Chapter 48: The New Equipment

Shen You agreed to Queen Hippolyta's request, but whether he could fulfill it would depend on fate.

After all, according to Queen Hippolyta, Wonder Woman had left for the human world a hundred years ago. Up until now, her most active period was during World War I, after which she went into hiding and disappeared without a trace.

A hundred years later, Diana could be in any profession, under any identity, in any country. Trying to find her in today's vast world would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Hippolyta knew this well. She simply had no one else to entrust with this task. Shen You could only promise that if he happened to meet Diana and the situation allowed, he would lend her a helping hand. But mostly, it would depend on luck. Hippolyta accepted this.

Diana's situation was indeed quite unfortunate. She spent the first half of her life believing she was a mud doll with no father. Then, when she finally learned she had a father, it turned out he was a notorious womanizer spreading his "seeds of love" all over the world.

As a result, half of Olympus is Zeus' children. Compared to the neighboring Odin, who only hung his name on the title, Zeus is the "True Father of the Gods," leaving behind a bunch of half-gods with unknown backgrounds on Earth.

This often led to Wonder Woman discovering that the gods and companions she met in her adventures were either her brothers or sisters—much like an Amazonian version of Duan Yu from *Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils*.

After Zola was settled on Themyscira, it had nothing to do with Shen You anymore. Not only did he successfully obtain the N metal he was after, but he also got a batch of Amazonium as a bonus.

With this, his second-generation armor could be entirely crafted from the DC universe's Eighth and Ninth metals. If completed successfully, the strength of the new suit would be on an entirely different level from the first-generation one.

Thus, developing this armor became his main focus over the next few days.

Creating Ultra Suits was never a technical challenge for Shen You. With the experience of the first suit, the second-generation technology would be more refined. The primary goal of this generation of armor was to improve energy efficiency. Higher energy efficiency would naturally bring greater strength, faster speed, and more powerful beam weapons.

Shen You quickly tested that Amazonium had a great effect on this part of the functionality. He discovered that the alloy was chosen by the Old Gods primarily because of its extraordinary energy transmission efficiency. It could transmit energy with almost zero loss, and if designed properly, it could even provide some amplification effects.

By designing Specium energy transmission pipelines entirely from this metal, theoretically, the maximum output of Specium energy in the second-generation armor would be at least double that of the first generation.

Apart from the armor's performance, Shen You's other current focus was related to Kryptonians.

After analyzing the data from the spaceship Kara brought, Shen You successfully extracted some documented records about Krypton's geographical environment. One chapter detailed records of the red star of Krypton's solar system, including various data observed by the Kryptonians.

This content immediately caught Shen You's attention, prompting him to start a new research project named "Red Sun Simulation."

Anyone with some knowledge of Western comics would know that while Kryptonians can become godlike just by basking in the sun, they also have three classic fatal weaknesses: Kryptonite, red sun radiation, and magic.

There are countless parallel universes, and versions have been rebooted repeatedly, but these three weaknesses remain in about 99% of versions.

Magic is somewhat controversial, though. Officially, it's said that Kryptonians have negative resistance to magic, but sometimes Superman can withstand very high-level magical attacks unscathed, while at other times, even the simplest fireball can knock him out. It's like he's acting.

So, people generally consider Superman's resistance to magic as "Schrodinger's magic resistance"—he may or may not have it, depending on the plot. But the other two weaknesses rarely falter, even in a continuity-heavy universe like DC.

Kryptonite is naturally the most effective, but obtaining it basically relies on mining. Artificial synthesis is possible but extremely difficult and prone to issues. The simplest and most convenient method, with the lowest difficulty in artificial synthesis, is the Red Sun Emitter.

In DC lore, the sun in our solar system is a yellow star, and Kryptonians quickly gain power under its radiation. Conversely, Krypton's star is a red star, and exposure to such radiation rapidly weakens a Kryptonian's superpowers until they disappear.

