In the evening, during the welcome party, the gorgeous banquet hall was filled with exquisite food and drinks. The guests wore beautiful dresses and suits, listened to beautiful music, and talked and laughed in low voices. Laughter, clinking glasses and chatter filled the ballroom. But in fact, everyone's attention was focused on the distinguished guests in the center of the banquet hall, with different thoughts.
However, in this joyful atmosphere, Steve and others forced smiles on their faces and did not seem as happy as others.
All the guests had seen photos of the Reality Stone, but unfortunately, none of them had seen this one.
The Avengers weren't sure if what they were saying was true, but the very act of lying showed their attitude.
After the dinner, the Avengers once again expressed their gratitude to Mayor Hanas, then came to stay in the hotel prepared for them and got down to business. Everyone gathered in Steve's room, turned on the anti-eavesdropping device, and then asked:
"How's it going? Friday, do you have any relevant information?"
"According to the monitoring of all participants, as well as other political and business celebrities who did not attend the banquet, most people were discussing the issue of reality gems with their relatives or friends, but it can be judged from their conversations that they are all first This is the first time I’ve heard of this gem, and I’ve never seen it before. I haven’t found any clues related to the real gem yet.” Friday answered solemnly.
Steve took a sip of the espresso that Natasha poured for everyone to cheer up, "Then continue monitoring, focusing on those subjects who cannot escape suspicion. If you have any information, please report to us at any time."
"If the gems were not in the hands of those rich people, could they be in some remote wilderness, or buried somewhere?" Natasha frowned, feeling a little troubled.
"That's too bad. It's easy to handle in human hands, but if it falls in a remote corner and we can't pinpoint it, how can we find it? Should we hire people to search a large area?"
"Perhaps we can offer a large reward to encourage everyone to hunt for treasure. With more people and more strength, someone will always be able to find it."
"The question is, what should we use to pay? U.S. dollars? That thing is just waste paper now! Euros are about the same!"
"This problem is simple. At most, we can just pay with gold. No matter what era, gold is a precious metal, and Nebula seems to be able to reorganize matter to create gold out of thin air."
"Speaking of Nebula, maybe we can ask her to come over and read their minds to know whether the gems are in the hands of these people. It will definitely be more effective than eavesdropping."
"Reading minds..." Everyone was silent for a while.
Because after learning from Tony Stark that one could read minds if the magnetic field rotates above the tenth level, everyone realized that Nebula had already been able to read minds. But the problem is that Nebula did not tell them this information, but deliberately concealed it, which made everyone very uncomfortable.
After returning to the super battleship, everyone confronted Nebula and had a fierce quarrel. Although Nebula claimed that she did not read their minds, she was completely unable to gain the trust of her companions. Because of these things, Nebula did not come down when she came to the ground this time. Instead, she stayed on the battleship with the little raccoon and Professor Hulk.
Now that Xingyun's mind-reading ability is being used, everyone can't help but feel a little awkward.
"This kind of mind-reading thing is really too much. Let's try it with regular methods first!"
"Don't do to others what you don't want others to do to you. We ourselves don't want to be read by others. How can we use it on others so openly?"
"Okay! We've even done things like surveillance and eavesdropping, so why do we care about mind reading? Everyone knows that this method is the most effective. Our bottom line has been pressed again and again, and now it's just Just make it a little lower.”
…
Everyone had different opinions and started quarreling again.
Finally, it was Steve who made the final decision:
“Let’s put the overall situation first!”
"I called Xingyun and asked her to come over and help. Let the little conflict between us go away with the wind!"
"We must trust our companions!"
"I don't know whether Nebula read our minds in the past, but I believe Nebula will never read our companions' minds again in the future!"
Everyone stopped talking angrily. There was no detection tool and no way to defend against this kind of thing. What could they do?
Strength is not up to anyone. If others say they don't read minds, then they can only believe in the other person's moral character.
