Chapter Summaries

Ye Mo and Tony trained together to improve their combat coordination and planned to sabotage the Titan Forge test before its data could be stolen. Their preparations were interrupted when ice began spreading through an external ventilation shaft, though Ye Mo insisted he had not caused it.

• Ye Mo and Tony practiced combat simulations, combining ice defenses and ambushes with Tony’s attacks, and Ye Mo unlocked the fourth floor of the Gene Spiral Tower.
• Ye Mo and Tony planned to disrupt the Titan Forge test: Ye Mo would interfere with its readings while Tony planted a virus, and Tony would pose as bait to encourage data theft.
• They refined their tactics and synchronized attacks to Ye Mo’s heartbeat, improving their coordination through successive simulations.
• Tony proposed combining Ye Mo’s ice powers with his propulsion system, but an alarm revealed abnormal cooling and spreading ice in an external ventilation shaft.
• Ye Mo pointed out that the ice was not his doing.

Ye Mo and Tony tested an ice-based thruster upgrade that made Tony’s armor faster and harder to track. As mysterious ice crept toward the energy core and reacted to their movements, they pretended not to notice so Ye Mo could trace its signal source.

• Ye Mo created high-density ice cores that released cold mist, and Tony installed them in front of his armor’s leg thrusters.
• Tony tested the upgrade and found that it increased his speed and agility while reducing his infrared signature.
• Ye Mo and Tony noticed the spreading ice approaching the energy core and suspected it was gathering information about their responses.
• Ye Mo laid an ice line to trace the signal while he and Tony acted as though they were continuing their thruster tests.
• The ice stopped near the main control area, then began moving again after Tony staged a fall and Ye Mo laughed.

Ye Mo and Tony fought off Hydra infiltrators after an ice-based EMP exposed their defenses, discovering Hydra was working with the Hellfire Club and targeting Ye Mo as Mr. X. As more attackers surrounded the base, they prepared to counterattack, with Ye Mo planning to find the commander.

• Ye Mo detected seventeen attackers approaching through the east gate, underground pipes, and rooftop vents, and Tony donned his armor while Ye Mo activated the defenses.
• Ye Mo and Tony let the attackers believe the frontal assault had them pinned down, then Ye Mo identified a commander wearing a Hellfire Club insignia glove.
• Ye Mo and Tony ambushed the intruders, freezing and capturing several Hydra operatives while Tony destroyed the rooftop attackers' drone supplies.
• An electronic voice addressed Ye Mo as Mr. X, and additional enemies began approaching from underground and outside the main entrance.
• Ye Mo and Tony agreed to counterattack, with Tony drawing the front assault while Ye Mo went after the commander, as heavy machinery began breaking through the door.

Ye Mo and Tony repelled a Hydra assault, then uncovered evidence that the Hellfire Club had been monitoring Ye Mo since his first public appearance as Mr. X. The chapter left them facing a new message on a backup terminal identifying Ye Mo as “test subject 07.”

• Ye Mo and Tony coordinated ice and fire attacks to defeat the Hydra forces and capture a data chip bearing Hellfire Club markings.
• Ye Mo found encrypted footage of a gray-robed figure with a Hellfire insignia, but remote deletion began before they could secure the logs.
• Ye Mo and Tony linked the footage’s timestamp to Ye Mo’s press conference and recalled a logistics staff member wearing a black communication device.
• Ye Mo concluded that the staff member may have relayed information about Mr. X from the logistics support center, where Hydra and Hellfire signals had overlapped.
• A backup terminal activated and displayed the message, “Welcome back, test subject 07.”

Ye Mo used Ice Manipulation to capture three attackers and learned they were transmitting encrypted intelligence about him. After discovering a Hellfire beacon inside the base, he planned to let the enemy keep watching so he could trace their signal and set a trap.

• Ye Mo sealed two attackers inside the eastern service space and trapped another at the southern drainpipe, then obtained their encrypted frequency after verifying his captive's statement with Telepathy.
• Ye Mo and Tony discussed using the frequency to trace the attackers' relay and planned to let the enemy make further moves so they could follow them back to their command center.
• A backup terminal received a message saying the observed behavior matched a predictive model, and Ye Mo found a Hellfire encryption beacon embedded in its motherboard.
• The captive revealed that a commander wearing a communicator monitored the operation and that his only known codename was White Raven.
• Ye Mo decided to leave the hidden beacon in place and mislead the watchers, forming an ice crystal as he planned to make them think he had lost control.

