Chapter 1271: The Bat Behind (Part 1)

Although his thoughts were turbulent, in reality, only a few seconds had passed in the outside world. Tony Stark and Strange had been watching Shiler stare blankly at the hospital bed for several seconds, which they simply attributed to the mental withdrawal of a recurring psychiatric episode.

Psychiatric patients often exhibit such behavior, and Stark, who was well-read in psychology, understood that brief, intermittent blankness was precisely a manifestation of their condition.

Therefore, when Shiler suddenly proposed going to the Mercury base, the constantly bickering Stark and Strange refused him with remarkable, firm consistency.

"Don't even think about it, Shiler, no way! There's no scenery on Mercury, and being closer to the sun won't make your condition any better. While I don't want to demand you stay in the hospital, you must have a guardian with you... Nick excluded!"

"On this point, I actually agree with Tony." Strange glanced at Stark, snorted, and said, "Being overly focused on the progress of a certain matter is not good for your mental state. It might aggravate your obsessive behaviors. Or, you could go back to the Mount Ximalaya to recuperate for two months; that's already close enough to the sun..."

"My point is, the construction of the Mercury base has been going on for so long, and I haven't even seen it with my own eyes. I should go take a look; after all, I participated in the plan too," Shiler explained with a smile.

"Shiler, we aren't trying to exclude you from the plan, but sending you to another planet rashly while your brainwave abnormalities haven't been resolved is very dangerous."

Connors calmly pushed up his glasses and continued to explain, "What I mean is, the sun and Mercury would be very dangerous."

Just as Shiler was about to open his mouth to speak, Connors interrupted him and added, "Judging from the data, our sun and Mercury are still quite decent; there's no need to replace them for now."

"I didn't even know you could tell dad jokes," Shiler said, quite dissatisfied. "They aren't even as funny as Nick's."

"Don't mention that damn vampire!" Otto snorted. He was also an insider and participant in the Multiverse Project, so he spoke up: "He hopes I can contact counterparts in other universes to provide them with a job that has extremely high labor intensity, many requirements, but extremely low wages—and they'd better be full of gratitude..."

Shiler looked away; he certainly wouldn't say that it was actually he who wanted to offer this job.

"It seems you've incurred public wrath," Batman's voice sounded in Shiler's mind. "You must have done something to make your friends dissatisfied. I advise you to pretend for a while, and after you leave the hospital, we can discuss other matters."

"Why are you so talkative?" Shiler replied with great dissatisfaction. He snorted in his heart and said, "What did I do? I'm doing this for their own good!"

"When you say that sentence, I can already imagine what crazy things you've done," Batman hit the nail on the head.

Just as Shiler was about to explain, the phone on the bedside table rang. He reached out to grab it, but the tentacle behind Stark was faster.

"Hello?" Stark picked up the phone and said. After hearing the voice on the other end, he frowned sharply and then said very firmly, "No, you cannot let him return to work. Does the Anquan Bureau not have sick leave?... What? Only bereavement leave?"

"Then how many days of bereavement leave can one take? Seeing Natasha took three days? Then I think Shiler should also... What? Seeing Natasha sacrificed herself over 50 times just to scrape together three days?"

"Nick Fury!" Stark called out the name of the person on the other end while holding the phone, his tone not very friendly. He said rapidly, "Shiler needs rest! We all agree on this point. Why don't you?"

Stark switched the phone to his other hand, took a deep breath, and said, "You guys stay up all night every time you discuss those damn macroeconomic plans! Not to mention, the Anquan Force's finances need him to manage them, the Anquan Bureau's finances also need him to manage them, and he's responsible for the mental health of the agents. Now you even want him to teach classes to the agents? What do you take Shiler for? Your money-making tool?!"

"He takes himself as a money-making tool, so you can take him as a money-making tool?! Stop being unreasonable! Nick, I'm warning you, although Howard is still in the Andromeda Galaxy, he can definitely build a suit to beat Nick up within two hours, and I can too!"

Shiler, lying on the hospital bed, looked helpless, but Batman said in his heart, "I take back what I said earlier..."

"What? Oh, you mean the sentence about him being like a moron? It seems you've already discovered that he isn't like a moron; he is a moron."

"Quite the contrary, he should be the smartest person in this world," Batman pointed out the key to the problem again, hitting the nail on the head. "Although he might not have told you explicitly, it's clear he has already seen how crazy you are."

"He is doing his best to salvage this madness of yours. A sharp, sensitive, and emotional genius—besides wisdom, he is also full of inspiration."

"If the Bruce in my world had half of your talent for psychology, Arrogance wouldn't have to worry about losing his hair every day."

Shiler sighed and then said in his heart, "I plan to take a step back. The Mercury base is temporarily out of reach; they won't let me leave Earth. But going to see the armor built by this smartest person in the world shouldn't be a problem."

After saying this, regardless of how Batman replied, Shiler spoke directly to Stark: "Nick already told me he hoped I would serve as a lecturer for the Anquan Bureau agents, back before you guys insisted on pinning me in the hospital for treatment."

"Don't expect us to care about who came first at a time like this!" Stark blocked all of Shiler's explanations as soon as he spoke. "No way, it's just no way! Like Connors said, you have to first ensure that your brainwave abnormality has been eliminated..."

"Fine, but I don't want to stay in the hospital."

"Then where do you want to go?"

"Can't I go to the Stark Tower?" Shiler looked into Stark's eyes and said.

