After further research, Drex Valen quickly confirmed his suspicion.
The genetic sequence really did belong to the Inhumans.
The genes themselves were dormant, locked in an inactive state due to the absence of a critical catalyst.
"Terrigen Mist…"
Drex leaned back thoughtfully.
Compared to mutants, whose powers were chaotic and difficult to predict, Inhumans were far easier to control as a superhuman population.
And their upper limits were terrifying.
Black Bolt alone proved that.
"Still not enough. I need more comparison data."
After a moment of thought, Drex called Urd.
Not long afterward, Blade Tech Industries purchased and constructed twenty private hospitals across the United States.
Officially, it was presented as a public service initiative.
A contribution to improving America's medical system.
Drex also announced that all twenty hospitals would provide completely free physical examinations for one full year.
The hospitals were spread across New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and several other major cities.
And they were not small facilities, either.
These were large-scale medical centers.
The announcement exploded in popularity almost immediately.
Given Drex Valen's reputation in medicine, many Americans believed his hospitals might genuinely offer better healthcare than existing institutions.
Two months later, Drex had harvested an enormous amount of biological data.
From nearly nineteen million collected samples, he identified over a thousand distinct mutant genes and close to twenty thousand varieties of Inhuman genetic markers.
Even after removing duplicate gene types, the number was staggering.
The mutant genes all remained dormant.
They resembled ancient fragments buried deep inside human DNA, sleeping quietly beneath the surface.
But Drex had a feeling.
If he intervened properly, he could activate them.
He could force mutants into existence.
Still, after considering the risks, he temporarily shelved the mutant gene project.
Inhuman genes were safer.
With the Black Queen assisting in mathematical modeling and running simulations against standardized human biological templates, the projected failure rate fell to around ten percent.
That remaining ten percent came from reality itself.
Real human bodies were not perfect equations.
Unexpected mutations could happen at any time.
Then the Black Queen halted the simulations entirely.
A critical component was still missing.
Without it, the experiments could not proceed.
Every Inhuman gene remained lifeless and inert.
A dead ocean.
Drex rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
If the Inhumans truly depended completely on Terrigen Mist, then what happened if the Terrigen source disappeared one day?
Would the species eventually go extinct?
In the films, Quake had detonated Terrigen crystals above New York, awakening dormant Inhuman genes hidden among ordinary humans.
But with Drex around?
That scenario was never happening.
"Get me some Terrigen crystals," he said calmly.
He remembered that Terrigen Mist was lethally toxic to mutants.
If mutants ever emerged in large numbers, that interaction would become extremely useful.
Preparation mattered.
Like Batman.
Never fight a battle without a contingency plan.
"Maybe I should also send people to Egypt and see if they can dig up Apocalypse…"
Drex considered the idea carefully.
If they failed to find Apocalypse, that was fine.
If they succeeded?
Even better.
A sleeping Apocalypse sounded wonderfully manageable.
World Serpent's forces were growing larger by the day, but their upper combat limits still disappointed him.
Even the strongest hyper beast soldier, Bucky Barnes in his Ashura Rhino Beetle form, could only exchange blows with the Hulk for a short time before getting crushed once Banner's rage escalated far enough.
"Mutant genes…"
Drex looked over the thousand-plus unique mutant sequences they had collected.
Tempting.
Very tempting.
The question was whether he was opening Pandora's box…
Or reaching for a golden apple.
Unfortunately, Drex had never possessed anything resembling restraint when it came to scientific curiosity.
The mutant gene project began immediately.
The results came quickly.
And predictably.
Unlike the Inhuman genes, mutant genes reacted aggressively during simulation.
After only two rounds of Black Queen analysis, huge portions of the catalog were discarded outright.
Many mutations were useless.
Some caused scales to grow across the body.
Others altered height randomly.
One transformed hands into fish tails.
The Black Queen logged every failed sequence so similar genes could be rejected instantly in the future.
The truth was that the number of mutants in Marvel's world was absurdly high.
The Genosha massacre alone had claimed sixteen million mutant lives.
But most people only ever saw the top fraction of a percent.
The elites.
The truly powerful mutants.
Most mutant abilities were weak, inconvenient, or outright harmful.
The X-Men and Magneto's Brotherhood represented the absolute best among them.
The rest?
Many could barely survive ordinary life.
So while a thousand mutant genes sounded impressive, the number of genuinely useful ones was actually very small.
Once the simulations were complete, Drex moved to live testing.
Human experimentation began.
The test subjects were easy to acquire.
Beast soldiers simply abducted people from places no one cared about.
The Golden Triangle.
Black-market districts in Brooklyn.
Middle Eastern war zones.
Human trash disappeared all the time.
To avoid accidents, Drex implanted his own psychic wave into every test subject's brain.
If anything went wrong, he could detonate the mental imprint instantly.
Even a mutant on Professor X's level would not survive that kind of attack once it was already embedded directly inside the brain itself.
Resistance would become meaningless.
The experimental results were poor.
Even after filtering out the obviously defective genes during simulation, most live mutations still failed catastrophically.
The test subjects twisted into malformed creatures and screamed endlessly from hospital beds.
But there were successes.
One subject transformed into something very similar to Colossus.
Through detailed examination, Drex discovered the subject's entire body had converted into a metallic biological structure resembling steel, though far stronger and more resilient.
When transformed, the subject's internal organs effectively disappeared, replaced entirely by the living metal.
His body mass jumped from eighty kilograms to nearly two hundred.
Under Drex's psychic control, the mutant obediently cooperated with every test.
His physical strength was enormous.
He could lift roughly fifty tons.
Enough to wrestle Loki head-on.
And despite Loki's appearance as a fragile spellcaster, the Asgardian god was monstrously strong in direct combat, capable of lifting around fifty tons himself, far beyond Spider-Man.
The biological metal's durability surprised even Drex.
It tolerated temperatures up to nine thousand degrees Celsius.
Armor-piercing explosive rounds fired from a 12.7mm weapon could not damage it at all.
A very successful mutation.
Drex immediately injected the same mutant gene into one of his larger beast soldiers.
The result was even better.
The original subject became merely "Steel Man."
But the beast soldier became a true Colossus.
His strength increased further, reaching roughly seventy tons.
Aside from thermal resistance remaining unchanged, his defensive power climbed to absurd levels.
Even tank shells could no longer harm him.
Drex stared at the data with growing interest.
Now this…
This was progress.