Ethan briefly explained Malcolm's question, taking Thea's feelings into consideration.
There was no conspiracy. He simply found Thea pleasing to the eye, so he casually taught her a few things.
As for his identity? God.
Believe it or not.
Malcolm certainly didn't believe it. He thought Ethan was just someone who had acquired some magical power and arrogantly considered himself a god. Unfortunately, he had no way to refute it, as the gap in strength between them was simply too vast.
"Since you value Thea so much, you should know the situation Moira is currently facing, so..."
Ethan looked at Malcolm and couldn't help giving the man a thumbs-up. This guy's will and ability to survive were truly extraordinary. As long as there was a glimmer of hope, he would seize it with all his might.
No wonder he could create countless problems for Oliver and also cooperated with him several times to deal with powerful enemies.
At the same time, his feelings for Thea were not fake. Malcolm's ultimate fate was to sacrifice himself for his daughter, Thea.
Ethan thought for a moment and didn't kill him directly. Instead, he called Oliver and Thea over.
If Ethan had handled it himself, Malcolm would have turned to ash by now. However, since others were involved, it wasn't convenient for him to make a direct decision.
After all, he was Thea's biological father. If he were killed outright, Thea would definitely feel uncomfortable after knowing the truth. So, he decided to let Oliver and Thea make the decision.
The final result didn't surprise Ethan. Although Oliver knew his mother wasn't a good person, had done many bad things, and was even one of the murderers of his father, blood ties sometimes defied logic. At a time when they could fight to reduce his mother's sentence, Malcolm couldn't die yet.
Of course, this also exposed the fact that Thea was actually Malcolm's daughter, but that was their family matter and had nothing to do with Ethan. He wasn't very interested in prime-time family soap operas. After leaving Malcolm to Oliver, he continued to stay at his residence.
Tony also stayed home with him. The two of them spent their days discussing various magical or scientific theories. Ada occasionally went to Queen Consolidated to do the work an agent should do, secretly supporting Oliver when necessary.
Occasionally, she would also take time to go to Central City to check on the situation at S.T.A.R. Labs, another of Ethan's ventures.
The particle accelerator was basically completed and would officially launch after the final debugging was finished.
This also meant that the birth of the Flash was not far off.
"I'm very curious. What do you need the Speed Force for?"
Tony certainly knew what the Speed Force was. According to the comic settings, the relationship between the Speed Force and Barry Allen was very close, and the Speed Force's birth was even due to Barry. Although it wasn't clear if the relationship in this universe followed that setting, it was obvious they were closely linked.
That wasn't all. More importantly, the Speed Force was a power unique to the DC world. It couldn't be perceived or used outside of its related universe.
The Speed Force didn't have the ability to cross universal barriers. At most, it could traverse within the DC world freely.
Therefore, although the Speed Force was a very powerful force with magical properties, Tony had never thought of obtaining this power. At most, he might find an opportunity to study it a bit.
"I need to use this power to accelerate."
"Accelerate?" Tony suddenly remembered that before Ethan came, he had specially made a certain potion, but Ethan hadn't used it since arriving here. "Is it related to the potion you specially made?"
"Yes."
Ethan casually took the vial of potion into his hand, then let it float in his palm, gently rotating it.
"This is a growth potion. Its only effect is to make my body grow quickly. Maybe there are some extra effects, but you don't need to worry about those."
However, even with a potion made from so many special materials, fully utilizing it was still not easy. More importantly, his divine body couldn't be simply forced to grow. Even with this special potion, a lot of other work was still needed.
"First, for this potion to be effective, it requires an enormous amount of energy."
Ethan's physical growth itself required immense energy. With this potion, he could grow more with the same amount of energy. Specifically, under normal circumstances, if Ethan drained a small energy plane filled with arcane energy, it might allow his body to grow by about a year's worth. But with the help of this potion, it could allow his body to grow by five to eight years.
"What does this have to do with the Speed Force? Do you want to absorb the Speed Force?"
"No. Even though I've found a suitable small plane and made this potion, this growth still takes time, and the Speed Force..."
