Black Beach, City of Freedom.
The City of Freedom is not a city, but a villa-style building located on the Black coastline of Malibu, Los Angeles. The building alone covers an area of thousands of square meters.
The architectural style of the City of Freedom villa is very unique, emphasizing freedom with its entirely white main color and streamlined architectural style, making it distinctive.
Such a stylish villa, of course, cannot be owned by just anyone. It belongs to Tony Stark, the head of Stark Industries and a super genius, and is where Tony Stark usually resides.
It was now Tony Stark's second day back. The day he returned, Tony built a brand new arc reactor, installed it with the help of Pepper Potts, and then flew on his private jet to his villa in Los Angeles.
Although Los Angeles and New York are far apart, with a private jet, the distant journey was no longer a big deal.
Looking at the small device in his chest, emitting a faint light, Tony Stark's expression grew serious.
Ever since he was captured by terrorists, Tony realized that without some powerful means to protect his mortal body, he would be like a soldier standing in a hail of bullets, at risk of losing his life at any moment.
So Tony prepared a plan, which he temporarily named the Iron Man Armor Project, and named the armor he had taken out in Afghanistan Mark 1.
And now, Tony was ready to build Mark 2!
Tony typed a few commands on the virtual keyboard, then seemingly to himself, he said,
"Jarvis, are you ready?"
"Always at your service, sir."
A steady voice sounded. This was Jarvis, an artificial intelligence created by Tony.
"Alright, I want to create a new folder called 'Iron Armor,' labeled as Mark 2."
As Tony spoke, the screen in front of him displayed the data for Mark 1.
"Sir, should these files be stored in Stark Industries' central database?" Jarvis's voice asked.
"No," Tony stood up, putting the control pen into his pocket, "I don't know who to trust right now. Just store all this data on my private server."
"We're working on a secret project, aren't we, sir?" Jarvis asked.
"I just don't want these things to fall into the wrong hands."
Tony didn't refute. He swiped his hand across the virtual projection, discarding what he considered redundant or improvable components into a virtual trash can, leaving a much smaller virtual model than before.
After a while, he slowly said, "It's better if I control these things alone."
...Time came to evening. Tony had been working on Mark 2 all day, not even realizing that night had fallen.
Tony worked quickly, and his City of Freedom villa also stored many materials, so he had already successfully built the Iron Man armor's arm flight stabilizer and was conducting experiments.
At this moment, a woman in a business suit arrived at the entrance of the basement where Tony was experimenting. This woman was Tony's secretary, Pepper Potts.
"Tony, I've been paging you on the intercom. Didn't you hear it ring?"
Pepper, holding a box and a cup of coffee, entered the basement by typing in the password and spoke to Tony inside.
"Uh, uh, I heard it... What do you need?" Tony replied casually, not even looking at Pepper.
"Obadiah is waiting for you upstairs. He wants to see you," Pepper answered.
"Okay, I'll be right up," Tony still didn't pay attention to Pepper's words, answering absently.
This was the first test of the arm flight stabilizer, and no matter who came, Tony would complete this test.
Pepper felt a bit strange. She glanced at the metal arm on Tony's hand and questioned, "Tony, didn't you say you wouldn't make weapons anymore? What is this?"
"This isn't a weapon," Tony postured, pointing his arm forward. "This is a flight stabilizer, completely harmless."
With that, Tony directly activated the stabilizer's switch.
Then, with a bang, Tony was directly knocked back two or three meters by the flight stabilizer on his arm, sustaining some minor injuries.
"It was an accident, believe me, Pepper..."
Tony's explanation came out, but anyone could tell he was just putting on a brave face... After a while, Tony cleaned up the mess, temporarily abandoned the arm flight stabilizer experiment, and went to see Obadiah.
Obadiah was one of the elders of Stark Industries, having worked with Tony's father, Howard Stark, to build the world's most renowned weapon manufacturing company.
Tony had been working with Obadiah for over a decade, and throughout these years, Tony had always regarded Obadiah as his own uncle, trusting him implicitly.
