Chapter 1872

As the other gold-and-red Iron Man mecha landed, the Superior Iron Man's expression sank. His thoughts raced like lightning, and he immediately saw that this mecha was different from the Mark series he had built before.

The light lines on the faceplate flashed twice. The Superior Iron Man opened his faceplate first, narrowed his eyes slightly, and looked at the person opposite him with glowing white eyes, saying: "Who are you? Why are you here?"

"That's the question I want to ask you." With a *click*, the faceplate of the Iron Man opposite him also opened. When the two almost identical faces faced each other, one could see that the Iron Man wearing the gold-and-red mecha was younger.

"You're the one who took Schiller, right?" Stark asked.

In a flash, he recalled what happened after they parted ways in the German valley that day.

Stark stood in the center of the valley, watching Schiller and Nick board the plane. He remained silent for a long time because he finally realized that Schiller was right; he had been imagining Schiller as a helpless victim all along.

But the ability Schiller displayed and the past he revealed showed that he had the ability to resist, or even control the situation, from the very beginning. He was not a hero, but he was definitely a strong person.

Stark knew that the life story Schiller told might not be entirely true, but he could also infer from the current situation that Schiller was indeed very familiar with organizations like Hydra, S. H. I. E. L. D., the FBI, etc., and was adept at navigating the cracks, or even holding those thin threads to weave a large net, manipulating hearts and capturing prey.

But this made Stark even more curious: Who exactly was he? Where did he come from? What was true and what was false? What was his purpose in approaching him?

Stark was desperate to find Schiller to ask these questions, but what surprised him even more was that Schiller did not appear at Pierce's trial.

This was very abnormal. Even if Stark didn't understand the ins and outs of power struggles, he knew this was Schiller's best chance to clear his name; he didn't even have to be a state's witness.

In order to successfully take over as Director of S. H. I. E. L. D. and stabilize the situation, Nick would be very happy to make a deal with the biggest witness, Schiller. As long as Schiller modified his testimony to be more severe and incited the jury's emotions, he could ensure Pierce would never get out.

Then Nick could completely clear his identity, for example, by saying he was framed by Pierce, or simply saying that this doctor was his secret informant and that being caught before was just part of the plan.

This would not only confirm Pierce's guilt but also raise Nick's status, showing his meticulous planning and diligent work ethic.

Stark had already made up his mind to intercept Schiller after the trial to ask him the answers to all his questions, but Schiller didn't come.

Stark went to ask Nick what was going on, but Nick kept his mouth shut and said nothing. If a spymaster wanted to hide something, Stark couldn't get it out of him. He had no choice but to return to Stark Industries, angry and disheartened.

But just then, Pepper found him, showed him the email address used for searching for people before, and said: "I had already canceled this email address; the emails kept were on a mirror site. But who knew an employee just notified me that someone restored the previous webpage and sent a new email to this address."

Pepper handed the phone to Stark and said: "Although this email is addressed to Tony Stark, it doesn't have any password. The employee opened it, but it's all garbled text. See if it was sent by your scientist friend or something."

Stark took the phone with some confusion. Sure enough, he found an email at the very top of the inbox. After opening it, it was English garbled text. Stark instinctively felt that this might have been sent by Schiller.

He asked Pepper for the URL of the restored email account, flipped through it, and then discovered that this email was sent at the exact same time as the one Schiller had previously sent to Pepper providing the address of the abandoned base—22:06 at night.

This confirmed to Stark that this last email was indeed left for him by Schiller. Stark believed there might be a clue to Schiller's whereabouts in it, so he began to work on cracking the garbled text.

He tried many ways to read information from the garbled text, but the combination of English and symbols was completely irregular, and there were no hints around. Stark even used brute force, running it on a supercomputer for days and nights, but couldn't combine any regular words or phrases.

It wasn't that Stark hadn't thought that the email's sending time might be a clue, but whether he chose letters according to numbers or arranged symbols according to 2206, he couldn't get a relevant answer.

One day, Stark was staring at the email in front of the computer again, the cold light shining on his eyes. Suddenly, he seemed to have an epiphany. He stood up, stared at all the garbled text, and then bent down again to start typing on the keyboard.

"What if it's not readable text, but graphics?" Stark muttered, his hands operating the computer quickly.

His eyes reflected the letters on the screen. Soon, one letter after another was combined to form a pattern that was somewhat familiar to Stark. It was an eagle with wings spread in flight, but the special thing about it was that Stark's familiarity with it came from the fact that it was the logo of a cigarette brand, from the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company that produced Camel cigarettes, called Winston.

Stark didn't actually smoke much. He was very familiar with this brand because it was Howard's favorite. When Stark was young, he often saw Howard put the cigarette pack of this brand in a high place. Out of curiosity, Stark had even taken it down to look at it.