"You want to use the Speed Force to accelerate this process!"
Tony understood. Although Ethan had made the growth potion and found a suitable energy source, if used directly, the growth process would still take a considerable amount of time.
And the Speed Force could speed up this process.
"It seems you really don't want to keep waiting."
"Although it was fun at first, it's still quite inconvenient after a long time."
Clearly being of unknown age, yet always being treated as a child, would definitely be annoying.
"You know what?"
Tony looked at Ethan with a smug expression.
"This is precisely why I maintain this appearance."
Having been strengthened by the potion provided by Ethan and later mastering the power of magic, his own strength rapidly increased, while mystical powers were also constantly strengthening him.
Under these circumstances, he had countless ways to revert to his youthful appearance, yet he still maintained the look of a middle-aged man. Aside from being a public figure, the main reason was that he didn't want to appear too young.
"I also suggest you become a bit more mature. The more mature a man is, the more charming he is."
"I can consider it."
While he said he'd consider it, the truth was that even if Ethan wanted to become more mature now, he couldn't. The effect of his potion was limited. It couldn't get any stronger.
If he wanted to become a mature man, he would have to wait until his body truly grew to its peak. At that point, he could freely control whether his body grew or not, and even switch between age stages as he pleased.
While Ethan was quietly waiting, Barry Allen finally appeared in Star City.
As a crime scene investigator, Barry found a good excuse to get involved in the latest trouble Oliver was facing.
The Mirakuru serum, previously seen on Lian Yu, appeared in Star City. Enemies enhanced by the serum were simply not something the ordinary Oliver could handle, and Oliver was nearly beaten to death this time.
It was at this moment that the plot underwent some changes.
Oliver's base was at Ethan's residence, and both Diggle and Felicity knew how incredible Ethan's existence was. Therefore, when they encountered a crisis, they didn't go to Barry, who had relevant knowledge, to treat Oliver. Instead, they found Ethan. Everyone believed that Ethan could easily solve the little trouble Oliver was facing.
It could indeed be easily solved. Oliver had only received two doses of coagulant. A simple healing spell from Ethan could remove the abnormal state from his body.
At the same time, due to her brother's injury, an enraged Thea took to the streets for the first time, severely injuring the criminal who had been enhanced by Mirakuru and then directly brought him back. She knew that enhanced enemies like this couldn't simply be handed over to the local police. Once the guy woke up, the police wouldn't be able to hold him and might even suffer casualties.
So Oliver and the enhanced guy were both left here, and Ethan conveniently obtained a sample of the Mirakuru enhancement serum.
As for this enhancement serum with serious side effects, it wasn't very useful besides adding to the variety of enhancement potions Ethan had mastered. He also didn't plan to give Oliver any advice on his future actions. What he was thinking about now was whether or not to guide the plot back on track.
"It seems... whether it gets back on track or not doesn't matter."
The most important point about Barry getting involved in this matter was that he learned Oliver's secret identity as the Green Arrow, which provided opportunities for frequent interactions between the Flash and the Green Arrow later on.
Other than that, there wasn't much impact. As long as Barry became the Flash, he and the Green Arrow would eventually cross paths. Even if they didn't actively interact, Ethan could create opportunities for them, such as calling Oliver over to briefly train the newly superpowered Barry and make him understand some basic principles.
At that time, the newly born Flash was just an inexperienced ordinary person who received a good lesson from the experienced Green Arrow before slowly developing some combat awareness. But this guy didn't make much progress over several years and remained the same.
This meant that whether Barry would get involved again didn't matter. Then Ethan quietly watched Slade Wilson, or Deathstroke, seek revenge on Oliver in the following days.
Compared to the original plot, Deathstroke's revenge this time was very difficult. Many of his plans couldn't be smoothly implemented. A key point was that Thea already knew Oliver's identity, so some of Deathstroke's provocations didn't have the intended effect.
The biggest change was when Deathstroke tried to kidnap Thea and Moira and reenact the "choose one" scene from Lian Yu in front of Oliver. Deathstroke was soundly beaten by Thea, who had successfully activated her Saint Cloth...
(To be continued.)