Chapter 554

In the base on Mercury, Stark looked at the 3D map, marking different spaceships with different colors. He pointed to the few ships on the far side and said, "These few ships look like chemical-fuel ships; they can just happen to integrate with humanity's current technology..."

"The S. P. E. A. R. Bureau wants to select five ships after an initial inspection, Russia also wants five, and Europe actually wants a total of seven? No way, at most give them five. Africa, Australia, the Middle East..."

"Set aside two more for joint research. Nick! Nick! Remember to arrange security personnel; don't let them start fighting..."

Seeing that many spaceships already had marked colors, Stark took two steps back, and what appeared before his eyes were more spaceships that hadn't been marked yet.

He rested his hands on the experimental table in front of him, looking at those ships that hadn't been allocated yet, feeling a sort of happy trouble.

In the past, there were many people but few ships, or rather, there were no ships at all. The few frigates of the Kree were not something the current human civilization could research. Even if scientists could go up to inspect them, it was just an inspection; they couldn't even think about removing a single part.

Later, there were the Chitauri ships and the Dark Elf ships, making things much more generous, but it was still a case of many monks and little gruel.

These past few days, there had been fierce arguments in the United Nations conference room. At first, they wanted to use reason to convince the other side, but later, they discovered that physical persuasion was more realistic. Now, the requirement for people sent by Congress to the United Nations was that they had to have undergone combat training, otherwise, it was hard to gain an advantage.

And ever since Loki expanded the scope of his scams to the entire universe, humanity had harvested quite a few low-to-mid-end spaceships, some relatively complete, others shattered into parts. Some were piled up near Mercury, some near Pluto. Where they were piled depended mainly on which place was closer when they were swindled.

With a "creak," the door opened, and Schiller, wearing a white lab coat, walked in, holding a medical record book in his hand. Stark looked up at him and asked, "You're done? Why did you suddenly think of giving the Sanctum Sanctorum staff a psychological checkup?"

"The expenses are reimbursed by the United Nations anyway, might as well do it." After Schiller walked over, he placed the medical record book aside and said, "More importantly, our new alien employee named Cull Obsidian has major psychological issues. If his psychological problems can be solved, Thanos might even have to thank me."

Stark let out a cold snort and said, "If you really solve his psychological problems, Thanos won't have to pay him a salary. Of course he'd have to thank you."

"Enough about me, how are things on your end?" Schiller asked.

Stark looked at the 3D map and said, "The United Nations asked me for allocation advice. I've allocated all the ships; everyone gets a share, and there's still so many left."

"Can't you just distribute them all? A dozen ships per person."

Stark rolled his eyes and said, "I've said it before, people who only know how to screw in lightbulbs shouldn't enter my laboratory."

Stark began to explain, "Scientific research isn't about the more materials the better. Many projects require a step-by-step approach. If the initial projects aren't completed, subsequent ones can't be carried out. Sufficient materials can speed up research, but there's a limit to that speed. It's not like if everyone has ten ships, they can finish the research by tomorrow. If that were the case, what would I be having a headache about?"

But in the end, Stark still conveyed his proposal to the United Nations.

After several more rounds of arguing in the conference room, it was finally determined that the top three of the P5 countries would get five ships each, Europe would get a total of three but with priority selection rights, and other major continents would basically get one or two. Only Africa, where Wakanda was located, would get one extra, because Wakanda's technological advantage was very strong.

Upon learning that the results were finalized, Stark slapped the table and said, "Gather all research personnel, meeting!"

After Jarvis sent out Stark's meeting invitation, there was no reply for half a day.

Connors called to say he was busy with the disassembly of the first ship; Banner had already boarded a Chitauri ship to survey it; Reed had terminated his near-Earth research project to study the ships and was currently handing over data.

And Jarvis also sent back even worse news, saying, "News from the S. P. E. A. R. Bureau: their five research teams are all ready and will be organized by the S. P. E. A. R. Bureau to board the ships under escort."

Stark looked up at his watch. It had only been three hours since the results were out, and they were already boarding the ships, while his side was still a scattered group of soldiers fighting on their own. Even if they were divided into five groups, with one person leading each, the team members weren't even decided yet, let alone the scheduling and research plans.

Stark sighed deeply. He opened the Avengers communication and said, "Avengers, assemble!"

"What? Why assemble? What happened?" Steve was the first to respond to him.

"Right now, everyone go and invite all the scientists you can find to come here. No matter what they are doing, no matter what reasons they have, try to reason with them as much as possible, but when necessary, physical persuasion is also fine."

Stark stood up straight, lowered his eyelids, and looked at the map, saying, "Clearly, a race has already begun, and I don't want to lose."

Just as Stark said, a race had already begun.

This race was not just about the scientific research capabilities of various countries; most importantly, it was about organizational ability and speed.

