Fate Comes Knocking

In early February, Zhang returned to New York, while Oaks liquidated all the Stark Industries stock on hand and poured every cent into marketing the Drink Acorn.

Zhang's task, alongside Melinda, was to get this absurdly cheap premium beverage at least a foothold in New York's market.

It would rake in serious capital for the Benevolence Society.

As for Oaks, he once again found himself back in the Amazon Rainforest after a long absence.

This time, he would focus on honing one of his four talents—Restoration magic—to prepare for the cascade of crises about to hit.

At the start, Oaks had prioritized training in Feral Combat and Guardian talents, which meant animal transformation.

With just a fraction of Nature Force backing it, an animal form could unleash formidable combat power.

Restoration magic, however, demanded a far deeper command of Nature Force.

After all, Oaks was nothing more than a hastily trained Druid who had awakened less than a decade ago—that was why he'd previously only been able to heal by relying on plant essences and being surrounded by a forest environment.

Promising as his potential was, Oaks had already outgrown the beginner stage where sheer practice could rapidly boost his strength.

After shapeshifting into a beast, enhancing the spellcasting side required drawing in more external energy to pull it off.

And the crises he might face after this year wouldn't always come with a vast forest to empower him, let alone leave him time to prep a stash of plant-essence potions mid-battle.

He had to master powerful healing spells that could be cast without any material components.

So even knowing that Tony Stark would likely face a major upheaval this year, Oaks could only do his utmost to craft the Acorn Bracelet and then leave to go into seclusion himself.

Because Tony wouldn't be in mortal danger—but if Oaks didn't buckle down and push himself, he'd fall behind the times.

As for the Balance spells—the most devastating, with the highest ceiling and seemingly limitless potential...

He didn't dare use them yet.

Balance spells encompass both natural energy and astral energy, and astral energy is what the big shots of this world call "cosmic energy."

The path of balancing natural energy with astral energy lets a Druid trigger terrifying spell effects.

But astral energy was too conspicuous. Without a strong enough natural energy counterbalance, Oaks didn't even dare to casually channel it.

After all, drawing on the energy of the sun, moon, and stars might seem trivial to a Druid like him, but to other mages, it was no small matter.

Because the mages of this world cast spells by borrowing power from various dimensional entities—they rarely used cosmic energy directly.

Earth was guarded by three Sanctums.

The natural energy Oaks used came from the biosphere itself, but cosmic energy came from outside.

If foreign energy kept appearing at a fixed location, how could the New York Sanctum fail to notice?

He had no idea how the Sorcerer Supreme, the Ancient One, would handle a completely upright person like him, but without enough strength or leverage, Oaks wasn't about to gamble his fate on the slim chance that someone else would show mercy.

So, the tiny bit of astral energy he quietly accumulated on the sly could only be converted through a special device and used... well, like gasoline.

And while Oaks was training hard to carve out a place for himself in fate, Tony Stark's destiny came knocking right on schedule.

"What did you do to me?"

"Do? I saved your life. I did my best to pull the shrapnel out of your chest, but there's still plenty left. When they reach your heart, you're dead."

In a dark cave in Afghanistan, the newly conscious Tony had his first exchange with the balding middle-aged man in glasses—who was whistling and busy flipping something that looked like a suspicious paste in a container that might have been a pot, over what seemed to be a makeshift stove.

"Still, it's surprising... your wounds are healing much faster than I expected, and you seem to be waking up earlier than predicted. Looks like your physical condition is a lot better than it appears."

Dr. Yinsen, the bespectacled man, wore a carefree smile. Tony's recovery was a relief to him, though he didn't show it.

And Tony, finally grasping that he'd have to rely on the electromagnet in his chest and the car battery beside him to stay alive, was dealt a massive blow—

Of course, as an insufferably arrogant genius, he would never let any sign of that blow show on his face in front of a stranger.

He rubbed the Acorn Bracelet still on his left wrist—probably because it was too ordinary to be taken—half of its acorns had already turned black.

Aside from the shrapnel in his chest, most of his other injuries had healed, leaving only faint scars.

But while the Acorn Bracelet could help him recover from wounds, it couldn't remove the shrapnel lodged in his chest.

With a silent sigh, Tony scanned his surroundings and spotted the surveillance camera pointed at them.

The people behind this, having noticed he was awake, didn't give him more time. They came in person to meet "the most infamous mass murderer in American history."

After getting lectured and taking a brutal dose of reality he'd never imagined, Tony finally reignited his fighting spirit under Dr. Yinsen's guidance.

And besides...

"My mind has never been clearer. Oaks, buddy, your support better hold out...

I've got a hell of an idea. When I get back, I won't be jealous of your little shapeshifting tricks anymore!"

At the same time, he learned about his savior—a fellow captive, Dr. Ho Yinsen, a physicist from the small town of Gulmira.

And the enemy they had to face—the Ten Rings.

In the mountains of Afghanistan, held captive in that dark cave, using a pile of scrap metal, Tony Stark took a giant stride into his destiny from the brink of life and death—

The groundbreaking miniature Arc Reactor, and the Mark I Combat Armor.

But things didn't go as smoothly as they'd hoped.

After all, they were still under the enemy's watch the whole time.

"We still need a little more time."

Yinsen's face held the detachment of a man who had seen it all. He looked at Tony, clad in armor, still waiting for the control program to download—a flicker of reluctance in his eyes, yet he forced himself to follow the plan. Turning, he picked up the submachine gun from the floor:

"I'll buy you that time!"

"Yinsen!"

When Tony, burning with fury, used the time Yinsen had bought to break through the Ten Rings' blockade and saw him again, Yinsen was already lying in a pool of blood, barely breathing.

He was, after all, just a scientist with no military training.

"We agreed. Stick to the plan."

"My plan... was always this."

"You still have family to go back to."

"They... died long ago. I'm going to see them."

"...Thank you for saving me."

"Don't waste... your life..."

"...I promise. But I wish you could see it through."

A string of acorn beads fell beside Yinsen. The steel gauntlet crushed the last three normal-colored acorns into pieces.

The earnest look in Oaks' eyes when he had handed him the bracelet flashed through Tony's mind. Clumsily, with his thick leather-gloved hands, he shoved the remnants roughly into Yinsen's mouth.

"Live. Please."

The Ten Rings was originally indeed called the Ten Rings, and even the Mandarin in Iron Man 3 wore prop rings.

But ever since, for reasons known to all, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was renamed, the Mandarin became Xu Wenwu, the ten rings of ten abilities were changed to the ten rings of iron fist boxing, and even the Mongolian script on the Ten Rings' emblem was replaced with Chinese characters...

At least in the MCU, the Ten Rings no longer exists. This work uniformly uses the Ten Rings instead.