However, this incident made Tony more cautious, and he didn't confide in Obadiah about his true intentions.
Obadiah brought a pizza when he arrived. After Tony came up, he opened the pizza box as usual, took a slice, and started eating.
Seeing Tony arrive, Obadiah sat next to him and said, "Tony, the board asked me to tell you that your behavior yesterday was just due to too much post-traumatic stress, which is why you said those things."
"They also issued an order, intending to kick you out, to let you cool down for a while and return to Stark Industries after some time."
Tony bristled, saying, "Why? Just because Stark Industries' stock dropped 40 points?" "It dropped 56.5 points," Pepper, also sitting beside Tony, added, twisting the knife.
"So what? I hold the controlling interest in the company; they don't have that right," Tony glared at Pepper and retorted.
"Tony," Obadiah called out to Tony, his face seemingly helpless as he said, "The board also has rights. They believe that you and your new research have no value whatsoever for Stark Industries."
What Obadiah said referred to another project Tony had discussed with him last night. Tony Stark was not an impulsive person; the reason he chose to close the weapon manufacturing department was that he wanted to research the arc reactor in his chest, to transform Stark Industries from a weapon manufacturing company into an energy company.
"But I've always been in charge of everything, Obadiah," Tony was angry. He was the absolute head of Stark Industries, and the direction of Stark Industries' development was also led by him. Where did those board members get the right to question him?
"Tony, calm down. Our Stark Industries has fallen from grace, while the Osborn family's Oscorp Industries is on the rise. If you don't calm down, our Stark Industries might end up even worse than Oscorp Industries was just over a month ago."
Obadiah knew Tony was angry, even contemplating leaving, so he quickly tried to persuade him.
"Oscorp Industries, isn't that a biotechnology company? I remember Oscorp Industries was decent, but still far behind our Stark Industries, right?"
Tony frowned, becoming interested in what Obadiah said about Oscorp Industries.
He had been captured by terrorists and held in a cave for three months, out of sight. After returning, besides holding a press conference to announce the closure of the weapons manufacturing division and building Mark 2, he hadn't bothered to learn about anything else, so he was unaware of what Obadiah was talking about.
Obadiah saw that Tony was starting to relax and continued, "Tony, I think you need to learn more about how the world has changed."
"Oscorp Industries has developed a regenerative medicine that can regenerate human organs. They held a press conference in New York yesterday. Now, Oscorp Industries' stock is almost surpassing ours, Tony, so I hope you can calm down and not indulge yourself."
"Human organ regenerative medicine?" However, Tony completely ignored Obadiah's other words and only focused on the phrase "human organ regenerative medicine."
Tony glanced at his chest. The second-generation arc reactor he had built emitted a faint glow, diligently preventing the small shrapnel in his chest from fully piercing his heart.
Tony thought that if the regenerative medicine was real, he might be able to find a way to remove the shrapnel from his heart first, and then use that regenerative medicine to fill the hole in his chest.
Although this might be difficult, Tony didn't want his heart to be under threat and to also have a hole in his chest large enough to fit a fist.
"Obadiah, who is the researcher of the regenerative medicine? I'm quite interested in this fellow."
Thinking of this, Tony's eyes lit up. He looked at Obadiah and said.
"Why are you suddenly asking about this?" Obadiah was slightly stunned, but he looked at Tony's faintly glowing chest and understood Tony's thoughts.
Then, he said.
"There are two researchers for the regenerative medicine. One is Curt Connors, a biology professor, but due to some accident, he's already in jail."
"And the other one?" Tony asked with a frown.
"The other researcher is Ron Brunstad, eighteen years old, a student at Empire State University."
"Ron Brunstad?" Tony noted down the name, then directly picked up the pizza box and quickly left.
"Good night, Obadiah."
Another three-thousand-word chapter, hehe, considered half an update, so please, I ask for recommendation tickets and rewards!
Of course, I also want to thank all the book friends and generous readers who have given recommendation tickets and rewards to this book. It is your support that gives Squirrel the motivation to keep writing. Thank you.