Setting aside the question of whether whoever obtained the Uchiha Sasuke character template had to roleplay or align their personality with Sasuke to unlock greater power, or whether the template had simply granted the full set of abilities all at once the way Ye Xuan's Wangquan Baye merge had, none of that mattered much right now.
Unless that person had stepped into the Six Paths domain and awakened the Six Tomoe Rinnegan, they weren't worth losing sleep over.
Ye Xuan might not be a match for them at his current level, but the gap wouldn't be so wide that it couldn't be bridged. And even if it was, there was still Elder Zhong.
For people from Xia Nation, who had a long-standing habit of keeping their strongest cards hidden, Ye Xuan would never believe that Elder Zhong's synchronization rate with the Zhongli template was still below sixty percent, not when the man had already publicly demonstrated "Tian Dong Wan Xiang" without any hesitation.
Handling a Sasuke who hadn't yet reached the Six Paths domain wouldn't be a problem for him at all.
Compared to the Uchiha Sasuke template, whose very existence was still unconfirmed, the far more pressing matter was Tony, the actor confirmed to have obtained the Mark 3 armor in Uncle Sam's film industry.
Don't underestimate the Mark 3 just because it was Tony Stark's third armor set. The technology packed into it was anything but modest.
The materials, propulsion system, and weaponry could perhaps be set aside given that it was only the third iteration, but the Jarvis AI and the Arc Reactor at its core demanded serious attention.
How capable was Jarvis exactly?
He could crack S.H.I.E.L.D.'s level-seven encryption in milliseconds, infiltrate Hammer Industries' systems, and even temporarily seize control of a Helicarrier.
In the current world, that kind of cyber-intrusion capability was essentially an attack from a higher dimension. How many nations could actually withstand a full assault from Jarvis?
Even if the Jarvis present in the Mark 3 was only a sub-program handling flight assistance and combat support, his mere existence would still give Uncle Sam's Nation an extraordinary advantage in AI development.
And then there was the Arc Reactor. Cold fusion technology was considered a violation of known physical laws by mainstream academia.
Even conventional thermonuclear fusion in the real world still required decades of research and relied entirely on high-temperature plasma containment. Cold fusion went far beyond that. The difference between the two wasn't something that could be waved away with a word like "slight."
If cold fusion technology were ever mastered, it wouldn't just provide humanity with nearly limitless energy. It would completely overturn the foundations of technology, economics, the environment, and the very shape of human civilization.
Clean, unlimited energy would replace fossil fuels entirely, dismantling traditional energy industries like petroleum and coal from the ground up. Energy-intensive industries would no longer be constrained by operating costs, production efficiency would grow exponentially, and wars fought over energy would cease to exist.
Entirely new industries would emerge. Projects once confined to human imagination, things like space elevators or underwater cities, would suddenly have a genuine path to realization.
The core energy supply problem for building self-sustaining ecosystems on the Moon or Mars would be solved with ease.
In short, if cold fusion became a reality, its impact would be comparable to the discovery of fire, the Industrial Revolution, and the Information Revolution all rolled into one.
Xia Nation's national strength would receive an unprecedented boost if they could gain control of this technology.
Of course, that was assuming they could actually master it, which Ye Xuan wasn't counting on.
Optimistically speaking, even if Uncle Sam's Nation concentrated the full force of global research and assumed the cold fusion theory was viable, they would still need at least thirty years to break through the fundamental physics barriers, followed by another twenty for practical engineering. If the theory turned out to be unworkable, the technology would stall indefinitely, and the best they could hope for was reverse-engineering some of its functions piecemeal.
Even using the reactor's energy density to power laser weapons or electromagnetic railguns would require solving the problems of energy transmission and heat dissipation first. Turning it into a power source for spacecraft would demand solving miniaturization and durability on top of that.
Using the reactor as a bargaining chip in negotiations for joint research between nations actually seemed like the most realistic outcome to Ye Xuan.
He shook his head, pulling himself back.
It was too early to be thinking about any of that. Whether Uncle Sam's government could even "acquire" the Mark 3 from Tony in the first place was still an open question. And anyway, this was the kind of thing that people far above his level should be worrying about. He was just a student. None of it had anything to do with him.
"So what's the Arc Reactor actually useful for?"
"Isn't it just a power source?"
While Ye Xuan had been lost in thought, Zhang Yu and Chen Hao exchanged a glance and asked with genuine confusion.
What was so important about the Arc Reactor? Wasn't the Mark 3 armor itself the real prize? That was Iron Man's armor!
"???"
"No, that's not... you two..."
Ye Xuan's expression went briefly blank. His first instinct was that they were joking, but looking at their completely serious faces, he pressed his palm to his forehead.
He had forgotten. They were high school students with mediocre grades at that. Of course they wouldn't grasp the larger implications of an Arc Reactor.
To them, it was just a fancy furnace that supplied energy. What was the big deal?
"Forget it. Just think of it as a really advanced stove."
"It has nothing to do with us anyway." Ye Xuan said, giving up, and waved it off.
Zhang Yu was about to respond when the ground gave a faint tremor. It was subtle, but noticeable enough that no one could dismiss it.
"An earthquake?"
Someone said it with disbelief, their voice carrying just a hint of excitement.
Since Hangzhou sat on flat, low-lying land, most of them had never felt an earthquake in their lives. Being caught off guard by one was naturally a little startling, but thanks to regular drills, nobody panicked.
"Everyone, line up immediately! Evacuate to the field in class order!"
Mr. Li had appeared in the room at some point and was calling out to them in a loud, steady voice. There wasn't the slightest trace of alarm in his tone.
As if... he had already been expecting this.
Ye Xuan noticed and found it slightly odd, but didn't dwell on it.
Even if it was an earthquake, the tremor probably hadn't exceeded magnitude three, maybe not even that. Their classroom building was constructed to withstand up to magnitude eight. Staying inside would honestly have been fine.
It made sense that Mr. Li wasn't worried.
"Yes, sir!"
They responded at once and, just as they had practiced countless times, quickly formed two rows and filed out of the classroom in an orderly line.
The entire building had evacuated to the field in under ten minutes. Students stood in the open area in clusters, some still discussing the tremor, others looking a little tense.
Ye Xuan stood in line with a slight furrow in his brow. Something felt off, though he couldn't quite place it.
Just then, as though reacting to some instinct, his gaze snapped to the edge of the field where the ground had begun to bulge faintly. A moment later, several figures broke through the surface. As the dust settled and the air cleared, their silhouettes came into focus.
They were creatures of considerable size, shaped roughly like rats, but their fur was a pale blue-green that caught the sunlight with an odd, iridescent shimmer. Their eyes were round and wide, their noses twitching steadily, their ears standing straight up.
Looking at them more closely... they were kind of cute?