Chapter 554

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

"The S. W. O. R. D. wants to select five after a preliminary inspection, Russia also wants five, and Europe actually wants seven in total? 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 ships already had marked colors, Stark took two steps back, and what appeared before his eyes were even more ships that hadn't been marked yet.

He rested his hands on the laboratory bench in front of him, looking at those ships that hadn't been allocated yet, feeling a rather happy kind of trouble.

In the past, there were many people and few ships—or rather, there were no ships at all. Those few Kree frigates were not something the current human civilization could study. Even if scientists could go up to inspect them, it was just an inspection; they couldn't hope to dismantle a single part.

Later, there were the Chitauri ships and the Dark Elf ships, which made things much more generous, but it was still a case of too many people and too little porridge.

Over the 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 the Congress to send people to the UN 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 her scams to the entire universe, humanity had harvested quite a few low-to-mid-end ships. Some were relatively intact, while others were shattered into parts. Some were piled up near Mercury, and others near Pluto. Where they were piled depended mainly on which place was closer when they were "butchered."

With a creak, the door opened, and Schiller walked in wearing a white lab coat, 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 employees a psychological checkup?"

"The UN is footing the bill 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, the one called Cull Obsidian, has major psychological issues. If I can solve his psychological problems, Thanos might even have to thank me."

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

"Never mind me. How are things on your end?" Schiller asked.

Stark looked at the 3D map and said, "The UN asked me to provide allocation advice. I've finished allocating the ships; everyone gets a share, and there's still so many left."

"Can't you just distribute them all? Ten or so 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 having as much material as possible. Many projects require a step-by-step approach. If the initial projects aren't completed, you can't proceed with the later ones. Sufficient material can speed up the pace of research, but there's a limit to that acceleration. It's not like if everyone has ten ships, they can finish the research 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 five permanent members would get five ships each, Europe would get three in total 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 researchers, meeting!"

After Jarvis sent out Stark's meeting invitation, he didn't receive a reply for half a day.

Connors called to say he was busy dismantling 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 his data.

And Jarvis also sent back even worse news. He said, "News from the S. W. O. R. D. side: their five research teams are all ready and will be organized by the S. W. O. R. D. to be escorted onto the ships."

Stark looked up at the clock. It had only been three hours since the results came out, and they were already boarding, while his side was still a scattered group of soldiers fighting on their own. Even if he divided them into five groups and gave one to each, the team members hadn't been decided, and there were no schedules or research plans.

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

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

"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, but when necessary, you can also use physics."

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 wasn't just about the scientific research capabilities of various countries; the most important things were organizational ability and speed.

The term "tech tree" was, to some extent, very apt. Technology must advance one step at a time; you must unlock the preceding skills before unlocking the subsequent ones. Only in this way can you avoid technological gaps and avoid the awkward situation where you don't even know how to repair your own ship when it breaks.

Since that was the case, whoever unlocked the first skill could 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 was certainly important, but if everyone was scattered and doing their own thing—on the tech tree, one person points to the left, one person points to the right, and others go to unlock what someone else has already unlocked—without communicating or sharing information, knowing nothing, and just messing around, then they could just wait to be left behind by others.

However, the vast majority of research institutes and researchers accepting private investment were doing exactly that. Even if they were official research institutes on the surface, they represented different capital behind the scenes. Capital didn't see a bigger cake to be shared after walking into the universe together; it saw that whoever grabbed the cake crumbs first was the winner.

Therefore, their focus in researching technology was to profit for themselves. They were more willing to develop technologies they deemed more profitable, hoping to exchange smaller investments for larger returns.

But if everyone thought this way, then many contradictions were 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 recoup profits was too long, and the profits that could be recouped were unknown, so it wasn't a high-quality investment. There were also many institutes that 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 the state.

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

The Avengers Research Institute, composed of three super-geniuses—Stark, Connors, and Banner—as its core, monopolized three ships for research.

Among them, Stark didn't need to divide 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 was still 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 empty. He looked left and right and found no one else. Stark asked somewhat suspiciously, "Where are they? Where is the scientist I wanted?"

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

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

"Scanning... Special life reaction detected... Projecting."

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 shirt pocket.

After jumping 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, 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 hurriedly walked up, but he didn't know what posture to use to cover Pym's mouth. He could only knock on the table to remind Pym to shut up. But at this moment, Stark had already looked up and shouted, "Jarvis, fly swatter!"

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

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

Pym glanced at Stark's expression and "whooshed" over to Nick's ear, saying to him, "What's the situation? Do the two of them not get along?"

"Of course. Their personalities are exactly the same. Do you think they would get along?"

"Alright, I understand."

Pym immediately flew in front of Stark and said:

"I admit, Howard could 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 this stuff 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 are you researching recently?"

"Artificial intelligence, what's wrong?" 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... should I say, someone made you forget?"