MCIM Ch. 148

Mario pressed himself against the laboratory window, his conscience screaming at him for being a voyeuristic creep. But when he saw what was happening inside the lab, disappointment flooded through him. He deactivated his invisibility and walked straight inside.

How boring. I wanted to see something scandalous.

Inside the laboratory, Erik and Darcy were staring excitedly at a small metal ring placed on the experiment table. The ring emitted a soft blue glow. The two were so absorbed in their work that they didn't even notice his arrival. Erik picked up the metal ring from the table and lightly pressed it twice. The blue light flickered, and suddenly a pitch-black rift tore through the space in front of him.

Erik grabbed a folder from a nearby table and tossed it into the rift. Then he pressed the ring twice more, and the rift vanished.

Standing behind them, Mario's jaw dropped open. "A spatial storage ring?!"

Hearing Mario's voice, Erik and Darcy finally realized there was an extra person in the lab.

With an excited smile plastered across his face, Erik said, "What brings you here? Actually, your timing's perfect."

He held up the ring triumphantly. "This is my latest invention, a miniature spatial storage device. It uses the Tesseract's energy to open a small subspace pocket that can store physical objects."

Mario stepped forward and took the spatial storage device from Erik's hand. A happy expression appeared on his face.

So this is the must-have dimensional storage that every isekai protagonist needs? Sure, it came a bit late, but better late than never.

Turning it over in his hands, he couldn't identify what material the metal ring was made from, but he understood the basic controls well enough. The words "on" and "off" were clearly labeled. On the inner side of the ring, there was also a blue energy bar, currently at full capacity. Obviously, that represented the Tesseract's energy reserve.

"I knew I made the right call hiring you."

Forgetting his earlier disappointment about the lack of scandalous activity, he reached out and clapped Erik on the shoulder. Although he hadn't witnessed any exciting drama, the spatial storage ring alone was a massive win.

"This is just a prototype. It still needs gradual refinement and improvement."

Mario nodded slightly. Nothing worthwhile came easily, even a simple light bulb had required countless experiments and refinements before it worked properly. Something as complex as pocket dimension technology would need extensive development.

"I have complete faith in your abilities. Do you need me to recruit a few more assistants for you?"

"That won't be necessary. Research on the Tesseract isn't something where more people automatically means better results. Of course, if you can find genuine geniuses, that's a different story."

With robots handling all the manual labor, what Erik really needed was intellectual exchange and fresh perspectives on complex problems. If he only recruited assistants for grunt work, he might as well just use more robots.

"Fair enough."

Mario respected Erik's professional judgment. This wasn't his field of expertise, so he chose not to micromanage. The last thing anyone needed was someone clueless trying to run things they didn't understand. Suddenly, an idea struck him, and a smile spread across his face.

"Are you interested in testing your luck? Darcy, you can join too if you're interested."

Having Erik open Lucky Blocks might even yield a Space Stone, after all, the man worked with spatial energy every single day. His "tags" in whatever cosmic algorithm governed the blocks had to be space-related.

As for Darcy... Mario wasn't quite sure what her tags might be. But there was strength in numbers. By himself, he only got things like condoms, adult toys, friction-reducing lubricants, ice-cold soda, and cigarettes.

"Sure, sounds interesting."

Erik agreed to Mario's suggestion very casually, which made Mario feel slightly guilty inside.

Is it really okay to trick an old man like this?

But then he looked at Erik's appearance, which had been restored to someone in their early thirties thanks to enhancement treatments.

No... Erik can live for over two hundred years now. He's only sixty, which is like being thirty for a normal human. Totally fine. This is fine.

Still, necessary precautions had to be taken. He pulled out several totems of undying and stuffed them into Erik's pockets.

"Come with me."

Rather than explaining the whole situation multiple times, he took Erik and Darcy straight to the testing planet where he'd been opening Lucky Blocks earlier. Thanks to company benefits, both Erik and Darcy had combat armor suits, so environmental hazards weren't a concern.

Night had fallen on the small planet. Starlight filled the sky and spilled onto the ground. A gentle breeze passed through, causing the grass-like fungal growths covering the soil to sway rhythmically. The scene looked almost peaceful enough to lie down and rest.

Mario pulled out a Lucky Block and placed it on the ground.

"Just hit this block with your hand. Cracks will appear on its surface, and once it breaks, various things will spawn."

Erik nodded and stepped forward. Without hesitation, he followed Mario's instructions and began knocking on the Lucky Block.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

A ruined Nether Portal suddenly materialized in front of Erik. The abrupt transformation nearly gave him a heart attack.

