Chapter 126: Distant Gaze
2022-10-19 Author: Great Demon Spirit
Crane's personality wasn't uncommon: timid, sensitive, and suspicious. Especially as he possessed an enviable high IQ, easily earning a double doctorate at a young age.
Precisely because he was intelligent and suspicious, he couldn't help but overthink things.
Tony didn't trust him; he was very clear on this. Tony's purpose in getting him out of prison was to inquire about information regarding the League of Shadows, but he actually didn't know much, which greatly disappointed Tony.
Every move Crane made was cautious. He diligently tried to discern Tony's thoughts, attempting to find the right solution. Before the League of Shadows reappeared and contacted him again, he had to keep a low profile and work diligently for Tony.
Just like this time, Tony explicitly told him to secretly monitor the employees of the Power Department, yet his instructions were vague, which had once puzzled Crane. But he had figured it out now: this was another casual yet deliberate test.
"Is it to test if I'll diligently complete the task at hand? No, that doesn't make sense... Among the Power Department's employees, there are people who attract him, like Max with his flawed personality. He told me to secretly observe. If I interact deeply with them... he must have a plan..." Crane mused.
Crane's expression flickered erratically. After repeated hesitation, he still dialed Tony's number and recounted in detail his entry into Oscorp.
On the other end of the phone, Tony was also startled. He abruptly stood up, his face showing undisguised astonishment.
"Max? So the middle-aged man who saved me that day was Max?" Tony was somewhat surprised and uncertain. He dropped his phone and sat down on the sofa.
Afterward, he had searched for that middle-aged man and even watched surveillance footage, but the helicopter footage only showed a tiny silhouette. That night, countless people were cowering in corners, and there were simply too many victims to investigate them all.
What's more, though Tony had been saved by him, Tony killing Abomination also counted as saving *him* in return. It was a tit-for-tat exchange, so after his initial search yielded no results, Tony didn't delve deeper.
"What a coincidence... Max Dillon was actually that person..." Tony rubbed his chin, a smile gradually spread across his face.
This way, he only needed to quietly wait for Max to become Electro. Once that happened, Tony could naturally find him and take him in.
Tony truly highly valued Electro's potential. He could freely transform into electricity for teleportation, absorb electrical energy, unleash electric attacks, and even remotely control various high-tech instruments with his own living body.
Most importantly, someone like Electro, if you can earn his trust, will follow you wholeheartedly. Whether it's for salvation or destruction, he'll stick with you to the very end.
In Electro's eyes, he was an invisible person, dispensable anyway. Everyone ignored him, he had no sense of presence, so why not follow someone who acknowledged and needed him? For whoever needed him, he would give his life.
"But this guy Crane, I don't know whether to say his IQ and EQ are exceptionally high, or if he's genuinely working hard for me." Tony toyed with a metal tooth. If Crane hadn't constantly brought him up in front of Max, Tony would have truly considered treating him differently.
Max was inherently a person lacking presence. If Crane truly intended to win him over, he could indeed gain a great deal of Max's favor. Especially since Tony had told him to secretly observe, yet he coincidentally interacted with Max...
It was precisely because Tony was confident in Max's future and thoroughly understood Max's personality that he allowed Crane to go ahead and act as a scout.
"Max's matter can be put aside for now; just wait for him to become Electro. There's no way to start with Ross for now; I still need to find a subtle time and method. For now, let's upgrade all the Transformers I have." Tony slowly stood up, looking at Amanda, who stood quietly beside him.
New equipment was air-shipped to his home that very day. Tony directly opened the basement left by the original occupants in the backyard, violently demolished parts of it to expand a large space. Then, he directly controlled several Transformers to transform into load-bearing pillars, arranging them throughout the basement.
Tony wasn't a person who coveted luxury. Although crude, it was effective; fine processing could wait for later.
With a thought, the increasingly surging Allspark energy poured out, instantly covering the metal tooth in his hand layer by layer. On the open computer beside him, a vast array of complex formulas and manufacturing methods were displayed.
Actually, the manufacturing technology for the Dionysus Factor was, simply put, a refining technique. It involved the precise refinement of the Resurrection Spring Water, extracting its essence, removing various inscrutable elements, leaving only the core factor, and then mixing and fusing it with a special alloy.
The Resurrection Spring Water itself represented a miracle. For brutes like those in the League of Shadows, the method of use was simple and crude: just throw people in for a bath. Take a dip now and then, and naturally, they'd become powerful... The Court of Owls was more like reprocessing; they purposefully extracted the longevity and regeneration effects, attached them to metal, and then embedded them into assassins.
Tony didn't plan to directly adopt the Dionysus Factor's technology. He wanted to first investigate the particle structure of the Dionysus Factor.
Countless Allspark particles transformed into torrents, instantly covering the metal in his hand. Each particle drilled through barriers, surging into every nanometer of the area. Allspark particles exist between presence and absence, making them difficult to describe with the word "matter." They can easily penetrate dense atomic layers, reaching deep within, with a versatile inclusiveness that can envelop every atom of the metal.
But when the Allspark energy began to cover the Dionysus Factor, something truly amazing happened. A mysterious particle, difficult to describe, vanished strangely after being covered by the Allspark energy, as if it had escaped in one ten-thousandth of a second, or was assimilated and absorbed by the Allspark energy in an instant.
The entire metal tooth began to twist and change under Tony's control. Almost instantly, the Dionysus Factor was assimilated and absorbed by Tony; that mysterious substance seemed to become part of the Allspark particles themselves.
The atomic structure of the Dionysus Factor was also incredibly bizarre, unlike any metal Tony had ever seen or known. It actually presented a triple helix structure. From this special structure as the core, more subsidiary matter derived, forming the complete metal.
This meant that only the most core triple helix structure was the crucial thing; everything else emanated from this seemingly living triple helix structure.
Tony's brows furrowed tightly. The bizarre scene presented in the microscopic world puzzled him, and the unprecedented structure severely impacted his worldview.
Just as he was thinking, a terrifying sense of crisis suddenly appeared, without any warning, from the depths of his being!
It seemed there was a pair of eerie eyes, as vast as planets, spanning countless dimensions and unknowable domains, looking towards the tiny Earth, searching for something with a chilling gaze.
(end of chapter)