The days of being a spiritual mentor in Meiman.

Chapter 4281 Heroes Strike! (Thirteen)

When Pikachu met Stark, he was building a mech. You could hear his cursing from a great distance:

"Isn't this supposed to be a game?! Shouldn't the mech just magically appear after you collect enough parts? Why do I have to build it myself???"

"This game does have some realistic elements," Steve advised. "Besides, if you build it yourself, the quality will be much better. If I actually conjured one up for you, would you dare to drive it?"

Stark sighed, still muttering to himself, but his hands didn't stop. After hammering away for a long time, he only managed to create a metal shell that was roughly the same size as the first-generation Jaeger.

"My God, I feel like I've become more than ten years younger, and I'm reminded of my glorious days in Afghanistan..."

"It seems you'll never be able to shake off your identity as an arms dealer."

Stark went to the side of the mech to inspect the parts, and then saw Pikachu walking towards him. He was startled, then quickly moved to the front of the mech, ready to put it on at any moment.

"Hey, don't be nervous! I'm here to do business!" Pikachu shouted. "Have you found the key item yet?"

“A key item?” Stark said.

"Yes, don't you know? Everyone has a unique item that can be used in conjunction with their skills, which can greatly enhance their combat power."

“I didn’t find it,” Stark said. “I was so busy rummaging through parts that you wouldn’t believe how many buildings I searched before I finally managed to gather the most basic mech components. Don’t let me find out which bastard wrote this skill set for me. Technology isn’t supposed to be this inconvenient, is it?!”

“I have a question,” Pikachu said. “Since you’re going to build the final mech yourself anyway, could you optimize the design to use fewer parts? Or have you ever searched for futuristic buildings and figured out how to take some parts off and put them together?”

Stark's expression was blank, while Steve was already laughing so hard he couldn't catch his breath in the command room.

Pikachu stretched out its little paw and waved, then said, "On the surface, this is a strategy game, but we all know that this is still the Battle Realm. The coding skills of those universe administrators are far superior to those of video game developers on Earth. This is a real world, and we are real beings. This means that we can definitely do a lot of things that break out of the rules, right?"

"Damn it, damn it!" Stark cursed twice, pursing his lips, looking somewhat embarrassed. He said, "I haven't played many video games, I don't know anything about these things!"

“Okay, Tony,” Steve said, “Don’t let your rebellious behavior fool you, we all know you’re a rule-abiding person at heart. You’re more inclined to follow the rules than break them. In that respect, I’m more outrageous than you.”

Peter, who overheard their conversation in the command center, nodded in agreement. In many people's stereotypes, Iron Man is a grumpy rich guy who always tries to be different and finds meaning in life in attracting attention; while Captain America is a law-abiding, kind, and tolerant good guy.

But the truth is quite the opposite. Captain America often has a rather tough and volatile temper. This stems partly from his military experience. The American military has a strong culture of tough guys; if you don't act tough enough, you can't control your subordinates, and you even have to act domineering and irritable, otherwise someone will definitely take advantage of you.

Another part is thanks to genetic modification. Again, physical modifications affect hormones, which in turn influence a person's mental state. Over the years, this can also affect personality. Modified humans like Steve and Natasha are often highly agitated due to hormonal changes, and people in a state of heightened arousal tend to be more aggressive.

Furthermore, Captain America isn't the kind of rule-abiding person many people believe him to be. He grew up during America's wildest golden age, possessing a pioneering spirit from that era. As long as he achieves his goals, he doesn't care about fame or reputation; otherwise, there wouldn't be so many hilarious clips of him filming recruitment campaigns.

Iron Man, despite being a playboy and seemingly unrestrained, is actually conservative at heart, even extremely bound by social morality.

His personal romantic history is quite extensive, which is simply a characteristic of the American context. To put it simply, he dates models or owns a yacht full of beautiful women, changing girlfriends more frequently than magazine covers. Among wealthy Americans, he's a remarkably well-behaved, homebody type.

After all, he didn't have any perverted hobbies, no ex-girlfriends who disappeared without a trace, no illegitimate children all over the world, and he didn't suddenly disappear from the public eye every year when the island opened. Even when Natasha always complained that he "didn't perform well," he only grumbled a few times among his friends. You know, if he took Natasha to court, Nick would be bankrupt.

Another piece of evidence is that he decided to shut down the arms division after being accused of harming people by selling weapons, which shows that he was constrained by social morality. Furthermore, Iron Man was a proponent of the Superhero Registration Act, believing that superheroes have an obligation to be subject to government and public oversight, demonstrating that he is a rule-abiding citizen.

