OGCrafter
patreon
Chapter 32: What Kind of Timeline Is This?
🕑 Added 2025-03-26 12:36:59 +0000 UTCThe two met in mid-air, completely unexpectedly, and both were left feeling that the situation was outrageously bizarre. What was going on?
"Yes, sir, he is Luo Chen!"
The voice of J.A.R.V.I.S. came through the helmet.
"He... how can he... how can he fly?" Tony Stark was stunned. The man who had always considered himself well-informed was now completely at a loss.
It was clear that Luo Chen was just an ordinary person, yet here he was, floating in mid-air, facing Tony Stark directly.
Today was the day the Mark II, which Tony had just completed, was set for testing.
Since he hadn’t been kidnapped in Afghanistan this time, the original Mark I never existed. Sure, the design had been created, but it had never actually been built.
After completing the design, Tony used J.A.R.V.I.S. to test and verify the technology. Once it was confirmed that everything worked, he moved on to designing the Mark II.
It wasn’t until today that all the parts had finally been manufactured and painted.
The most difficult and troublesome part of the whole process was definitely the creation of the micro-reactor.
It was necessary to provide long-term power to the Mark II armor, especially for flight, which made ordinary batteries completely useless. If standard batteries had been used, the Mark II would have required a massive battery pack on its back, which would be both unattractive and dangerous.
A single attack on the battery pack could result in catastrophic failure.
At a loss for a solution, Tony recalled something Luo Chen had mentioned in his diary: that he would turn to new energy sources in the future. This led Tony to the idea of building a miniature nuclear fusion reactor to power the suit.
If this idea were to leak out, it would cause a global uproar, because while humanity had mastered nuclear fission, nuclear fusion technology was still fifty years away from being feasible.
Should this technology be unlocked, it would revolutionize the world. Productivity is currently limited by the constraints of energy resources, and overcoming this barrier would usher in a new era.
Tony had done some research on nuclear fusion and, to his surprise, had successfully created one himself.
Once he completed the reactor, he immediately understood why Luo Chen had been waiting for him to be kidnapped.
If word spread that he had been taken, the stock price of the Stark Group would certainly plummet. Luo Chen could then buy up shares at a low price, and when Tony returned from Afghanistan, he could shift his focus to clean energy development.
Once this new energy source, based on nuclear fusion, was made public, the world would undoubtedly be shaken. The stock prices that had fallen to rock bottom would rise sharply, possibly even increasing tenfold.
This was a blue ocean market, with no real competitors in sight.
Unlike weapons manufacturing, where Tony already had powerful rivals such as Hammer Industries (despite its incompetent leadership), clean energy would make him the only supplier.
From this perspective, Luo Chen's plan made perfect sense. He had thought everything through carefully.
With the miniature nuclear fusion reactor as the core, the Mark II armor was finally complete. Today was the day for testing the flight speed. Tony was enjoying himself when he unexpectedly saw Luo Chen soaring in mid-air.
"Yes, sir, it’s clear that he has some sort of flight ability—and possibly even other superpowers. We all underestimated him," J.A.R.V.I.S. calmly noted. "We need to reassess his information and update his threat level. We can't just view him as an ordinary person with access to that strange diary."
"I understand," Tony Stark replied, his tone serious. "Could his super-abilities be related to the diary? After all, we didn’t find any signs of superpowers when we checked his information earlier."
"That is a possibility," J.A.R.V.I.S. responded. "The origin of this diary is shrouded in mystery, and even Luo Chen might not fully understand it."
Tony Stark considered this. Given what he knew about Luo Chen, it was strange that someone who had appeared so ordinary suddenly possessed superpowers. This shift was highly suspicious.
"Tony Stark?" At that moment, as Tony Stark was pondering the situation, Luo Chen called out to him.
Luo Chen’s mind was in turmoil. He couldn’t help but wonder: Was he in the same Marvel movie universe after all? Or had he somehow stumbled into another reality?
The more he thought about it, the weirder it seemed.
In the comics, Tony Stark became Iron Man because of the Vietnam War—though this was later revised to the Afghanistan War in the movies. No one had expected that the U.S. military would have to retreat from Afghanistan in such a disgraceful manner.
His mind was a mess now. This was more confusing than seeing Gwen at an age that didn’t match her canon timeline.
Gwen was supposed to be Peter Parker's classmate, and it didn’t matter that she was older than him, but now Tony Stark had quietly become Iron Man?
What kind of timeline was this?
He hadn't been kidnapped, hadn’t gone through the transformative experience, and hadn’t had a fallout with Obadiah Stane. How did things play out so differently?
Could it be that the Time Variance Authority had missed this anomaly in the timeline?
Or perhaps, since Kang the Conqueror had been defeated by Loki, this was one of the countless divergent timelines that had been unleashed?
The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like this situation was bigger than he had imagined.
If this timeline was true, wouldn’t it ruin his plan to make a fortune after Tony Stark’s eventual capture?
"Wait, you know me?" Tony Stark asked, deciding to pretend he didn’t know Luo Chen. "What’s going on here?"
He realized that as long as he didn’t mention the diary directly, he wouldn’t get that splitting headache warning. He could be close to Luo Chen without triggering any kind of reaction.
