Roger watched Stark build the armor for a while before losing interest.
The MK series was still in its experimental phase.
Although the MK3 was the coolest Iron Man suit, it hadn’t been developed yet.
He could only let Stark build it slowly.
To Roger, the suit’s aesthetic appeal far outweighed its practicality.
To put it bluntly, with Roger’s current strength, ten Thanoses could…
*cough cough*.
Taking down a hundred MK2s would be no problem at all!
But Roger wasn’t here to fight.
The System’s missions were always focused on the ultimate goal of cultivating Stark into a god.
In the future, Stark would gradually transform from a playboy into a mortal who could rival the gods.
All his growth would need time to mature, and Roger’s role was to protect him throughout this process.
Given Stark’s personality, if Roger tried to inject him with the Hulk Serum directly, he would never accept it.
He would trust his armor over any gene warrior project.
Roger had his own plans for this.
In the battles to come, he would gradually guide Stark, helping him slowly accept the transformation.
Only a more powerful body can wield more powerful armor.
“Only greater power can bring a safer world.”
“To cultivate a god, one must first become a god!”
Roger’s whisper sounded like a demon’s murmur.
Suddenly, his left eye glowed with a faint red light, and the slight smile on his lips made him look exceptionally sinister.
“System! Ten-pull. Let me see where your golden light is!”
[You have consumed ten Dimensional Crystals and drawn ten rewards. (10/100)]
[You have received common rewards: …]
[Congratulations! You have triggered a Special Exploration Event!]
[You have entered the movie world of *Doctor Strange*. You are now a novice mage apprentice at Kamar-Taj.]
[Master Mordo will be your instructor for this class, responsible for teaching you basic spells.]
[In the first lesson, Master Mordo is about to teach you how to use a Sling Ring.]
[Possessing incomparably terrifying psychic power, your mental strength is unparalleled throughout the ages. The moment you raised the Sling Ring to rotate it, the ring in your hand was shattered by your immense psychic power.]
[Exploration complete! You have received a reward: the spell skill 『Portal』.]
***
During the day, Roger stayed in the garage with Stark, assisting him in forging the armor.
At night, however, Roger would leave the garage and venture alone to the nearby open sea.
In an uninhabited area hundreds of kilometers from land, he would take out that mysterious and alluring Mental Ore, savoring the thrill of his ever-increasing power.
One hundred times!
Two hundred times!
Three hundred times!
Unbeknownst to him, Roger’s left eye began to turn crimson, while his right eye grew increasingly azure.
Deep within his mind, a figure resembling himself seemed to be leaping and shouting, yet Roger heard nothing.
He closed his eyes, immersing himself in the perception of his psychic power.
Ten kilometers!
Twenty kilometers!
Thirty kilometers!
“Oh! What immense power, what a vast range! All of this is within my grasp.”
Suddenly, Roger recalled that famous line from Marvel: “With great power comes great responsibility.”
But now, he felt that statement was incorrect.
He had found a more accurate answer.
“With great power comes greater desire!”
Roger raised his right hand, closed his palm, and gently clenched his fist.
The waves within a thirty-kilometer radius surged skyward, defying gravity.
*Rumble…*
The sky had long been shrouded in dark clouds, with dull thunder echoing and lightning flashing everywhere.
Roger’s eyes snapped open, one crimson and one azure, shimmering with an eerie light.
In the next instant—
Dozens of waterspouts erupted, hurtling relentlessly toward the thunderclouds in the sky.
*CRACK—BOOM!*
The black, oppressive thunderclouds were pierced by the waterspouts Roger controlled, tearing a massive hole through which starlight spilled, illuminating the entire sea area.
The waterspouts, connecting sea and sky, churned with electrical currents from the lightning.
Steam, generated by the intense heat, rose continuously.
In this deserted stretch of ocean, terrifying energy fluctuations raged unchecked.
*This first full-power cultivation session caused such a huge commotion,* Roger thought, his head aching.
*At this rate, I’ll have to change locations every single day, or that Egghead at S.H.I.E.L.D. will definitely track me down sooner or later.*
Just five minutes after Roger left, alarms blared throughout Colonel Rhodes’ air force base and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s monitoring departments.
Several fighter jets and helicopters rushed to the scene but found nothing.
Ultimately, the sudden event was classified as an anomalous weather phenomenon.
Nick Fury, however, fell into deep thought as he watched the extraordinary footage sent back by his agents.
*An anomaly of this magnitude… this is no simple superhuman incident.*
Humanity was still too weak to contend with these alien civilizations.
With a heavy heart, Nick Fury reached into his pocket and gently rubbed an old-fashioned pager.
***
Back at the villa, Roger took a shower and headed to the garage in his bathrobe.
A surreal scene unfolded before his eyes.
Nini, the Iron Boulder, was sitting obediently in front of Stark, holding a piece of iron with both claws and munching on it bite by bite.
Meanwhile, Stark was unhurriedly soldering the armor’s leg circuitry, occasionally pulling down his glasses to glance at Nini, who was eating with great relish.
Whenever Nini was about to finish, Stark would pull open a nearby drawer, rummage through it, and then pull out a new steel alloy bar and tuck it into Nini’s embrace.
The man and the beast were in perfect harmony!
Roger was utterly stunned!
It had only been a few days.
Just two days ago, weren’t they still fighting like cats and dogs, shouting “it’s either this house has me or it has you, but not both”?
How had it suddenly turned into this heartwarming scene of a lonely old man and his heartwarming pet?
Stark, who had just finished feeding Nini, caught Roger’s approach out of the corner of his eye.
He turned and winked at Roger, saying with confidence, “See that? That’s the irresistible charm of super-billionaire Tony Stark. She’s been completely conquered by my charisma.”
Roger scratched his head, took the half-piece of metal from Nini’s mouth, and examined it closely with one hand while resting the other on Nini’s large head.
“Steel alloy? The purity is pretty high, isn’t it? What got into you to feed her this?” Roger looked at Stark as if he were some kind of magical creature.
Stark grinned smugly.
“That’s just a bit of scrap metal left over from my new invention. I was going to throw it away anyway. You mentioned before that this little one eats anything, so I just wanted to see…”
As he spoke, Stark stealthily nudged the drawer full of neatly arranged alloy blocks shut with his elbow.
The entire movement was seamless, leaving no trace of what he’d been doing.