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Outskirts of New York
Dawn was breaking.
In the soft light of early morning, Jiro stood in the middle of an abandoned factory. Cracked concrete lay beneath his feet, and rusty metal scraps were scattered all around.
His superpowered brain was still running at full speed, processing and optimizing the vast amount of knowledge he'd just absorbed.
Now it was time to put it into practice.
"Knowledge is just theory. Real power lies in how you use it," Jiro muttered, scanning his surroundings.
First, he needed to set up a basic lab. No fancy equipment required—because he was the most advanced instrument.
His eyes glowed faintly red, and two thin heat rays shot out, slicing precisely through the scrap metal on the ground.
The rust evaporated in the intense heat, leaving behind clean, solid steel.
He reached out, and his bio-force field wrapped around the molten metal, molding it like clay into a workbench, support frames, and some essential tools.
Taking a deep breath, he slowly exhaled—an icy stream of air flowed out, instantly freezing a thin layer of frost across the surface of the bench, approaching absolute zero.
"This should be good enough to simulate a low-temperature superconducting environment."
Tony Stark's arc reactor relied on palladium, but Jiro had already worked out a better solution.
Closing his eyes, he fine-tuned his hearing, filtering out the surface noise to catch the vibrations deep within the earth's crust.
Seconds later, he locked onto a mineral vein underground.
"Uranium-238… but it's not pure enough… Wait—there's thorium over there."
He bent his knees slightly and, in the next instant, broke the sound barrier and vanished into the sky.
0.3 seconds later, he was standing in the middle of a barren desert, plunging one hand into the ground.
Boom!
The earth split open as he ripped a chunk of raw ore straight from several hundred meters beneath the surface.
His eyes lit up again—this time firing precise plasma beams to burn away the impurities, leaving only a few grams of pure Thorium-232.
"More stable than plutonium, longer half-life, and higher energy output."
Back at the abandoned factory, he embedded the thorium crystal into his homemade reactor frame.
With his enhanced vision, he fine-tuned the magnetic containment field, making sure the plasma stayed stable.
Buzz—
A soft blue light lit up at the core of the reactor, and the energy levels spiked instantly.
"It worked."
Jiro grinned. "Output efficiency is 2.7 times higher than Stark's version."
Vibranium from Wakanda was way too rare and expensive on the market. He needed a more scalable substitute.
He replayed the atomic structure of vibranium in his head, trying to replicate its energy-absorbing properties using existing elements.
"Carbon nanotube framework… doped with rare earth elements… then realign the lattice with high-frequency vibrations…"
He moved his hands through the air, and his bio-force field precisely manipulated microscopic materials into position.
Soon, a thin sheet of dark-silver metal formed in his palm.
He picked up a rusty steel plate and slammed it against the new material.
Clang!
The steel plate warped and bent, while the silver sheet didn't even flinch—no dent, no scratch.
"Absorbs kinetic energy almost 80% as well as vibranium, but costs way less." He nodded with satisfaction.
"Good enough for now."
Dr. Erskine's super-soldier serum could strengthen the human body, but the side effects were brutal. Jiro decided it needed an upgrade.
Inside his mind, he built a molecular model of the serum, cutting out unstable gene segments and redesigning the amino acid sequences from scratch.
"Remove the personality-enhancing side effects, keep only the pure physical enhancements..."
Instead of injecting it straight away, he used his bio-field to simulate a human body's reaction first.
Once it was confirmed safe, he injected the improved serum into a wild rabbit that just happened to pass by.
Bang!
The rabbit's muscles swelled slightly, but it remained calm. Its speed and strength, however, had clearly increased.
"Success," Jiro said as he put away the remaining serum.
"Maybe I'll need it later."
The Pym Particle's space-compression tech was way too dangerous, but he needed to understand how it worked.
He adjusted the focus of his pupils, his gaze piercing down to the microscopic level to observe quantum fluctuations in a vacuum.
"Every space fold leaves a trace..."
He tried to simulate the effect of Pym Particles using his bio-field and wrapped it around a piece of metal.
Whoosh!
The metal instantly shrank down to the nanoscale—but it quickly reverted back to its original size.
"Still not stable, but at least it proves it's possible."
Jiro gathered up all his experimental results and looked off toward the distant New York skyline.