The term "technology tree" was, in a sense, very apt. Technology must develop step by step, one footprint at a time. One must unlock the preceding skills before unlocking the subsequent ones to avoid technological gaps and the awkward situation where one doesn't even know how to repair a ship when it breaks.

Since that is the case, whoever unlocks the first skill can unlock the second skill faster, and subsequently unlock the third skill faster. In other words, one step ahead, every step ahead.

The level of research is certainly important, but if everyone is scattered and doing their own thing—on the technology tree, one person is unlocking to the left, another to the right, and some are unlocking what others have already unlocked, with no communication or coordination between them, knowing nothing, and messing around—then just wait to be left behind by others.

However, the vast majority of research institutes and personnel accepting private investment do exactly that. Even if they are official research institutes on the surface, they represent different capital behind the scenes. What capital sees is not a bigger cake after walking out into the universe together, but that whoever grabs the cake crumbs first wins.

Therefore, the focus of their technological research is to profit for themselves. They are more willing to develop technologies they deem more beneficial, hoping to exchange smaller investments for greater returns.

But if everyone thinks this way, then conflicts are bound to arise in cooperation. Therefore, at the beginning, the research conducted by the vast majority of countries in this world was a mess.

Many private research institutes believed that the cycle for this matter to yield returns was too long, and the returns that could be yielded were unknown, so it wasn't a high-quality investment. Many institutes also felt that stopping their current projects on Earth to turn to developing space travel would cause them significant losses.

In short, the initial chaos filtered out many research organizations that lacked long-term goals, sufficient funds, or simply lacked brains. The vast majority of those remaining were research institutes backed by nations.

And the only special one was the research organization composed of superheroes. Now, the Avengers and the heroes associated with them were relatively independent, not under the jurisdiction of S. H. I. E. L. D. or the government, so their research was also independent.

The Avengers Research Institute, composed of three super geniuses—Stark, Connors, and Banner—occupied three ships for research.

Among them, Stark didn't need to share these three ships; he had more materials available for research and had even begun to crack the secrets of the Kree frigates.

If Connors and Banner each led a research team, there would still be one ship left empty. Stark wanted to find an equally genius scientist to take over this ship.

Hearing this news, Nick couldn't wait to introduce someone to Stark.

After arriving at Stark's office, Nick clapped his hands, attracting the attention of Stark, who was focused on looking at data.

"You're here." Stark said while lowering his head to put the cap on his pen.

Just as Stark looked up, he found that behind Nick was completely empty. He looked left and right and found no one else. Stark asked somewhat suspiciously, "Where is the person? Where is the scientist I wanted?"

"He is right here. Can you find him?" Nick smiled and said.

"Don't play these games with me. Jarvis, scan."

"Scanning... Special life reaction detected... Screen projected."

With a "swish," the projection screen opened, and a person wearing a strange uniform appeared on the screen. And his background was even stranger—it was actually the texture of Nick's clothing.

Stark raised an eyebrow, rolled his eyes, and looked Nick up and down. At this moment, a very, very small figure jumped out of Nick's pocket.

After he jumped onto the table, he waved at Stark and said, "Hello, I am Hank Pym. You can also call me by my codename, Ant-Man."

Stark frowned, squinted his eyes, and tried hard to bend down, bringing his face close to the desktop, before finally seeing the tiny figure clearly. That wasn't an ant, but a person—a person as small as an ant.

As Stark's face leaned in, Pym crossed his arms and said, "You must be little Tony, right? When I left S. H. I. E. L. D., you must have still been small, so you don't remember me. I was a colleague of your father, Howard..."

Nick hurried over, but he didn't know what posture to use to cover Pym's mouth. He could only tap the table, reminding Pym to shut up. But at this moment, Stark had already looked up and shouted, "Jarvis, flyswatter!"

With a "whoosh," a flyswatter was thrown over by a robotic arm. After Stark caught it, he swung it in one motion. Pym hurriedly ascended, dodging into the air, and shouted, "What are you doing? I am not a fly!"

Stark picked at his ear and said, "Is that so? But I just heard someone buzzing..."

Pym looked at Stark's expression and "whooshed" over to Nick's ear, saying to him, "What's the situation? Are the two of them not on good terms?"

"Of course. Their personalities are exactly the same. Do you think their relationship would be good?"

"Alright, I understand."

Pym immediately flew in front of Stark and said:

"I admit, Howard can be considered a genius. The flying car he made was quite interesting, but compared to me, it's far off, especially in terms of artificial intelligence. I've been researching things in this area recently..."

"What are you researching?" Another voice sounded at the door. Schiller pushed the door open and walked in, staring at the Ant-Man in mid-air, and repeated his question: "What have you been researching recently?"

"Artificial intelligence, why?" Pym asked somewhat puzzled.

"Any results?"

"Oh, not yet, but..."

"Really?" Schiller narrowed his eyes, walked over, lowered his head, and looked straight into Pym's eyes, asking, "Is it that there are none, or did you forget?"

"Or... did someone make you forget?"