True Colors

"Obviously, I’m not hero material."

Standing at the press conference, Tony looked every inch the respectable man in his suit, but he did not seem particularly comfortable.

Noah and Coulson stood together in a secluded corner, watching the press conference.

Noah had come purely to "witness history." After all, it was an iconic scene, and he had no intention of missing it.

As for Coulson, he watched Tony with a conflicted expression. He had the nagging feeling that something bad was about to happen.

"Don’t be so tense, Phil. Haven’t you noticed your hairline creeping further back?"

Noah looked at Coulson with amusement. This guy had aged far more than the one Noah had met thirteen years ago.

"I can’t help being tense, sir." Coulson shook his head helplessly. "You know Tony Stark isn’t exactly the obedient type. I’ve got a bad feeling about this."

Coulson’s premonition was indeed correct, but what could he do about it?

Coulson knew he probably could not stop it, while the one person who could stop it—Noah—was watching with an amused expression. It made Coulson sigh inwardly.

"By the way, how is your research on Obadiah’s armor going?" Noah did not dwell on the earlier subject and instead changed the topic. "I heard that thing was pretty good."

"We’re researching it." Coulson did not hide anything. He knew there was no need to. "The armor is fairly intact, and its functions are complete. Although its exterior was badly damaged because of your attack, there’s one important issue: it has no power source."

"The reactor?" Noah nodded. "I took that. There’s a researcher in the magic world trying to improve magical power sources, so I planned to let him take a look at it. Come to think of it, he’s an American too."

Coulson pursed his lips. If you wanted it, you could just take it. Even if Tony found out, he probably would not dare say anything, right?

Thinking of Obadiah’s corpse, completely free of external injuries, Coulson decisively shook his head.

He looked back up at Tony, who had just dealt with the reporters onstage. Coulson only hoped this whole thing would end soon.

"I’m a man with many flaws, someone who has publicly made many mistakes." Tony continued rambling, until even James Rhodes could not help reminding him to follow the script.

Tony nodded, picked up the speech, and after taking one look at it, his expression stiffened unnaturally. "The truth is…"

After a long pause, Tony finally said slowly and firmly, "I am Iron Man."

The entire venue erupted in an uproar.

"Man, wasn’t that exciting?"

Sitting in Tony’s lab, Tony looked excitedly at Noah and Coulson. As for whether the outside world had descended into chaos, that was no longer Tony’s concern.

"It was exciting, all right, but you’re probably in for plenty of trouble," Noah said with a shrug. Coulson nodded seriously as well.

"Who cares? You think I’m afraid of them?" Tony looked utterly unconcerned. Of course, he knew what kind of trouble Noah and Coulson meant, but so what?

Although Tony had always been unhappy with his father, after this incident, he realized that his father had apparently been far better than he had imagined!

Still, dislike was dislike. That feeling would probably persist until Tony became a father himself, or until he saw his father again.

"By the way, Noah, didn’t I hear you were taking some kind of exam?" Tony suddenly came back to his senses, as though he had remembered something.

"The Archmage exam? It’s already over. The results should arrive soon." Noah raised a brow and nodded.

Mages received their exam results far faster than exams in the Muggle world.

Moreover, the exam was subjective to some extent, so as long as someone passed, the results would be announced immediately. In any case, there were not that many people taking it.

Honestly, Noah still felt lingering fear whenever he thought about that exam.

If it had not been for the system’s help, along with Noah’s absurdly good luck, who knew whether something terrible might have happened?

Fortunately, Noah had guessed correctly through sheer luck, and the system had been reliable enough to help him pass directly.

"The Archmage exam?"

Tony and Coulson exchanged a look. Finally, Tony asked, "Can you tell us what exactly mage exams test? Of course, if it’s confidential, then forget it. And what exams do you have to take?"

"Exams naturally test the things you need to master. Just think of them as master’s or doctoral exams." Noah tilted his head indifferently. "In the past, mages only had one kind of exam: the end-of-year exams for each grade at mage academies. If you failed, you had to repeat the year."

"As for now, isn’t it covered in magic history?" Noah thought for a moment and decided to explain. It was not anything that needed to be kept secret. "Besides the annual academy exams, there are also graduation exams. You can think of those as university entrance exams."

