Once they were done with dinner, Apex explained everything openly to Susan about how he wanted Reed to help create an Infinity Stone detector that would help him locate scattered fragments of each Infinity Stone and more to temporarily satiate her curiosity. Though her consistent barrage of questions led him to a conclusion. Taking things completely naturally would cause things to last weeks or even months. He needed a subtle catalyst that would make Susan more accepting of his presence and susceptible to his influence. And that catalyst came in the form of a very minute manipulation of her hormones. He was going to use his age-old technique of making his hosts horny and susceptible to his actions. But in the case of Susan, this was going to be slow enough that she wouldn’t think of it as anything beyond her body naturally desiring release. Unlike his initial shady methods to get hosts, he wanted to start his relationship with Susan on a clean slate.

The next morning, as promised, he brought her a McBreakfast, something she appreciated more than the complex French cuisine dinner that they had on the previous day.

After that, it was finally time to start exploring her powers and showing her the true extent of her capabilities.

“All right, so how does this work?” she asked while seriously looking at Apex, who was sitting comfortably in the armchair, looking at her. “Where do we start?”

“Let us start with what you know how to instinctively do. Invisibility. Do you have any theories about how it works?”

“I think it’s my emotions that trigger it,” she said. “When I’m frustrated, angry, or desperate.”

“Good guess,” he nodded. “Try it.”

Susan nodded and closed her eyes. A few seconds later, she turned invisible, with the only visible thing being the hospital robe covering her. Both her body and the wires attached to her had disappeared. “You really can mimic the transformation of my cells, huh?” She commented before becoming visible again.

“It shouldn’t be a surprise by now,” he said. “Did you feel any sort of energy drain after transforming?”

“A little… it didn’t last long enough for me to confirm, but I felt a momentary sensation of exhaustion. Why?”

“Because there should be no exhaustion here at all. Your cells are merely reacting with the ambient cosmic energy to transform as per your subconscious desire. You are not using any energy in the process.”

“Then what’s the issue?” She asked.

“We will have to find that out. But first, let’s try the other thing. You can summon an invisible psionic force. Try to push me without moving from your spot.”

“You sure? I remember trying to punch that glass before. The cracks were pretty significant.”

“They were more to show you your power than the actual response of my defensive system,” he said. “Now do it.”

“You can never let me have a win, can you?” She asked with an annoyed expression. Raising her arms, she jerked her palms forward. It released a powerful force that made a powerful gust of wind travel through the room. Though the target was still seated on the armchair without a flinch.

“Good work,” he said. “As far as natural stuff is concerned, all you have are these two powers. Invisibility and psionic manifestation. We will first master these two. Specifically invisiblity. Or as I prefer to call it, ‹Ambient Cosmic Manipulation› added to your ‹Hyperspace Physique›.

“That sounds like you’re using big words just to make things seem more than they are. We used to do this to trick investors all the time.”

“You will understand in time. For now, I want you to turn invisible again, try to locate the actual trigger instead of relying on your emotions. Try to understand how your subconscious commands your cells to spontaneously turn invisible. By the end of the day, I want you to be able to turn invisible with a single thought.”

“I’ll try…” She didn’t sound very confident as she turned invisible.

“Again,” he said. “I want you to keep repeating it until I can find out what is drawing your energy. That is the most likely reason for all the radiation that your transformation emits.”

For the next hour, Susan continued turning invisible and then becoming visible again, only stopping when she was too tired to continue standing and was forced to sit down on the bed.

“Can you…get me…a rubber band?” She huffed tiredly with sweat all over her forehead.

Apex simply flicked his finger, and a thin tendril extended out of his palm. It gathered all of Susan’s hair together and formed it into a ponytail.

“Convenient,” she said.

“Do you only feel mental exhaustion, or do you feel physically exhausted as well?” He asked.

“My heart is racing…Like I just ran up ten flights of stairs. But there isn’t any stress or pain in my legs.”

“Okay, one thing that we need to work on is your stamina. The endurance of your cells isn’t up to par.”

“Hey!” She looked at him with a frown. “I’ll have you know, I am very fit.”

“Not fit enough if simply using your powers for an hour exhausts you to this extent. I’m adding one hour of high-intensity cardio to your daily plan,” he said. “Time to move to the next thing. Exploration.”

