"Teammates" Are Meant to Be Exploited

"Tony built an Arc Reactor out of trash in a cave, and you can't even replicate it?!" Obadiah stared at the engineers cowering before him, his roar deafening.

The lead engineer stammered, "Sir, we're not Tony. He's a genius..."

"Shut up! I want results, not excuses!"

The more Obadiah roared, the angrier he got. He was this close to firing the chief engineer on the spot.

"Mr. Obadiah, it seems I've arrived at just the right time." A voice came from the lab entrance.

Obadiah whirled around and saw Fu Haoran walking in with a disheveled middle-aged man.

The man had messy blond hair, grease-stained coveralls, and eyes that carried a scrutinizing contempt.

"Who is he?" Even with his explosive temper, Obadiah had to force down his anger and ask, given the group Fu Haoran had brought.

Fu Haoran ignored Obadiah's resentful glare, stepped aside to make room, and introduced, "You should recognize him. The son of Anton Vanko, one of the founders of Stark Industries—Ivan Vanko."

Obadiah's expression shifted from confusion to shock.

He was a veteran of Stark's company. He knew exactly what the name "Vanko" meant.

Howard Stark's former partner, co-designer of the Arc Reactor, later exiled... a traitor?

Obadiah stared at Ivan. "You can really build it?"

Ivan twitched the corner of his mouth, a toothpick dangling between his lips, and pulled out an object—an Arc Reactor, plain as day!

The moment Obadiah saw the Arc Reactor in Ivan's hand, his eyes lit up with frightening intensity.

Power armor could help him take down Tony, but this Arc Reactor could let him control the entire new energy market. Its commercial value was higher than ten thousand suits of armor!

Suppressing the urge to snatch it, Obadiah looked at Ivan with nothing but greed in his eyes.

Fu Haoran walked up to Ivan, studied him for a few seconds, and spoke: "Your reactor tech isn't bad, but the cycle rate per second is too low. Double the rotation speed, and energy output could increase by sixty percent."

Ivan froze. Just as he was about to argue, he ran a quick calculation in his head, and his face changed instantly. He bit down harder on the toothpick.

He had to admit Fu Haoran was right.

At the same time, his wariness of Fu Haoran deepened.

"One look and he nails the core flaw? Either this Asian's tech is leagues above mine, or every move I make is under his surveillance!"

Both possibilities sent a chill down Ivan's spine.

What Ivan didn't know was that Fu Haoran had simply stolen Tony's lines from the original story to point out the issue.

Fu Haoran ignored him and turned to Obadiah. "Mr. Stane, the sample is delivered as agreed. You can arrange the tests. If there's nothing else, we have things to do."

"Things to do?" Ivan frowned, displeased. "Shouldn't we be settling scores with Tony right now?"

Fu Haoran looked up at him like he was an idiot. "How do you plan to do that? Walk up to Tony, flash your weapon, and challenge him to a duel?"

"Beat him until he looks pathetic?"

"Trust me, you'll just get yourself arrested." Fu Haoran's tone was flat. "Then Tony will smile and say, 'Nice copy. Where'd you steal the tech?'"

"If that's your idea of revenge, I can have Mr. Stane send you over right now."

Ivan's face darkened like a burnt pot.

That was exactly what he'd been thinking. Find a public place, challenge Tony one-on-one.

Defeat him, and prove he was the better man.

But after Fu Haoran pointed out the flaws, he wasn't so sure his plan was sound.

"What's your brilliant idea?" Ivan gritted out.

"Win, but win beautifully." Fu Haoran spoke with confidence.

"Knowing Tony's personality, he'll be developing a new suit soon. He'll take it out for a test run and show off."

"Once he screws up, we'll beat him to the punch and announce that you, Ivan Vanko, are Iron Man."

"He'll definitely come after you. Then, in a public setting, you defeat him head-on."

Fu Haoran paused and spat out five words: "To kill, strike the heart."

Ivan's eyes lit up.

"Right. Whoever wins is Iron Man!"

He knew Tony too well. Dragging that playboy off his pedestal in front of the whole world would hurt worse than killing him.

"Good." Ivan nodded, the fire of revenge blazing in his eyes.

Fu Haoran turned to Obadiah and instructed, "Mr. Stane, I need you to go to Tony's place and retrieve one of Howard Stark's belongings."

"A city planning model."

