DOTM: Chapter 529/530

Chapter 529: Carry Jarvis With You

"Let's go see them all!"

Although Tony said he wanted to go see everyone, he couldn't just leave whenever he wanted. He had to arrange his work matters properly, and Ethan also had some arrangements to make.

For example, taking advantage of this time, everyone should go and learn about interstellar travel and combat knowledge.

Considering various factors, Ethan finally sent everyone to the Starship Troopers world. With the equipment provided by Tony and Ada's technology, everyone successively obtained a legal identity.

For a while, they would live in this world. Considering this was the first time he was truly letting them go to a world to study or obtain something, Ethan didn't set mandatory tasks. However, including Evelyn, they all hoped to make some contributions.

It's predictable that their first choice would definitely be to join the military. The backdrop of Starship Troopers is a world ruled by a military government. In this world, if you don't join the army, you won't gain citizen status, and young people take pride in enlisting.

Although the military recruits annually, Ethan didn't recommend they all enlist in a rush. He wasn't sure if this world had such gender equality in all industries, or if it was just the infantry camps that were like that. To prevent these guys from being clueless, Ethan specifically mentioned this point.

Clearly, the women on Ethan's ship had no interest in this kind of equality. Evelyn, Sherry, and others had already changed their minds.

Jonathan, on the other hand, became interested in the military. It seems this guy, who originally hadn't considered joining the army, might end up going into the military.

Ada, as always, was inscrutable. After looking at Ethan with a half-smile for a while, she smiled and waved goodbye to him.

Ethan also simply waved goodbye to everyone and returned to the Marvel Universe alone.

It was only then that he realized Betty had also quietly gone with them. Leaving aside his other companions, who had all undergone considerable enhancements, Betty... well, she couldn't be considered a normal person either.

"But... if you join the army, you need a physical examination, right?"

Ethan didn't know if these guys would be directly discovered as aliens during the physical and then be hunted down by the entire planet. That scene would be very interesting.

After thinking about it, Ethan decided not to remind them. Sooner or later, they would have to go to various planes alone for adventures or to carry out the tasks Ethan assigned. It was impossible for Ethan to consider every single detail. It was much better to start training now than to run into trouble alone later. At least this time, almost everyone was there, and their combat power was guaranteed.

Moreover, there was still Galahad. His shield could bring everyone back if necessary. That was the last resort. However, with the personalities of this group, they probably wouldn't use it unless they were in true despair.

Returning to the manor and seeing the once lively mansion suddenly become quiet, Ethan was too lazy to stay any longer. He directly opened a portal and went to Tony's place.

Considering he might run into the guy and Pepper doing some indescribable things, Ethan didn't teleport inside the house but arrived at the main gate.

Jarvis monitored everything around the residence. Ethan didn't need to ring the doorbell. Jarvis, who had already notified Tony, had proactively opened the gate.

"Mr. Stark is in the meditation room on the lower level."

"Thank you, Jarvis."

"You're welcome, Lord Ethan."

Ethan felt that Jarvis's tone had become more lively. He remembered that Jarvis at this time already had a slight sense of self-awareness. If Tony hadn't suddenly wanted to create Ultron, triggering a series of events that turned Jarvis into Vision, the artificial intelligence Jarvis might have continued to evolve and eventually become a brand new life form.

Thinking of this, he felt that the original plot's Tony was too hasty. The kind of artificial intelligence he hoped for was actually by his side. Given enough time, Jarvis could completely become a better AI than Ultron, capable of doing what he expected it to do, with a much lower chance of problems than Ultron.

It was just that Tony always hoped for a one-step solution, directly tinkering with Ultron, and then causing a series of troubles.

Of course, the current Tony didn't have time to tinker with Ultron. Now he knew how vast the universe was and how complex the world was. The situation facing Earth was simply not something an artificial intelligence could solve.

Whether it was the powerful forces in the galaxy or the various evil entities from other planes, any one of them wanting to attack Earth could potentially wipe out the entire planet and human civilization.

Under these circumstances, he could only work hard to improve himself, while also trying to stimulate the progress of the entire Earth civilization. Only then could Earth and humanity truly survive in this world for a long time.

