Chapter Ninety: Build Me a Mechanical Armor

“By the way, boss, I have another question,” Ivan said after thinking for a moment.

“Go on,” Zhong Shenxiu replied with an attentive expression.

Ivan gathered his thoughts. “If I’m robbing the palladium at the same time as I’m also taking a lot of the rare materials inside Stark Industries, I might be too slow moving everything by myself. The longer I’m delayed on my end, the more dangerous it’ll be for you, boss.”

Not bad... Ivan was getting better and better. He was even thinking of me now. Zhong Shenxiu grumbled inwardly.

Still, this was indeed a problem. After all, Ivan was only an ordinary man. Just finding and carrying away the palladium alone would probably take him a great deal of time, let alone hauling off the other materials.

So, in terms of transportation, Ivan would need a helper.

That helper would need some ability to climb at great heights or to fly, because Zhong Shenxiu remembered that the giant arc reactor was quite high up.

Besides that, he would need great strength, and endurance was of course indispensable.

As he went over the requirements one by one...

Zhong Shenxiu almost immediately thought of the perfect candidate: Spider-Man, Peter Parker.

Wall-crawling, tremendous strength—rumor had it Spider-Man could lift more than ten tons. Little Peter was practically ideal.

But... Peter was a kind-hearted boy, and now even styled himself as a city hero.

How could he be persuaded to rob Stark Industries willingly?

That was a question worth pondering...

Zhong Shenxiu felt that his long-dormant repertoire of soul-soup poison, er—his masterful art of persuasion—would need to be brought back into the world once more!

“No problem. I’ll arrange it. When the time comes, Peter will go with you,” Zhong Shenxiu told Ivan.

“Peter with me? Wouldn’t that put too much pressure on your side, boss?” Ivan asked in confusion.

A month earlier, through Zhong Shenxiu’s introduction, he had already met Peter Parker, and knew that he was a very powerful superhuman. Peter’s spider suit and web shooters had both been made by Ivan himself.

For such a highly capable ally, Ivan had almost automatically assumed he would be left to help Zhong Shenxiu resist Stark security and buy time.

After all, using Spider-Man just to carry some cargo was indeed a bit of overkill.

And it would only pile mountains of pressure onto Zhong Shenxiu’s side.

Stark Industries’ high-tech weapons were certainly not few in number. If things dragged on, S.H.I.E.L.D., the police, and others might intervene; if it became even more intense and the delay grew long enough, the military might even be deployed.

Hearing this, Zhong Shenxiu shook his head lightly and said with confidence, “No need. I can handle it alone. Besides, Peter is still too young right now. Sending him into battle would be the real danger—I might even have to clean up after him.”

“However...”

“Hm?” Ivan looked at Zhong Shenxiu.

But Zhong Shenxiu paused, turning his gaze to the miniature arc reactor on the table.

In the hail of bullets to come, relying only on a magical shield would indeed be somewhat strenuous for him, and he might even be injured. After all, although his recovery and the like had been enhanced by his chaos body, his defensive capability was still only within the realm of ordinary flesh and blood. It had improved too, of course, but against firearms, it was still hardly enough to look at.

Guns, when it came to killing, were simply too direct and final.

Therefore, if he could improve his defenses even slightly, it would greatly raise his margin for error and allow him to deal with unexpected situations.

After all, this world was full of hidden undercurrents. Who could say that some superhuman wouldn’t suddenly happen by one day and ruin his plan?

So it was better to leave himself more room to maneuver and be safer about things.

As for how to improve his defenses, Zhong Shenxiu still thought borrowing outside power would be quicker and more convenient. Thus his eyes settled on that miniature arc reactor.

“Using this arc reactor as the power core, how long would it take you to make a mechanical suit that covers the whole body without affecting movement?” Zhong Shenxiu asked.

Copying Iron Man and wrapping himself in iron plating should effectively increase his defense, wouldn’t it?

Since the arc reactor was already done, it would be a waste not to make an iron suit out of it.

A mechanical suit... Ivan fell into deep thought.

After a long while, he asked, “Does it need any other functions? For example, two electrified whips, or the ability to fly and so on.”

“No need,” Zhong Shenxiu said, shaking his head. “The more functions it has, the greater the demand on power, and the longer it will take to make. I only need the mechanical suit to be light enough not to interfere with my movements, and strong enough.”

He already had flight capability; chaos magic would do.

As for those electrified whips...

It had to be said, they felt like some sort of Ivan-specific preference.

In Iron Man 2, to be fair, that electric whip did have some use in Ivan’s first-generation exoskeleton armor, since it compensated for his lack of ranged options at relatively low cost.

But later on, the newest armor still came with two electric whips, which Zhong Shenxiu could never understand.

Were you lacking that little bit of damage, or did you just want to make sure no one could close in?

In the end, because of the whips’ restraints, Ivan actually became the perfect target for Rhodes and Tony, and was finished off in a straight-line defeat.

Tony, by contrast, was very smart. Much of the time he fought with ranged firepower, always keeping distance from his enemies and kiting them while dealing damage.

Ivan could have done the same, but instead he chose the most useless option of all: the electric whip...

“Do not, under any circumstances, take it upon yourself to add two electric whips for me. Do you hear me?” Zhong Shenxiu decided to emphasize this again.

Ivan, upon hearing this, was a little puzzled. Whips were great—long and flexible, good for binding, good for tying up... he muttered inwardly.

Still, since Zhong Shenxiu had made such a request, Ivan naturally would not disobey. So he could only set aside his own favorite and choose to make it entirely according to Zhong Shenxiu’s instructions.

He nodded. “If that’s all, then it’s basically just making a fully enclosed mechanical armor. That’s still fairly quick. About a month, and I should be able to finish it.”

“Good.” Zhong Shenxiu nodded in satisfaction.

A month was acceptable. By then, Tony probably still wouldn’t have built Mark Two, so that variable could be removed directly.

“Next, your main focus will be making this mechanical suit, along with modifying the truck and planning the route. You can leave everything else for now. There’s no rush on the stocks either; I expect it’ll still take some time before they fall by more than fifty points.”

“Mm...” Ivan nodded, just about to speak again.

Creak, creak—

But he was interrupted by the sound of bearings turning from outside.

Someone had used the elevator.