"Beep beep beep... beep beep beep..."
"...Turn off the alarm, Jarvis. I'm awake."
Tony sat up from the bed, and the curtains at the bedside opened automatically. The morning light spilled into the bedroom, revealing a magnificent view of the blue water and sky.
After freshening up, Tony downed his breakfast drink in one gulp. The taste wasn't bad. It had a hint of sweetness and a faint herbal aroma; the flavor was unique but quite invigorating.
"Jarvis, what is this?" Tony asked casually.
"Cold-pressed fresh fruit and vegetable juice, Sir," Jarvis said. "A blend of kale, apple, ginger, and lemon, with no added sugar. A specially formulated recipe that balances nutrition and taste, Sir."
"Rich people sure have a lot of tricks."
Tony mumbled a sentence, suddenly feeling that if a glass of this stuff was expensive, it was a bit of a waste on him. After all, he was in a hurry, and whatever rare thing was placed in front of him would be gone in one gulp.
Taking advantage of this brief breakfast gap, Jarvis said: "You have an invitation this week, Sir."
"What is it?" Tony asked casually while wiping his mouth.
"Ms. Mambo, a Hollywood star," Jarvis said, thoughtfully projecting a holographic image of her photo in front of him.
A rather stunning blonde beauty. In the photo, she reclined on a vintage velvet sofa, her satin dress draped gently, every curve gilded with a honey-colored sheen by the morning light. Her golden hair cascaded from behind her ears like waves kissing the beach.
She was certainly beautiful. And since she took the initiative to invite a renowned playboy like Tony Stark, it was foreseeable that she likely had designs on the "seafood merchant."
But Tony waved his hand without much thought: "Decline it."
Are you kidding? He now knew there was a high-ranking Hydra officer suspected of being skilled in disguise and even more skilled in assassination in bed who wanted his head. If he couldn't control his lower body at a time like this, a moment of inattention might lead to a fatal disaster.
Besides, his time was very tight. He wished there were forty-eight hours in a day, spending half his time in the lab researching upgrades and the other half outside eliminating hidden dangers from enemies while searching for and collecting new trump cards.
As for having fun with stars like rich second generations liked to do... he couldn't say he was completely uninterested, but at least wait until he had a basic sense of security.
Moreover, before this, he had actually experienced everything he should have in his predecessor's memories. After all, the original Tony Stark never refused anyone, from fashion magazine cover models to various Hollywood rising stars, leaving him with rich material for reminiscence.
Accessing his predecessor's memories was like experiencing them himself, so even relying solely on memories, he had tried all the fresh tricks he should have, and such things weren't that tempting anymore.
It was more important to focus on continuing to become stronger and increasing the chips to save his life. After all, you have to be alive to enjoy things.
The development of the Mark VI naturally gave Tony greater capital; this new energy armor was also a milestone upgrade for Iron Man.
But it still wasn't enough.
Tony knew very well that although he seemed to be able to walk sideways on Earth relying on the Iron Man armor, this level of strength was at most just stepping into the threshold for the chaotic times that were about to arrive.
There is no particularly clear division of strength realms in the Marvel Universe. The official settings usually only use numbers 1 to 7 to evaluate the strength and weakness of a character's various attributes, but this evaluation is still relatively vague.
So, to facilitate the assessment of his own strength and to set short-term small goals for himself, Tony devised a rough evaluation system.
The entry-level realm for superheroes was listed by him as "Street Level." The strength of heroes at this level varied, ranging from martial arts masters like Daredevil whose physical fitness was just mortal, to superhumans like Spider-Man who could dodge bullets and lift trucks with their bare hands.
The next level he used himself as a benchmark, setting it as "Iron Man Level." That is, using the conventional combat power of the Iron Man armor as a reference and using himself as the standard, regarding it as his current combat power level.
Most of the Mark series upgrades in the movies were regarded by him as minor realm improvements within this level, and the strength demonstrated by the nano-suit in the movies was probably the ceiling of this level.
The next benchmark down he defined as Hulk, or "Hulk Level."
Of course, this referred to the base Hulk—when devising this system, he mostly used the heroes' base forms for comparison. And here it referred to the MCU Hulk; the gap between the comics Hulk and the movie's strength performance was also obvious.
After that, he tentatively set it as Thor Level.
This didn't refer to Thor in the early movies. Because from Tony's perspective, early MCU Thor and Hulk were roughly in the same weight class.
Here, he was benchmarking against the state in Thor: Ragnarok where Brother Hammer, inspired by his father's dying wish, awakened his own power of thunder without needing Mjolnir. Later, Brother Hammer obtained Stormbreaker and once achieved the magnificent feat of hacking at Thanos with six Infinity Stones, which was also the highlight of Brother Hammer's MCU career.
The above ratings were purely subjective and not necessarily accurate—in fact, whether they were accurate or not didn't matter at all, because this only represented a strength benchmark in Tony's own mind, and the sole purpose was to serve his assessment of his strength progress and the strength level of some enemies.
In fact, in his mind, only the Thor Level could barely be called sufficient to stand alone... or Captain Marvel Level would also do. These two hadn't fought directly in the movies, so it was hard to say who was stronger or weaker.
However, in the derivative work What If...? animated series, the MCU parallel universe Thor and Captain Marvel had fought, and it seemed to be a 50-50 split, so they were temporarily grouped into one level.
The MCU movies could be said to have given Captain Marvel enough face. Single-handedly scaring away Ronan's interstellar fleet, tearing apart Thanos' flagship "Sanctuary II" with her bare hands, and taking a punch from Thanos to the face without moving an inch. Compared to Hulk, who was beaten into autism by Thanos with a set of military boxing at the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War, it was simply like one was the director's biological child and the other was picked up from the roadside.
And you have to know that according to the setting, the Kree Empire to which Ronan belonged was already one of the three strongest empires in the Marvel Universe, and Thanos was the number one terrorist in the universe. Being able to crush these two showed that at least below the god level, Captain Marvel Level strength was enough to walk sideways in this universe, not afraid even if encountering top cosmic powers.
Tony felt that only when a single suit of his armor could have combat power to contend with Thor or Captain Marvel would it barely give him a bit of security.
And that was just the beginning. Captain Marvel Level was just the top of conventional cosmic combat power; there were various great gods above that in the Marvel Universe, absolutely not to be underestimated.
The road ahead was still very long, but for the current Tony, he felt that Captain Marvel Level was already distant enough, so thinking too much about levels beyond that was useless, so he would leave it for later.
The more he thought, the more anxious he became. Tony rubbed the bridge of his nose, deciding he should focus on the task at hand first.
"Let me think... let's do this first."
Tony glanced at his to-do list.
"Jarvis, show me how the collection is going for the 'Hydra' file I asked you to create earlier."