Beneath the night sky, New York City was illuminated as if by daylight, bathed in the glow of Madison Square Garden.
The global media, with their cameras and microphones, stood ready. Countless tech enthusiasts, gamers, and Wall Street titans had gathered, their faces etched with excitement and anticipation.
Tonight belonged to Paul Stark.
To the mysterious, fourteen-year-old genius who had already shaken the very foundations of the tech world.
"What's he going to announce?"
"A new energy technology? Or another revolutionary robot like Baymax?"
"I heard... it has something to do with virtual reality!"
The buzz of discussion filled the arena until, abruptly, the lights went out, plunging the world into profound darkness and silence.
Everyone instinctively held their breath.
At the center of the stage, a soft beam of particulate light coalesced from thin air. Light and shadow flowed and intertwined, finally solidifying into a crystal-clear figure.
Paul Stark.
He was dressed in a simple black turtleneck and jeans, suspended above the stage as a holographic projection, like a deity descending to the mortal world.
With no extraneous opening remarks, he surveyed the audience, his gaze calm and profound, as if it could pierce through to everyone's soul.
"Welcome, everyone, to the moment you witness a miracle."
His voice, carrying a composure and confidence that defied his age, echoed clearly through the surround sound system to every corner of the venue.
The moment he finished speaking, the space behind him seemed to tear open, and a world so magnificent and majestic it defied description exploded into view before them all.
*BOOM—!*
It was a colossal city of steel floating on a sea of clouds. Gothic spires pierced the sky, and waterfalls cascaded from the edges of floating islands, refracting the sunlight into brilliant rainbows.
A dragon, its wings vast enough to eclipse the sun, roared past the castle spires. The gale it kicked up caused the trees in the image to sway violently, and even the audience felt as if they could feel the blast of air on their faces.
Then, the scene shifted.
A deep, subterranean labyrinth. A player wielding a glowing longsword battled fiercely with a monstrous minotaur. The sparks from clashing blades, the beast's heavy panting, the dazzling light effects of skill activations... everything was so real it made one's skin crawl.
A dense, primeval forest. An elven archer leaped nimbly between treetops, and with every draw of the bow, an arrow cloaked in emerald energy unerringly found its mark.
A vast, boundless desert. A merchant caravan struggled forward under the setting sun, the texture of the yellow sand and the mournful cry of the wind sweeping over the dunes all clearly discernible.
"My god..."
In the front rows, the editor-in-chief of a veteran gaming media outlet shot to his feet, his jaw hanging open wide enough to fit an egg. The shock in his eyes was absolute.
This wasn't CG. It wasn't pre-recorded footage.
This was... another world!
All of Madison Square Garden fell into a deathly silence.
Everyone was completely stunned by the perception-shattering scene, their minds gone blank.
"This is a game."
Paul's voice broke the silence once more.
"Its name is *Sword Art Online*."
"It will be the first, and only, full-dive virtual reality game in human history. Here, your five senses will be completely taken over. You will have another identity, and begin another life."
"Here, everything you have ever imagined will become reality."
*BOOM!!!*
The crowd erupted instantly!
A tsunami of cheers and screams threatened to tear the roof off the entire arena.
"Full-dive! Oh my god! He actually did it!"
"Buy! I have to buy it! I don't care how much it costs!"
"Are all the Starks monsters?!"
In the VIP section, Pepper Potts's eyes also gleamed with astonishment. She subconsciously turned her head to look at Tony Stark beside her.
Tony didn't speak. He was leaning forward slightly, his arms resting on his knees, his eyes glued to the ever-changing images on the stage.
As a leader in the tech world and a genius of showmanship, he understood better than anyone that what Paul had dropped tonight was a nuclear bomb capable of changing the world.
From his tense profile, Pepper could read a complex mix of emotions.
There was shock, admiration, a father's pride, and also a trace... a sense of loss at being surpassed by the next generation, one that even he himself hadn't noticed.
"He..." Pepper's voice was a little hoarse. "He always creates miracles."
Tony's gaze finally pulled away from the stage. He leaned back in his chair, let out a long breath, and a complicated smile touched his lips.
"Yeah. That damn kid."
