It was well past midnight, but the estate's garage hummed with quiet energy.
Leonardo stood barefoot once more, a mug of black coffee in one hand, schematics projected in his mind's eye thanks to the system's blueprint archive. He hadn't slept. Not because of fatigue—but because his brain simply refused to stop.
He was evolving.
His thoughts were clearer, faster. He could picture combustion chambers three-dimensionally, down to the turbulence modeling of vaporized fuel. He could theorize compression sequences in turbochargers no company had even conceptualized yet. And yet, even after receiving over 14,000 advanced blueprints, something told him the system wasn't finished.
He was right.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Delayed Activation Detected. Assessing host's performance level... Complete.
Reward Eligibility Verified: System Latency Compensation Bonus
"Let me guess," Leonardo muttered, sipping his coffee. "Another overpowered toy to make me feel like I wasted years grinding by hand?"
[Incorrect. System recognizes host's exceptional self-reliance. Compensation selected to match philosophical alignment.]
That made him pause.
[You have been granted: 'Genius Protocol – Stark Cognitive Framework']
He nearly dropped his mug.
"Wait... Stark? As in Tony Stark?"
[Affirmative. Host now possesses the full intellectual profile, reasoning pattern, scientific memory, and neural processing capability of Anthony Edward Stark as adapted from the MCU timeline (Iron Man through Avengers: Endgame).]
[Includes:]
Mechanical & Systems Engineering Mastery
Quantum Physics Foundations & Applied Integration
Nanotechnology Design Suite
Strategic Combat Algorithmic ModelingEnergy Field Stabilization & Arc Reactor Theory
Artificial Intelligence Core Logic (Excludes AI Instantiation – Locked)
Multidisciplinary Research Compression (Stark-Level Intuition)
Leonardo stood completely still. A second passed. Then another.
His brain began to shift.
Not in a literal sense—there was no physical mutation—but his thought structure started reshaping. Faster connections. Lateral problem-solving. Layered idea sequencing. He could feel new thoughts weaving into his own, like his consciousness had just been bolted onto a rocket engine made of logic, sarcasm, and a whole lot of metal.
He clutched the nearby workbench and exhaled hard.
And then it hit.
Ideas. Hundreds of them. Autonomous power sources. Vehicle armor made from kinetic-reactive polymers. Reinforced energy cells. Repulsor-based propulsion. Magnetic steering gyros. Custom-built compact supercomputers designed to run diagnostics faster than any known hardware in 2001.
He dropped to a knee, overwhelmed.
Not in pain. Just... exhilaration.
"This is insane," he whispered. "This isn't just an upgrade. This is..."
He looked up slowly, eyes glowing—not literally, but with that distant spark geniuses always had before they changed the world.
"I can build anything."
[Affirmative.]
He stood back up, more composed. His mind was buzzing but centered. Clear.
The system didn't just hand him tools—it handed him the capacity to create tools no one else could dream of. And best of all?
It didn't come with fame. Not yet. Not unless he chose it.
There was no AI like J.A.R.V.I.S. yet. But he could build his own. Carefully. Secretly. Slowly.
He pulled out a fresh roll of drafting film and started sketching.
No rulers. No calculators. Just fluid motion. Arcs. Diagrams. Equations that made no sense to anyone else in 2001. He wasn't drawing blueprints—he was translating a language no one else spoke.
This wasn't Project Oblivion anymore.
This was a revolution.
Leonardo stepped away after three hours. The paper held designs for a vehicle integrated with next-gen AI learning cores, zero-emission power cycles, dynamic reconfiguration modes, and modular combat-grade defense systems.
It was madness.
It was genius.
And it was just the beginning.
Current Age: 16