Power Test

A few days later.

A rainy day.

Dark clouds rolled across the sky, and the drizzle turned the sea outside Stark Mansion into a field of honeycomb briquettes.

Underground garage.

Leon wore a skintight sensor suit, with circular metal discs attached all over his body. Sensor wires extended from the ends of the discs to a massive machine.

"You sure this big hunk of iron can test my strength?" Leon asked, rolling his wrists.

Today was the day he and Tony had agreed to test his strength and new abilities.

So at dawn, when the sun struggled to cast a few rays through the gaps in the endless dark clouds,

Tony eagerly dragged him out of bed.

After washing up and having breakfast, the two arrived at the underground garage.

On the wall facing the sea, a circular iron block with a three-meter radius had been secured.

This was the tool for testing strength.

"Why do you always state facts in the form of a question?" Tony asked confidently.

He explained, "Half a year ago, after you went into space, I had a feeling this day would come, so I built this strength tester in advance."

"Most of its materials come from a tungsten alloy I specially synthesized."

"High melting point, high density, high wear resistance."

"A million-ton object placed on it wouldn't deform it, and impacts of tens of thousands of tons couldn't damage it."

"The alloy I created during the process of synthesizing this tester would be generations ahead of its time even if it were used to build warships."

Tony stood before the computer desk. "So rest assured. I guarantee you, there's no way you can damage it!"

Leon remained skeptical. "Tony, you know you look exactly like you did when we sparred a few days ago, right?"

Tony choked on that. "That's different. Anyway, all you need to do is stand in front of the tester and punch with all your strength. Leave the rest to me!"

"No, that isn't safe," Leon said. "At least put on your armor first."

Tony slapped his forehead. "I'm more than ten meters away from you, and that still isn't safe? Since when did you get so full of yourself?"

"Put on the armor," Leon repeated.

"Fine, I'll wear it!" Tony raised both hands. "As long as it puts our little princess at ease, I'll wear whatever you want."

The two bands around his wrists glowed red.

Seconds later, a red-and-gold flight pod flew in from outside the garage, rapidly transforming into armor that wrapped around Tony.

Mark III. Over the past few days, Tony had directly replicated Leon's data to build this new armor.

Other than its power source not being made from New Element,

it possessed almost all the same functions as the Mark VII from the movies.

The Mark VII was armor that only appeared during the first phase of the Avengers. Its functions were absurdly powerful.

Parenthetical note: It had only been completed so quickly because Leon helped out.

Another parenthetical note: Tony had paid special attention to the liquid circulation function and deliberately removed it in front of Leon. Surely he would suffer for it in the future, then surrender to the "it just works" law.

"Now we can begin, right?" Tony stretched his limbs and gestured. "I'm looking forward to your performance."

Leon curled his lip speechlessly. This old man even had to copy his lines.

"Let's hope this tester you built is as tough as your mouth."

He stood before the pitch-black tester and took a deep breath. For a moment, the airflow throughout the basement began to surge into a gale.

Tony had never seen anything like this. He looked around at the papers whipping wildly through the air, utterly dumbfounded.

Then he saw Leon slowly lower into a crouch, the muscles across his body swelling like the most perfect stone carvings.

"Why does this... feel like something's not quite right...?"

Tony stared blankly as Leon let out a low shout and threw a punch.

Then the entire underground garage turned upside down in an instant!

Rumble!

A roar like a missile exploding right beside him filled Tony's entire world.

Everywhere he looked was rubble and clouds of dust.

The sudden gale blew Tony off his feet. Tables and chairs slammed into him, threatening to carry him away with the hurricane into somewhere unknown.

—If JARVIS had not activated the armor's thrusters in time, Tony would definitely have vanished from the underground garage.

Fortunately, the commotion did not last long.

More than ten seconds later, the world-ending sensation faded.

The entire underground garage was filled with dust, and visibility was nearly zero.

"Cough, cough... What happened...?" Tony shut off the thrusters, landed on the ground, and staggered a few steps.

Then he heard Leon exhale.

"Hoo!!"

Another gust of wind swept through, though this one was far gentler. It only blew away some wreckage and the smoke and dust hanging in the air.

Now the view was clear.

But Tony's brain crashed.

The underground garage, once decorated in a minimalist style, now looked like a war-ravaged ruin in Syria.

It was riddled with holes, like a condemned building.

Everything that had once been in the room—glass, machinery, lights...—was gone.

The dozen or so limited-edition sports cars parked in the underground garage were gone too.

Even the tester on the wall, which he had believed could withstand nearly any impact, had been reduced to an empty hole.

Beyond that hole lay the misty sea beneath the rain.

"Oh my God..."

By afternoon.

The location was a grassy field on the outskirts of Los Angeles.

The people were still Leon and Tony, the two brothers.

The drizzle continued to fall. Leon wore a shirt as he hammered away at a massive circular iron block with a clang, clang, clang.

"You said this big iron block of yours could withstand my strength!"

He complained, "But I didn't even use half my power before it went from flat to convex."

"And it fell into the ocean, so I had to dive down to the seabed and fish it back up."

"Oh, give it a rest, Leon."

Tony stood fifty meters away in his Iron Man armor, operating a computer to calibrate the data as he replied over the radio.

"Not even God could have guessed your strength would be that ridiculous."

"Who knew that after only half a year in the sun, your strength would grow so massively? It was practically exponential growth."

"Look at the three months you spent sunbathing in Los Angeles half a year ago."

"More than ninety days only increased your strength by a little over four hundred tons."

"JARVIS and I built a model based on the data from that period."

"We predicted that after you returned, your strength should be somewhere between one thousand and five thousand tons, with a speed no greater than Mach 5."

"Who could have imagined you'd be this strong!"

"And look at that TV show, Smallville. Clark Kent still couldn't fly even after he got to high school, and he'd been in the sun for more than ten years!"

Leon stopped what he was doing and pressed his earpiece. "You watch Superman TV shows too? I thought that one was pretty well made. It showed Superman's emotional journey as he grew up."

"But you probably didn't watch the later parts. Superman's feats get pretty outrageous after that!"

Tony retorted, "Even then, he didn't get stronger as fast as you did!"

"Well, maybe it's because I'm already an adult. Or maybe I absorbed sunlight more efficiently in space?" Leon guessed.

He gave the tester another hard punch. "All right! The tester's back to its original shape. So how are we testing it now?"