Chapter 1375: Equivalent Exchange and Something Strange
Luke didn’t know that the tycoon had given up, but he wouldn’t be surprised if he knew.
It was quite difficult to learn the Kunlun Chi Refining technique.
Bolstered by the cultivation experience of Mrs. Gao and Alessandro, these two old ladies who were hundreds of years old, Luke knew how to refine chi like the back of his hand.
When he taught Robert and Catherine, it had taken them a whole day to get a faint sense of chi.
It wasn’t like Luke would bother urging Tony over it. He could only let the tycoon get a feel of it for himself first.
After some experience with it, he might succeed with just one more little push.
Even if he couldn’t succeed in a short period of time, it wasn’t a big deal.
This could only be considered a life-saving trump card. Tony’s combat ability still depended on the progress he made with his suit.
Back at the seaside villa, Luke finally checked the newly refreshed list of Tony’s abilities.
Following his earlier “takedown” of the tycoon, the latter’s list of abilities had been automatically refreshed.
On the way back, Luke didn’t even dare touch the new knowledge, for fear of drowning in it.
Tony had made ridiculous progress in recent months.
The first and most important result was that the third generation arc reactor, which was made from a new element, had an absolutely higher energy output.
There was already a generation gap between the tycoon’s suit and the Bat suit, mainly because of the energy core.
With the third generation reactor, the suit flew faster, had more damage output, and had better defenses.
Tony’s skills weren’t a matter of “laying bricks,” but breaking right through walls.
Treating an injury was something any top doctor could do. It couldn’t be considered as doing Tony a favor; Luke just didn’t want Tony to continue wasting time.
This new element was enough for Luke to use for the rest of his life.
He would use them in most of his exclusive equipment in the future; he could also try it out in the energy weapons he obtained from the Predators very early on.
Luke felt it was only fair to give the tycoon the Kunlun Chi Refining technique for this alone.
Cultivating the Chi Refining technique wouldn’t allow him to live for 500 years like Mrs. Gao and the others, but it wasn’t a problem for him to still be spry when he was 100 years old.
For Tony, who had the physique of an ordinary person, a few more decades of a healthy life and work was equivalent to doubling his lifespan.
Also, after Tony got the hang of the technique, Luke wouldn’t prevent him from teaching Pepper or any kids he might have in the future.
Technological skills in exchange for a “family technique” – Luke felt this was an equivalent trade.
As for the inspiration and breakthroughs related to the armor and the relevant technology, there was no need to talk about them. This covered all aspects, and most of it was critical experimental data which Tony had obtained.
That was exactly what Luke needed.
Compared with the tycoon’s lack of restraint, Luke’s experiments were basically small-scale combat simulations, and very few of them tested extreme limits.
In order to obtain key data, he might have to spend millions or even tens of millions of dollars. He would also need to obtain approval to conduct trials, or the authorities would come knocking.
Now that he had the data, Luke could make two types of main armor.
The top-grade armor was only for him and those who passed the system’s teammate evaluation.
The low-grade armor was for allies who clearly didn’t trust him enough yet.
This low-grade armor was at least at the level of the current Bat suit, and was already very powerful.
There was also a remote summons function as well as an automatic suit-up feature, which was quite interesting.
Luke mulled over it. The tycoon used this to summon the armor and suit up, but wouldn’t it be easier to turn it into a summon for add-on components?
After all, suiting up centered on the body, while components were added to the armor itself.
If something happened with the former, it would be the wearer who was injured. If something happened with the latter, it would be the component or the armor that was damaged at most.
Not only that, Tony had clearly been provoked by Batman and Ivan, and he had made some progress with a nanosuit this time.
Clearly, the remote summons was just a short-term target, while his ultimate goal was a portable nanosuit.
While his progress on the nanosuit couldn’t be considered much, a prototype was already starting to take shape.
It was still far from being able to accurately transform into any part of the suit, but it could take a certain fixed form.
This was the first step on the right path. There might be 100 steps, or even 1,000 or 10,000 steps to go, but the first step had indeed been taken.
Luke’s eyes glowed as he looked at the technology.
He hadn’t considered the nanosuit at all. This thing was too difficult to develop, and wasn’t something that someone without insight could develop.
But wasn’t the transformation function precisely what the Thousand Faces System was missing?
Transformation was also just the first step in the Thousand Faces System, and Luke knew that the system would hit its limit after another 10 to 20 steps at most.
It wouldn’t be able to hold up under more advanced technology.
It was like how an oven could be lit with an ordinary dry cell and didn’t need an arc reactor at all.
The main function of the Thousand Faces System was to disguise a person’s appearance and physique. Secondly, it should be durable to prevent it from being easily damaged.
This secondary function was just a passing requirement.
What Luke really needed was for other people not to be able to tell what the user’s original appearance was like. Durability wasn’t the most important thing.
So, this first step toward Tony’s nanosuit was a huge step for the Thousand Faces System.
By the time Tony had a prototype for the nanosuit, the Thousand Faces System would be long perfected.
After the list of Tony’s abilities was refreshed, Luke got even busier.
The new armor wasn’t urgent. After all, the old armor was still operating well.
The most important thing was to perfect the armor’s common external components and interface, as well as the Thousand Faces System version 3.0.
During the day, Luke and Selina continued to investigate the body dumps.
First, they put together cases that might be related, which included people who had gone missing in the sewers, weird legends and so on.
There were too many absurd legends in New York, and the underground sewers were no exceptions.
They searched the sewers at night every other day. They had also moved from the southwest corner of Brooklyn toward the bulk of the southwest. This involved even more sewers, and progress was even slower.
It had to be said that there were a lot of weirdos in the sewers.
Apart from runaways like Skye and the psycho murderer who killed dozens of people, there were also people who grew weed and dealt in illegal drugs here.
Compared with the occasional sweep by Batman on the surface, the sewers were much safer.
Of course, that wouldn’t be the case in the future.
During another night of exploration, Selina suddenly sent him a message. “Come quick, I found something weird. They’re awesome.”
Luke, however, wasn’t worried.
First of all, Selina sounded excited. Secondly, Gold Nugget hadn’t activated its symbiotic form.
He accessed the video feed on Selina’s suit and soon saw what was going on.
The image flashed in and out; clearly, Selina was moving quickly, and there was the constant sound of metal colliding.
Luke exclaimed in surprise. This attack frequency was very high! Selina’s armor had been hit several times.