Ye Mo and Tony repelled a Hydra assault on the laboratory and secured the encrypted beacon. Their victory uncovered signs that someone had secretly altered the lab’s hardware, leaving them suspicious of a high-clearance insider or someone close to them.

• Ye Mo froze the corridor floor and trapped Hydra attackers while Tony prepared his armor to defend the laboratory.
• Ye Mo and Tony overcame the attackers, including a silver-suited commander, and Ye Mo contained a bomb in an ice coffin before it could damage the servers.
• The system announced that the sixth floor of the Gene Spiral Tower had been unlocked, and Tony and Ye Mo celebrated their teamwork.
• Ye Mo found an abnormal signal in the backend logs and discovered an unfamiliar old Stark Industries encryption module inside a computer.
• Ye Mo and Tony realized someone had replaced core equipment without triggering alarms, and the chapter ended with Ye Mo noticing a fine scratch and an irregularly blinking power light.

Ye Mo and Tony uncovered a hidden hardware backdoor in Tony’s armor and devised a plan to trace its transmissions without alerting whoever planted it. As Ye Mo prepared to launch the tracking protocol, the wire suddenly overheated.

• Ye Mo inserted the old chip and discovered an unauthorized signature linked to the MK-series armor controller, while he and Tony found that a disguised process was draining power.
• Ye Mo and Tony suspected an insider or logistics worker had planted the backdoor, and agreed to investigate secretly without involving S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers.
• The armor reacted to their scan with a preset trigger, so Tony switched it to low-power standby while Ye Mo searched for the hidden power route.
• Ye Mo found an unlisted wire in the left shoulder that stayed active during standby, and persuaded Tony to leave it connected so they could trace its transmissions.
• A hidden data stream began uploading from the wire, and as Ye Mo prepared to track it, its temperature surged from 37 to over 60 degrees.

Ye Mo and Tony removed a hidden control module from Tony’s armor and traced its communications to a concealed site inside Stark Tower. The discovery pointed to a presumed-dead former employee and an unreported cache of decommissioned armor, leaving Tony facing a hidden command center on his own property.

• Ye Mo used intermittent Thermal Vision to locate a concealed module welded into the armor’s right-arm buffer layer.
• Ye Mo froze the module’s power input while Tony cut it free, revealing a device capable of remote activation, energy siphoning, and command overriding.
• Tony erased the module’s data and confirmed that the armor was functioning normally, while Ye Mo unlocked the seventh level of the Gene Spiral Tower.
• Tony found that the module had uploaded data to an address linked to an old Hellfire Club server, and Ye Mo connected the activity to a suspicious maintenance request.
• Tony identified Carl Rain, a former hardware maintenance engineer believed dead, in Stark Industries’ access records.
• Ye Mo traced the signal to a storage room on Stark Tower’s seventh basement level, where Tony realized someone had built a hidden command center using decommissioned MK III armor.

Ye Mo and Tony tested a new antivirus defense for Tony’s armor and confirmed it could block three simulated attacks. As Tony began developing further protections, Ye Mo spotted white mist escaping from the Sector B storage room.

• Ye Mo advised Tony to leave the underground location alone and focus on teaching the armor to recognize malicious programs.
• Tony installed a defense module in a spare armor unit, and he and Ye Mo tested it against three simulated attacks.
• The system blocked each attack, and a notification confirmed that the armor’s security level had risen to S.
• Ye Mo received notice that the eighth floor of the Gene Spiral Tower had unlocked and gained an empty ability combination slot.
• Tony began debugging an automatic decoy system while Ye Mo noticed white mist drifting from the Sector B storage-room door.

Ye Mo and Tony fought a mysterious attacker who copied and improved their techniques, then unlocked the Gene Spiral Tower's ninth floor during the battle. The attacker learned their combined approach and retaliated with copied ice and fire as the fight continued.

• Ye Mo detected an unseen observer in the Sector B storage room, and a man in a tactical exoskeleton burst through the floor and attacked Tony.
• The attacker copied Tony's combat moves and Ye Mo's Ice Manipulation Technique, using both with unnerving precision.
• Ye Mo and Tony combined ice compression with Tony's thrusters to blast the attacker through two walls, but he quickly began studying their new tactic.
• Ye Mo received a notification that the Gene Spiral Tower's ninth floor had unlocked, and the tower began scanning the battlefield.
• Ye Mo and Tony coordinated an attack that cracked the man's exoskeleton, but he memorized their rhythm and used an interference pulse to shatter the surrounding ice.
• The attacker copied their combined ice-and-fire technique and blasted the two of them with it.

