Tony's improvements

Tony stared at the IP address on the screen, his fingers tapping rapidly on the table. The lab lights were still on, their cold light casting a metallic sheen on the armored frame.

Ye Mo leaned against the control panel, a patch of ice forming in his palm that crumbled into powder with a gentle rub. He didn't speak, but his eyes told Tony —don't rush down to look for them.

"If we act now, it's like telling them we know," Ye Mo said, scattering crushed ice into the recycling bin. "They've been keeping a backdoor in place for a while now; they definitely have a backup plan."

Tony turned his head. "So you mean?"

"Don't touch that spot on the ground yet." Ye Mo walked to the main control panel and brought up the armor system diagram. "What we need to do most right now is to let the armor develop its own brain and be able to recognize who the bad guys are."

Tony squinted at him for two seconds, then suddenly laughed, "You mean... I'm getting my baby vaccinated?"

"Pretty much." Ye Mo nodded. "The virus was able to infiltrate because it resembles a normal program. So we'll teach the system to read its 'temperature,' and isolate any module that shows abnormal activity."

Tony stood up, walked behind the holographic projection, and muttered to himself as he pulled out some code, "Dynamic behavior recognition + multi-layered sandbox verification... this thing might be even more powerful than S.H.I.E.L.D..'s firewall."

"If you can really do it, every superhero in the universe will want to buy insurance from you." Ye Mo said, raising his hand and pressing it to the ground. Cold air spread along the floor, instantly condensing into a platform half a person's height, its surface as smooth as a mirror, but with subtle energy patterns flowing inside.

"What is this?" Tony leaned closer to take a look.

"Test bench." Ye Mo stretched his wrists. "It's a pure ice crystal structure, and its electrical and thermal conductivity can be adjusted. You can use it to simulate the energy fluctuations during a virus invasion and see if the new system can stop it."

Tony reached out and touched the ice, then looked at Ye Mo: "Your ability is getting more and more outrageous. Last time you could just casually form an ice wall, but this time you can use it as a circuit board."

"It's something you learn through practice." Ye Mo shrugged. "You can't rely on luck every time you get into a fight."

Without further ado, Tony immediately loaded the improved defense module into the backup armor unit. After the system started, a series of red warning signals popped up on the holographic interface.

"Start simulated attack." Tony pressed the confirm button.

Ripples spread across the surface of the ice platform, followed by a slight energy leak in the buffer zone of the armor's right arm, just like the virus module had been revived.

Ye Mo immediately activated Thermal Vision and stared at the internal Circuit. The temperature curve jumped, but he found that the system reacted extremely quickly this time—before the abnormal current could spread, three layers of virtual isolation walls had automatically risen, locking down the problem area.

"Stopped it." Ye Mo withdrew his gaze. "Not a single one was missed."

"Again." Tony sneered, increasing the intensity of his attacks.

The second simulation was even more realistic. The virus data packet was packaged as routine maintenance instructions, with even the timestamp matching the normal logs. But just as it attempted to connect to the main control chip, the system suddenly popped up a verification request, demanding that the other party provide a dynamic encryption key.

"I didn't set that!" Tony's eyes widened.

"It's something that was built into the underlying protocol you wrote yesterday," Ye Mo said, pointing to the code snippet. "You added a random challenge mechanism; only legitimate terminals can respond."

"Oh right..." Tony slapped his forehead, "I'd completely forgotten about that move."

The third attack was manually triggered by Ye Mo. He used his Ice Manipulation Ability to create a high-frequency oscillating current inside the ice platform, simulating a remote wake-up signal. As a result, the system immediately initiated reverse tracking, not only severing the connection but also recording the location of the false signal source.

"Alright." Ye Mo turned off the Thermal Vision. "Three defenses were successfully defended; no hidden heat-generating nodes Regeneration. The defense rating can be set at S level."

Tony looked at the final report, let out a long sigh of relief, and finally relaxed his shoulders.

"It's done." He leaned back in his chair. "Now my armor finally has some immunity."

Ye Mo put away the ice platform, and as the chill dissipated, the entire platform turned into steam and vanished. Just as he was about to speak, a notification sound suddenly rang in his mind:

[Armor upgrade successful, Gene Spiral Tower unlocked to level 8]

He paused for half a second, then closed his eyes to sense. Deep within his consciousness, the spiral tower slowly rotated; the seventh floor's light hadn't faded, while the eighth floor had already lit up. A new ability combination slot appeared, empty, but already ready to be pre-loaded in analysis mode.

"What's wrong?" Tony asked, noticing his strange expression.

"It's nothing." Ye Mo opened his eyes, a smile playing on his lips. "It just feels like... there's an extra slot in my brain."

"You make it sound like I'm upgrading a system." Tony stood up and stretched. "But you really were a big help. If it weren't for that ice platform you built, I wouldn't have been able to verify its effectiveness so quickly."

"The price will double next time," Ye Mo smiled. "After all, high-end technical services require professional technicians."

"Come on," Tony rolled his eyes. "If you dare raise prices, I'll put you on Stark Industries' blacklist, and you won't even be allowed to use their screws anymore."

"Threatening me?" Ye Mo tilted his head. "Then explain why you stole my Vibranium fragment last week."

"That's called borrowing!" Tony immediately retorted. "Don't you understand the concept of sharing research resources? Besides, I'll return it to you!"

"What you returned was a fragment." Ye Mo squinted. "A corner is missing. Don't think I didn't notice."

As the two were arguing, a green notification suddenly popped up on the secondary screen of the main console: [Antivirus module is running stably; system security level upgraded to S level]

Tony glanced down, said nothing more, and opened a new interface to begin debugging the next phase of the protection protocol. His fingers flew across the keyboard as he adjusted the parameters, muttering, "Next, I need to add an automatic decoy system. Whoever tries to infiltrate, send them fake data to make them think they've succeeded."

Ye Mo stood motionless to the side, his gaze fixed on the armored frame. He knew the enemy was still lurking in the shadows; Carl Rein's identity was still unknown, and the underground storage room hadn't been searched. But things were different now.

They are no longer passively defusing bombs.

Instead, they have already learned how to make bulletproof vests.

"Hey," Tony suddenly looked up, "What are you standing there daydreaming about? Come over here and help me check if there are any vulnerabilities in this encryption logic."

Ye Mo walked over, about to speak, when he caught a glimpse of the surveillance footage out of the corner of his eye.

A wisp of white mist seemed to drift out from the crack in the door of the storage room in Block B.