This is one of the most powerful weapons against Kryptonians. More importantly, for Shen You, the technical difficulty is very low.

Generating sunlight is one of the most elementary aspects of Ultra technology. The technical barrier is almost nonexistent. The only challenge was knowing the specific parameters of DC's red sun, which was already solved by the database in Kara's spaceship.

Shen You planned to officially integrate a red sun emitter into the second-generation mobile suit. But, of course, he needed to test its effectiveness first.

That's when having a "domesticated" Kryptonian around became very handy.

Kara was a bit confused when she followed Shen You to the lab. She only knew that Shen You had developed some new technology and needed her body for testing.

While she was momentarily suspicious—what new technology required the use of her body?—the El family's genetic predisposition for trust led her to believe Shen You was a good person. So she obediently followed him.

Shen You activated the device, first enabling the yellow solar radiation simulation function.

Perfectly simulated solar energy, directed at her from zero distance. A large wave of warm energy surged in, and Kara, unprepared, suddenly felt overwhelmed.

"Ah—ahh!"

She staggered, moaning, and leaned against a nearby lab table for support, panting.

Even her eyes flashed red for a moment, and she hurriedly covered them, looking away in panic.

"What is this... too strong... I can't... handle it," she said with difficulty, covering her eyes.

The simulated yellow solar radiation experiment was a success. Shen You was very pleased. This device could be used not only for Kara but for himself as well. After all, in a way, he was as solar-powered as the Kryptonians.

And this was just a prototype. In the future, Shen You even thought about creating a more potent solar energy satellite, similar to the one used by Max in his final showdown. He could directly receive a supercharged boost from Earth's orbit, and by then, he might replicate Max's fastest and most powerful cheat mode.

"Don't worry, it'll be fine soon," Shen You reassured her as he adjusted the switch.

The device frequency shifted, and the solar radiation immediately changed from yellow to red.

"Ah~"

Kara was once again unprepared. One second, she was almost uncontrollably overcharged, and the next, it felt like her body had been emptied. Every cell in her body seemed drained of solar energy, causing her to cry out involuntarily. Sweat drenched her, and she fell to one knee, unable to keep her balance.

"What is this?" she asked, her blonde hair disheveled and breathing lightly. "It feels uncomfortable."

The red sun emitter test was a success.

Shen You immediately shut off the device, a bit surprised by her intense reaction.

Theoretically, the red sun wasn't kryptonite; it would only take away superpowers without harming Kryptonians. After all, they were born in a red sun environment and didn't seem to have any adverse reactions.

But he quickly realized it might be an issue of adaptation. A Kryptonian who had adapted to the yellow sun and gained godlike powers would naturally experience a rejection reaction when suddenly exposed back to a strong red sun environment, leading to symptoms like weakness and nausea.

While not fatal, it appeared to have a similar effect to kryptonite from the initial reactions.

The test results left Shen You quite satisfied, but Kara wasn't so comfortable. It was her first time re-experiencing red solar radiation since coming to Earth, and without any preparation, she was left feeling utterly drained.

She pouted as she left Shen You's lab, looking like she had been bullied, her legs trembling and every part of her body aching.

The old wizard frowned for a long while when he saw this, then decided to find Shen You.

"Young man, I believe your heart is pure, but it seems your people may have different moral standards than we do in certain matters."

The old wizard spoke earnestly.

"I recently learned that in today's society, eighteen is considered the age of adulthood. Anything involving a minor is unethical, and in some places, even illegal. Penalties range from three years to life imprisonment."

"Uh, yeah, I know that. But why are you bringing it up?"

The old wizard squinted his eyes. "I saw you take that Kryptonian girl down there, and when she came back, her face was flushed, and she was panting heavily."

"Uh, that was me asking her to help me test new equipment."

"New equipment?"

The old wizard looked bewildered.

"What kind of equipment can exhaust a young girl like that?"

Shen You: "…"