"Good Lord..."

After taking a couple of deep breaths to calm himself, Erik examined the damaged Nether Portal structure. "Is this the same kind of portal you've built elsewhere?"

Mario nodded, also studying the portal. He'd opened one of these before but had dismantled it immediately. With the modded Lucky Blocks, the structures that could appear were incredibly varied and unpredictable, a ruined Nether Portal was actually one of the tamer results.

"Keep going. There can be really valuable stuff inside these things."

Erik already understood the basic concept now. He gave a helpless smile and continued opening the remaining blocks.

Thud. Thud. CRACK.

A cyan-and-white block fell out onto the ground.

The expression on Mario's face was priceless. An End Portal Frame? This thing can drop too? Could it be that Erik's tags really are spatial-type?

As for the other embarrassing items he'd received, Mario flatly refused to acknowledge their existence.

After thinking for a moment, he waved to Darcy, who'd been watching from a safe distance. "You come try one too."

Darcy flew over in her armor. Mario first handed her several Totems of Undying for protection, then placed a Lucky Block on the ground. Having seen Erik's demonstration, Darcy immediately started knocking on the block.

BOOM.

Lightning descended from the sky without warning.

A small golden figure appeared, quickly circling around her once before stopping in front of her.

CRACK.

The totem of undying shattered, erupting into a burst of protective golden light that saved her life.

"Hey, not bad! That's impressive."

This was the first time Mario had witnessed someone else trigger an instant-kill lightning strike from a Lucky Block.

He pulled out another Lucky Block and placed it on the ground. From his painful experience, after an instant-kill lightning event, the next block usually dropped decent items, at minimum, nothing actively malicious.

This was wisdom gained from being struck to death multiple times.

BZZZZ... BZZZZ...

Looking at the flesh-colored, stick-shaped object on the ground that kept wriggling and making a buzzing sound, Mario silently turned his head to look at Erik, just as Erik happened to look back at him.

The buzzing continued.

Mario coughed awkwardly twice, pulled out a flint and steel, aimed it at the ground, and with a click, flames erupted and instantly engulfed the inappropriate vibrating object.

Darcy let out a sigh of relief, then said without the slightest hint of embarrassment, "Oh, that's pretty practical though. Did you personally load all this stuff into these blocks?"

Mario shook his head frantically. "No... Different people open them, and the contents vary based on the user. It has nothing to do with my personal preferences."

After a brief pause, he added in a low voice, "Generally speaking, the drops are based on individual needs."

"I'm twenty-seven years old. This kind of thing is perfectly normal, right?"

"Uh... very normal. Extremely normal. I'll... keep the item for you if you want it later."

As he spoke, Mario placed Lucky Blocks in front of both Darcy and Erik.

BANG!

Fireworks exploded everywhere. Darcy's block revealed a fluffy animal tail that looked suspiciously soft and decorative.

He picked up the obviously fetish-oriented tail, stuffed it into Darcy's arms, and said with complete sincerity, "Maybe you should find a boyfriend. Or even just a casual hookup would work. I'm concerned that if you keep opening these things, you'll have enough inventory to open your own adult entertainment shop."

Erik, standing to the side, merely smiled. As a university professor, what storms hadn't he weathered? This was child's play.

He struck the Lucky Block in front of him.

A blood-red rectangular portal appeared before their eyes, roughly the size of a standard doorway. He immediately retreated several meters, maintaining safe distance from the unknown phenomenon.

Who knew what might come through from the other side?

The moment Mario saw the portal, he immediately recognized what it probably was. "You really are operating on another level entirely..."

It looked similar to a Nether Portal in structure, except it was blood-red in color, and you couldn't see what existed on the other side. The surface rippled like liquid. After circling the portal once for examination, he stroked his chin thoughtfully. Where could a portal from a Lucky Block possibly lead? Some kind of Lucky Block dimension?

No, if it were one I opened myself, maybe. But Erik's history with these things has been too consistent. This is definitely a gateway to another world or dimension.

Erik was also staring at the portal. This portal hadn't relied on any external energy source or technological equipment, it had simply appeared from nothing. This was an excellent research subject. Unfortunately, he'd come in a hurry and hadn't brought any measurement devices with him.

"Could you let me return to the station for a bit? I want to grab some equipment for analysis..."

Mario waved his hand, signaling Erik not to rush. "This thing isn't going anywhere. No need to hurry. Open a few more blocks first, maybe you'll get additional portals to study."

