With money, a man was a hero; without it, life was hard.
That saying put it well. Since transmigrating, Li Ang had gone from penniless, without even a phone of his own, to a billionaire, all through one word.
Robbery!
As expected, Kingpin submitted.
Li Ang did not care whether Kingpin had truly submitted to him. He only cared whether the man could provide him with benefits.
He needed someone obedient. As for someone who disobeyed, he did not mind putting someone else in charge of that so-called empire.
Soon, all the paperwork for his new identity was complete.
And that was not all. Good things came in pairs.
[Mission two: Bird of Freedom (completed)] [Mission reward has been issued.]
The Magic Resistance Cloak was now his as well.
Li Ang really liked items like this that could increase his magic resistance.
Because whether it was Chaos Magic or the Infinity Stones, they all fell on the magical side of things.
With the Magic Resistance Cloak, he would at least have a countermeasure if he encountered them in the future, rather than being completely powerless to fight back.
At this point, Li Ang finally had a place to stay. Now that he had money and an estate of his own, what should he do next?
Exactly!
Li Ang had no particularly lofty ideals. He climbed upward to enter high society and live a lowlife's life.
Women came and went at the estate. Every night, all that remained in the garden were flying thighs and heaving curves!
Within a few days, Li Ang had collected every skin color, and even completed the zodiac...
And all of it stopped when he received a phone call.
Seeing Tony Stark's name on his phone, Li Ang sat up in bed. The girls on either side were still sound asleep, the lingering exhaustion on their faces speaking of last night's wildness.
His superhuman physique had enhanced everything about Li Ang. As for his ability to fly... of course that had come in handy too.
Back in the present, once Li Ang answered, Tony's teasing voice came through.
"Been keeping yourself busy these past few days?"
After Li Ang left, Tony had JARVIS access Stark Technology's satellites.
Then he found a few girls who had come out of Li Ang's estate and asked them about everything.
None of it surprised him, and he did not even think it was a big deal. He had done plenty of the same things Li Ang had, at his eighteenth birthday party.
Hearing Tony's teasing, Li Ang walked into the estate's garden in his bathrobe. "You could say that. So, what does a busy man like Tony want with me?"
"Remember the armor you brought back for me?"
On the other end, Tony looked at the wreckage he had smashed out in front of him and felt he needed to rope someone into doing the heavy lifting.
And among the people he knew, Li Ang was the only one who was both trustworthy and powerful.
As for the armor, he already had plenty of ideas, all modeled on Li Ang, such as flight and lasers.
Hearing that, Li Ang pictured Tony swinging a sledgehammer into a wall.
In other words, Tony was about to start building his armor, which meant Iron Monger would appear soon too. He just wondered how Iron Monger would change without the MK1 Prototype.
"So, what do you need?"
"I need you to lend me a hand and test the armor's various functions while you're at it. It'll take a long time... but the pay will be generous too. What do you say?"
Speaking of payment, Tony had done a very good job of keeping his previous promise.
As time passed, the reporters' earlier coverage had brought Li Ang quite a bit more Presence.
That was how gossip worked. It spread little by little, and faded little by little too.
So Li Ang needed to show his face from time to time.
The upcoming Iron Monger incident, for example, was a perfect opportunity!
"Sure, no problem." Li Ang agreed at once.
It was no exaggeration to say that Li Ang was very willing to work with the rich man who treated money like it was nothing more than anyone else in the Marvel Universe.
"Great. I'll send you the address in a moment."
Within seconds of hanging up, an account called JARVIS sent the address to his phone.
Li Ang memorized the address, glanced around his garden, and said, "See the guests out. I need to go away for a few days."
Several nearby bodyguards dressed in black immediately did as instructed.
Many of these men were Kingpin's subordinates. For now, Kingpin was being very obedient.
Just as he was about to fly away, Li Ang slapped his forehead and instructed the bodyguards, "Oh, right. Have a suit made for me, following the design in my bedroom."
With that, Li Ang flew high into the sky and headed straight for Tony's seaside mansion.
Only when the sonic booms faded into the distance did the bodyguards below breathe a sigh of relief.
They had not forgotten what Kingpin had said before they came.
"Don't show the slightest discontent. If this gentleman is unhappy in the slightest, I'll chop off your limbs and throw you in the river to feed the fish!"
Li Ang enjoyed the feeling of flying through the clouds and soon arrived at Tony's seaside mansion.
He had to admit, rich people really knew how to enjoy themselves.
The entire ocean-facing side of the mansion was glass, offering an unobstructed view of the horizon.
Just standing at the window each day, watching the tides rise and fall, was enough to make that considerable investment worthwhile.
The morning sun was rising as Li Ang landed in front of the iron gate. After the camera on it turned a few times, the gate opened automatically, accompanied by JARVIS's voice.
"Welcome, Mr. Li Ang!"
Li Ang really liked this kind of artificial intelligence, but upgrading the system to an AI like JARVIS would require quite a bit of Presence.
At least for now, he could not redeem it.
Following JARVIS's directions, he arrived at the garage, where more than a dozen classic sports cars, impossible to buy elsewhere even with money, were neatly arranged.
Li Ang saw that a workbench had already been cleared nearby.
Several pieces of metal armor lay on it, densely packed with wiring that made his eyes swim just looking at it.
"You're faster than I expected." Tony did not even turn around, remaining focused on the wiring in front of him.
Getting to watch Tony Stark build his armor by hand left even Li Ang a little excited.
"This is the armor you want to build?" Li Ang stepped forward and began examining the wiring with his X-ray vision.
After looking it over, he had to say he did not understand a thing.
It was too intricate. Like a handmade watch, it consisted entirely of tiny components, with every detail connected to even more.
Seeing the troubled look on Li Ang's face, Tony looked as though he had finally regained the upper hand.
He pointed at the holographic projection nearby, intent on showing off. "My arc reactor has an energy conversion efficiency of 92.7%. The vectoring nozzles use a non-axisymmetric deflection design, with a closed-loop response time below three milliseconds. The underlying flight control runs six-degree-of-freedom rigid-body dynamics plus Kalman filtering..."
Blah blah blah, blah blah blah.
Listening to one technical term after another spill from Tony's mouth made Li Ang's head ache.
It really felt like listening to his physics teacher spout incomprehensible gibberish back in school.
Finally, Tony snapped his fingers, and the holographic projection moved in front of Li Ang. Folding his arms, he raised an eyebrow. "What do you think, Mr. Community Welfare?"
Li Ang could not rebut Tony on technological grounds.
In fact, the number of people in the entire Marvel Universe who could do so could be counted on one hand, but Li Ang did not care about any of that.
Li Ang scratched his cheek, wearing an expression that said Tony was talking pure bullshit. "You made those words up."
"Made them up? Good God..."
Tony slapped his forehead and tossed the tool in his hand aside. "Maybe I should consider signing you up for a class."
Li Ang really liked the armor. After all, who could say no to a high-tech suit of Iron Man Armor?
But as time went on, his strength would absolutely become something the armor could not match.
Li Ang folded his arms and leaned against a car. "Not much use. You can't outfly me. Believe it?"
That immediately stirred Tony's competitive spirit.
"Can't outfly you? Want to race?"