Chapter 2723: Star Core Rescue (20)

There was no need for Nick to call; Eddie's phone call came quickly. Not long after, the video communication was connected. Besides Eddie, there were many ordinary people on the other side. Nick frowned slightly.

"Ah, Nick, don't mind. These are my colleagues, all insiders. We are editing the third season of Stark's romantic wedding trip and happened to see that damn video. Calling you is to tell you that this thing is very likely a video effect. You must not be fooled..."

A thin man with black-rimmed glasses waved his hand in front of the camera, looking a bit nervous. He pushed his glasses and said, "Hi, hello, I'm Pete, an animator."

"Hello Pete, I was just about to ask, is this video real? Or did someone use some special video processing means to produce it?"

"This video hasn't been processed." Another Asian woman leaned over and smoothed her black hair, saying, "I'm an editor, sorry..."

Eddie hurriedly made room for her. The woman smiled, nodded, and said, "You can call me Chen. I'm an editor in the director's team. Just now when Eddie sent the footage to me, I checked it, and there were no traces of editing in it."

"Then you just said this is an effect..."

"Sorry, this isn't a movie effect either." Another white man stood behind the crowd, fiddling with the computer while shouting, "I'm very sure this isn't a green screen effect. Green screen effects can't be this realistic, believe me!"

"Then you're saying there's a problem with this footage?"

"Right, it's neither an editing method nor a green screen effect, let alone any animation." Eddie's statement made Nick a bit confused, but this reporter wasn't someone who liked to keep people in suspense. He quickly explained, "The video level is completely fine, but the scene might not be."

After saying that, the layers of human shadows blocking the lens dispersed. With a 'whoosh', the window was opened, and the wind blew in. Immediately after, the wind turned into thick fog, becoming a skull, flashing past in front of the video.

"Dog shit!" Nick was so scared he almost threw his phone away. He couldn't stand this kind of sudden startle.

"What is that?!" Nick widened his eyes, looked at the screen, and said, "Magic? Did you hire a mage? Or a mutant?"

Several people laughed out loud when they saw Nick's reaction. It was Eddie who coughed twice and brought the topic back on track before Nick exploded.

"This isn't magic, nor is it an illusion, but real technology." Eddie took out a small device from behind, only about the size of a palm, weighed it in his hand, and put it in front of the lens to show Nick.

Nick actually couldn't see the trick, only feeling that this little thing looked a bit like a miniature version of a projector, and a bit like a mini camera, just a square block at the back and a small lens at the front.

"This is the latest version of the effect device." Eddie introduced while holding this thing, "The specific technology might come from some laboratory of the Stark Group. We don't know much about it, but it has been internally mass-produced now. You only need to visit a membership-based website to buy it. Major directors around the world basically have memberships on this website, and there are also quite a few bloggers with many fans on various short video platforms who bought it to use for introductions."

"The cost of this thing isn't high, but it's sold quite expensively, almost 20,000 US dollars. It was still under Stark's sponsorship that we could afford it, just to get some effects for his proposal ceremony that wouldn't wet the dress..."

"Get to the point!" Nick roared.

"The point is that you just saw the effect of this thing, isn't it very cool?" Eddie said with a smile. It was clear he was in a good mood staying in this director's team. It was also possible that Stark paid too much. Considering Venom hadn't come out to stir up trouble for so long, the latter was very likely.

Nick understood immediately and said, "So you're saying that the flame monster in this video is an effect created by this thing?"

"Of course, this can't fool us." The first animator said, "We knew as soon as we saw this video that someone must have used this new technology to grandstand. After all, this thing hasn't been widely popularized yet. The first movie made using this effect hasn't been released yet, and ordinary people aren't very concerned about this kind of industry technological innovation, which is why they would make such a fuss."

"We know the space station is of vital importance." The female editor said with a serious expression, "No one should make fun of this matter. Making fun of such a major accident is irresponsible to life. We despise such people and don't want him to smear our industry. So if you need it, we will stand up and prove how despicable his actions are."

Nick seemed to have an idea and said, "How much certainty do you have? I mean, can you really prove this is an effect?"

That animator laughed with a bit of contempt and said, "This thing can only fool ordinary people. In fact, it's just like an edited video. Insiders can see the flaws at a glance."

"Look here first." The white effect artist behind leaned over, pointed to the screen, and Eddie immediately adjusted that viral short video to the screen and pointed it to Nick with the mouse.

"Look at the curling texture of the flames here. Doesn't it look the same as the fog skull we just made? Because this is a template, he didn't even want to twist and change it himself. It doesn't look like it has very high technical power."

