An hour later, Leo had flown back to New York City.
In El Tech Companyâs basement, he strode into the lab. Just as the labâs entrance was shutting, Steam had come over and warmly greeted, âBuzz! Welcome back, Master! Steam has finished cleaning!â
âGood job.â Leo simply praised. Steamâs eyes were shining in joy as it followed his lead.
He walked to the workbench and placed the shrunk Ant-Man suit onto it. Then, he removed Viper Mark V and scattered it across the workbench as well. Picking up the tiny Ant-Man suit, he sized it up for a bit and surged his Mechanical Force, making the suit return to its original size.
Unzipping the suit, he reached inside and pulled out every tube of Pym Particles, placing them on the workbench.
One, two, three⌠Sixteen. Exactly sixteen. No one less or more.
Looking at the glass bottles on the workbench, he smiled in satisfaction. As he comprehended the Pym Particles Formula, he clearly understood producing the Pym Particles wasnât an easy job.
Instead of saying the materials for producing the Pym Particles were scarce, the materials required were on the common side. At least, much easier to procure compared to Palladium. On the other hand, the process of producing it was complex and tedious! A single tube of Pym Particles required at least ten hours of dedication just to successfully produce it!
Hence, he was overjoyed when he gained sixteen bottles of Pym Particles. This amount of Pym Particles was enough for him to use for a long time.
One must know, a single tube of Pym Particles was sufficient for a trip of time-space traveling. When just utilizing its shrinking and enlarging function, the consumption of Pym Particles was minimal.
Using the Ant-Man suitâs frequency of usage as a reference, a single tube of Pym Particles could last for three months. A single bottle contained two tubes of Pym Particles and a total of sixteen bottles was plenty for him to use for several years!
Right now he was snickering within his heart. He robbed a great deal from Hank Pym and was curious if Hank Pym would explode or notâŚ
Picking up the bottle of Pym Particles one by one, he stored them inside the cabinet next to the workbench before returning to the workbench and holding up the Ant-Man suit. From the movie he watched in his past life, he was very interested and curious about the size-changing Ant-Man suit. Now he had the chance to experience it himself, so he was extremely eager.
He took off his jacket and shoes and donned the Ant-Man suit. His body shape was similar to Dr. Pymâs, so the suit was an exact fit to his body. Without using his hands, he twisted the regulator with his Mechanical Force and pressed the red button on his right glove.
The next instant, he instantly shrunk to the size of an ant and startled Steam who was curiously staring at him.
âBuzz! Master, where are you? Steam canât find you!â Steamâs round head was wobbling around as its tracks were aimlessly moving in circles.
From Leoâs perspective, Steam was as huge as a mountain and was shaking nonstop. A very spectacular sight for him. Not just Steam, everything in the lab became enormous. He felt he had intruded the land of giants, whatever he saw was fresh and new.
After experiencing it for a few minutes, he adapted to this spectacular sight. He tried hopping in the spot to test his leaping ability. Although he deeply knew his strength wouldnât reduce because of shrinking, his mass was reduced by several folds. So, he didnât dare to exert too much force and it was just a light bounce.
Then, he crashed into the ceilingâŚ
A shallow crater was made by him. He instantly controlled the suit to return to its original size and safely landed on the ground.
âWow! Master, are you performing magic? How did you suddenly appear behind me?!â Steam didnât even start its sentence with âBuzz!â. This showed how startled it was.
Leo patted Steamâs head before removing the suit. As for testing enlargement, he wouldnât be doing it. The Ant-Man suit was evidently unsuitable for him. He should avoid testing as he wished unless he wanted to demolish his lab.
Putting the suit on the workbench, he looked at the clock in the lab and realized it was seven oâclock in the morning in New York. However, when he was waiting above the residence in the coastal area, he took a nap while suspended in midair. Now he was brimming with energy and not tired at all.
And there were more than twenty-four hours before the appointment with Fury to go to Washington. He thought for a bit. Now he possessed an adequate amount of Pym Particles and the Ant-Man suit. Twenty-plus hours was ample for him to upgrade his Viper Mark V.
While the Ant-Man suitâs prowess was powerful by itself, if combined with Viper Mark V, its prowess would be off the chart. Moreover, he was rather unsatisfied with the Ant-Man suitâs simple fighting method. So, he decided to disassemble the Ant-Man suit and integrated it into Viper Mark V, building a brand new Viper Mark VI.
He was a decisive person. Once decided, he wouldnât delay it. Thus, he yelled, âSteam, letâs get to work!â
âBuzz! Affirmative, Steamâs at your service!â Steam agreed with its crispy voice and dashed toward Leo.
Leo instructed, âSteam, create a new project! Project name, Viper Mark VI. Objective, changing size. Import Viper Mark Vâs model as the foundation.â
âBuzz! Project created! The model has been displayed. Please input relevant data, Steam can assist in fine-tuning, master.â Steam sounded confident. Ever since it defeated Dr. Zola, its intelligence and calculative capacity increased by leaps and bounds. Of course, this was also related to it constantly learning new knowledge from the Internet.
However, Leo didnât let Steam help design the model. Despite his confidence in Steamâs firewall, Pym Particles was too important and mind-bending. Therefore, he wasnât going to store Pym Particles Formula in Steamâs database.
This kind of thing, he and Dr, Pym had the same idea. Keeping it within the brain was enough!
So, he sat in front of the computer and stared at the model on the monitor before manually designing it. Frankly, designing Viper Mark VI was easy. He just needed the Pym Particles covered all over the armor and the effects of shrinking and enlarging were achieved.
In accordance with the Ant-Man suitâs distribution point of the Pym Particles, he swiftly tweaked Viper Mark VIâs model. Furthermore, since he possessed Mechanical Force when designing Viper Mark VI, he didnât leave the regulator and button outside the armor. The regulator and button were hidden within the armor, switching to a more safer and reliable mode.
He could control the regulator with his Mechanical Force which eliminated the possibility of enemies destroying the regulator and accidentally sending him to the Quantum Realm.
In under an hour, Viper Mark VIâs limbs and torso models were designed.
Now, he was beginning to design a new helmet. Ant-Man suitâs helmet had a special electromagnetic emitter which was the key for it to protect the brain when shrinking or enlarging.
Hence, designing a new helmet wasnât a laborious task. All he needed to do was to slightly tweak the interior structure of Viper Mark Vâs helmet, providing enough space for the special EM emitter. Under the constant usage of the skill, âMechanical Force â Inspirationâ, he rapidly found the solution and completed the design.
The difficult part was manufacturing the special EM emitter was tedious. So, to quickly build Viper Mark VI, he had to disassemble the Ant-Man suit.
For a workaholic like Leo, once he was engrossed in his work, he utterly forgot about the time, food, and sleep.
After ten hours without eating or drinking, he managed to upgrade Viper Mark V to Viper Mark VI with his Mechanical Tentacles. At the moment, the newly built armor also passed the quality assurance from the Mechanical System and a couple of notifications appeared.
ăCongratulations! You successfully develop a piece of new machinery, please name it.ă
âViper Mark VI!â
ăNaming complete. âViper Mark VIâ. Attribute, show/hideă
Opening Viper Mark VIâs attribute panel, he carefully browsed through it and found that the Viper Mark VI indeed possessed the ability to enlarge and shrink, and it wouldnât affect his brain.
With the systemâs assurance, he was at ease. So, he donned the Viper Mark VI and put a new tube of Pym Particles into it. Riding his private elevator, he was going out to get used to the brand-new Viper Mark VI.