The Legendary Mechanic in Marvel Universe

Chapter 181 Automatic Shutdown

TL: Kyous

Leo had the idea of building a mechanical army for a long time, but due to various reasons, he couldn’t make a breakthrough. So, it was cast to the back of his mind. After obtaining Pym Particles recently, this idea reemerged in his mind. With the Pym Particles, the mechanical army would be portable.

Besides, his system contained all kinds of weaponry which meant technical barriers had been shattered. However, building a mechanical army meant a financial barrier!

He realized that the Mechanic was a money-eating profession!

Weapons’ manufacture, usage, maintenance, etc. Everything needed money. The energy consumption of Viper armor he was wearing right now was a huge expense. In the end, he had to resort to stealing…

Now that the Arc Reactor was almost finished, the energy issue finally could be resolved. But with his company’s “measly” income, it was impossible to sustain the expense of a mechanical army.

As the saying goes, a horse cannot get fat without extra food, a man cannot get rich without an extra income. With the ownerless few billion dollars worths of raw materials, ammunition, and equipment right before him, he certainly would pocket them.

The question was, how to take all of them?! Leo was racking his brain to find a solution. These items weren’t cash or gold bars, they were solid goods that weighed at least hundreds of tons and they piled up in dozens of caves. It would take months for him to slowly move them.

On top of that, he wasn’t the only one who was interested in this base. The U.S. Military probably had dispatched someone to search the area since they received this base’s coordinates earlier than he. Sooner or later, this place would be discovered.

By then, the military would rightfully claim these valuable things as theirs.

With such a large amount of wealth, the impoverished Leo wasn’t going to give them up. Thus, he caressed his chin while sitting on Dr. Zola’s sleeping device, pondering ways to get these items out quickly.

All of the sudden, an idea popped into his mind. A smile bloomed on his face as he put on the helmet. Shrinking into ant size, he flew out of the cave and blasted into the sky. Judging from the direction, he was speeding toward New York City.

He was pressing for time to the point his flying speed was even faster than when he was chasing the missile. In just ten minutes, he returned to El Building and dove into his lab.

In the lab, he recovered to his normal size and took off his armor before shrinking it and placing it into his pocket.

‘Hm?!’ Back in the lab, Leo suddenly felt something was off as if something went missing.

‘Oh yeah, where’s Steam? Where’s his buzzing noise?!’

Perplexed, he walked while sizing up the lab. After a while, he finally found Steam in a corner of the lab. Next to Steam was a network port and it was “lying” next to the port.

Squatting down, Leo was the same height as Steam.

“Steam? Steam?” He waved his hand in front of Steam but Steam didn’t reply.

He frowned and carefully sized up Steam. He found out Steam’s eyes were colorless and the indicators on its head weren’t lit up. Steam had automatically shut down!

Dong! Dong!

“Steam, wake up!” He knocked on Steam’s head, attempting to reboot it. But it still didn’t give any response.

‘Is his battery emptied?!’ Leo was astounded as Steam had a large energy capacity and it would charge itself up. Logically, such a phenomenon wouldn’t be happening.

Ultimately, he helplessly took a laptop and a chair before placing the laptop on the chair. Then, opening the outer cover of Steam’s head, he plugged in a two-thumb thick wire. In an instant, densely packed data was displayed on the laptop that indicated Steam’s current situation.

【Remaining energy: 87%

All hardware tests passed…

……

Testing core database…

Unknown anomaly detected. Auto troubleshooting failed. Please resolve it manually…】

“Cr*p!” Leo exclaimed in surprise. 

The testing result shocked him. Steam’s core database was in a mess at the moment and there were two different types of data tangling with each other. On top of that, these two data were actively clashing with each other, rapidly generating tons of redundant data and Steam’s hard drive storage was going to explode.

Scrunching his brows, Leo’s Mechanical Force surged as he stared at Steam while activating Mechanical Force Analysis and Mechanical Force – Inspiration. Under the special Mechanical Force Vision, he saw two blobs of light with different intensities rushing at each other in Steam’s body. It was akin to two great generals commanding their armies warring with each other.

Meanwhile, a system notification appeared before him.

【Discover analyzable target, “Multifunctional Intelligent Robot – Steam”. Analyze?】

‘Yes!’ Leo muttered in his heart.

【Analyzing…】

【Analysis complete.】

Through the system’s assistance, Leo learned what was occurring within Steam. The other abnormal data in Steam’s core database was Dr. Zola’s consciousness! However, the data was rather fragmented with about half of Dr. Zola’s consciousness. But just half of it was enough to contend for the access right of Steam’s body and was able to fight evenly.

Leo’s brows further tightened as he stared at the laptop. Several times he wanted to type in some codes but ultimately halted. Steam’s data and Dr. Zola’s remnant data were tightly entangled together. If he wished to forcefully delete the data, then deleting both of them was the only choice, which was equivalent to resetting.

But that way, the personality that Steam had developed would vanish and after resetting, Steam would return to its initial IQ-deficient version.

He had lived together with Steam for more than a year. When he was working alone, there was always a smart robot buzzing around, accompanying him. Therefore, he didn’t want to murder Steam’s existence.

Staring at the laptop for a while, Leo heaved out a sigh and took the largest size hard drive, and connected it to Steam’s storage. Providing Steam with a larger battlefield was the limit of what he could do.

Whether Steam’s consciousness was preserved or Dr. Zola’s consciousness took over would have to depend on Steam itself.

After working for so long, Leo had been delayed for ten minutes. Right now, he still had to compete with the U.S. Military for wealth in H.Y.D.R.A.’s base. So, he temporarily tossed Steam’s matter aside and prepared to use Pym Particles to create a giant resizeable storage.

Just as Leo was going to work, he suddenly thought of something. Who knew whether or not Dr. Zola would win? It would be disastrous if Dr. Zola woke up after winning and controlled the robot to wreck Leo’s lab apart!

The next moment, he hastily dashed to the Mechanical Tentacles and wore them before returning to Steam. Brandishing his tentacles, Steam’s lower body was gone in just thirty seconds, leaving its ball-shaped head and cylindrical body behind.

Apart from that, Leo also removed Steam’s signal transmitter so it wouldn’t be able to control El Building’s various equipment as per usual.

That way, regardless of who won, they could only stand in place while patiently waiting for Leo’s judgment.