"An appetizer?"
Tony's voice was a bit dry. He felt like his son was taking his entire worldview and grinding it into the floor.
That virtual reality system, advanced enough to set any nation's technology back a century, was just an appetizer in his son's words?
What was the main course, then?
Whipping up a black hole by hand?
Pepper pressed a hand to her forehead, feeling like her heart couldn't take it either. Whenever this father and son were together, they were either challenging the very foundations of physics or upending the entirety of human civilization.
Paul ignored his father, who was already spiraling into self-doubt, and simply snapped his fingers.
"Jarvis, dim the lights. Let's get some atmosphere."
"As you wish, Mr. Paul."
The garage lights instantly dimmed, leaving only a few spotlights that swept slowly across the priceless supercars like stage lights.
The atmosphere immediately became mysterious.
"Alright, Dad, Pepper. My second gift is right here in this garage." Paul stuffed his hands in his pockets, a calm smile on his face that made Tony's teeth itch. "I'll give you three minutes to find it."
Tony was taken aback for a moment, then his trademark genius pride took over again.
"Are you kidding me? This is my garage. I could tell you the position of every single screw with my eyes closed."
He sprang into action, his eyes scanning every corner like a hawk.
"Not that Bugatti, not that Aston Martin… This corner has my vintage collection, you wouldn't have touched it…"
Tony eliminated possibilities as he walked toward his workbench.
"Is it a new mechanical arm? Or some new kind of holographic projector?"
He circled the workbench twice, even lifting a few dust covers, but found nothing.
Pepper also looked around curiously, but besides the luxury cars she was already tired of looking at and various cold, mechanical parts, she couldn't see anything new.
One minute passed.
Sweat started to bead on Tony's forehead.
He accessed Jarvis's authority and commanded, "Jarvis, scan the entire garage. Compare it to yesterday's inventory and identify any new or modified items!"
"Scanning, sir…"
A few seconds later, Jarvis reported in its usual steady tone, "Scan complete. Compared to the records from twenty-four hours ago, no new or structurally modified large-scale equipment has been detected. The only change is that the fuel tank of Mr. Paul's vehicle, the silver Koenigsegg Agera, is full."
"Impossible!" Tony waved his hand in frustration.
Jarvis's scan couldn't be wrong.
Was Paul just messing with him?
His gaze swept across the garage one more time, finally landing, with a sense of helplessness, on the sleek, aggressive, silver Koenigsegg.
It was Paul's daily driver, one Tony had picked out for him personally. He knew every detail of the car like the back of his hand.
Wait…
Tony's pupils suddenly contracted.
He rushed over, practically pressing his body against the car.
Pepper was startled by his actions. "Tony, what's wrong?"
Tony didn't answer. His fingers traced a line across the mirror-smooth car door, finally stopping at a nearly imperceptible seam.
"The paneling here… it's not supposed to be joined like this," he muttered, as if critiquing a masterpiece with the harshest eye. "The Koenigsegg's carbon fiber body is a single monocoque. For the sake of ultimate aerodynamics, there would never be a… a seam line here."
He circled to the front of the car, staring at the sharp headlights.
"And here, the internal structure of the light assembly… it's too complex. It doesn't look like it's for illumination, it's more like… more like some kind of precision transmission system."
His breathing grew ragged as an utterly absurd idea began to sprout wildly in his mind.
Tony shot his head up, staring intently at the smiling Paul, his voice changing pitch.
"This car…"
"It's… not a car, is it?"
The curve of Paul's lips widened. He savored the ghost-white expression on his father's face and answered slowly, "Congratulations, Dad. You've finally caught on."
As soon as he finished speaking.
*VMMMM—*
The silver Koenigsegg suddenly emitted a low hum.
Before Tony and Pepper's horrified eyes, the supercar, a pinnacle of human industrial design, began to come "alive"!
*CLICK! CLACK!*
A series of crisp mechanical locks snapped open.
The doors flipped upwards, but they didn't stop. They continued to twist at an impossible angle, becoming two thick arms! The roof lifted, split apart, and reconfigured. A menacing, mechanical head slowly rose, the two headlights glowing with an eerie blue light, like a waking beast opening its eyes!
The chassis lowered, the wheels flipped over, and a complex array of linkages and hydraulic systems extended and combined in a dazzling display, forming two powerful mechanical legs!
The entire process was fluid, a display of brutal elegance. Every component shifted with millimeter precision. This wasn't a modification; it was a complete and revolutionary reconstruction!
In just over ten seconds.
A ground-hugging supercar had transformed into a giant robot standing over four meters tall, its silver paint glinting coldly under the lights!
It stood silently in the center of the garage, exuding an oppressive presence. Beside it, the multi-million-dollar luxury cars suddenly looked like a pile of cheap toys.
Tony and Pepper were completely petrified.
Their mouths were agape, wide enough to fit an egg. Their minds were blank, all capacity for language crushed by the surreal scene before them.
What was this? Magic?
*Beep.*
A light glowed on the robot's chest, and a synthesized, mechanical voice sounded, reaching their ears clearly:
"A pleasure to meet you. I am Sideswipe."
"All respect to my creator, Mr. Paul Stark."
"Mr. Tony Stark, Ms. Pepper Potts, good evening."
The polite greeting struck Tony and Pepper's nerves like a sledgehammer.
It was a long moment before Tony found his voice. He swallowed hard, turned his head to Paul, his eyes screaming, *Are you fucking kidding me?*
"A… Transformer?"
He squeezed the word through his clenched teeth.
As someone at the pinnacle of technology, he knew better than anyone that to make such a complex mechanical structure achieve a stable transformation, while maintaining perfect performance in both modes, involved materials science, transmission structures, energy systems, and artificial intelligence—any one of which was a world-changing field of study!
And now, his son had taken a fantasy he thought was at least a century away and placed it, living and breathing, right in front of him.
After a brief moment of shock, a more fervent emotion surged through Tony.
The shock in his eyes was quickly replaced by a flame called "competitiveness."
He strode up to "Sideswipe," reached out, and rapped his knuckles hard on the armor of the robot's calf, producing a crisp metallic sound.
"Carbon fiber composite armor? Too thin. It wouldn't even stop a standard armor-piercing round."
He then circled to the robot's back, pointing at the exposed hydraulic lines and joints.
"The drive joints and power conduits are completely exposed. That's a sitting duck on the battlefield. What's its power source? Is it still running on gasoline? What's its operational range?"
Tony Stark, after having his pride thoroughly shattered by his son's two gifts, had finally found his home turf again.
He began to nitpick the groundbreaking creation with the critical eye of a weapons expert.
"The design is clever, I'll admit. But it's just a flashy, oversized behemoth. An expensive toy. Aside from looking cool, it has zero practical combat value."
Tony rattled off every flaw he could think of in one breath. Then, crossing his arms, he looked at Paul with a hint of superiority, as if to say, *See, kid? Your old man's still your old man.*
However, faced with his string of sharp criticisms, Paul's expression didn't change in the slightest.
He just looked calmly at the smug-faced Tony, then glanced at the magnificent robot.
He chuckled softly.
"Why don't we test it out?"
"Then we'll know, won't we?"