Ye Mo and Tony failed to catch the masked opponent, who had copied their combat techniques and escaped after testing them. The escape unlocked the tenth floor of Ye Mo’s Gene Spiral Tower, and Ye Mo decided to make their next encounter more challenging.

• The masked opponent escaped through a planned route after copying Ye Mo and Tony’s techniques, leaving behind a signal-blocking device.
• Ye Mo and Tony analyzed the opponent’s rapid learning, speculated that he recorded and replayed information, and planned to exploit his precise, predictable movements.
• The opponent reviewed battle footage in an abandoned building and updated his behavior model to 78 percent.
• Ye Mo received a notification that the opponent’s escape had unlocked the tenth floor of the Gene Spiral Tower and opened a new ability analysis slot.
• Ye Mo told Tony that it was time to make their class representative’s homework harder.

Ye Mo and Tony analyzed Taskmaster’s ability to imitate movements and planned to exploit its limits in their next encounter. They discovered a strange interruption in his copied ice shield’s energy signal, then found melted-ice footprints leading deeper into the maintenance passage.

• Ye Mo and Tony reviewed the fight footage and concluded that Taskmaster memorized the surface of abilities but could not reproduce their underlying power.
• Ye Mo and Tony planned to confuse Taskmaster with feints, deliberate mistakes, and unconventional combinations that could overload his nervous system.
• Tony suspected Taskmaster had an organization supporting his training, but Ye Mo chose to wait for him to reveal more clues.
• Ye Mo noticed a brief interruption in the energy signal when Taskmaster copied his ice shield and wondered if Taskmaster needed to clear his memory.
• Ye Mo and Tony headed to the underground energy sector and found melted-ice footprints leading deeper into the maintenance passage.

Ye Mo and Tony responded to the New Era Awakened’s coordinated weather attack on Manhattan and fought three mutants at Broadway. After Tony disabled two of them, Ye Mo outmaneuvered the wind controller and aimed an ice crystal at his throat.

• Ye Mo sensed a group of synchronized mental signals, and JARVIS reported extreme weather disasters at three Manhattan landmarks.
• Ye Mo and Tony flew to Broadway, where they found civilians trapped in ice and three mutants controlling electricity, wind, and rock.
• Tony’s electromagnetic pulse failed to affect the mutants, so Ye Mo used Ice Manipulation to free the trapped civilians while Tony fought the attackers.
• The electricity controller struck Tony with lightning, and the wind controller blasted Ye Mo into a police car, triggering Ice Manipulation’s cooldown.
• Ye Mo combined Thermal Vision with Telepathy to predict the wind controller’s attacks, while Tony’s missile and laser took down the other two mutants.
• Ye Mo closed in on the wind controller and aimed a high-pressure ice crystal at his throat.

Ye Mo activated Steel Bone Body and withstood the wind controller’s attacks, forcing him and the other two attackers to retreat while Tony Stark returned to the fight. As Ye Mo and Tony prepared to counterattack, a powerful silver-haired woman arrived, and her first wind blade flew at Ye Mo.

• Ye Mo’s Gene Spiral Tower activated Steel Bone Body, letting him withstand the wind controller’s blades and shock waves without serious injury.
• Ye Mo split the wind controller’s tornado, increasing his Steel Bone Body proficiency and unlocking the tower’s eleventh floor.
• The wind controller fled, and the rock man and electricity controller withdrew as civilians began calling Ye Mo the Ice Armor Warrior.
• Tony Stark landed beside Ye Mo, and they agreed they could now fight back together.
• A silver-haired woman descended from the clouds, took control of the wind, and sent a wind blade toward Ye Mo’s face.

Ye Mo persuaded Storm to join him in stopping the mutant attackers and used their coordinated ice storm to defeat them. After tracing a psychic watcher and capturing him, Ye Mo faced a new threat as a black aircraft descended from the northern sky.

• Ye Mo introduced himself to Storm as Mr. X and convinced her to work with him against the mutant attackers.
• Storm and Ye Mo combined wind and ice to overwhelm the wind controller, the rock man, and the electricity controller.
• Ye Mo detected a psychic probe and, with Storm's help, traced it to a man in a black trench coat at Madison Avenue and 23rd Street.
• Storm pinned the watcher to a wall, and Ye Mo demanded to know who had sent him.
• Storm spotted nonhuman arrivals as a black aircraft descended through a gap in the clouds.