"S.H.I.E.L.D., Hydra, Stark Industries... this world's got way too many variables," he muttered, deep in thought.
"If I want to really control the game, I'll need a base—and allies."
After all this, he realized something: with the kind of power he had now, he didn't need to do everything himself.
All he had to do was find the richest or smartest person in this world, give them a tiny bit of help, and let them work for him.
And in the Marvel universe, the smartest and richest person was...
His gaze pierced through layers of walls and concrete until it landed on Tony Stark, tinkering away in his lab.
"Time to head into the city," Jiro said with a small smirk.
New YorkStark Expo
Jiro stood among the crowd at the expo, dark hair slightly tousled, dressed in a perfectly tailored dark grey suit. He looked like a young, low-key academic.
He had slightly adjusted his facial features with the bio-field to make his face look softer, less noticeable.
But then he thought, I'm basically Superman now. Why should I even care about hiding?
At the center of the expo, Tony Stark stood in front of a holographic display, showing off the next-gen clean energy tech to the crowd.
"The Stark Arc Reactor Civilianization Project!"
"Picture this—every home in the future having its own mini reactor. No more reliance on the power grid!" Tony spread his arms wide as the audience erupted in applause.
Jiro smiled faintly, eyes locked on the projected image of the reactor.
"Only one-third as efficient as mine."
When the expo ended, Jiro didn't leave. Instead, he headed toward the Stark Industries R&D area.
He stopped in front of an experimental arc generator and deliberately shook his head.
"Magnetic field containment's off. Plasma leakage rate's way too high," he muttered—just loud enough for the nearby engineers to hear.
Sure enough, one of the tech leads frowned and walked over. "Sir, this device is Stark Industries' latest design. There's no way something's wrong with it."
Jiro looked up, calm as ever. "If you adjust the current distribution of the polar field coils, you could improve efficiency by 17%."
The supervisor froze, about to argue—when a familiar voice chimed in from behind.
"Well, that's interesting. Go on."
Tony Stark had appeared out of nowhere, holding a glass of whiskey, eyeing Jiro with curiosity.
Tony raised an eyebrow. "Which lab are you from? MIT? CERN?"
Jiro shook his head. "Independent researcher."
Tony chuckled. "Yeah, right. Plasma physics at this level? No way you're self-taught."
Jiro didn't argue. Instead, he pulled a tiny device out of the inner pocket of his suit jacket.
It was a mini thorium-based reactor he'd made himself—no bigger than two fingers, but glowing with a steady blue light.
Tony's smirk froze.
"What is that?"
"An improved arc reactor," Jiro said casually.
"Thorium fuel, optimized magnetic containment, 2.7x the energy density, and a half-life four times longer."
Tony's pupils contracted slightly. He reached out and took the device. The sensors in his fingertips instantly picked up the insane energy readings.
"JARVIS, scan this."
The AI's voice came through. "Sir, this device's energy output far exceeds our latest prototype—and with lower radiation levels."
Tony stared at Jiro, his playful look now sharp and serious. "Who the hell are you?"
Jiro smiled faintly. "Just someone interested in an energy revolution."
Tony was silent for a couple seconds, then suddenly grinned. "Alright, Mystery Man. How about a drink?"
Ten minutes later, the two were sitting at the private bar on top of Stark Tower.
Tony swirled his drink. "So, you show up out of nowhere with a reactor better than mine. What's the deal? You selling a patent? Looking for a job?"
Jiro shook his head. "Neither. I'm just curious—if you've got this kind of tech, why are you still using palladium?"
Tony narrowed his eyes. "Thorium's hard to purify and stabilize."
"True," Jiro nodded. "But if you combine it with vibranium's vibration absorption properties, you can solve the critical temperature issue."
Tony's fingers froze mid-sip.
"You know about vibranium?"
"Most stable metal on Earth. Wakanda's national treasure," Jiro took a sip of his drink. "But I've recently developed a substitute—about 80% as effective."
Tony set his glass down, voice turning serious. "JARVIS, pull up all classified files on vibranium."
JARVIS replied, "S.H.I.E.L.D. encrypted documents. Access restricted."
Tony stared at Jiro. "A regular person shouldn't even know vibranium exists."
Jiro met his gaze head-on. "I'm not a regular person."
"....."