Chapter 176: Mr. Stark, You Really Are a Genius
Tony returned to his ocean-view villa.
He took off his suit jacket and wore only his shirt. First, he went to the bar and poured himself a glass of whiskey. After adding a few ice cubes, he followed the spiral staircase in the living room all the way down.
He opened the glass door made from special materials and entered the underground laboratory that belonged exclusively to him.
The laboratory was spacious, yet somewhat messy.
It was both a laboratory and an underground garage. Not far away, an underground passage led all the way to the surface, where several expensive collector's cars were parked.
As Tony snapped his fingers, he arrived in front of his workbench and casually placed the sunglasses from his pocket onto the table. The computer screen lit up, and holographic projections appeared one after another around him.
In the images, aside from precisely searched combat footage of the Astartes and Raven in Manhattan, there were also rapidly flashing facial portrait matching patterns.
"Jarvis?"
"Sir, the data is being uploaded. According to detection, Commissioner George's heartbeat accelerated when he answered. The corners of his eyes fluctuated by 0.3 degrees, and his pupils showed slight dilation."
"Based on data calculations, there is an 83% probability that Commissioner George was lying."
"Eighty-three percent?"
Tony laughed when he heard this. After taking a sip of whiskey, he casually placed the glass on the table, pulled over a rolling chair beside him, and sat down. Then he answered casually, "I'd say it's 100%."
"Compared to those fools, we're far ahead. They were communicating via radio."
"Yes, sir. That night, the battlefield covered all of Manhattan. Judging from the footage taken afterward, they had an extremely standard combat pattern. As the number of invading monsters increased, they immediately carried out reinforcements, battlefield-sector deployments, and many other adjustments."
Jarvis's calm and orderly voice continued. "We have reason to believe they had one or two supreme commanders, as well as battlefield observers feeding back battlefield information."
Jarvis, as an artificial intelligence, could not possibly know that people like Reacher possessed a bug-level perception ability like Observation Haki.
It could only deduce and calculate the most likely answer based on reasonable logic.
Tony naturally followed that same pattern.
Although there were some deviations, the overall direction was correct.
"Those people are also using modern communication equipment."
After reaching that conclusion, Tony could not help feeling his heartbeat quicken.
The performance of the Astartes and Raven Warbands that night had been far beyond normal. As for their equipment, the only truly advanced thing seemed to be their energy-tech weapons.
Extremely stable energy technology meant those people had very high-level technological support behind them.
The power armor worn by the Astartes looked simple, but in reality, it made one scratch their head.
What looked simple was the structure.
For such heavy armor to move, according to Tony's understanding, humans could not do it unless the armor contained an extremely precise combination of technology and an energy source.
Tony considered himself the most outstanding genius in the world. Even for him, developing a set of equipment like that would probably take a great deal of time in the early stages.
Not to mention that the key materials of the armor itself were a problem.
What kind of metal could easily withstand an energy beam powerful enough to pierce through a building?
And the outer shell showed no visible damage. Even the impact from the kinetic force after being struck could not be seen at all.
It was simply absurd.
The people in the U.S. government had been looking for those warriors from the wrong direction from the very beginning.
Tony, however, bypassed those complicated issues and went straight to the core.
No matter how outrageous their equipment materials and technological level were, as long as it was confirmed that technology was involved, it represented one thing.
Someone, or some organization, was supporting them.
To form a supernatural army of more than a thousand people, and equip them with all that gear—would that not require money?
In modern society, everything had to be bought with money.
The expenses would be enormous.
With just a little calculation, one could tell that this was not something an ordinary organization could afford to support.
Every expense would leave traces.
As long as those traces were found, one could follow the vine and eventually locate where those people lived.
Tony excitedly told Jarvis his argument.
Jarvis gave him high praise.
"An impressive line of thought, sir. You truly are a genius."
After praising him, Jarvis raised another question.
"Sir, even if you find them, what do you intend to do?"
"Get those technologies from them, of course. Jarvis, you should know very well that the armor materials and weapon technology are far ahead of current technology."
Tony answered without hesitation.
Then Jarvis asked another question, one that left Tony frozen in place.
"Then, sir, what method do you plan to use to obtain those technologies from them?"
"Huh?"
Tony was stunned.
That was right. What method would he use?
He had only thought about finding them and obtaining the technologies that interested him so much, so he could complete the idea that had flashed through his mind earlier.
But he had not considered whether the other side would be willing to give them to him.
Buy them with money?
If they had the financial power to support an army of a thousand people, would they lack money?
Technology?
What technology?
Stark Industries did possess many core technologies, and those technologies were the foundation that allowed him to accumulate so much wealth.
But would the other side even care?
Tony sank into deep thought.
…
Matthew still had no idea that the future Iron Man was currently having a major headache. He had not trained today.
Instead, he had gone to Chicago.
Chicago was undoubtedly one of America's most famous major cities.
Its fame came from many things.
For example, its crime rate had remained high for a long time, and it had also produced many superstars in sports and entertainment.
This time, Matthew went to Chicago because he had detected the aura of a demon in the city.
Matthew was not ordinarily interested in demons.
Especially powerful demons.
There were many supernatural incidents on Earth, and quite a few were related to demons. But most of those demons were small fry.
Matthew had no interest in them at all. The sorcerers of Kamar-Taj could handle them easily.
Only demons of relatively high rank could enter Matthew's eyes.
His Devil Fruit Encyclopedia had only lit up a few fruits so far, and high-grade demon souls were far too rare.
Now that he had finally found one, Matthew decisively gave up the day's training and came to Chicago.
Over the past two days, Chicago had seen a very serious serial murder case.
Large numbers of innocent people had suddenly suffered mysterious attacks, and the death toll rose sharply. However, considering that Chicago's crime-related death rate had always remained high, the matter itself did not initially draw much police attention.
Especially since the crime scenes spanned several different areas, far apart from one another, the police had not connected the cases at first.
It was only after one person appeared that the police realized these cases were far from ordinary.
...
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