Obadiah frowned. "What use is that piece of junk?"

"It contains the core supplementary technology for the Arc Reactor." Fu Haoran explained. "Howard couldn't build it back then because he lacked the materials."

Hearing it was related to the Arc, Obadiah agreed without hesitation.

Over the next few days, everything proceeded according to plan.

Ivan stopped his taunts, throwing himself entirely into the armor modifications. Several structural optimization suggestions he proposed were highly constructive.

"We should install AI systems in all the armors to improve control efficiency." Ivan held up the design schematics, speaking to Fu Haoran. "Machines are more reliable than people."

"No." Fu Haoran refused outright, his fingertip swiping across the AI module position on the blueprint, crossing it out.

"Why?" Ivan frowned.

"I don't trust AI. I trust my own flesh and blood more." Fu Haoran said with a straight face, but inwardly he knew that in the original story, Ivan had used AI to control all his robots—this was a trap he couldn't step into.

Of course, regarding the control of a certain Blue Bird, Fu Haoran wasn't too worried.

After all, the T'au next door were using their AI just fine, weren't they?

Thinking this, Fu Haoran relented slightly: "But an AI assistance system is acceptable. It can only handle data calculations, not participate in decision-making."

Ivan wanted to argue further, but seeing Fu Haoran's firm stance, he had to drop it.

Not long after, an assistant carried an exquisite city model into the lab: "Mr. Stane, Mr. Fu, we've got it."

"What use is this toy?" Ivan leaned in, full of curiosity.

Fu Haoran didn't explain. He signaled his subordinate to place the model on the scanning table.

A laser swept over the model. Data on the computer screen flowed rapidly, eventually coalescing into a brand-new elemental structure, its light pure and stable.

The toothpick in Ivan's mouth clattered to the floor. His eyes went wide as saucers as he stared blankly at the screen: "This... this is a new element? More than ten times more stable than palladium!"

"Did Howard discover it?" He turned to ask.

"No." Fu Haoran shook his head. "He copied it."

Ivan's face immediately twisted with contempt: "As expected, a habitual plagiarist."

"Mr. Vanko, we now need to use this new element to build a new Arc Reactor." Fu Haoran gave the order. "The power output must be enough to drive all the armor's laser weapon systems."

The new work pressed forward at a rapid pace. On the surface, the three parties collaborated seamlessly, but beneath it, each harbored their own schemes.

Obadiah stood to the side, watching the two reach an agreement, a faint, hidden smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

In his eyes, Ivan was the knife to deal with Tony, and Fu Haoran was the craftsman forging that knife. Once Tony was eliminated and Stark Industries was under his control, these two would have outlived their usefulness. Then, all the achievements would be his.

"Make sure to pass it down—have people watch them. All technical blueprints must be backed up!" He leaned close to his assistant's ear, giving low instructions, his gaze sinister.

Ivan Vanko slumped in his chair, his exhaustion replaced by a morbid excitement.

"Defeating Tony is just the first step. What I want is to erase the name Stark from its pedestal in front of the entire world, replacing it with Vanko."

"Tony's suffering, the disgrace of the Stark family—they will be the finest offering to my father."

Fu Haoran took in the expressions of both men, his heart utterly calm.

Fu Haoran raised a hand and made a gesture toward the floating Servo-Skull. The Servo-Skull flickered faintly, its electronic voice extremely low: "Core data backed up, including new element structure and armor optimization parameters."

The reason Fu Haoran was driving all of this was simply to use Obadiah's resources and Ivan's technology to perfect the core data of the Arc Reactor and power armor.

"Phase one is to leverage the Stark Industries platform to fully master the core technology of the Arc Reactor and power armor, pack it all up and bring it back to the Warhammer World, while reaping the benefits from this chaos and maximizing profits."

"Every additional technology I master here gives me one more chance to survive when I return."

"But just this alone won't yield a high enough timeline divergence rate. My goal can't just be a set of Iron Man suits. I need a grander objective."

Suddenly, Fu Haoran saw a news alert on his phone about a budget increase for the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. Instantly, a bold, crazy plan emerged.

"If I could steal those three Helicarriers, would the rewards from the Reincarnator World be even greater?!"

Thinking this, Fu Haoran couldn't help but glance at Obadiah.

"It seems it's time to make this generous partner contribute a little more to my true goal."