Nebula arrived quickly and didn't say any nonsense after arriving. She originally had a cold temperament and spoke very little, and she was wrong for hiding the mind-reading thing. Now she wants to restore the relationship between the two parties, so her attitude is very correct.
"Who are the targets?"
Scott handed over a tablet computer, pointed at the dense light spots on it and said: "Every light spot on this is the person we are locating using the nano-eavesdropping device. We need to read it one by one."
"Okay, leave it to me!"
Nebula took the tablet and flew out, and not long after, he came back to hand in the task.
"Too bad, they didn't lie. They really didn't know the information about the Reality Stone."
"Damn it!" Steve slapped his thigh depressedly, "Is it really in the wilderness? Then let's post a reward tomorrow. Nebula, get some gold."
"This is simple." Nebula casually snapped his fingers, and then dozens of gold bars appeared out of thin air, clattering onto the table.
Everyone went back to their houses to rest with heavy thoughts. The next day, after breakfast, Steve went to the city hall in person and asked Mayor Hanas for help, expressing his wishes.
When he saw dozens of gold bars placed in front of him, Mayor Hanas's face turned into a flower with a smile.
After getting official permission, everyone went to various newspapers and TV stations to start advertising with gold. So for several days in a row, the headline news in Sokovia was about treasure hunting.
Suddenly, almost everyone changed their jobs and became treasure hunters. They stopped working and their businesses were suspended. They went to the streets, alleys and wilderness to rummage everywhere.
However, several days have passed and there are still no clues about the Reality Stone.
On this day, when several people met again to discuss possible situations, Natasha suddenly raised a possibility.
"Do you think there is a possibility that the Reality Stone is broken?"
"Broken?" Everyone was stunned when they heard this.
"That's right! Do you remember? The detector shows that there are fluctuations showing the existence of gems everywhere. If the reality gem is broken into powder and distributed in every corner of the city, it will be impossible to find it! "The more Natasha talked, the more she felt that her guess made sense.
After everyone thought about it carefully, they felt that this kind of thing was very possible.
Although the Infinity Stones are powerful, they are not indestructible.
In their universe, in order to prevent Thanos from collecting the six Infinity Stones, Wanda once destroyed the Mind Stone on Vision's head, but was later reshaped by Thanos using the Time Stone to travel back in time. The Mind Stone cost Vision his life in vain.
The Reality Stone was knocked away by Odin during the battle between Loki and Odin, so it is possible that Odin used too much force and destroyed the Reality Stone.
The destroyed powder spread all over the city, causing fluctuations in gems everywhere and interfering with the detector's detection. This is also a very reasonable explanation.
"Speaking of this, I suddenly remembered that Wanda and her sister seemed to live nearby. Perhaps we could catch up with them and see if they had seen the Reality Stone."
"In fact, after landing, I asked Friday to send nano bugs to find them." Clint explained: "But maybe because of the parallel world, the Mind Stone Scepter in this world may have been in Loki's hands. , did not fall into the hands of Baron Strucker of Hydra, so the original human experiment did not happen. The Wanda siblings I saw were ordinary people and had no superpowers. I did not find any reality in their home on Friday. Clues about gems.”
"Are they just ordinary people?" Steve was stunned for a moment, and then sighed: "Actually, this is good, at least they don't have to face so many battles and dangers. Since they are just ordinary people, then we should not disturb their peace. Their lives. Being mixed up with us may not be a good thing for them."
Everyone felt sad when they thought of the tragic experience of Wanda's sister and brother in another world, and immediately gave up the idea of going to find Wanda's sister and brother.
"It's better to ask the Supreme Mage to come over and help restore the Reality Stone, otherwise we may not be able to do anything on our own. The Reality Stone is different from the Soul Stone. There is no magic circle for us to perform the visible operation."
"Okay, I'll call Professor Hulk right now."
The Avengers' contact with the Supreme Sanctuary basically relies on telephone communication between Professor Hulk and Master Wang.