“Exploring what?” She asked.

“Intangiblity,” he said with a smile. “Your cells mutate and perfectly bend light around your body. What is light?”

“A wave.”

“What else can be a wave?”

“…Everything.”

“Exactly. All particles have the potential to exhibit wave-like behaviour as long as you know what you are doing. As long as you can master the ability, it’s possible that you can turn intangible.”

“That sounds very powerful…but what can I even do to train in such a way?”

“Learn to control your power as precisely as possible. We will start by trying to bend light at a specific frequency range. Depending on your success in the next hour, we will determine how much time we need to spend every day training it.”

Susan gulped apprehensively as the thought of training for over ten hours every day crossed her mind. “Okay…”

“Turn invisible, but this time, try to focus on bending everything except for red light around you. It should be easier to make your ability ignore a smaller range of wavelengths.”

She nodded and turned invisible again. For almost ten seconds, she was silently focusing on trying to instruct her ability to act a certain way, but it had no effect. She was still entirely invisible.

“Susan,” Apex called. “Come here. Let me help you with it.”

When she opened her eyes, she exhaled tiredly. “How are you going to do that?”

“I’ll do it manually,” he said. “Give me your hand.”

She turned visible again and tiredly walked toward him. She extended her arm, and as he held her hand, she took a seat on the arm of the chair, exhaling tiredly.

“Mental exhaustion as well…” Apex commented. “That one’s harder to train, but I’ll figure out a way for that well.”

“Please don’t. I’m a scientist. I shouldn’t have to train this hard.”

“I’ll keep your capabilities in mind,” he said. “For now, I want you to focus on your body. Almost as if you are meditating. Feel the air on your skin. The feeling of my hand. Try to visualize your heart beating, the blood flowing through your body. Imagine that you have an internal eye that can help you examine your entire body. Observe what your cells are doing and try to take control over that process.”

As she gave him an affirmative hum, he took full manual control of her body. Taking advantage of his immense processing capacity, he was now in control of every single cell of her body. At first, he made her cells selectively mutate and turn invisible. Some parts of her body became invisible while others remained unaffected. Going by how her grip tightened on Alex’s hand, she noticed the sudden change.

“Do you feel it? How I made specific parts of your body invisible,” he asked.

She nodded and looked at her right arm, which was currently invisible, while the hand Apex was holding was still visible. Similarly, her right leg was visible while her left leg was invisible.

“Taking this a step forward, I’ll make all other wavelengths except for red pass through,” he explained.

As Susan nodded while closely looking at her invisible arm, it turned red. It seemed like it was just illuminated by a localized red light.

“Do you want me to take things further?” He asked her.

“No…” she said more with disbelief than actual refusal. “You can’t actually make me intangible…can you?”

Apex just gave her a dangerous smile. “Stand up.”

Still in shock, she dumbly followed his words and stood up while still holding his hand.

“Wait!” She suddenly said. “I’ll fall through the floor…”

“Every atom has its own frequency, Susan. Since I can selectively make parts of your body invisible, I can also make sure that your intangibility is selective.”

“Oh…” She said, almost seeming drunk. While Apex was the one controlling Susan’s cells, it was still her subconscious mind that was processing all those changes. She may not have directly felt everything, but her mental energy was still being consumed significantly despite only experiencing what Apex was doing. Of course, he could immediately get rid of both her physical and mental fatigue, but doing that might make her suspicious. He didn’t want that.

Suddenly, her hospital gown fell through her body and bunched up at her feet. The only tangible parts of her body were the skin of her feet and her hand that was still holding his.

He got a nice eyeful of this beautiful woman’s naked body for almost five seconds before she realized the situation and shrieked before turning invisible. She quickly yanked her arm away from him and stepped back.

“That was a complete accident,” he said with a sincere look as he saw her picking up the hospital gown and draping it over her body.

“Yeah, right,” she snorted. “I get it, I have a lot of potential. But I’m tired and need a break.”

“Understandable. But we are adding two hours of this training to your daily training pool now. We will start with selective invisibility first, then move on to manipulating wavelengths.”

“Whatever…” she said before dragging her feet to the bed and pulling the blanket up to her neck, closing her eyes.

“I guess we’ll continue after lunch…”