Upon receiving Jarvis's notification, Tony quickly came up from the lower level. From the arcane energy fluctuations that hadn't completely dissipated from his body, it could be seen that he had just finished a magic training session.

"The arcane fluctuations on your body are getting stronger and stronger."

"My magic strength isn't bad now, right?" Tony poured himself a glass of water. After just finishing magic training, it wasn't suitable to drink alcohol directly. It was best to drink some special drinks that could restore mental energy, but he didn't like the taste and preferred to drink ice water.

"It's more than just not bad."

There aren't many mages in the Marvel Universe, and even fewer powerful spellcasters. Although Tony hasn't been studying magic for a very long time, his talent is simply too good. Currently, on Earth, only a few people like the Ancient One can steadily suppress him in terms of magic strength alone.

If you consider that Tony constantly integrates technology and magic, creating more powerful semi-magic, semi-tech weapons, his combat power is even stronger than the power he shows.

In other words, besides the Ancient One, the mages on Earth would all be severely suppressed when facing Tony, and the time Tony has spent learning magic is probably less than a fraction of theirs.

"Truly enviable talent."

However, that's just how the mage profession is. Those with explosive talent can crush those with average talent, just like Stephen Strange will also become the Sorcerer Supreme in a very short time in the future.

Even without mentioning his later negotiations with Dormammu where he died and came back to life repeatedly in a time loop, Strange's speed of learning magic was astonishing. He mastered many spells that mages couldn't learn in a lifetime in a very short time.

And he was able to use the Eye of Agamotto, which is the Time Stone, smoothly not long after learning and coming into contact with magic. When he used the Eye of Agamotto at that time, it greatly shocked Wong and Mordo.

"Talent is something you can't envy... Besides, I remember you haven't been studying magic for very long either, right?"

"Adding it all up bit by bit, I've been practicing for decades."

Ever since the lifespan problem was solved and his appearance was fixed at the peak image of twenty-four or five years old, Ethan hadn't specifically calculated his age.

But even if he didn't pay attention, he knew that his age in this lifetime was definitely not in his twenties.

"You have at least a few thousand years to live, and only a few decades have passed... You're still considered a baby, right?"

Ethan shrugged, not correcting Tony's mistake. His lifespan was already far more than a few thousand years.

After chatting casually for a few minutes, the arcane energy fluctuations on Tony's body gradually calmed down. It was then that Ethan began to discuss serious matters with Tony.

"Are things all arranged?"

"Of course."

"Then shall we leave now?"

"We can, but let me ask first, how long will we be gone this time?"

Tony wasn't asking how long they would play outside. He was asking what time point they would return to this world after leaving this time.

According to Ethan's previous idea, it would be best if the time in several worlds was all synchronized, but it seemed this arrangement wasn't suitable now.

Even if Tony could go out and travel with him, he couldn't be away for too long, so the time in the Marvel Universe couldn't pass for too long. It was best to keep it within a month.

"This is easy to solve. As long as we leave here and don't return to this universe, we can still control the time of our return."

Anyway, to go to other universes, they would have to leave the Marvel Universe first, return to the main universe where Ethan lived, and then choose their destination.

This meant they would have to stay on a barren, airless planet for a while, but this was no problem for Tony at all.

Before leaving, Ethan noticed that Tony's right hand had an armband similar to a wristguard, which seemed a bit like the storage item he had originally made, but Tony's must have been specially modified and was a product he made himself.

"You made it yourself?"

"How's my work?"

Ethan observed it back and forth and found that the sealing performance of this storage armband seemed not very good. Could it be that Tony's technology wasn't up to par? But if this were a defective product, Tony would definitely not take it out to show off.

So... there must be something special about it.

After thinking about it, Ethan suddenly thought of something.

"Jarvis?"

"Tsk!"

Tony pursed his lips helplessly.

"You guessed it so quickly."

The sealing performance of this armband was relatively poor precisely so that the Jarvis inside could communicate with Tony outside. And the reason he made this thing was because he realized that while the artificial intelligence system was very convenient on Earth, it couldn't accompany him to other universes, and would even lose contact if he got a little far from Earth.

Without the assistance of the intelligent system, his combat power would indeed be affected, so he thought about how to solve this problem.

In the end, he chose the simplest and most direct method, carrying the massive hardware equipment with him.

