Obadiah

In order to master the technology of the Knight System, the military gave the wearer's body tissue samples to General Ross, who had done extensive research on Super Soldier Serum, and asked him to reverse engineer them. Even if he couldn't find anything conclusive, as long as he could reproduce the process of human enhancement, that would be enough.

Regardless of what General Ross achieved, Stark reaped considerable rewards. Upon seeing the actual Knight Armor, the young master was suddenly struck by a surge of inspiration, as if something that was meant to appear in his life had been missed for some reason, and then reappeared before him.

Indeed, this is true. Due to the Worms problem caused by the Small Town Meteorite event, many of the United States's overseas bases have been scaled back, and most of the original foreign military policies have been postponed. For example, the World Trade Center still stands there, and the war that cost hundreds of billions of dollars and accumulated over several years in the graveyard of empires has not yet begun.

Because of these changes, the underlying conflict between Obadiah Stane, a veteran of Stark Industries, and Young Master Stark, was not prominent; his ambition was firmly suppressed by Stark's genius intellect.

Young Master Stark wouldn't need to go to the Middle East to personally promote the Jericho Missile, nor would he be injured by his own missiles. Therefore, the Ten Rings wouldn't force him to manufacture missiles, and instead, he would use rudimentary materials and tools to build the first-generation Arc Reactor and Iron Man suit in a cave.

The playboy remains a playboy who indulges in debauchery to this day.

But what is destined will eventually come to pass. Inspired by the Knight System, Tony Stark successfully developed the Mark I Iron Man suit just one month later. The limited edition that was hand-forged by hammer blows in history was out of necessity. With the strong logistical support of Stark Industries, this Mark I Iron Man suit is much more powerful in all aspects.

The young master was, after all, a member of the capitalist class. He would never release such a groundbreaking product immediately. What he sold were second-tier products or even prototypes. This way, he could make money from the intermediate products, and he could legitimately apply for research and development funding from the Department of Defense. Apart from Osborn Industries' expensive Knight System, they had no other choice.

Then Tony Stark weakened the Mark I Iron Man suit, for example, by using a transmission system that was a level behind, which increased the size of the Mark I from two and a half meters to three meters; the repulsive particle generator in the flight system was replaced with Rocket booster; Arc Reactor, which was originally the size of a fist, was deliberately made into a version the size of a washbasin, but the output power of the two was the same.

Having tossed out the bulky, heavy Mark 0.5 Iron Man suit to fool the military, Young Master Stark asserted that apart from the developers of the Knight System, no one else in the world could decipher the physics-defying acceleration method. The Mark I was sufficient for the military—even though, out of pride as a genius, he had only analyzed the Knight System's appearance and hadn't studied its internal structure.

"You shouldn't have come to me!" In the Stark Industries scientific research area, Obadiah stared grimly at the tall white man before him. "Lieutenant Sonon, a top-tier pilot in the United States. Air Force, was transferred back to the U. S. four years ago from his base in Japan. As for me, a shareholder of Stark Industries, and the president before Tony Stark officially took over Stark Industries, we had no chance to even know each other!"

This lieutenant, named Sonon, was a tall, white male who had been a pilot of an EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft at United States base in Japan. After the Worms outbreak, he was transferred back to the US. In terms of appearance and character, he perfectly matched the male protagonist setting of a mainstream United States movie.

Lieutenant Sonon's expression was also grim. "I came under orders. A set of Knight System armor was sent to Stark Industries for analysis, and according to regulations, I, as the wearer, must accompany them."

"Speak, what exactly do you want!" Obadiah's expression softened slightly as he asked, "If that's all, you could have simply pretended not to know me instead of risking exposure by calling me aside for a secret conversation."

"I've found him!" Lieutenant Sonon said in a panicked voice, his face showing fear. "The one who suddenly broke into our ship and turned us into this."

As he spoke, Lieutenant Sonon's body twisted and transformed into the shape of some kind of humanoid monster— the Worms that had disrupted the United States' twenty-year military deployment plan.

At some point, the real Lieutenant Sonon had been replaced.

Wei Xiuming's Worms detection device detects superluminal particles within the Worms in a non-contact manner to distinguish friend from foe. The vital signs of the modified wearers are entered into the central database to evade the detection device, and the Worms disguised as Lieutenant Sonon took advantage of this loophole.

Obadiah's face seemed to melt, revealing the outline of Worms, before quickly reverting to a human form, clearly having been replaced by Worms mimicry at some point. "I know, whether it's the enhancement through the faster-than-light particle Knight System or the human adaptation of Worms body cells, it all fits what he mentioned to us when he was bored—enemies and foes share the same origin!"

"Upon learning of our identities as Skrulls scientists, that person did not mistreat us. Instead, he forced us to teach him the languages and scripts of the three great empires, as well as all the technology on our spaceship. During our studies, he constantly used the resources on the spaceship to conduct experiments, growing at a rapid pace. After coming into contact with genetic engineering and the application of high-dimensional energy, he turned his attention to our fellow Skrulls, and thus the Worms, modified by the Skrulls, was born."

Having calmed down, Lieutenant Sonon returned to human form and said with lingering fear, "As the technical advisors, we were left behind at the very end. We watched as our compatriots, whose surgeries failed, dissolved into foam due to genetic collapse, while those whose surgeries succeeded transformed into Worms in a very short time, forgetting that they were Skrulls and degenerating into ignorant monsters—even having to assist him under the desperate and resentful gazes of his compatriots when he was overwhelmed."

"I know...I know!" Obadiah lowered his voice, speaking with anger and fear, "That's why we were able to figure out his thought process and techniques when he modified us, and take countermeasures in advance, so that our self-perception as the last to be modified wouldn't be distorted—those cowards who couldn't withstand the changes have committed suicide, while we are still alive... Isn't what keeps us going hatred—revenge against the Galactus that destroyed our home planet, revenge against the guy who insulted us Skrulls!"

Inspired by Obadiah, Lieutenant Sonon suppressed the lingering gloom in his heart and said, "I've discovered his current identity: Kent Clark, the top executive of Osborn Group's largest industrial base."

"It's him!" As a near-high-ranking executive at Stark Industries, the Worms, disguised as Obadiah, knew a great deal about its rival, Osborn Industries. In order to obtain secrets, it even sent out a number of corporate spies and collected a lot of information about this Kent Clark.