In one go, he placed dozens of Lucky Blocks in a straight line across the ground. He planned to test exactly how blessed, or cursed, Erik's luck really was.

---

More than fifteen minutes later, Mario picked up yet another End Portal frame from the ground and stuffed it into his inventory.

"That's enough, Erik."

He stopped Erik from continuing to break blocks. Mario's expression was strange, not because Erik had opened two additional mystery portals during the session, but because Erik had opened at least two complete sets of Lucky Blocks without dying even once.

At worst, he'd only encountered some simple mechanical traps, and with the protection of his combat armor, he'd emerged essentially unscathed from everything.

Does this system really depend on actual luck statistics?

Feeling somewhat defeated, Mario sighed deeply, pulled out a bottle of ice-cold soda from his inventory, and chugged the entire thing in one go. The sugar rush helped slightly.

"Go back and get your equipment. I'll check out these portals first."

Operating on the principle that great skill breeds great courage, Mario positioned himself in front of the first portal Erik had opened. He took a deep breath and walked straight through. There was no dizziness or disorientation, it felt exactly like passing through an invisible membrane.

Then a sea of fiery red filled his entire vision, accompanied by heat.

"Ancient One, you fucking again?!"

Before Mario even had time to look around and assess the situation, a somewhat familiar voice rang out near his position. Without hesitation, Mario immediately cast a fire resistance buff on himself.

"Mephisto, it's me!"

BOOM.

Mario was blasted backward by a massive explosion, tumbling across scorched ground. But his health bar didn't drop at all thanks to the fire resistance.

"Huh? Wait, it's you?"

Hearing Mario's voice, Mephisto stopped his magical assault mid-casting. A figure appeared in front of Mario, looking apologetic.

"My sincere apologies. I couldn't sense your personal aura through the dimensional barrier. I could only detect traces of the Ancient One's magic on you, so I assumed it was another intrusion."

Flying out of the smoking crater where he'd landed, Mario looked at Mephisto's apologetic expression and let out a long, exhausted sigh. He completely abandoned any half-formed ideas about conquering parts of Hell for resources.

Ever since he'd acquired Lucky Blocks, the number of times he sighed per day had noticeably increased.

"You're a Hell Lord with millennia of experience. Could you at least look before you start throwing apocalyptic fireballs next time? Good thing I've trained for survival situations like this, otherwise you'd have accidentally murdered me."

Mario hadn't expected that what Erik opened was a portal directly to Hell. And not just any Hell, but Mephisto's personal Hell dimension. He also had no idea where the remaining two mysterious portals led.

Could one be Dormammu's Dark Dimension? That would be... problematic.

Even with all six Infinity Stones, he wasn't sure Thanos could defeat a dimensional entity in its own realm...

"Why did you suddenly come here? From my perspective, you haven't even been gone very long."

To an immortal demon lord, Mario's entire absence had been shorter than a typical nap.

"Just some accidents involving experimental dimensional technology."

Mario looked around at the still-barren hellish environment. As he spoke, he retrieved the Spirit of Vengeance medallion from his inventory and said with an innocent smile, "Your Hell dimension is really quite desolate, you know. I happen to have a construction crew under my command that specializes in environmental renovation and terraforming. Are you interested in refurbishing this place? After all, you wouldn't want your personal realm looking too shabby compared to other demon lords, right?"

Mephisto's gaze locked tightly onto the medallion in Mario's hand. As for the renovation suggestion Mario had mentioned, he had zero interest, because the area where Mario had placed the waystone was already completely beyond his control.

It was as if a chunk of his Hell had been surgically extracted and stolen.

"No thanks. I've lived in this environment for thousands of years and I'm quite accustomed to it. If you're trying to find work for that construction team you mentioned, I'll keep an eye out for other opportunities."

A smile appeared on Mephisto's face. He'd already formulated plans to redirect this particular trouble elsewhere, especially toward rival Hell Lords who wanted to compete for Satan's throne.

As for colluding with dimensional outsiders against his own kind?

They were demons. If given half a chance, those rivals would love nothing more than to pin him to the ground and grind his face into the dirt. Turnabout was fair play.

Seeing that Mephisto wasn't interested in the proposal, Mario could only shake his head helplessly.

"Fine. If you're not interested now, we'll talk about it later. For the moment, just clean up the souls trapped inside that medallion. I'm not trying to criticize you or anything, but you're really underperforming here. It's just one universe away from your primary dimension, and you still can't directly absorb contracted souls? That's kind of pathetic for a Hell Lord."