A time traveler arrives in the Multiverse with an ability that turns confident assumptions into reality. If he believes an ordinary object should perform an impossible task, the rules of the world may simply adjust to make it happen. A bicycle can rise into the sky, common equipment can behave far beyond its normal limits, and even the human body can ignore expectations that should be absolute. The power sounds convenient, but every new idea raises a larger question: if reality keeps obeying what he thinks is “scientific,” how long will it be before no one—including him—can tell where logic ends and imagination begins?
Chapter 34: 033: Begging While Sitting on a Gold Mine
Although Stark was eager to root out the intruder, events rarely unfolded according to one’s will—especially since Kraft’s original intention wasn’t to hack into Stark’s database, but to test Angela and Harlow’s capabilities. So, after breaching Stark’s network, he didn’t have Angela scour the data; instead, he shifted from offense to defense to test the system’s defensive capabilities. “Mr. Stark, the intruder does not appear to be hostile.” Jarvis quickly detected the intruder’s unusual behavior. He promptly reported the situation to Tony Stark and offered his own assessment. “Is this… a test on us?” Realizing this instantly, Stark laughed bitterly, but upon reflecting that he had indeed been outmaneuvered, he shook his head in resignation and gave up on pursuing the matter further. “Who are you?” Having given up resistance, Stark sent the other party a message asking this question. Soon, the other party sent a reply. “Red Queen.” “Red Queen? So she’s actually a girl?” The cyberwar among artificial intelligences had long since ended. Tony Stark returned to his room; the cover girl had already left, though Stark didn’t care in the least. He pulled a fresh outfit from his closet, changed into it, and, holding the coffee Jarvis had brewed for him, made his way to the dining room. “What girl? Have you found a new target already?” Virginia Pepper Potts, nicknamed "Pepper," is Tony Stark’s personal assistant, press secretary, nanny, therapist, and the one and only lady of the house… In short, she’s indispensable to Tony Stark’s personal and professional life. Take right now, for example: she had just seen off the cover girl who’d spent the night here for Tony Stark, and had prepared his favorite cheeseburger for breakfast. “New target?” Tony Stark paused for a moment, then nodded firmly and said with absolute certainty. “That’s right! She really is my new target!” “She seems pretty special.” Pepper, who knew Tony Stark very well, felt a pang of jealousy; she had never seen Stark look so serious about a woman before. “Yes! She’s very special!” Stark didn’t notice his personal assistant’s subtle feelings at all; his eyes sparkling, he replied. “I’m completely captivated by her!” “So, what kind of gift and restaurant would you like me to arrange for you?” Pepper suppressed the pang of jealousy and asked, following her usual routine. “A gift? A restaurant?” It was only then that Stark realized they weren’t quite on the same page. “No, I don’t need any of that,” Stark said with a wry laugh. “You can’t ‘win over’ that girl with stuff like that.” “Is that so?” Tony Stark’s ambiguous remark made it impossible for Pepper to hold back her jealousy any longer, and she began to speak in a sarcastic tone. “Looks like our playboy is finally settling down and planning to think about his future?” “Hey! Pepper! Are you jealous?” Tony Stark continued to tease Pepper with great delight. He’d been feeling a bit down after his defeat in the cyberwar earlier, but now he’d completely bounced back. Stark was currently rather resistant to the idea of marriage; otherwise, he wouldn’t have dragged his feet for so long without committing to a relationship, even though he and Pepper were clearly in love. But seeing Pepper get jealous over him—well, there was no way Tony Stark wasn’t happy about that. “I’m just your personal assistant—what’s there to be jealous about!” Feeling frustrated, Pepper shoved the breakfast she’d brought into Tony Stark’s hands and turned to leave. But Stark grabbed her by the arm. “Come on, don’t be mad.” Tony Stark wasn’t exactly a fool; of course he wasn’t going to just let Pepper walk away like that. Jokes aside, if Pepper were to misunderstand and storm off in a fit of anger, that would be something Tony Stark simply couldn’t accept. He quickly gave a brief account of what had just happened, and to clear up the misunderstanding, Stark even called on JARVIS to testify. After hearing Tony Stark’s explanation, Pepper silently breathed a sigh of relief, then began to scold Stark in a huff. “How could you be so reckless! What if your database had actually been hacked?! Do you have any idea how much damage that would cause the company?! You can’t always do whatever you want, Tony!” Stark’s computer contained a great deal of Stark Industries data, as well as various design blueprints and the like, so if it were to leak, the consequences would certainly be no better than his earlier threat to shut down the weapons division. “All right, all right, I get it.” Tony Stark put on a forced smile, trying to defuse Pepper’s anger. “Nothing happened, did it? Besides, given the capabilities that AI has demonstrated, if she’d wanted to sneak in and steal Stark Industries’ data while I wasn’t looking, even JARVIS wouldn’t have been able to stop her.” At this point, Tony Stark’s expression turned serious, and he placed both hands on Pepper’s shoulders. “So, Pepper, for the next little while, I’m going to give JARVIS a major upgrade. I’m leaving all company matters in your hands.” “I understand. Go ahead and focus on that, Tony.” Once they turned to business, Pepper resumed her decisive and efficient manner. Meanwhile, Kraft had no idea that his test had actually left the legendary Tony Stark completely speechless—though if he’d known, he might well have burst out laughing. After using JARVIS to test Angela’s abilities, Kraft assigned her the two missions that had already been underway. One concerned the mastermind behind the Magia Gang’s human experiments, and the other, the origin of vibranium—the primary material used to craft Captain America’s shield. After several days of gathering and sifting through intelligence, there were still no leads regarding the Magia Gang. After all, seven years ago, the internet wasn’t very developed yet, so there was very little data stored on computers, and the mastermind behind it all was extremely cautious—related information had essentially been physically destroyed. Meanwhile, there was simply too much information regarding human experimentation. Not only did the United States lead the pack in this area, but other countries had also conducted similar experiments to varying degrees, and their research generally followed the path of creating super-soldiers. It seemed that Captain America’s success story had had a profound impact. Therefore, it was virtually impossible to start by investigating groups involved in human experimentation. Setting aside other countries, the United States alone had a multitude of official and unofficial groups that had conducted human experiments in secret—and the number within the U. S. alone was nearly equal to the combined total of all other nations. On the other hand, Angela and Harlow quickly zeroed in on information regarding Vibranium. This unique metal, Vibranium, originates from a small country in northeastern Africa called Wakanda. There are two ways to obtain it: small quantities occasionally sold by the government, and smuggling. As a result, the price of Vibranium has remained consistently high, and it’s practically impossible to buy—it’s in high demand but scarce on the market. The high price wasn’t a major problem for Kraft at the moment, but the issue was that even with money, he might not be able to buy it. And… If Wakanda possesses resources far more valuable than gold or diamonds, why is it still a poor, backward agricultural nation reliant on international aid? Kraft had carefully calculated the total amount of vibranium recorded as having flowed out of Wakanda, along with its sales prices. If even half of that had been invested in the country’s own development, Wakanda would absolutely not still be a poor nation. So, out of curiosity, he had Angela and Harlow conduct a more in-depth investigation into Wakanda. And then, he was stunned. This so-called backward agricultural nation actually possessed impressive cyber capabilities and even had its own intelligence agency, PRIDE. The agency’s primary function was to censor and delete information about Wakanda from the internet—though it was precisely thanks to this agency that Angela was able to hack into Wakanda’s internal network. “That’s really… pretty shameless…” Looking at the data Angela had gathered, a scornful smile spread across Kraft’s face.