Furthermore, Stark is the kind of person who dreams of a perfect family. His idea of ​​a perfect family is marrying the person you love, having children, being a good husband and father, and living a happy and fulfilling life. In modern times, this is actually a very conservative view.

This brings us to why many Iron Man characters act inhumanely within the Illuminati. This is because the film and comic book versions of Iron Man differ. The comic book Iron Man is more outrageous; initially a pure arms dealer, he doesn't fully repent and retains some anthropomorphic aspects. Within the Illuminati, he goes even further, while the film version is relatively better.

However, many of the Illuminati's outrageous decisions, such as exiling the Hulk, actually stemmed from their insistence on reinforcing the rules. It's just that these rules were created by themselves, and their belief that they had the right to judge others was essentially a form of authoritarianism.

Iron Man in Schiller's universe is actually a rule-abiding citizen. When Schiller asked him to prepare his speech, he was incredibly nervous, never expecting anyone to guide him from behind the scenes. This proves he's never done this before, and you might not find another such honest rich kid in the entire Federation.

So when he joined the game, his first thought was to play it properly according to the rules. He was told he needed to collect a certain number of parts to build a mech, so he obediently collected them and then started building it by hand, instead of trying to figure out where to disassemble parts and assemble it from the start. That option never even crossed his mind.

Stark tossed the wrench aside in frustration and sat down next to the mech, sulking. Pikachu waved its hand and said, "Alright, you're not the only one following the rules. We didn't do anything else."

"But you've already got the key item! And I'm still smashing this crappy first-generation Jaeger!" Stark's voice trembled with anger. "There's no way we can win like this!"

“No, no, no,” Steve said, “You gathered sixty parts according to the system’s requirements and then built a normal mech. This is actually the easiest process. If you had to find the materials and build it yourself, the quality might not have been as good, and you would have to test it after you built it, right? After testing, you would have to make modifications, right? If any part malfunctions, you would have to search the world for it, which would be a waste of time. This is actually the safest solution.”

Stark sat there fuming for a while, then quickly got up and said, "He better be a good mech, or I'm going to beat those administrators up!"

After saying that, he stood next to the completed mech, took a deep breath, and then put on the mech. Steve in the command center gasped in shock.

"What's wrong?" Stark asked.

"Look at your health bar. There's an incredibly long armor bar on it. My God, who could kill you?"

Stark glanced at his health bar and found that it was completely covered by silver armor bars, meaning his health had more than doubled, and he also had a permanent 20% damage reduction.

“What’s the use of just having defense?” Stark said somewhat discontentedly. “On the battlefield, we’ll still just get beaten up.”

"No, no, no, your skills have changed too. My goodness, this mech can even be upgraded..."

"Don't tell me you're asking me to find some damn parts again!"

"Of course not, this time it's about skill upgrades. You have a complete skill tree. Let me see what's at the end... Oh, here, one branch is nanotech mechs, which seem to allow you to switch between different models of nanotech mechs; the other is heavy mechs, which can summon different engineering robots..."

Which style is more combat-oriented?

"I think it's the former. Your nanotech mechs are pretty powerful, aren't they? The latter one looks a bit like a support unit. But we can't be sure, what are all these mechs for?"

Stark sighed deeply and said, "I should have teamed up with Reed or Doom! You're practically illiterate!"

Steve wasn't angry at all. He nodded and said, "Indeed, I know absolutely nothing about mechanical engineering, not even how door locks work. Asking me to figure out the purpose of these mechs is really asking too much of me. But this kind of approach seems to be changeable. Our primary goal right now is to upgrade the mechs."

"So how exactly do I upgrade?"

"Using skills will earn you parts, which can be used for upgrades. You can also earn parts by winning battles. However, it shouldn't be limited to fighting other players; you should be able to do it by fighting monsters as well."

"Shall we go grind some monsters?" Stark said. "With this iron shell, those monsters won't be able to hit me anyway."

"Let's go."

“Wait a minute,” Pikachu said, “Let’s go together. Peter and I have the lowest HP, and we’ll be easy to kill if we’re alone. Besides, my skills aren’t suited for fighting monsters. How about this, we’ll go kill monsters together, and if we get our own exclusive equipment, we can keep it; if not, all the loot is yours.”

"If we search together, can we get two copies?"

"The containers inside the house probably won't drop two loots, but defeating monsters will drop two," Pikachu said.

Steve thought for a moment and said, "I don't think it's a bad idea to bring them along. Peter is obviously not the kind of person who would stab someone in the back. We're going to grind monsters anyway, so having two sets of loot should be a good deal."

“Peter is definitely a good boy, but this yellow-skinned rat might not be so,” Stark sneered. “Fine, let’s go for their sake.”

(End of this chapter)