All of the robots were controlled entirely by JARVIS. After returning to Avengers Tower, they were sent to the maintenance bay for inspection.
Other than Karl, no one knew that Loki's scepter contained the Mind Stone.
Even Thor himself had no idea.
Karl had actually forgotten about it for a while—but now it had resurfaced again.
---
Inside Avengers Tower, Tony and Bruce were studying something.
In front of them floated a holographic projection resembling a brain. It looked somewhat like a human brain, though clearly not identical.
Behind them stood Loki's scepter.
"JARVIS, how's the analysis going?" Tony asked, taking a sip of water while glancing toward the scepter.
Everyone had already seen that the staff could control people's minds.
"I'm sorry, sir," JARVIS replied immediately. "Certain components inside the scepter are completely impossible for me to analyze."
The substance JARVIS couldn't analyze was, of course, the Mind Stone—though he had no way of recognizing it.
"How much have you figured out?" Tony asked again.
"Sir, the gemstone on the scepter appears to be protecting something inside. Something powerful. Unfortunately, I cannot currently identify the material composition."
---
Meanwhile, in the medical room, Clint Barton lay on a treatment bed.
A specialized device was repairing the wound in his abdomen.
Natasha sat beside him.
"You're sure he's okay?" she asked skeptically while watching the machine. It emitted laser-like beams that were sealing Clint's wound—yet it was clearly working.
"The injury isn't serious," said Dr. Helen Cho, stepping closer to the device.
"The nanomolecular repair process works extremely fast. His cellular response speed can't keep up with the nanomaterial reconstruction, so there won't be any rejection."
She tapped several controls and examined the healing wound.
"The Regeneration Cradle can generate new tissue through nanotechnology. This method can not only repair damaged bodies—it can even create entirely new ones."
"So my body's going to be made of plastic from now on?" Clint joked.
He had heard of 3D printing, but printing body tissue was something else entirely.
According to Helen's explanation, the Regeneration Cradle sounded like a biological 3D printer.
"You'll still be made of your own biological material," Helen replied calmly. "The cradle reconstructs tissue using your cells and genetic sequence. So you won't turn into plastic."
---
"Hey—! I think we need a party to relax a little."
Tony strolled into the room casually.
A robot followed behind him carrying a tray of drinks.
"Oh, and Helen—come to the party on Saturday," Tony added. "If you stay locked in the lab too long, mushrooms will start growing on you. A friend of mine told me that."
The "friend" he was referring to was obviously Karl.
Tony grabbed a drink and gestured for the robot to distribute the others.
"Um… will Thor be there?" Helen asked quietly.
---
"Bruce, come here a second."
Tony pulled Bruce out of the medical room and back to the research area.
"I finished analyzing the gemstone in the scepter. I still don't know what material it's made of—but I managed to crack some of the internal code."
Tony activated another projection.
A golden brain-like structure appeared in the air.
"JARVIS?" Bruce asked.
"Yes, Dr. Banner. That is me."
"At the beginning, JARVIS was just an AI I built," Tony explained. "But right now he's busy managing all the support robots. Aside from Pepper, he's probably the busiest entity in the world."
Tony tapped the blue holographic screen surrounding the scepter.
With a wave of his hand, another projection appeared beside JARVIS's golden brain.
This one was blue, slightly different in structure but clearly similar.
"What does that look like to you, Bruce?"
Bruce studied it carefully.
"It's thinking," he said slowly. "Look at these lines—they resemble human neural pathways. But they're different from any biological brain we know."
He pointed at the thickest strand.
"See this? That's an excitation pathway. This thing behaves like a biological brain."
Tony nodded.
"When we raided the Hydra base earlier, I found a lot of highly advanced robotic prototypes in the underground lab. They were unfinished, so I didn't pay much attention at the time—and all the data had been wiped."
"You're saying Hydra was researching artificial intelligence too?" Bruce asked in shock.
Stark's AI technology had always been far ahead of anyone else in the world.
But the blue neural projection in front of them seemed just as advanced as JARVIS—maybe even better at learning.
"That's exactly it, Bruce," Tony said, clearly excited.
"This thing might be the missing step we need to finally create Ultron."
"I thought Ultron was just a concept," Bruce replied.
In his opinion, every AI had flaws—even JARVIS.
But Tony's Ultron concept was supposed to be perfect—an AI designed to prevent crime worldwide.
The problem was that crime was unpredictable.
How could something like that truly control it?
"Yeah, yesterday it was just a concept," Tony said.
"But today—look at this."
He pointed at the blue neural projection.
"If we can harness this power and integrate it with my robotics systems, we'll have unlimited backup forces."
"No more people dying just trying to stop criminals."
"At this stage," Bruce replied carefully, "everything about Ultron is still theoretical."
He clearly wasn't convinced.
The risk was enormous.
If something went wrong, it could become a global mechanical catastrophe.
"Bruce," Tony said seriously, "creating Ultron is necessary."
"If another alien invasion happens, what do we do?"
"Rely on a handful of so-called superheroes again?"
"Don't forget—Karl just came back last month from some place called Xandar."
"Who knows how big the universe really is?"
"And how many alien civilizations might be looking at Earth right now."
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