Chapter 47: What Do You Really Want

Of course, Luke knew that the three opponents weren’t using their true abilities. Agent May hadn’t drawn her gun, Hawkeye hadn’t fired a single arrow, and Black Widow hadn’t touched any of her concealed weapons—no taser, no Widow’s Bite, nothing. Most likely, they were holding back out of consideration for his age, reluctant to hurt a child.

But even if they had gone all out, they wouldn’t have been able to break through his aura shield. Who didn’t have a few tricks up their sleeve?

Luke felt he’d won, fair and square.

“To think that just these fighting skills alone allow me to stand toe-to-toe with the likes of Black Widow and the others. Not bad at all. This is a great start. I’m no longer an ordinary person.”

In the beginning, his goal was simply to escape the category of ordinary people, whose lives were so easily discarded. Now, he’d achieved that.

Next, he would keep climbing, growing stronger and stronger, eventually becoming a first-tier, even a top-tier figure in the Marvel world!

All of this was for one purpose: to live freely and unrestrained in this perilous world.

“Setting aside the mech suit, just with my fighting skills, I’m probably somewhere between a second- and third-tier Marvel hero now, right? Of course, if I have a mech, only a fool would go into battle barehanded. I should convert all these fighting skills into mech combat techniques. That’s much more practical.”

While Luke was working out his plans, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Agent May had already climbed back to their feet. Their ears were still ringing, their minds muddled.

It had felt as if a prehistoric beast had suddenly roared right next to their ears, their bones rattling as though they were about to fall apart.

It was a dreadful sensation, one they never wanted to experience again.

Black Widow and Hawkeye had no idea how Luke had pulled it off. They looked at him with complicated expressions.

Only Agent May, with her knowledge of Eastern traditions, had a vague idea of the technique’s name. But she said nothing, simply watching Luke.

Luke just shrugged.

What’s that? You want me to let them go?

No way!

After the fight, Luke didn’t waste a word—he climbed back into his mech, ordered the three of them to disarm themselves, and locked them back into the reinforced glass cell.

He had no intention of letting them go, at least not until he’d squeezed every last bit of value out of them.

The saying goes: “Man is the knife, I am the fish.” That perfectly described the trio’s current predicament.

Faced with a kid who could squash them into paste at any moment, who seemed to have a few issues with his moral education and refused to let them go... the three had no choice but to swallow their resentment in silence.

Outside, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents May had brought remained obediently on standby. May could have ordered them to storm the place, but first, Fury had instructed her to negotiate and make contact. Second, after seeing Luke’s mech, May realized sending her team in would be sending them to their deaths.

So the three could only hold onto their questions, waiting patiently to see what this kid was really up to.

Agent May quickly noticed the stainless steel basin on the cell floor.

“What’s this?” she asked.

Of course, she knew what it was—but why was it here?

Black Widow and Hawkeye turned their heads away in unison, pretending not to hear.

Over the next few days, Luke set aside time each day to let the three out and spar with him, continuing to hone his fighting skills.

Three elite S.H.I.E.L.D. agents serving as sparring partners—where else could you find such a luxury?

Through these real fights, Luke gradually figured out his strengths and weaknesses. His strengths: the handful of DNF techniques he’d mastered were truly formidable. His weakness: everything else, most of the time.

He couldn’t help it—he’d never received formal training. The skills from the manuals were all disconnected, just individual moves, nothing linking them together.

The moment he faced real experts, the flaws were glaringly obvious.

He’d been racking his brain these last few days to solve the problem. In the end, his conclusion was: he’d have to pay to win...

So much for being a martial arts prodigy—that was just an illusion. His path as a fighter still had a long way to go.

Of course, there was a temporary solution.

All three—Black Widow, Hawkeye, and May—were masters, each proficient in a dozen or more martial arts. Luke humbly asked them for guidance, filling the gaps in his own knowledge, especially focusing on moves that could link different techniques together.

After several days, Luke’s clear time in these “levels” got shorter and shorter. From five minutes to beat the trio, he’d cut it to four, then three, two, and finally, he could subdue all three in under a minute—even without using his Lion’s Roar.

The sacred brick attack was supreme!

In all seriousness, Luke’s improvement was only natural. Practice makes perfect. He’d managed to string together all those disparate DNF skills into a seamless flow, which was why he could now take down Black Widow and the others in under a minute.

After all, apart from the issue of connecting moves, every DNF skill he knew was truly at the master level.

Over these past days, Luke’s rapid growth had left Black Widow and the others dumbfounded. They were now completely convinced that Luke was a prodigy in this field. The only thing he lacked was professional training.

If he joined S.H.I.E.L.D., he’d surely become another top agent.

And not only that—this top agent could pilot and build his own mechs. That was downright terrifying...

Meanwhile, progress on the G-0 Warlord mech hadn’t stalled. Every moment, Luke was urging Christina to keep working.

Having an assistant was a blessing, Luke thought. He now understood the true meaning of the saying: Let the assistant do the work, and if there’s nothing to do, bother the assistant... heh heh.

Tony’s research, on the other hand, was under Christina’s strict surveillance. In hindsight, having Tony study the Mana Shard had been a wise decision.

Tony’s talent spoke for itself, and with JARVIS’s help, his efficiency outstripped even that of large research institutes with dozens of staff. Already, Tony had produced valuable results.

The risk was low and the returns were high. Luke was sure he’d made the right call.

If he had to study it himself, who knows how many years it would take to master Tony’s level of microphysics and chemistry. By then, the Mana Shard would be long gone. What would be the point?

These days, Luke was busy building mechs, training, and monitoring Tony, completely oblivious to the feelings of the S.H.I.E.L.D. trio.

He thought he was treating them rather well. Every day, they had delicious Bonina burgers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Others could only dream of such luxury—like a certain burger fanatic hunched over in the lab.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. trio did not share that view.

They were deprived of their freedom, cut off from contact with the outside world, and forced to come out on schedule each day to be beaten up. It was inhumane!

Finally, Black Widow couldn’t take it anymore.

She’d been here the longest—fifteen days of continuous confinement. The only space to move was the glass cell. Sparring with Luke was the only time she got a little “fresh air”—even if it meant getting beaten, which usually happened to Hawkeye.

But what truly drove her crazy was the bathroom situation!

She could not accept sharing a single stainless steel basin with others...

“What exactly do you want?” she finally demanded, unable to hold back any longer.