe that Savant didn't have any personal gains through this. He didn't think Savant was altruistic enough to just want to help his subordinate get more power and help Asgard for almost nothing. Savant could be accruing favors, but that was just a part of it.

Savant smiled mysteriously and spoke, "I gained knowledge."

Right now, in Savant's mind, the long-forgotten Void was struggling in his prison. The place where Void was imprisoned was right in the middle of the ridiculously large sea of information. It had been patiently waiting for a chance to escape when Robert Reynolds turns into Sentry and remembers everything.

But today, suddenly he felt the only empty space around him starting to shrink. The fluid outside the space which he had determined to be densely packed scrambled information was starting to get denser than ever and it was all starting to bear down on him.

The Void could feel that the information that had existed in a fluid state was slowly starting to compress more and more and becoming more solid as it was compressed. Void tried to use its power to decrease its size and remain inside the empty space but the empty space kept closing in as the density of information kept increasing.

The Void cursed at Savant and screamed to be let out as it continued to shrink into a small dot. But it got no reply at all. It had been decreasing in power throughout its imprisonment and was in its weakest form that it had ever been.

In a way, being killed here only meant it would get released from this imprisonment. As an aspect of Robert's personality and Sentry's counterpart, The Void knew that it would just revive in a short few years or even less if Robert used his Sentry powers. But it didn't mean that the humiliation and the pain of this experience was any lesser.

Before it was squeezed into nothingness though, the Void discovered something unbelievable. Inside Savant's mental dimension, all the information that was being stored was slowly getting compressed into a single point.

The Void was amazed at the prospect that someone was creating a singularity in his mental dimension using just the sheer volume of information that he had collected. With enough information fed into it, and with some time, that singularity might be able to give birth to an entirely new universe in itself.

Just the thought of it was ridiculous and The Void didn't get to the end of the thought before being wiped away.

Savant had been observing this phenomenon happening in real-time. The vast amount of knowledge from the world tree had been the catalyst for this abrupt change in his mind. But Savant was looking forward to what was to come. The feeling was exciting.

"Knowledge, huh?" Odin stroked his beard as he got lost in his thoughts.

The trio continued to look over Doom for almost 6 hours before there was any change in the lump of runes and flesh. The runes were starting to completely melt into the flesh like fresh flaky snow. And unlike Odin, there were no tattoos or markings left behind by the runes.

This process lasted an hour before all the runes melted. Now, only a mound of flesh that didn't even resemble a person remained there with only a few random groans indicating that this was a living thing.

Cypher wanted to get closer to check on it but Savant suddenly held onto Cypher's shoulder and jumped back. Odin followed along right next to them. Cypher wanted to ask questions but Savant just pointed at Doom with his chin.

Cypher then saw the most horrible scene he had ever seen. The ball of flesh exploded into a mist of blood, tissue, bone fragments, and bit and pieces that he didn't even want to think about. Cypher tried to cover his face with his hand before he was splattered by some bits of Doom but he noticed that nothing really hit him.

Looking from under his raised arms, Cypher saw that all the paste that used to be Doom was suspended in the air as if someone had hit pause on the explosion. He looked at Savant and Odin whose faces were serious as they continued to observe without making any moves.

Then the exploded paste that used to be Doom started to float back and converged into a pile of wriggling paste that was reforming and contorting in different ways until an outline of a human began to appear.

Cypher saw that Doom's body was recreated organ by organ right before him. Finally, a naked Doom stood in the place where the mass of flesh used to be. Doom flexed his muscles a bit, checked his body, and waved his hand. With his wave, some glowing runes appeared and transformed random matter into fabric that created clothing over Doom's body.

By the time Cypher was out of his shock, Doom was walking over to them wearing a green suit with silver accents in some places.

Savant was the first to speak, "How did it feel to explode and then reconstruct yourself?"

In a rare moment of expressing his emotions, Doom shivered a little and spoke with some pain in his voice, "Wouldn't want to try it again."

Odin laughed out loud, "But you would do it again if you had to, even after knowing how painful that experience was the first time."

Doom with a blank expression answered matter-of-factly, "Of course."

"And how do you feel about your power-up?" Savant asked.

Doom didn't think much before answering, "This has definitely brought Doom to a greater height. I can feel reality itself bending to my will with some effort. But it is just power, a means to an end. Nothing more, nothing less."