Smartphones Had Arrived

"Tony, if there's nothing else, I'll get going. I can't keep staying at your place all day!" Fang Bie said.

A few more days passed. While Tony Stark remained busy with his Iron Man Armor, he had nearly mastered the English language.

He might still have struggled with a professional English exam, but he had no trouble reading and writing well enough to get by in this world.

Around then, Fang Bie found a chance to say goodbye to Tony, only for Tony to warmly insist that he stay.

A few days earlier, Tony had parted on bad terms with Obadiah Stane. He had floated the idea of an Arc Reactor, but those shareholders wouldn't believe a word he said without seeing a finished product. They wouldn't lift a finger until they saw proof.

Businessmen cared only about profit, not sentiment. Even the two men who were always portrayed on television as being as close as family could fall out over something like this.

"I don't trust Obadiah. His behavior has been deeply suspicious. He's desperate to get his hands on my technology, but he hasn't asked a single thing about what happened to me. Even if he wasn't behind the attack, there's definitely something wrong with him," Tony told Fang Bie.

He was still working on his Iron Man Armor, but unlike in the original story, he no longer felt that desperate need to save his own life. His research proceeded at a leisurely pace.

He had no real experience building armor, so he could only add the components one at a time, then piece them together step by step.

"Yeah. All I can see in his eyes is boundless greed and ambition. Especially with the stock price continuing to fall, he seems close to losing control," Fang Bie agreed.

"Even so, we still have to keep working on it. The Arc Reactor represents a powerful source of clean energy. It might not completely replace the world's existing energy sources, but a new source of energy means we can claim a big slice of the energy market."

Tony didn't give a thought to how this would cut into the profits of the world's energy magnates. He was already one of the world's top tycoons. Why would he care about that?

But Fang Bie wasn't content to sit around and freeload. He could feel that his abilities had been slightly restricted after coming to this world, though not by much. He still had some special talents at his disposal.

For instance, he had twenty years' worth of memories of basic technology that was ahead of this world's.

A few days earlier, he had seen Tony's phone: a sleek, lightweight homemade device with a futuristic projected display that could rotate sideways.

That showed the level of this world's cutting-edge technology, yet phones here were still held back by the limitations of physical keypads. Most ordinary people still used clunky, rectangular phones with buttons.

Fang Bie remembered that it wasn't until the timeline of Captain America: The Winter Soldier that a Samsung phone appeared in Captain America's hands. He had also looked into it: there was no phone company called Apple in this world. Instead, Stark Industries' computer systems and those of the Microsoft Group dominated the market, while Apple had become an electronics conglomerate like Sony.

"Tony, energy might greatly increase your company's stock value, but it won't bring in massive orders to keep your company profitable the way weapons do," Fang Bie said bluntly.

He knew that Tony trusted him to some extent, but when it came to technology and business, Tony wouldn't take much advice from him. So he had to hit him with something big.

"So why not try another approach? For instance, phones!" Fang Bie picked up a tablet from the nearby table. It was one of Stark Industries' products.

"What good are phones? My smart devices can already replace computers!" Tony clearly wasn't interested. In his eyes, after working with so much advanced technology, consumer products like these had no future.

Still, he felt a genuine curiosity about Fang Bie, a man of mysterious origins, so he didn't reject the idea outright. Instead, he wanted to hear what Fang Bie would say next.

Fang Bie knew the course smartphones had taken in his own world, so he wasn't swayed by Tony's opinion—even though Tony Stark was the world's most brilliant mechanical engineer.

"You top tycoons have resources other people can't even imagine, so of course you don't worry about this. But have you ever thought about what it would be like if you could transfer all the functions of a computer into a tiny phone and carry it around with you?" Fang Bie swiped a small, square-shaped phone over from the virtual display beside him.

He had asked Jarvis to build it according to his own design over the past few days. Aside from existing only in the virtual world, it was practically identical to the Apple phones he remembered.

"Look, it's a phone that fits in your hand. It has no unnecessary buttons, just a single 'home' button in the middle. Everything is done on the screen, and you can find every program you need on it!"

Before Fang Bie could finish his introduction, Tony had already taken the virtual phone from his hand.

He lowered his head and studied it for a long time, as if testing some of its settings. The minimalist screen and the block-like software gave him an entirely new experience.

It was completely different from using computer software. Even he found the feeling of holding the world in his hand hard to forget.

"Minimalist design, a mechanical concept that transcends time, and a brilliant idea!" Tony exclaimed. "Fang Bie, you're a genius! Stark Industries has a complete software development pipeline and a mature software business of its own. All we need is enough phones, and I could hold a launch event right now!"

Tony wasn't just a design genius; he was also a genius at software and engineering. He could see just how much ingenuity and creativity had gone into this little phone. He also knew what an enormous storm it would unleash if it ever appeared in the world.

"Jarvis, use Fang Bie's design to assemble one of these phones in the lab. You can use any materials you need. Use the RS-190 chip I designed earlier, and I'll give you permission to install the software!"

Tony acted as soon as the idea came to him, immediately ordering the robotic butler beside him to get to work.

A host of mechanical arms suddenly extended into the lab. They pulled equipment from hidden compartments and corners, then rapidly assembled it all in front of the three of them.

No one but Fang Bie could have guessed that this phone taking shape before them contained the combined ingenuity of an entire business empire.

Stark Industries wasn't the world's richest or most profitable company. But once it had a weapon like this, it would be.