Chapter 37: Tony’s Wild Imagination

Such was his confidence!

The sample Luke handed to Tony was, in fact, nothing more than a tiny fragment of a magical energy stone—barely even half a piece, just enough for research purposes. If Tony had any thoughts of skimming off the top, he’d quickly find it wasn’t even enough to conduct proper experiments. Want more? Sorry, not a chance. As a resource drawn from the magic box, the energy stone was unique to Luke in the Marvel world—no second supplier existed. Even if Tony managed to discover something, it would be of little use. It was like vibranium; you might know how miraculous it is and that it lies in Wakanda, but you simply can’t get your hands on it!

Letting even a single piece of such an exclusive resource slip out was a crime in itself, and Luke was no fool. He instructed his assistant, Christina, to monitor Tony’s research closely. The data theft device he’d secretly installed outside Tony’s lab, he believed, would go undetected for some time. As soon as the research yielded results—and before Tony could back up any data—Luke would have Christina hack JARVIS and wipe everything clean!

Christina was an exceptionally intelligent AI, at least as advanced as JARVIS, if not more so. While Christina had yet to reach the level of, say, Ultron, she was constantly learning. Lately, she’d even picked up the art of telling jokes: “DNF, a free game.”

JARVIS, it was said, was named after the Stark family’s old butler; after the man passed away, Tony created his intelligent butler system in his honor. The films never truly highlighted JARVIS’s full capabilities; in reality, JARVIS was not just an intelligent butler, but a super program—practically a true AI. He could think independently, assist Tony in managing affairs, crunch experimental data, and more. The development of Iron Man armor from the Mark II onward, as well as the upgrades to the arc reactor, all relied on JARVIS’s immense computational power and simulation abilities.

With JARVIS, Tony had no need for supercomputers of the conventional sort. The greatest advantage of such a super program was its omnipresence; JARVIS could upload himself to any data terminal at will, like a cloud backup. In other words, as long as computers existed in the world, JARVIS would never disappear.

However, Tony imposed many restrictions on JARVIS, perhaps fearing that an AI evolving too quickly might spiral out of his control. He would not allow JARVIS to learn without limits.

Tony had created JARVIS simply to justify his own laziness—a suit assembled with mere verbal commands was more than enough. This was quite different from when he later joined forces with Banner to create Ultron, which Tony built to defend against foreseeable threats from beyond Earth. The motivations were worlds apart.

As for Luke, he had none of Tony’s concerns. First, Christina was a product of the system and absolutely loyal. She was inherently more capable of learning than JARVIS, and Luke never restricted her freedom to learn. In fact, he’d left her to her own devices, hooked her up to Wi-Fi, and let her swim freely in the ocean of knowledge. Every day, he could see her remarkable progress. Luke was certain that, in time, Christina would be indistinguishable from a real person—or perhaps, as an AI, she would surpass humankind entirely.

When that day came, Ultron would seem like a mere child compared to Christina, the true boss.

But to return to the matter at hand: Tony had already begun devoting himself, body and soul, to researching the magical energy stone. Just as Luke had predicted, Tony hoped to use this opportunity to find a way to cure his palladium poisoning—or at the very least, buy himself some more time until a perfect solution appeared.

As for the mysterious man, Tony wasn’t entirely sure he could truly cure the palladium poisoning, but he believed there was hope. Though he remained reluctant to admit it, Tony had to acknowledge that the stranger possessed several technologies far beyond his own—including that orange defensive field capable of incredible regeneration, and the stone before him, which was clearly of extraterrestrial origin.

Given such a person—or organization—possessed the means to eliminate palladium poisoning, it was hardly surprising.

Like Fury, Tony suspected that Luke was not acting alone, but rather represented a vast, deeply hidden organization, one that secretly wielded technology far surpassing anything this world had ever seen.

Tony’s imagination went even further than Fury’s. He kept replaying his battle with the silver-white armor in his mind, convinced that whoever controlled that suit must be an old fox.

First, there was the armor’s mature design. Having designed the Iron Man suits himself, Tony knew such engineering was a gradual process. From the initial Mark I to the nearly completed Mark VI, he’d poured countless hours and revisions into every iteration before arriving at the current version.

In contrast, the silver-white suit’s design was already fully formed—a product of many rounds of improvement and extensive testing, no doubt.

In Tony’s view, even if he took on the challenge himself, it would take years to achieve such a result. As for that enigmatic orange defensive field, Tony’s understanding was limited to surface-level speculation; he had no clue about the underlying technology.

After the battle with Luke that day, Tony had rushed back to test several ideas, only to fail at every turn. With his current level of technology, he was utterly incapable of producing such a defensive field—let alone one already proven in combat with such spectacular results.

The way the field could quickly recover after being broken left a deep impression on Tony. And setting aside these technologies, the opponent’s expert combat skills during their fight convinced Tony even further that the person behind all this must be quite advanced in years.

He was eighty percent certain the suit had been controlled remotely. Someone of that age wouldn’t enter the fray personally, and the armor’s size made it clear that no one could fit inside. That meant remote control—a technology Tony himself had yet to master.

Perhaps it was something even more advanced—perhaps even…

“Brainwave control?” Tony’s speculation was already veering off into the wild.

While Tony immersed himself in the study of the magical energy stone, another piece of news arrived: Whiplash, that is, Ivan Vanko, had died in an accidental fire at the Monaco prison. The charred body was handed over to the authorities, and the matter appeared to be closed.

Most people were still in the dark, but Luke, knowing the plot, understood exactly what had happened—Justin Hammer had made his move. If nothing went awry, Ivan Vanko was now dining with Hammer, enjoying fine steak and wine. Before long, he would help Hammer develop a robot army for Hammer Industries.

Those robots would soon put on a spectacular fireworks show at the Hammer Tech Expo.

Luke, for his part, found Justin Hammer a more competent arms dealer than Tony, flamboyance aside. He was sure that when the time came to “borrow” a few ex-wife missiles, Justin would be more than happy to oblige.