Tony's Futile Effort

"Ah!" Tony Stark jolted awake from another nightmare.

"Damn it! I clearly took sleeping pills!"

Tony climbed out of bed irritably, picked up the glass on his nightstand, and gulped down a cup of ice water.

Once he was a little more alert, he headed straight downstairs to the laboratory in his pajamas.

"Jarvis, search for any Mutant whose ability can continuously give people nightmares."

"Searching for information. Estimated time: one hour and twenty-three minutes."

Tony took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and lay on the sofa, slowly taking occasional sips. His expression was gloomy, and his eyes flickered.

He suspected that his recurring nightmares came from some Mutant's ability. The purpose might have been money, or perhaps they wanted to use his social standing to improve the situation of Mutants.

"Not a bad method," he murmured. "But you picked the wrong person!"

He casually tossed aside the beer bottle, got up, and began reviewing information.

Thanks to his status, he had access to plenty of classified materials and information. Even for content unavailable to him, he could have Jarvis steal it.

Very quickly, he obtained a great deal of publicly available research on Mutants.

As for things that could not be made public, things that could not even be mentioned, they simply were not connected to the internet. No matter how skilled he was or how powerful his supercomputer's processing speed was, it was useless.

His genius mind began operating at high speed. He skimmed through the material, devouring and absorbing the research findings on Mutants.

"Information search complete. No Mutant information matching the ability has been found. This search covered all public information, as well as portions of databases belonging to the government, military, research institutions, corporate groups, and others. However, it cannot be ruled out that relevant Mutant information exists outside these databases."

"I know. That isn't important anymore." Tony pushed away the materials before him. "Jarvis, I need some things."

He began dictating a long list of materials for Jarvis to order.

A few seconds later, Jarvis replied, "Order complete. Estimated delivery time: seven days."

"Too slow. I want them before I go to sleep tomorrow night!"

"Understood. Triple the price has been paid. All items will arrive before seven p.m. tomorrow afternoon."

Jarvis was already highly intelligent and fully accustomed to his master's habit of throwing money at problems.

"Excellent." Tony nodded in satisfaction, took out pen and paper, and began designing structural diagrams for the equipment.

He wanted to build a room that could isolate Mutant abilities and eliminate the Mutant power influencing him through nightmares.

Once he solved his own problem, he would make time to let that Mutant from the Martial Arts School have a taste of the power of money!

In front of a capitalist tycoon like him, what was that guy acting so smug for? And what was that nonsense about, "To the War God, money is meaningless"?

Once the special operations team captured him, Tony wanted to see whether he could still maintain that calm, pretentious air!

When Tony was in research mode, he was extremely energetic. He worked straight through until dawn and did not even notice when Pepper arrived.

"Hey, Tony, did you not sleep last night? What are you working on again?"

"Whoa, don't worry about me, Pepper. Once I finish assembling this thing, I'll definitely get a good night's sleep tonight. The kind where I sleep until noon tomorrow." Tony gave Pepper a hug and said with a cheeky grin.

Pepper shook her head helplessly and urged, "Tony, you need to pay attention to your health. You're already in your thirties. I don't want to see you die young."

"I get regular checkups, Pepper. I'm in great health." Tony turned serious. "Don't worry about me. I've just been a little sleep-deprived lately. Everything will be back to normal soon, I promise."

Tony sweet-talked Pepper some more until she was beaming.

After Pepper left, Tony carefully inspected his design again, then had Jarvis review it once more. Only after finding no errors did he put away the blueprints and wait for the materials to arrive so he could assemble it.

By then, it was fully daylight, and he was exhausted. He casually ate a hamburger before returning to his bedroom to sleep.

When he woke from another nightmare, the sky had already darkened.

"Damn it! These nightmares have been getting more frequent lately. I have to solve this today."

He looked up and asked, "Jarvis, where are the goods?"

"Some have already arrived and are currently in the underground storage area. The remainder is in transit and is expected to arrive within two hours. Would you like the available goods delivered to the laboratory?"

"Bring them up first. I'm assembling it now."

Tony could not wait even a moment longer. He desperately wanted a peaceful night's sleep.

He was one of the world's greatest engineers. With nothing more than a pile of crude tools, he had built the first Iron Armor in a cave. Assembling a device to isolate Mutant abilities was no challenge at all.

As the materials arrived one after another, his assembly speed increased. Finally, three hours later, he had assembled a pile of box-like devices about the size of speakers.

He carefully calibrated them and measured them with precision instruments. In the end, he confirmed that they could effectively isolate Mutant superpowers from spreading through the air.

"Excellent. I can finally get a good night's sleep tonight!" Tony straightened up, stretched his tired body, clapped his hands proudly, and looked at the masterpiece that had taken him nearly an entire day to create.

He used a cart to move all the devices into the bedroom, installed them in their calculated positions, and tested them once more. Their operating condition was perfect.

Only then did he lie back down, ready to enjoy the good sleep he had missed for so long.

Several hours later, Tony Stark woke from another nightmare.

"Ah! Why didn't it work?" Tony climbed out of bed and inspected the equipment, but it was still functioning perfectly without any faults.

He took out the blueprints again and checked them several times, yet still found no problems with the design.

He returned to the laboratory, pulled out the relevant materials again, and reread them carefully to see whether he had overlooked any critical data or information.

But unfortunately, after struggling through the entire night, he still could not find what had gone wrong.

The sun rose, streaming warm sunlight through the villa's enormous floor-to-ceiling windows and onto Tony, who sat blankly on the sofa.

After a long while, Tony finally let out a breath, and life returned to his eyes.

"Eliminate all impossibilities, and whatever remains, no matter how unbelievable, must be the truth. That guy isn't a Mutant. He's actually an alien."