Just as Pepper fell into despair, Mark had already left the space station and flown toward Afghanistan.
Three months had passed by then. According to the original storyline, Tony's personality should have undergone a tremendous transformation by now.
If Mark went looking for him now, he probably wouldn't be stopped by The Ancient One anymore.
The situation was exactly as Mark had expected. This time, he had been flying over Kunar Province in Afghanistan for less than half an hour when his keen hearing detected something unusual.
Inside a hidden cave twenty kilometers away.
Tony's hair was disheveled, and his face was covered in a thick beard. He was bare-chested, with a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around his chest.
Beneath the bandage was a miniature cold-fusion reactor that Tony had built himself. It flashed with scorching light, and he had named it the First-Generation Miniature Arc Reactor.
It was precisely because this crude Miniature Arc Reactor attracted the shrapnel lodged in Tony's chest that he had barely managed to survive.
Tony was panting heavily as he used crude tools to make weapons for the Ten Rings according to their demands.
Every breath and movement tugged at the wound in his chest, bringing him tearing pain.
Tony had never suffered such agony before. The old Tony would have collapsed on the ground and lost the ability to move.
But over the past three months, Tony had grown accustomed to this pain.
Supported by his tremendous willpower, his right hand gripping the screwdriver was frighteningly steady as he tightened each component on the table.
A glimmer of hope lit up Tony's reddened eyes.
Because what he was making now wasn't a weapon for the Ten Rings at all, but a humanoid suit of armor he had designed in secret!
The suit used no