Ye Mo, Storm, and Tony defeated all six attacking mutants on Broadway, but Ye Mo suspected an unseen psychic observer had studied their tactics. The chapter ended with Ye Mo finding the serial number MK-9X on the crashed aircraft.

• Tony shot down the black aircraft before it could hit the crowd, while Ye Mo and Storm redirected its attack.
• Ye Mo and Storm combined ice and wind to freeze the electricity controller and rock man as they tried to escape.
• Ye Mo, Storm, and Tony incapacitated the two remaining mutants who were preparing a shock wave.
• The Gene Spiral Tower announced that its twelfth floor had been unlocked, and Ye Mo warned that the psychic observer had withdrawn after studying their teamwork.
• Ye Mo found the aircraft fragment marked with the serial number MK-9X.

After the battle in New York, Ye Mo, Tony, and Storm watched the city recover and celebrated their victory, while the engraved MK-9X fragment suggested someone had deliberately targeted them. As S.H.I.E.L.D. arrived to take over, the three heroes prepared to leave and Tony made plans for dinner.

• Tony examined the MK-9X fragment and said its designation did not match any system he recognized.
• Storm stopped the storm, and New Yorkers emerged to cheer Ye Mo, Iron Man, and Storm as sunlight broke through the clouds.
• Ye Mo, Tony, and Storm shared a celebratory handclasp and joked about dinner while guarding the scene.
• Ye Mo warned that the engraved MK-9X mark was a deliberate provocation and that someone was watching them.
• S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and a medical team arrived, and Tony said they could leave the cleanup to them.
• Tony and Ye Mo agreed to have steak for dinner, sealing the plan with a handshake as Storm stayed beside them.

After the battle, Ye Mo and Tony reviewed how their improved coordination helped them defeat the attackers and realized the fight had been staged to gather data on their tactics. They returned to base to protect their communications and prepare for the newly unlocked thirteenth floor, where Ye Mo felt another ability beginning to awaken.

• Ye Mo told Tony that their timing and coordination, rather than raw power, had helped them counter the attackers, and the system unlocked floor thirteen of the Gene Spiral Tower.
• Ye Mo concluded that the Mutants had deliberately tested their response patterns, while Tony discovered a suspicious logistics worker with access to the MK series’ core controllers.
• Ye Mo and Tony decided not to expose the suspected mole, instead routing real tactical commands through a new channel and leaving false information on the old one.
• On the way back to base, Ye Mo explained how Steel Bone Body had activated during the fight, and he and Tony agreed to keep working together against Taskmaster.
• At the underground garage, Ye Mo felt a sting in his fingertips as they entered the elevator, suggesting another ability was about to awaken.

Ye Mo and Tony fortified the base with ice walls and layered security, and the defense upgrade unlocked the fourteenth floor of the Gene Spiral Tower. As Ye Mo rested, an unexplained temperature drop near a ventilation shaft coincided with the return of his nerve pain.

• Ye Mo and Tony isolated the base’s old network and built a ring of ice walls, while Tony installed alarms, laser arrays, and other defenses.
• Ye Mo and Tony tested the defenses against a drone and Tony’s plasma cutter, and the systems held against both attacks.
• Ye Mo collapsed from exhaustion, then learned that fortifying the base had unlocked the fourteenth floor of the Gene Spiral Tower.
• Ye Mo and Tony planned to investigate MK-9X the next day and settled in for the night.
• Tony spotted a temperature drop near a southeast ventilation shaft as Ye Mo felt the ice-like pain return in his fingertips and shoot toward his temple.

Ye Mo and Tony reflected on how their complementary tactics and growing trust had unlocked the fifteenth floor of the Gene Spiral Tower. They discovered signs that someone had secretly monitored their conversation and suspected the listener was still inside the base.

• Tony and Ye Mo discussed how they had anticipated each other's moves during their defense test and acknowledged their mutual trust.
• Tony described their teamwork as a balance of ice and fire, and Ye Mo agreed that their cooperation was why they kept winning.
• Ye Mo received a notification that increased rapport had unlocked the fifteenth floor of the Gene Spiral Tower.
• Ye Mo detected a covert signal resembling Hellfire Club encryption, and he and Tony suspected a listener had been using the temperature drop and ventilation system to conceal a listening node.
• Tony and Ye Mo decided to watch for the eavesdropper rather than immediately search the base, while a faint wisp of white mist seeped beneath the ventilation-shaft door.