(To be continued.)

Chapter 530: Hello Vulture, Goodbye Vulture!

Many of Tony Stark's high-tech devices require an intelligent system to assist in their operation. Without such assistance, the performance of the Iron Man armor would be directly affected.

However, for artificial intelligence to function, or rather, to truly exert its capabilities, it's not enough to just find any computer.

An intelligent program like Jarvis might have its core program on a very small chip, but to fully utilize all the capabilities within that core program, the required hardware could fill a football field.

For easier use of Jarvis, Tony Stark not only has a dedicated hardware setup in his mansion but also prepared a separate set at Stark Tower in New York.

Stark Industries also has a supercomputer cluster, but strictly speaking, this equipment is not Tony Stark's personal property, and Jarvis does not have unrestricted access to the databases within Stark Industries. In fact, many pieces of information must be kept away from Jarvis.

However, this has nothing to do with Tony needing Jarvis's assistance. Getting back to Jarvis, such a massive hardware facility cannot possibly be carried around everywhere. While it might seem like Tony can contact Jarvis anywhere and carries many devices that can connect to Jarvis, Jarvis's core unit has actually never moved from its location.

It might seem unrestricted, but in reality, once outside satellite coverage, it becomes very difficult to contact. This is why Tony loses intelligent system support when he leaves Earth, as current satellites cannot cover the entire galaxy, let alone the entire universe, without obstruction or delay.

As for other universal planes...

This time, Tony was going to meet Bruce Wayne. Regardless of the purpose, how could Jarvis, his crucial assistant, be left behind in this universe?

Tony's initial idea was to integrate Jarvis into the nanotech armor as an independent sub-program, but such a sub-program, without the hardware support of the computer cluster, would have extremely limited effectiveness. If it consumed too many resources, it would affect the armor's performance, so this method did not satisfy Tony.

Therefore, he specially modified the storage bracelet specifically to house Jarvis's hardware equipment, leaving some gaps for Jarvis inside to communicate with him in real time.

This way, no matter where Tony goes, Jarvis can support him at full power.

"You really went to great lengths just to show off!"

Tony looked smug. Although this method seemed rather clunky, it was currently the best solution.

He was incredibly grateful that he had learned magic. If he had relied solely on technological means to achieve this, he would have needed to acquire Hank Pym's Pym Particle technology to shrink the massive computer cluster to a portable size.

But even that would be far less convenient than using the abilities he now possessed.

"Don't worry about that. Let's go quickly."

"Why the rush?"

"Sir, Ms. Potts is on her way..."

"Go, go, go!"

"... "

Now Ethan understood why Tony was in such a hurry. It turned out he was afraid of being caught by Pepper.

Seeing that guy had already put on his armor and was ready to traverse to any environment at any moment, Ethan waved his hand and cast the teleportation magic.

After the familiar teleportation light dissipated, the two had arrived on that desolate planet.

Just as Ethan was about to set off directly, Tony gestured for Ethan to wait, as he needed to perform some simple tests first.

After leaving the Marvel Universe, Tony needed to test how Jarvis was doing and whether it was running perfectly.

"Everything is normal, except for being unable to connect to the previous mainframes."

Tony nodded, then used his armor to scan the surroundings, seemingly recording various data, before nodding at Ethan.

"We can go now."

Ethan was curious about what data Tony had collected, but he trusted that Tony would tell him voluntarily once he had the results. For now, he should think about which Batman world to go to.

Tony said he wanted to meet them all, but Ethan couldn't possibly visit every world where Batman existed. He only planned to visit the few movie worlds.

And he decided to visit them one by one in chronological order, with the first stop being that old film, Batman.

As a film produced in the 1980s, many things in this Batman world seemed very backward in the eyes of Ethan and Tony. Some so-called high-tech devices were like antiques to Tony, completely failing to pique his interest.

The only thing that caught Tony's eye this time was the beautiful reporter Vicki Vale, but his relationship with Pepper was very stable now, and even though he had traveled to another world, he didn't indulge freely with the thought of "Anyway, Pepper doesn't know, it's okay to have some fun!"

Instead, he followed and observed all the interactions between Bruce Wayne and that beautiful woman like a peeping tom, occasionally making sarcastic remarks.

