Curious Tony

"Tony, where are you right now?"

Sitting in the car to the hotel, Tony answered Obadiah’s call, but the voice coming through the phone did not sound particularly friendly.

Tony immediately felt annoyed. He was browsing Moments right now—where did he have the time to chat nonsense with him?

"I’m in London, dealing with something important." Still, Tony gave him a polite reply.

After all, Obadiah Stane had started running Stark Industries alongside his father. In a sense, the man was Tony’s elder.

For many years after Howard Stark’s death, this man had been helping Tony, so Tony still respected him.

"Fine, but can you tell me what exactly you’re thinking? Do you know how much market value Stark Industries has lost because of what you did?" Obadiah’s voice quickly came through.

"It’s nothing. Don’t worry, Obadiah, I have a solution." Tony felt irritated after hearing that.

Stark Industries had shut down its most profitable division, so a stock plunge was only natural.

Tony had anticipated this situation long ago. Everything was within his expectations, and it was not as if he had no way to save Stark Industries.

"Let’s talk after I get back, Obadiah." Tony did not want to discuss this any further. He replied bluntly, "I should reach New York tomorrow night. That’s it."

"Hey! Tony, you—" Before Obadiah could finish, Tony had already hung up.

After thinking for a moment, Tony quickly set his phone to reject all calls—except those from Pepper Potts.

Then Tony immediately opened the latest version of WeChat, which he had just updated and installed on his phone. After skillfully opening Moments, Tony began browsing carefully.

Honestly, Tony himself could hardly believe that he was so interested in this thing.

But after thinking about it for a while, Tony understood. He was not interested in the app itself, but in the people using it and constantly updating their posts on Moments.

After all, these people were all wizards!

Until then, Tony had believed wizards were things that only existed in novels.

Even when it came to Noah, Tony’s first thought had been—this guy was some sort of magician.

But after the man brought him to his laboratory to see the servers and intelligent terminals, he no longer dared think that way.

Who had ever seen a magician casually wave a hand and move a pile of dragon corpses as large as a small mountain?

And then wave again to slice a young dragon in half and feed it to a cat?

Well, Phil Coulson had explained that the little orange creature was not a cat, but some kind of Flerken. But that dragon had been a genuine dragon!

When Tony asked Noah about those dragon bones, Noah’s explanation sent chills through his entire body.

"Those? They’re all leftovers from experiments. Hungarian Horntails aren’t cheap. If one gets loose, it could destroy an entire city. Luckily, I have a good relationship with the current Minister of the Hungarian Ministry of Magic."

"Something capable of destroying a city, and you treat it like merchandise?"

"It’s just hard to kill, not impossible to kill or control. Forget about bullets. Missiles might work, but they fly fast enough to evade them, probably. What, do you want one?"

"No, thanks."

Remembering Noah’s regretful expression, as well as those dragons that still radiated a certain intimidation even in death, Tony could only swallow hard.

He suddenly wondered whether shutting down Stark’s weapons division had been a foolish decision.

Shaking his head, Tony could not be bothered to think about that mess anymore.

Picking up his phone, Tony began looking through the posts on Moments. Although Noah was Tony’s only WeChat friend, Moments allowed him to see updates posted by wizards all over the world.

Tony also discovered that every wizard here used their real name.

Even Tony himself was required to use his real name, and he thought that was great.

Although he had been forced to deposit one hundred thousand dollars in Gringotts, he did not lack that kind of money.

Tony read very seriously. None of the people here were familiar to him, but he found that all sorts of strange Magic Organizations and Ministry of Magic officials loved posting updates.

Together with the unusual magical images, it all felt extremely interesting to Tony.

However, Tony suddenly noticed that the agent from some logistics bureau sitting beside him, Phil Coulson, kept glancing at his phone.

Tony was a little speechless, but he quickly seemed to think of something and broke into a mischievous grin.

"Buddy, don’t tell me you’re not qualified to use this thing?" Tony raised his phone, his face full of smugness.

"Uh, I’m not." Phil nodded helplessly. "Didn’t Lord Phileas say it? Only two people in the Muggle world use this app—you and our director."

"Really?" Tony’s smile grew wider. "Looks like that wizard doesn’t think very highly of you."

