Identity Exposed

"Was that really Pym Particles?"

After returning to his mansion, Tony Stark had Jarvis search through the records and found information related to the technology that could enlarge and shrink objects.

"But hadn’t that stubborn old man always been hostile toward Stark Industries?"

Dr. Henry Jonathan Pym, also known as Hank Pym, had once discovered a type of subatomic particle capable of changing an object’s size. He named it "Pym Particles" after himself and founded his own company—Pym Technologies.

However, the old man seemed to have a grudge against his father, Howard Stark. Every time they met, he gave Tony a cold reception, and he had even criticized Stark Industries in the media.

Given Tony Stark’s pride, he naturally had no fondness for Hank Pym either.

"Could he be that old man’s child? No, that doesn’t make sense. If he were part of the Pym family, he probably wouldn’t be so friendly toward me."

Although Kraft had beaten him up badly, Tony Stark could tell that the other party had not actually harbored much hostility toward him…

Well, there had been a little.

But that bit of hostility had only been at the level of a bratty prank. It really did not seem like the attitude Hank Pym’s descendants would have toward someone they regarded as an enemy.

Moreover, Stark had specifically looked into it. Doctor Pym had only one adult daughter and one student. Other than that, he had no other younger relatives, let alone any underage ones.

"Whew~ I didn’t expect the old guy’s daughter to be so pretty."

Seeing Hope van Dyne’s photograph, Tony Stark could not help whistling.

"Then that kid probably has nothing to do with old man Pym," Stark muttered as he stroked his chin and analyzed the matter. "Makes sense. Pym Particles were merely discovered by that old man first. Since he could discover them, others naturally could too."

Although he had misunderstood the source of Kraft’s size-changing ability, Tony Stark’s overall line of reasoning was not wrong.

So, after ruling out the possibility that he was Doctor Pym’s descendant, Stark began searching for information on relatively famous young geniuses.

Naturally, that included Kraft, the chief designer of Dream Toy Company.

And in Tony Stark’s mind, Kraft remained the prime suspect. There were clearly people who seemed more suspicious, yet for some reason Stark was convinced that Kraft had been the pilot of that ridiculous puppet mech. Even he was a little puzzled by this intuition.

Maybe because he was a loyal customer of that kid’s products?

After listing Kraft as his top suspect, the more Stark analyzed it, the more certain he became that it was him…

A teenage genius, from a wealthy family, living in New York—and most importantly, judging from the pile of strange and bizarre gadgets on Kraft’s Clever Hands Channel, the kid clearly had an unconventional mind. It was perfectly reasonable that he would build a puppet-shaped powered exoskeleton.

His prankish behavior also had an explanation. It was no secret that Kraft Lee held prejudices against races other than yellow-skinned people. Tony Stark had Jarvis investigate casually and soon learned the whole story. Although the information had been processed by Martin Lee, it was enough to support Stark’s speculation.

However, even though Tony Stark had basically confirmed Kraft’s identity, he had no intention of exposing him. Kraft had breached his firewall before but had not gone any further, so Tony naturally had to respect his privacy. Since Kraft did not want to reveal his identity, Stark would not disclose it on his own initiative.

Of course, this also had something to do with Kraft’s age. If Kraft had been an adult, Tony Stark would not have been so good-tempered.

Kraft still did not know that Tony Stark had guessed his identity. After returning to his workshop, he excitedly began doing somersaults.

Although Kraft was not a Tony Stark fan, he acknowledged the playboy’s professional ability. Not to mention that Stark had built a powered exoskeleton that was no worse than Kraft’s own Dream creations. Being able to give such a Stark a thorough beating made it absolutely impossible for Kraft not to be excited.

Of course, after the excitement faded, Kraft also felt some lingering fear. Ever since he had made himself a whole pile of equipment in the micro factory, he had become somewhat overconfident. He did not think himself invincible, but he had looked down on those so-called tech companies. Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit, however, had calmed him down again.

Although he had chased Tony Stark around and beaten him up today, Kraft did not believe that Iron Man suit was all it could do. Tony Stark had not even painted it, and it had barely been outfitted with weapons. Clearly, the armor was only an early version. With Stark’s genius, plus Stark Industries’ money and weapons as backing, improving the suit’s combat power would be far too easy.

And Tony Stark was merely a relatively famous scientist. There were so many scientists in the world on the same level as him, as well as research teams supported by every country and faction. Who knew whether other masters of similarly advanced technology were lurking in the shadows?

Leaving everything else aside, wasn’t Hulk a living example?

In addition, Kraft had discovered one of his weaknesses—his physical abilities could not keep up.

Once the pace of combat reached a certain level, Kraft’s reaction speed could no longer keep up. He could basically only rely on Angela and Haro’s assistance. He felt that Tony Stark was probably about the same in this regard. The impact was not major, but it still made them somewhat lacking in flexibility.

And there was no sense of participation…

If Kraft had not wanted to experience the fun of piloting a mech, why would he make mechs that required a pilot’s control? Wouldn’t it have been better to make autonomous robots and hand them over to artificial intelligence? At the end of the day, he was only a fifteen-year-old boy.

There was also the issue of stamina. In truth, if Tony Stark had not called a stop, Kraft would not have been able to keep going much longer. Artificial intelligence handled the controls, but the λ-Driver system used emotional energy. That required Kraft to remain focused the entire time, otherwise Botakun’s punches would have had very little power.

Not to mention that Kraft had to shout a few times now and then to stir up his emotions, which also consumed quite a bit of physical strength…

"Emmmm… Angela, make me a workout plan first."

Kraft thought it over for a long time, but he still could not convince himself to research human enhancement. The shadow from his childhood was not so easy to overcome, so he could only settle for the next best thing for now.

After the two "scientists" who possessed advanced technology had a cordial and friendly exchange in private, they both put this "small matter" behind them. However, it caught the attention of a certain intelligence agency whose name was still long and awkward at the moment.

After all, Tony Stark had not exactly hidden himself when he flew around over New York. Since Kraft could discover him, S.H.I.E.L.D., as an intelligence organization, could naturally discover him as well.

What was more, Kraft had later set off such a conspicuous firework.

Fortunately, Tony Stark’s mansion was secluded enough. The few cameras that might have captured footage of the area had also been hacked by Angela, so S.H.I.E.L.D. only knew that Stark had tinkered together an iron man. Kraft’s existence had not been exposed.

"Keep a constant eye on Tony Stark’s movements!"

The former and current directors of S.H.I.E.L.D. gave their subordinates exactly the same order.

In the movies, S.H.I.E.L.D. only learned about the Iron Man suit when Stark fought Iron Monger, or perhaps even earlier, when Stark used Mark III to wipe out terrorists in the Middle East. In any case, their professional standards had been pretty lousy.

But here, the protagonist had set off such an eye-catching giant firework. If S.H.I.E.L.D. still failed to notice in advance, that would have been rather unreasonable.