His tone sounded casual, but Pepper keenly caught the flash of exhaustion deep in his eyes.
Ever since waking up in Paul's "Phoenix" stasis pod, the crisis of his palladium poisoning had been temporarily resolved, but the Sword of Damocles hanging over his head had not truly disappeared.
The core of the Arc Reactor was still palladium.
"The synthesis of the new element... how's it going?" Pepper asked in a low, concerned voice.
The question was like a needle, precisely striking Tony's deepest anxiety.
He was silent for a moment before replying in a barely audible voice, "Not going well. The theoretical models have a lot of holes. Every simulated collision... the result is just a little off... just that little bit."
What he didn't say was that although his body had recovered thanks to the nanites, every time he pushed the reactor for high-intensity computations, the strain in his chest reminded him that his time was running out.
He was afraid. Afraid that he would become a burden on Paul's future path.
Pepper looked at his feigned composure, her heart tightening. She reached out and gently took his hand.
Tony's fingers were cold. He instinctively squeezed back, the warmth from her palm slightly calming his chaotic thoughts.
At the same time, in the top-floor lab of Stark Tower, the real Paul was sitting at a control console, calmly watching the live feed of the press conference on a screen.
To him, the tsunami of cheers was nothing more than distant background noise.
In front of him, besides the conference feed, a split-screen displayed a completely different data stream.
It was a series of incredibly complex and profound quantum mechanics formulas and particle models.
[Pym Particles]
This was the true core of his recent research.
It was also the key to whether his "Transformers" project could be realized.
To make a giant robot capable of perfect disguised transformation, conventional mechanical structures were too bulky and inefficient. Only by mastering spatial compression technology at the material level could he create the "Sideswipe" he truly wanted.
But the difficulty of researching this technology far exceeded his expectations.
Even with the integrated memories of Hiro Hamada and a wealth of knowledge far beyond this era, he still felt an unprecedented struggle when delving into theories that touched upon this god-like domain.
On the screen, the frenzied atmosphere at the conference reached its peak.
"*Sword Art Online* will officially open applications for the first round of closed beta testing tonight at midnight. There will be one hundred thousand slots."
"The price: ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars."
"The connection device, the 'NerveGear', will be delivered to your doorstep within twenty-four hours by the Stark Industries global logistics network."
Paul's voice, via the hologram, clearly announced every piece of market-shattering information.
The screams from the crowd grew louder with each wave.
The nearly one-hundred-thousand-dollar price tag didn't deter anyone. Instead, it incited an even more frenzied desire to buy.
This wasn't just a gaming helmet; it was a ticket to a new world!
Pepper's breathing quickened. She did a quick mental calculation—the first batch of devices alone would bring in nearly ten billion dollars in cash flow!
That money was enough to turn Paul's research center into a behemoth that no one could ignore.
And this was only the beginning.
Just as everyone thought the conference was about to conclude successfully, the game footage on the stage abruptly vanished.
It was replaced by a screen of snowy static.
The cheers died down instantly. Everyone was stunned.
A technical glitch?
Then, an extremely blurry image flashed onto the screen.
It appeared to be a heavily guarded underground laboratory. The camera was shaking violently, as if the person filming was running.
The scene flashed by, finally freezing on a massive glass container.
Inside the container, there was no physical object, only a mass of... blue energy, slowly condensing and contracting, emitting a heart-pounding light.
A light filled with an ominous and destructive aura.
The next second. *BZZZT—*
The screen went completely black.
An eerie silence fell over Madison Square Garden.
The audience members looked at each other, the fanaticism on their faces replaced by bewilderment and confusion.
"What was that just now?"
"Was it an Easter egg for a new game?"
"No... that didn't feel right. That footage didn't look like it was faked..."
Tony's pupils contracted sharply. He shot up from his seat, staring intently at the dark stage.
The footage was blurry, but there was one piece of equipment, its silhouette flashing by for an instant, that he would never mistake.
That was... something from Obadiah Stane's secret lab!
Wasn't he dead?!
And Paul, on the top floor of Stark Tower, saw the footage at almost the exact same moment.
For the first time, his expression turned incredibly grave.
That unknown AI lurking in the depths of the network...
Was it finally about to bare its fangs?