"Are you planning to just watch the whole time and do nothing?"

"Originally, I wanted to find an opportunity to talk to him, but I found that this Batman seems a bit different from what I had previously imagined."

Ethan shrugged. It was Tony who wanted to see Batman, so he was just tagging along this time, treating it as a chance to experience what Gotham was like in the 1980s.

After just casually wandering for two days, Ethan discovered that the local customs were indeed simple and honest. In just two days, he didn't know how many robbers he had taken down.

Besides that, Tony continued to quietly observe Bruce Wayne until the Joker kidnapped Vicki Vale, the beauty who had caught Tony's eye. Tony decisively put on his Iron Man armor, rushed out, gave the Joker a good beating, rescued Batman's girlfriend right in front of him, then hovered in mid-air, looked down at Batman for a while, and then flew away.

Ethan was standing on a tall building at this time, watching Tony's actions unfold.

He had expected him to talk to Batman, but he didn't expect him to just come back.

"Why did you just come back? Aren't you going to talk to him?"

Tony had already removed his armor after landing, and then stood next to Ethan, also looking down below.

"This isn't the Batman I wanted to see."

"Oh?"

Tony briefly explained his thoughts. "Actually, I'm very curious about Bruce Wayne's insistence on the no-kill rule, and I wanted to talk to him about it."

"Why talk about that?"

Iron Man is not a soft-hearted superhero, especially the Iron Man from the movie universe. While he might not be a mass murderer, the number of villains who died at his hands is definitely not something you can count on your fingers.

Or rather, the superheroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, except for Spider-Man who is still a kid now and will grow into a friendly neighborhood hero in the future, none of the others are pushovers. They definitely fight with all their might and won't deliberately hold back or show mercy.

Perhaps it is precisely for this reason that Tony wants to meet Batman, who has adhered to the no-kill rule for decades.

"Pure curiosity."

"You should have said so earlier. If you want to see that kind of Batman, there's no need to go to these worlds."

These Batman films made in the late 1980s and early 1990s didn't particularly emphasize or portray the no-kill rule. In fact, in many combat scenes, it's impossible to tell that Batman has this principle.

It was only mentioned slightly in one of the films when he advised Robin to let go of hatred, but even then, he didn't seem to hold back during fights...

As for the Batman in Diana's world, he should have had it initially, but when he appeared in the film, he was an older Batman who had retired and then returned. This version of Batman should have already broken his vow.

In the movie universe, the no-kill principle was strongly emphasized in The Dark Knight trilogy, which can be seen as a prequel to Batman, focusing on the story of Batman's origin.

However, there were no special powers in that world. Batman was just a strong ordinary person who had undergone rigorous training.

The villains were also ordinary people, at most a bit mentally unstable...

"So there are worlds like that. That's quite suitable."

Tony rubbed his chin. He had originally planned to wait for the right time to go directly to Diana's world to see how Batman was born and grew up, but now that there was a pure ordinary world Batman, such a world seemed more interesting.

In Tony's view, although Batman seemingly had no superpowers, his abilities were no different from superpowers. Could an ordinary person learn so many fighting styles in such a short time and train all their physical attributes to the human limit? That's simply impossible.

For example, when an average person excessively trains for strength, their agility will inevitably be affected, but none of these problems exist for Batman.

From this perspective, Batman is actually a supernatural being. Coupled with his cheat-like intelligence, he possesses overwhelming strength against most criminals. In such situations, Tony can understand him appropriately holding back and showing mercy, just like he wouldn't directly fire missiles or unleash large-scale attack magic when dealing with ordinary criminals.

But a Batman in a world completely without supernatural powers, and still adhering to this principle, is quite interesting.

"Let's go there and take a look. I'm more interested in that Bruce Wayne."

As for the one below, he's just an ordinary superhero. There are more and more people like him in the Marvel Universe now, and Tony doesn't think he's fundamentally different from them.

"I thought you would use all sorts of means to snatch that beautiful woman and then ridicule Bruce Wayne thoroughly before leaving?"

"That's not a bad idea, but my relationship with Pepper is very good right now, and I won't casually hook up with other women."

"If you weren't staring at that beautiful woman the whole time you were saying that, I would believe you."

(To be continued.)