"Maybe. After all, I’m not our director, and unlike you, I can’t give Lord Phileas what he wants." Phil was quite optimistic and did not care much about it.

Tony felt like he had failed to get a reaction, which left him somewhat frustrated.

He put away his phone. He had plenty of time to play with it later. Right now, he had more questions that Agent Coulson needed to answer.

For example, the matter of aliens.

"Are there really aliens in this world?" After thinking for a moment, Tony asked quietly.

"Of course." Coulson nodded. "Thirteen years ago, I had just joined S.H.I.E.L.D. My first mission was to investigate a woman in a spacesuit with Fury, who was not yet the director at the time."

"Whoa? A spacesuit?" Tony’s eyes widened. "Was she an alien?"

"No." Coulson shook his head. "She used to be an Earthling, but for certain special reasons, she was taken to an alien race called the Kree. Most importantly, she had lost her memory. She had no idea she was from Earth."

"And then?"

"Then the director and I witnessed a group of green aliens who could freely change their appearance. They were Skrulls. By coincidence, one Skrull turned into me, and Lord Phileas, who had come to deal with them, discovered it."

Coulson explained in great detail, from the Skrulls to the Kree.

From Noah using Space magic to him nearly burning through that spaceship with a single blast of fire, Coulson told Tony everything exactly as it had happened.

Of course, Coulson did not forget that terrifying woman who frightened him to his very soul.

That Sorcerer Supreme could stand on Earth and open a gateway to the cosmos, then wipe out an entire StarCraft fleet with a wave of her hand from an unknown number of kilometers away!

Honestly, if J.A.R.V.I.S. had not helped Tony confirm that there had indeed been a massive explosion thirteen years ago, and if J.A.R.V.I.S. had not detected that Coulson was telling the truth, Tony would have thought Coulson had read too many novels!

For a moment, Tony and Coulson both fell silent. What a terrifying reality that was!

Especially after Coulson quietly added that they had collected some data and determined that every missile headed for Earth had possessed the power of an atomic bomb.

If all those missiles had really struck Earth, then the planet would probably have been finished!

Tony sighed. After thinking for a long time, he lowered his head and silently gave J.A.R.V.I.S. an instruction through his earpiece.

"J.A.R.V.I.S., delete our previous recording."

"Certainly, sir."

J.A.R.V.I.S. was the AI system terminal Tony had been most proud of creating over the past few years, and the system obeyed Tony completely.

Although Tony did not want to admit it, he had to say that Noah was the reason he had created this thing. Though even without Noah, he might have made it eventually.

Tony sighed. He had originally planned to take the recording back and see whether he could study something from it, or simply expose it.

But now, Tony had completely abandoned that idea. He knew that if he did that, he would be in serious trouble.

After arriving at the hotel booked through Stark Industries, Tony quickly sent everyone away.

Holding the several History of Magic books he had brought from the Sanctum, he began opening them one by one. Their contents were extensive, beginning from thousands of years ago, yet Tony read them with great fascination.

As Tony continued reading, a complete and immense world of wizards, one that had been entirely hidden beneath the surface of the world, unfolded in his mind.

It all captivated him deeply and shocked him immensely.

While Tony was reading those history books, Noah was in his office looking at his phone.

On Noah’s phone was a man wearing an eyepatch. It was Fury. Clearly, he had something he needed to discuss with Noah.

"Seriously, do you like calling me on WeChat whenever you have nothing better to do? Don’t you ever check the time difference?" Noah looked at the man on the screen and complained helplessly.

"Sorry. It’s just that Tony is too important, so I have to put in more effort." Fury’s serious expression broke in an instant. "He’s Howard Stark’s son, and he has deep ties to S.H.I.E.L.D."

"I don’t care who he is." Noah shook his head indifferently. "Though he really is rich. He bought an account for one hundred thousand dollars without a word of complaint. Nothing like you."

"I don’t have money!" Fury said unhappily. Then, thinking of something, he immediately added, "And I’ve never embezzled anything either! Anyway, forget that. What was the result of your discussion with him?"

"Not bad." Noah rested his head on his hand, looking a little impatient. "He agreed to come install an AI system terminal for me in a couple of days and give me ten of the best servers for free. In exchange, I gave him my WeChat account."

"He has WeChat too?"

"Yeah. Maybe you can add him as a friend and chat nonsense whenever you have time."