Tony Stark gave him a level of access second only to his own, and gave Little PepperPepper Potts the same access. The two of them were the only people who could enter his mansion directly without Tony Stark's permission and without any obstruction.

This was a privilege that no one else had.

And clearly, the version of himself in the footage paid for this trust with his life.

“It has already been canceled, sir!” JARVIS said.

Tony Stark let out a sigh. Although JARVIS often behaved just like a normal person, at the end of the day, he was still just an artificial intelligence. If he were a real person, even if Obadiah Stane had such access, sneaking into the house so quietly and without any notification should have raised some red flags.

He was now certain that Obadiah Stane really wanted to kill him, but he still couldn’t figure out how someone could record footage of future events—this just wasn’t scientific!

Could it really be that the footage was observed from some higher-dimensional universe?

Wouldn’t that confirm one of his previous suspicions, that the universe where Brian Carter lived in his past life was truly of a higher dimension?

And in the footage, his own behavior was also very strange. For example, Obadiah Stane's little weapon should have only been able to paralyze someone for a short period of time; after a while, he should have recovered.

But his expression didn’t look like he was paralyzed—it looked like he was poisoned.

His face was terrifyingly pale!

And this deduction was very likely to be true!

Chapter 12: The Mark Armor Makes Its Debut, Information Overload

But if that wasn’t the case, how could Obadiah Stane have let him off so easily? Once he recovered, he could have just called the police, and Obadiah Stane would have ended up in jail. With the means of a capitalist, he was sure that Obadiah Stane would spend the rest of his life behind bars. If he wanted, he could just write a million-dollar check and countless people would be eager to help, making sure Obadiah Stane died in prison without a trace, with not even a whisper of news getting out.

So Obadiah Stane must have been certain that he would die. Then, could his suspected poisoned state have something to do with the arc reactor?

Yes, he recognized what that thing was—or rather, it was a new technology he was still conceptualizing: the arc reactor, a type of cold nuclear fusion technology.

It was still in the conceptual stage, not fully developed yet, but clearly, in the future, after he returned from Afghanistan, this technology had already matured.

It could be used directly!

“If it’s cold nuclear fusion…” Tony Stark suddenly thought, connecting it to what Brian Carter had mentioned in his diary before.

If we assume what Brian Carter wrote in his diary was true, then in the future, after he was kidnapped in Afghanistan and returned, his personality changed drastically and he shut down the weapons division. Before, he thought Brian Carter had lost his mind—or else he himself had.

Giving up the weapons division sounded simple, but that would mean abandoning the very foundation of Stark Industries. It would be a disaster.

But what if Stark Industries now had another path?

The arms industry was, of course, extremely profitable, but if there was anything more profitable than arms, it was the energy industry. Which of those oil-rich countries in the Middle East didn’t make a fortune selling oil?

That was also why he had researched related technologies in the first place. Nowadays, there were only a handful of countries that could handle nuclear fission power plants. If nuclear fusion could be developed, as Obadiah Stane said, it would be the key to a new era of energy.

Once nuclear fusion was developed, Stark Industries would surely soar, and it would be easy for him to become the world’s richest man. It was even foreseeable that his personal wealth could rival that of the great financial magnates.

He suddenly understood—Brian Carter had been waiting for him here all along.

Waiting for him to shut down the weapons division, causing the stock price to plummet, then buying in at the bottom. Once his nuclear fusion technology was developed, Stark Industries’ stock would skyrocket, and with the ups and downs, it could easily multiply tenfold.

In an instant, many things that had previously puzzled him now made sense.

He didn’t mind Brian Carter hitching a ride to make some money; what he really cared about was how Brian Carter knew all this.

But there was still one thing he didn’t understand: why would he put the arc reactor in his body, since this would obviously cause a problem—poisoning.

If he used the material he was thinking of now—palladium—it would lead to palladium poisoning.

But this was something he could tell at a glance now, so there was no reason his future self wouldn’t know, unless he had no other choice, and even if he risked palladium poisoning, he had to do it.

More and more questions filled his mind, and he kept watching. In the footage, he looked just like someone who had been poisoned—his face was deathly pale, with a bluish tint spreading across it.

“JARVIS, analyze it—what kind of illness could make me look like that in such a short time?” Tony Stark said coldly.