In early February, Zhang returned to New York. Oaks sold off all his Stark Industries stock and poured the entire sum into promoting Drink Acorn.
Zhang's task was to work with Melinda to open up the New York market for this absurdly cheap premium beverage.
This would accumulate a substantial amount of funding for the Benevolence Society.
Meanwhile, Oaks returned once again to the Amazon Rainforest, which he had not visited in quite some time.
This time, to prepare for the crises that would soon come one after another, Oaks focused on training one of his four talents—Restoration Magic.
At the beginning, Oaks had prioritized honing his Feral Combat and Guardian talents, namely animal transformations.
With only a portion of Nature Force reinforcing them, animal forms could unleash formidable combat power.
Restoration Magic, however, required a greater degree of control over Nature Force.
After all, Oaks was merely a hastily trained Druid who had awakened less than ten years ago. That was why he had previously only been able to use healing abilities with the aid of plant essence and while in a forest environment.
Though his potential was impressive, Oaks had already completely surpassed the beginner stage where constant practice alone could rapidly increase his strength.
After mastering Feral Transformation, further enhancement in spellcasting required greater guidance of external energy.
And the crises he might encounter after this year would not always provide him with vast forests to bolster him, much less allow him to prepare a heap of plant essence potions before every battle.
He had to master powerful healing spells that could be successfully cast without relying on any spellcasting materials.
So, even knowing that Tony Stark would probably encounter a major upheaval this year, he could only do his utmost to make the Acorn Bracelet before leaving to cultivate in seclusion.
Tony would not be in mortal danger, but if Oaks did not seize the time to work hard, he would fall behind the times.
As for Balance Magic, which had the greatest power, the highest ceiling, and virtually limitless prospects...
He did not dare use it yet.
Balance Magic included natural energy and Astral Energy, and Astral Energy was the "Cosmic Energy" possessed by many of this world's major players.
The path of balance between natural energy and Astral Energy allowed Druids to unleash terrifying spell effects.
But Astral Energy was too conspicuous. Without sufficiently powerful natural energy to balance it, Oaks did not even dare invoke it casually.
After all, drawing upon the power of the sun, moon, and stars seemed like nothing to him as a Druid, but to other sorcerers, it was no trivial matter.
That was because the sorcerers of this world borrowed the power of various dimensional beings when casting spells and rarely used Cosmic Energy directly.
Earth was protected by three great Sanctums.
The natural energy Oaks used came from the ecosystem itself, but Cosmic Energy came from beyond it.
If foreign energy kept appearing in a fixed location, would the New York Sanctum fail to notice?
Though he did not know how the Sorcerer Supreme, Ancient One, would deal with someone as entirely benevolent as himself, Oaks had no desire to entrust his fate to the low-probability chance that someone else might show mercy before he had enough strength or bargaining chips.
Thus, the tiny bit of Astral Energy he secretly summoned and accumulated could only be converted through a special device and, well... used as gasoline.
And as Oaks cultivated diligently in hopes of carving out a place for himself in fate, the destiny belonging to Tony Stark officially came knocking.
"What did you do to me?"
"What did I do? I saved your life. I did my best to remove the shrapnel from your chest, but there's still quite a bit left. Once it reaches your heart, you're as good as dead."
In a gloomy Afghan cave, this was the first exchange between the finally awakened Tony and the suspicious, balding, bespectacled middle-aged man before him, who whistled as he busily fiddled with what looked like a pot atop something resembling a furnace.
"But it's rather surprising... your wounds healed much faster than I expected, and you seem to have regained consciousness earlier than anticipated. Looks like you're in far better physical shape than you appear."
Dr. Yinsen wore an easygoing smile. Tony's awakening pleased him greatly, though he did not show it.
And Tony, having finally understood that he had to rely on the electromagnet in his chest and the car battery beside him to stay alive, had undoubtedly suffered a tremendous blow—
Of course, as an exceptionally arrogant genius, he would never show any emotion born of that blow on his face while others were present.
He rubbed the Acorn Bracelet still on his left wrist, presumably because it was far too ordinary to have been taken away—the acorns on it had already turned black halfway around.
Setting aside the shrapnel in his chest, most of the injuries on his body had been reduced to little more than scars.
The Acorn Bracelet could help him recover from his injuries, but it could not remove the shrapnel in his chest.
With a quiet sigh, Tony surveyed his surroundings and spotted the surveillance camera directly facing them.
And the person behind the scenes, having discovered that he was awake, did not give him any more time before personally coming to meet the man known as "the most notorious mass murderer in American history."
After being lectured and forced to accept a brutal reality he had 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 had better hold out...
I've got one hell of an idea now. When I get back, I won't envy those transformation tricks of yours anymore!"
At the same time, he learned for the first time about his savior—Ho Yinsen, a physics doctor and fellow captive whose hometown was the small town of Gulmira.
And the enemy they had to fight—the Ten Rings.
In the Afghan mountains where he had been captured, within this dark cave, as a prisoner and with a pile of scrap metal, Tony Stark took a great stride forward in the desperate crucible of life and death toward his destiny—
The era-defining miniature Arc Reactor, and the Mark I Combat Armor.
Yet things did not go as smoothly as they had imagined.
After all, they remained under the enemy's surveillance.
"We need a little more time."
With the detached ease of someone who had seen through everything, Yinsen looked at Tony, who wore the armor and was still waiting for the control program to download. A flash of reluctance crossed Yinsen's eyes as Tony stubbornly insisted that they follow the plan. Then Yinsen turned and picked up the assault rifle from the ground:
"I'll buy you some time!"
"Yinsen!"
When Tony, burning with incomparable fury, broke through the Ten Rings' blockade using the time Yinsen had bought him and saw him again, Yinsen was already lying in a pool of blood, barely alive.
He was, after all, only a scientist without any military training.
"We agreed. Follow the plan."
"My plan... was always this."
"You still have to see your family."
"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 all this with your own eyes."
An Acorn Bracelet fell beside Yinsen, and the Iron Man gauntlet crushed its last three normally colored acorns.
Remembering the earnest look in Oaks's eyes when he had given him the bracelet, Tony struggled to use his thick leather-gloved hands to crudely stuff them into Yinsen's mouth.
"Live, please!"
The Ten Rings was originally indeed called the Ten Commandments. Even the Mandarin in Iron Man 3 wore prop Ten Commandments.
But for well-known reasons, "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" was renamed "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," the Mandarin became Xu Wenwu, the Ten Commandments with ten powers became the Ten Rings of Iron Wire Fist, and even the Mongolian script on the Ten Commandments' emblem was changed into Chinese characters...
At least in the MCU, the Ten Commandments no longer existed. This work consistently uses the Ten Rings instead.
Before you continue