Stark was stunned for a moment. Suddenly, that state of shutting down his brain and being immune to bewitchment disappeared. He stammered a bit, "Why are you going to Stark Tower? Aren't you the most annoyed when I ask you to change lightbulbs?"

"I heard your latest experimental armor has made some breakthroughs. I want to go take a look, how about it?"

A hesitant expression appeared on Stark's face, and Shiler added fuel to the fire: "I just rejected the proposal to go to Kamar-Taj for recuperation."

"Fine, I'll go handle the discharge."

"Tony Stark!"

Strange stared at Stark with wide eyes, as if looking at a traitor. Stark, who was walking toward the door, made a face at him, his light steps betraying his equally light mood.

"Easy to coax like a dog, right?" Shiler watched Stark's departing back and said in his heart.

"Are you talking about yourself?"

Batman used another question to express affirmation. Before Shiler could speak, he continued, "You didn't take a step back; you are genuinely happy about obtaining consent."

"Shut up," Shiler said irritably.

Soon, Stark returned and called for a shuttle exclusive to the Stark Group. Shiler opened the window directly and boarded the private aerial transport device.

The shuttle sped across the sky over Niuyuecheng. Batman overlooked the city through Shiler's field of vision. Just as Shiler was about to ask if he was curious about it, Batman said:

"It looks a bit like a combination of Cat Getan and the Metropolis. Chaotic yet orderly, dark yet full of light, modern yet retro, advanced yet backward. It has a contradictory sense of beauty."

"Batman, do you know?" While Shiler was closing his eyes for a nap in the shuttle seat, Greed arrived in the theater. He rested his hand on the back of the chair, turned his head to look at Batman, and said, "Perhaps in the future, I will also tell everyone I meet that you can predict the future... Can you really not?"

"This isn't intuition," Batman shook his head and said, "I lack this kind of sudden inspiration. Or rather, I traded this ability for a stronger ability to take precautions."

"Before I came here, I already asked Arrogance what I would see. He gave me a preliminary introduction to your achievements."

"You mean, he turned a journey of surprises into a dull and boring walk-through?" Greed curled his lips and said, "Very much in line with that old stick-in-the-mud."

"No, I think what he expressed is far less than what I saw with my own eyes, and this trip will have even more surprises."

"Beep beep beep!"

The shuttle's arrival notification sound startled Shiler awake. He took a deep breath, stood up, and walked toward the window of Stark Tower.

Then he discovered that Batman might really be able to predict the future, because the moment his feet touched the ground, with a "whoosh," a piece of armor flew past his scalp, followed by a "bang" as Stark, on the other side of the room, fell directly to the ground.

Iron Man, armed with only one arm, climbed up from the ground, dizzy. He took a deep breath and cursed, "You damn rebellious son! When will you ever listen to me?"

Shiler stood speechlessly by the window, watching Stark wipe his own nosebleed and limp toward his armor display rack, hanging the piece that had flown over back up.

"A major breakthrough in materials science?" Shiler teased.

"Partially," Stark replied. "What I want isn't just a breakthrough in materials science. I am researching a true intelligent armor—not the kind of intelligence controlled by Jarvis, but turning the iron into a part of me, directly controlled by my thoughts, similar to a neural connection without physical contact."

Stark took the armor off his arm, slowly hung it back on the display rack, then walked to the side of the workbench, picked up the design drawings, and began writing and drawing on the armor's display rack.

He seemed completely unconcerned that Shiler didn't understand these technological creations at all, just muttering while writing:

"I know, this sounds a bit incredible. How can nerves be connected over a distance? But I discovered that the bio-electricity emitted by the human brain when controlling nerves is actually extremely regular."

"As long as I add 'nerves' to my suit—not the human kind of nerves, but something more solid and reliable—and then use this regular frequency radiation to control the nerves inside the metal, I can possess an armor that truly communicates with my heart..."

"This can solve the dilemma where no matter how much I develop artificial intelligence, I still have to convey orders through other intelligent beings. I know Jarvis calculates very fast, but he has already left; he is already a true life form, not my slave. I have to learn to be independent, and so does my suit."

"So this time, did you crash into a truck?" Shiler deliberately brought up a sore subject. He noticed that the suit Stark hung on the rack had some collision marks. Although he didn't know if it was a collision with a truck, it clearly still hadn't crashed successfully.

"That's not important; the key to this technology isn't strength," Stark was stubborn.

Just as Batman was observing these strangely shaped iron parts through Shiler's field of vision, suddenly, there was a commotion at the window again.

A black-haired man wearing a black robe, a golden cape, and a long-horned crown walked in from the shuttle's entrance and exit, walking and speaking loudly:

"Tony Stark, I really have to talk to you! Nick called me and said you kidnapped Shiler. Don't you know? The Anquan Bureau is going crazy for lack of agents. You can't stop Shiler from going to teach the agents..."

Stark sized up the high-spirited Loki, revealing a fake smile that didn't reach his eyes. Suddenly, he turned to the side, shifted his gaze behind him, and said, "What's that?"

"Don't play these childish tricks on me!" Loki snorted coldly.

"Bang!"

The part that smashed into the back of Loki's head drew a smooth arc in the laboratory and flew back to Stark's arm.

Stark walked to Loki, who was lying on the ground, and said, "Now, who is childish?"

Loki, lying on the ground, slowly clenched his fists, while Batman stood with Shiler.

"Who is he again?"

"Such a weak god." ===== CHAPTER 1272 =====