"Li Yue, there's no way that this drug has no side effects at all, right?" Tony suddenly asked while staring at the blue vials.
"That's obvious. There's no such thing as free lunch. This drug can give people superpowers, but it has a fatal flaw. It's almost impossible for it to work in adults, and you might even die on the spot!
"Therefore, the company that made this drug picked their test subjects from carefully selected newborns. That was the only way to ensure success."
Li Yue suddenly recalled about Extremis virus that appeared in Iron Man 3. It was rather similar to Compound V in that it also had high failure rate. However, Extremis virus could only grant a specific superpower to its successful subjects.
Compound V, on the other hand, could grant various superpower on top of basic physical augmentation! But the superpower manifested by Compound V varied greatly in term of strength and might even be extremely weak, while the ability granted by Extremis virus was quite powerful.
When Compound V successfully manifested strong superpower, however, sky was the limit. You might even end up like Homelander. He was an extreme example, considering the excessive dosage of Compound V that he received, but he was undeniably strong.
Another example would be A-Train, who can reach almost twice the speed of sound. He was a powerful superhero as well.
Therefore, when considering the peak and the valley, Compound V was more or less a match for Extremis virus in term of output. Compound V's only fell short due to its failure rate, which eclipsed even the Extremis virus!
"I knew it. There's no way that it didn't come with a catch. If superheroes could be mass-produced, the world would be in chaos!" Tony said with a knowing expression.
Captain America became much more relaxed after hearing about the failure rate.
"Although, even considering the side effect, this is still very much an abnormal drug. It can give superpower to normal people! Even a rumor of its existence would shake the world!"
Tony was still shocked by the drug, even knowing its side effect.
"So. Tony. Do you think you can fix this drug's side effect?" Li Yue asked to Tony, who was still staring at the blue vials.
"Li Yue, I'm happy that you think so highly of me, but not even the most talented scientist of the century—that is, me, can be an expert on every single thing!
"I'm confident that I am on the bleeding edge of every field I have touched, but biology wasn't one of them. Although, I'm still much better than those pretentious old farts that call themselves professors.
"Anyway, I need to do full test suite on the serum before I could tell if it was even possible to reduce its side effects. As for eliminating them entirely, I'm sorry, but that's just impossible!"
In true Tony style, he praised himself high before he told Li Yue about his thought!
"I see. I thought that the mighty Tony Stark was omnipotent! It turns out there are things that even you cannot do!"
Li Yue didn't really care all that much. He only brought back the sample for Tony to research it, and any result at all would be a profit for him. It wasn't like he'd lose something if Tony couldn't figure the serum out.
Li Yue felt that with the evolution ability he had gotten from X-Men universe, even drinking pure Compound V directly wouldn't put his life in danger. At worst, he just wouldn't gain anything from it.
Tony was clearly right. The Great Tony Stark was just an ordinary person that happened to have some measure of talent above the ordinary. Within his myriad of domains, he might be unparalleled, but he was far cry from the omnipotent image that Li Yue had of him.
Inventing the miniature Arc Reactor, mechanical Iron Man armor, and artificial intelligence like Jarvis were all achievements worthy of pride. If it was anyone other than Tony, they would've rested their laurels at only one of these things, bragging the world over with it.
There were endless amount of secret and unknown technology in the Marvel universe, and Tony wasn't the only genius in existence. But even among them, Tony was like a sun among the stars in the sky, shining brighter than anyone else!
...
"I didn't say that I won't try it. Real men never say never. I'll show you what I can do; let's go to the basement right now."
Tony was a scientist, so he was naturally curious of the unknown. He was impatient to see what this miracle superpower drug was made of!
"Let's go, Annie. Captain, Thor, will you two be coming with?"
Tony picked up the box and hurried towards the lab. Li Yue remembered to ask Thor and Captain America before he followed Tony!
"Well, I'm also very curious about this drug, so I'm going too!"
Captain America had no idea what kind of test Tony was going to do, but he was interested with this serum, especially since it was even weirder than his own super soldier serum. He decided to follow them into the lab!
"What about you? Thor? Are you not coming with us?"
Captain America stood up from the sofa, but Thor was still lying down, so Li Yue asked again to Thor!
"Nah, I'm not interested," Thor bluntly refused!
"You'll have to stay here alone, then! Let's go, Captain!"
Li Yue gestured at Captain America to go and follow Tony!
"You know what, being left here is going to be way more boring, so I'm coming with you!"
Just before Li Yue turned around and left Thor alone in the room, Thor stood up and picked up his hammer and ax, before following Li Yue down to the lab!
"...Thor, why are you carrying your ax around? It's not like anyone can steal it if you leave it upstairs!"
...
Tony was already busy down in the laboratory. Needless to say, Tony Stark's private laboratory was the most luxurious and best-equipped laboratory in the world, so it has all kinds of instruments.
Li Yue and the others who followed him knew nothing about science, so they had no idea what Tony was doing. They could only watch as Tony went around the lab.
With the AI butler Jarvis' help, Tony's efficiency matched an entire team of scientists. He mostly only had to supplement Jarvis' works.
"If I had known it would be this boring, I would've stayed upstairs!"
Thor speechlessly regretted his decision to follow Tony downstairs.