Stark suddenly felt confused. Schiller made such a complex code just to show him the logo of a cigarette brand?

But suddenly, he realized it couldn't be a coincidence. Compared to the more popular Camel or Lucky Strike cigarettes, although Winston's sales were not low, it was ultimately not as well-known as the two brands mentioned above, nor was it supplied in the military. Smoking this brand could be said to be a relatively niche hobby.

Then how did Schiller know the brand of cigarettes Howard liked? Could it be that Schiller also knew Howard?

But now Schiller was nowhere to be found, and Stark had nowhere to ask, making him more and more anxious, just repeatedly looking at the pattern.

Then he felt that Schiller leaving this pattern shouldn't just be to tell him he knew his father, because that made no sense. Howard was already dead; what did knowing him matter?

Stark couldn't figure it out, and then he thought, since the clue was related to Howard, he would go back to the old Stark family house to see if he could find any clues.

He didn't find any clues about Schiller, but he did find the video Howard left behind and the sand table that inspired the new element.

Because Schiller changed the course of history, this Stark didn't have an Arc Reactor embedded in his chest, but his previous concept of drone mechas did need energy to drive it. However, so far, he hadn't found a good energy source, and the clue of the new element gave him inspiration.

Thus, everything got on track. The Iron Man of this universe still developed a new suit like most Iron Men, but he still couldn't find any clues about Schiller.

But just then, the King of Wakanda, Black Panther, approached him and offered to provide Stark with enough vibranium to perfect his armor, saying this was the reward Schiller had proposed.

Stark was almost like an ant on a hot pan. On one hand, Iron Man was someone who really disliked owing others favors; if the other party helped him, he must repay it tenfold, but Schiller didn't give him a chance to repay him at all.

On the other hand, he also really wanted to know why Schiller wanted to help him, and even decided to help him when reaching the deal with Black Panther. That is to say, they were not strangers who met by chance from the beginning; Schiller knew him, but he didn't know Schiller.

This information gap was driving Stark crazy. He put on his new suit and rushed into Nick's office regardless, demanding an explanation. In the end, Nick sighed and had no choice but to show Stark a video.

The video was only three seconds long, but it clearly showed the process of Schiller disappearing into thin air. Nick was not a technical person and couldn't say anything, but Stark concluded that the flash of white light was a space-time tunnel, and Schiller had very likely gone to another universe.

Stark didn't have portal technology for the time being, but he knew that the research and development of such technology couldn't be completed in a day or two. So he was even angrier—angry that Schiller had left without a word, and angry that he hadn't even left a coordinate, and he didn't know when he would be able to find him.

What happened later was the same as in other universes: Iron Man became a superhero, and Nick, as before, invited Iron Man to join a mysterious superhero organization.

But a small episode occurred: Iron Man met Spider-Man, and very coincidentally, this Spider-Man was contacted by the Web of Life and Destiny not long after being bitten by a spider, and he also joined the Spider-Army, becoming a glorious member of the credit-farming army.

At this time, the little Spider-Man was still a high school student and had no defensive psychology. At that time, Iron Man was already a very famous superhero. He didn't think much and directly told Stark about the multiverse Spider-Man, and also said he planned to go to the Center Universe to see it during the summer vacation.

Once Stark heard this, wasn't the opportunity to go to other universes here? So he hurriedly asked Spider-Man to help him open a channel. He wanted to go to other universes to find someone. This Spider-Man had just joined the Spider-Army not long ago and didn't know the rules well, so he directly asked other Spider-Men.

Silk intended to refuse; after all, rules were rules. If anyone could walk through the Spider-Totem's channel, it would be chaotic. Other Spider-Men didn't agree either, because the Superior Iron Man incident had already been argued about once in the army, and they were formulating stricter on-boarding training.

Spider-Man felt a bit frustrated, but didn't say too much, except that he mentioned by chance that the Iron Man of their universe wanted to go to other universes to find a doctor named Schiller.

Once the name Schiller came out, the Spider-Men present exchanged glances for about half a minute, their attitudes did a 180-degree turn, and they decided on the spot: they could go, go immediately, go right now.

Stark was originally going to teleport to Earth, but the Spider-Man of the Center Universe heard he was looking for Schiller, so he pointed him in the right direction, saying Schiller was not on Earth now and he could go to Centaurus to look around, as that was the place with the most well-informed news in the universe.

Just like that, Stark, wearing the latest generation of vibranium Iron armor, had just landed on Centaurus when he scanned an abnormal signal, flew directly over the Superior Iron Man's base, and saw Schiller's back as he walked into the machine.