"Look here again. Although the tentacles in front look very realistic, the ones behind clearly haven't been debugged. There's some clipping here, just covered up by the color change of the flames. Plus the video isn't that high-definition, I can easily pick out dozens of such errors."

"This person might have some professional background, but they are all very basic and can't be called top-notch in the industry at all. And they are different." Eddie pointed behind him and said, "My bunch of guys were found by Stark spending a lot of money. You know how much he values that wedding documentary. Every one of them is a top expert."

Nick's idea seemed more certain, and he couldn't help but show a smile, saying, "Good, Eddie, I think we are friends, right?"

"Of course, Nick, otherwise we wouldn't have found you immediately, just fearing that you would misjudge the space station matter. In general, we all think you are doing a good job as the Director of S. H. I. E. L. D. Keep it up."

Others also echoed Eddie. The female editor said, "We rarely come into contact with S. H. I. E. L. D. agents, but I heard that the agents are the ones rushing to the front of the solar system development plan. I have to say, this has greatly reversed my impression of agents. I think you should also be a good person."

Nick instantly felt his thoughts were clear.

He hadn't felt warm all over because of people's praise for a long time. Perhaps it was because the vast majority of the praise he received in his life was hypocritical, while this group of ordinary people had no conflict of interest with him, yet they were still willing to recognize his labor achievements, which further strengthened Nick's position.

"Listen, Eddie, the following words are what I say to you as a friend, understand?"

Eddie nodded, and everyone in the office leaned over with great interest. Nick cleared his throat, almost wanting to take out the ambition he had when he first started to give a speech.

"Regarding the space station matter, it's actually like this. The agent we just sent up sent back a message..."

Nick began to tell them the information and inferences he got from Natasha. Simply put, the people making trouble on the space station were a gang, and their goal was to be the savior.

And the method they adopted was also unsurprisingly to fabricate a mastermind for this space station disaster. To be precise, they created the space station accident but wanted to disguise it all as a monster attack.

This way the logic was smooth, because only with a demon king could there be a hero. The stronger the demon king, the more it could show how powerful the hero was. Only a hero who defeated the demon king could be more sought after by people and more revered as a hero.

A circuit failure caused by an electrician couldn't satisfy this script, but if the monster appeared from the beginning, S. H. I. E. L. D. would raise its vigilance too high, causing them to have no chance to make a move.

Only by letting the official law enforcement agencies mistakenly think it was just a small failure, and thus not actively taking action, could the blank period left behind give them room to play.

That's why they first disguised all this as an electrician accident, and then slowly peeled the cocoon to announce the truth, and it must be announcing the truth to the public.

Because when the public discovered they had been deceived, they would only blame the law enforcement departments more for covering up the truth, which would make the heroes who saved people later look even more heroic and fearless. Simply put, it was stepping on one to praise another; only with comparison could there be harm.

And this ran counter to Nick's thinking, because these people essentially still wanted to engage in personal heroism and were preparing to become the new generation of superheroes.

But in fact, Earth didn't lack superheroes at all, and even now they were a bit excessive. Even a six-sided warrior like Spider-Man was just adding a beautiful landscape to the New York skyline. Just looking at the ability of this one Spider-Man, he really didn't contribute much to human space exploration. Even that flashy Iron Man hadn't appeared in public wearing his new suit for a long time.

To put it bluntly, now was not a good time to develop personal heroism at all, because these street heroes couldn't lift humans into space. Humans now needed great progress in production and a great explosion in technology. These could only rely on the ordinary human society, and mutants were completely enough to be the vanguard of exploring the universe. Adding more superheroes would just be icing on the cake.

Moreover, how much weight this guy behind the scenes had still needed a question mark. If his ability were strong enough, did he really need to use this effect method to make trouble?

Taking a step back, this guy's brain wasn't enough either. After all, Schiller didn't borrow much super power when he made trouble usually, and that ball of yarn was tangled in a ball, which was much stronger than this space station falling plan that only had loopholes.

Nick knew that defeating him with the ability of a superhero was looking up to him, and even defeating him in other fields was raising his status. Truly killing the heart was defeating him in the field he was best at.

Thinking of this, Nick didn't hesitate anymore. He gave Eddie an address directly, asked him to buy that effect equipment and mail it over. On the other side, he picked up the phone and said to the other end.

"Director Zheng, I know you've been busy lately, but I suggest you take a look at this, especially let the technical personnel under you take a look at this..." ===== CHAPTER 2724 =====