Although the two people are not familiar with each other in this world, during their contact in another world, Professor Hulk and Master Wang have a close relationship and know how to deal with them. Therefore, if Steve has something to do with the Supreme Mage, he must go through two people.
After hanging up the phone, within a few minutes, a portal with red sparks appeared in front of everyone. The smiling Ancient One walked over from the other side, holding the Eye of Agamotto in his hand, and greeted the Avengers with a smile:
"Your collection progress is very fast! It seems that you will be able to collect five infinity stones soon. Don't worry, I will give the time stones to you when the time comes."
The Avengers were very happy when they heard this and hurriedly expressed their gratitude.
It's a pity that Zhan Liu is not here, otherwise when he saw Gu Yi's smiling look, he would turn around and run as far as he could, and he would definitely not believe Gu Yi's nonsense.
After listening to the Avengers' request, Ancient One was very happy. He immediately opened the Eye of Agamotto, revealed the Time Stone, and then sketched in the air, creating a lot of magic circle-like things. After struggling for a long time, he finally put the Time Stone back out of breath, frowned and said to the Avengers:
"There's something wrong with your judgment!"
"Although I don't know the specific location of the Reality Stone due to the influence of the Infinity Stones on each other, I am very sure that the Reality Stone is not broken and exists somewhere in this city."
After everyone listened, there was an uproar.
"The gem wasn't broken?"
"That's because we made a mistake!"
"The gem should be hidden somewhere. It looks like we need to intensify our search efforts!"
"Mage Supreme, can't you look through the river of time to see where the reality gem is hidden in the future?"
"Mage Strange can observe the future, can't you?"
The Ancient One sighed and shook his head, "Strange is the most outstanding of all the Supreme Mages. I am old and my energy and physical strength are no longer at their peak."
Everyone remembered that in their world, Master Gu Yi was once killed by his apprentice, and they all believed Gu Yi's words.
A weakling, what else can you expect from her?
As for what Professor Hulk once said about the ridiculously strong Ancient One Master, now that I think about it, it's probably due to professional incompatibility. Professor Hulk's own magic resistance is too low to cope with the mage's soul attack method. This weakness has already been revealed when facing Ebony Maw before.
Since the Reality Stone was not broken, the Ancient One Master had no role here. After everyone expressed their gratitude to the Ancient One Master, they watched him open the portal and leave.
Since the Reality Stone is not broken, we can only use stupid methods to continue searching. Even if you scratch the ground three feet, you still have to find the Infinity Stones.
After many days of treasure hunting activities, every corner of the city has been searched, but no one has found the Reality Stone and come to claim the reward. Slowly, the citizens relaxed and returned to normal work and life. After all, to hunt for treasure you have to find it. Everyone has to support their families in Hukou, so they can't spend all day wandering around looking for an illusory gem.
The previous enthusiasm for treasure hunting was actually more like a feast for all, starting a carnival.
In fact, most people know in their hearts that they cannot find gems, but everyone is looking for them, so everyone is having fun together. The important thing is to participate, and I don't really care whether you get gems or not.
After the heat subsided, everyone started running around for food, rice, oil and salt again, no longer caring about gems or not.
The people who are still hunting for treasures all day long are basically the only ones left who have no serious jobs to begin with, or those who are not willing to continue to be poor and want to take a gamble on this matter and want to change their own destiny.
The number of people is too small to effectively cover the entire city. After everyone discussed it, they decided to give a fixed salary to those who participated in the treasure hunt to encourage more people to participate. Anyway, they have as much gold as they want, and they don't care how much they give.
Relying on this method of spreading money, more citizens finally joined the army of searching for gems again.
While mobilizing the power of the group, the Avengers were not idle either. While they asked Professor Hulk to collect the fluctuations of real-life gems and develop a more accurate gem radar, they also used advanced technology to conduct a sieve-like search of the city's underground pipe network and other locations that are difficult for ordinary people to access.
But unfortunately, after many days, there is still no trace of the Reality Stone.