"Wow, I know that one. The Kamar-Taj University entrance exam." Tony whistled. Naturally, he knew about it. "And I heard that over the four years at Kamar-Taj University, there’s also a qualification exam every year, right?"

"That’s right." Noah nodded. "To get into Kamar-Taj University, besides magical ability and practical combat ability, there’s also a psychological evaluation. No one wants some anti-human lunatic among their students. Mages are incredibly powerful. In my eyes, the armor you made is no different from an infant."

"Can you not bring that up?" Tony’s expression instantly turned bitter. In Noah’s eyes, it truly had been no different from an infant. Noah had blown the thing apart with a casual gesture.

"All right, let’s keep talking about the exams."

Noah nodded. He did not want to keep talking about that either.

If they continued, Tony might get fired up, go home to meditate on it, and actually develop some "Anti-Noah Finneal" prototype armor. Then it would go from Mark I to Mark II to Mark III, and that would not be fun at all.

"As for Mage and Archmage exams, they are magical certifications that mages take after reaching a certain level of magical ability. Only after passing that certification can you be considered a truly qualified mid-tier or high-tier mage."

Noah rested his head on his hand and explained slowly, "These exams test a great deal of magical knowledge—history, elements, humanities, geography, all sorts of things.

"Of course, the most important part is the test of character. It lets you see what you desire most deeply, and it also makes you encounter all kinds of terrifying things, forcing you to make all kinds of choices."

"All kinds of choices?" Tony frowned. "Does that mean you might make a choice you believe is right, but it turns out to be an extremely wrong one?"

"Yes." Noah nodded, then shamelessly said, "You see, in my illusion, all my family and friends died. To resurrect them, I did terrible things, even at the cost of destroying the entire world.

"Fortunately, I came to my senses at the last moment, defeated the person tempting me, and eventually achieved my goal in the distant future."

Fortunately, Noah’s system did not have an independent personality. It was only a machine with a bit of personality.

Otherwise, it might have jumped out and berated Noah, because the story he had made up was far too ridiculous.

Although he had passed by sheer blind luck, Noah still dared to say something so shameless. He truly had no shame at all.

"I-Is that so?" Tony’s mouth twitched before he said with a solemn expression, "I never expected you to be such a great person."

Coulson nodded seriously as well. Although he said nothing, the admiration on his face was impossible to hide.

It truly was worthy of respect. Just imagine it: your closest friends and family had all died, leaving you alone in the world.

More importantly, your lifespan was incredibly long. That was not something One Hundred Years of Solitude could compare to!

Under such circumstances, trying to resurrect one’s friends and family was perfectly natural, especially when mages seemed capable of doing such things.

Yet the temptation Noah had faced had been terrifying enough to destroy the world. That was simply horrifying.

They had both seen the Sorcerer Supreme effortlessly wipe out an entire fleet of aircraft carriers from tens of thousands of meters away. So if there really was something capable of destroying the world, it was not impossible to understand.

What impressed them was that Noah had ultimately made an unimaginably difficult choice in the face of such temptation.

Putting themselves in his place, could they have done the same?

That would probably be an incredibly difficult thing to do. That was why they thought Noah was a great man, someone worthy of respect!

Watching this, Noah felt a little embarrassed inside, but he still nodded and accepted it all.

After all, that was more or less what had happened, wasn’t it? The Ancient One had "seen" what he had done too, hadn’t she?

"By the way, Noah, when will that movie you mentioned start filming?"

Shaking his head, Tony stopped asking about such heavy topics. While he could understand that kind of spiritual transcendence, he was not a mage and did not want to keep discussing things that made even him uncomfortable.

"Iron Man?" Noah rubbed his chin. "Probably after a while. The third and final movie of my story has just been released. The next one should be an adaptation of the Mutants’ story. Once their movie comes out, we can arrange yours."

"Really?" Tony looked pleasantly surprised. "I want to play myself! I don’t think anyone else could compare to me!"

"Heh?" Noah looked at Tony disdainfully. "You want to play yourself? Have you received any training for that?"

"No!" Tony shook his head indifferently. "But playing yourself is more important than anything, and I can always learn, can’t I? By the way, can I go watch your story? Bring some friends?"

"You can." Noah nodded. "Coulson can come too, but I’m only giving four spots to the Muggle world. You can work it out yourselves. I don’t want the Ministry of Magic inviting me over for tea because of this, understand?"

"Of course!"