I had to keep my mask on twenty-four hours a day. Things as banal as eating, drinking, or simply breathing turned into tactical operations whenever she was nearby—I had to watch every angle so I wouldn’t expose my face.

  My only real freedom came when I sent her off to her intensive close-quarters combat training with the hitmen, or to the business management csses I’d made mandatory.

  Only in those brief stretches of solitude could the "Fantasma" disappear. Only then could I go back to being simply Leo, breathing fresh air without the synthetic voice filter—or the oppressive weight of those ghostlike fabrics against my skin.

  Outside my criminal management, the System’s recent update had officially recognized my third mask: "L".

  This identity wasn’t meant for the underworld or the tabloid press. It was reserved exclusively for Ats Corporation’s scientific elite—specifically, the advanced weapons development subdivision.

  To them, "L" was an invisible architect, a reclusive genius who communicated only through bck screens and distorted voices, delivering brilliant schematics that solved in hours the problems that took them months to untangle.

  But my real work happened far from their curious eyes.

  Deep within Ats’s structure, I’d built my sanctuary: a maximum-security underground boratory, isoted from the external network and cking any conventional physical doors.

  I went in and out using my [Stealth Lv. 5] combined with my parkour skills, slipping through ventition ducts and blind spots, making sure neither thermal cameras nor pressure sensors ever logged my presence.

  There, in the absolute silence belowground, the Fantasma stopped existing—and the engineer took his pce.

  It was in the solitude of that bunker that I understood the true nature of my new ability: [Reverse Engineering].

  At first, I was afraid I wouldn’t know how to use it. After all, my formal education barely brushed up against that of an average college student; I cked the deep theoretical foundation to grasp fields like quantum physics or advanced thermodynamics. And yet, the System acted like a perfect neural bridge.

  It didn’t hand me knowledge already "chewed" or turn me into an omniscient god overnight. What it did was subtler—and, in the long run, far more powerful: it gave me the "foundations."

  When my eyes settled on a complex blueprint or an unfamiliar device, the System inserted into my mind the basic axioms and underlying logic I needed to understand how it worked. It was like having the index of a universal encyclopedia etched into my cerebral cortex; the System didn’t give me the answer, but it told me exactly where to look and what to study to fill in the gaps.

  So I started studying. I devoured technical books, university databases, and experimental theories using my [Accelerated Brain], filling at a dizzying speed the holes the ability still left behind.

  I applied that method immediately to the standard military technology Ats already possessed. My goal wasn’t to copy—it was to evolve. I studied existing patents, identified their inefficiencies, and designed improvements that strayed far enough from the original product to shield us from intellectual property wsuits, while preserving the lethality the market demanded.

  "Gentlemen," I told my lead scientists, my filtered voice echoing through the bck screen during an encrypted video conference. "The standard assault rifle design is obsolete. I’ve sent the schematics for a new liquid-cooling system and recoil compensation. Build it."

  Thanks to those innovations—and taking advantage of the fact that many weapon mechanisms effectively enter the public domain when they’re substantially modified—Ats Corporation began positioning itself not just as a security firm, but as an emerging titan at the cutting edge of weapons technology.

  But while the company billed millions on the surface, down below, in my private b, I devoted myself to the "Forbidden Toys." I had three main projects on the table, each with a frustratingly different level of difficulty.

  First: A.R.G.U.S.’s Sonic Weapon. Contrary to my expectations, it turned out to be the hardest. It was extremely delicate espionage and crowd-control tech, packed with micro-circuits and traps.

  Without an instruction manual, the risk of opening it and triggering a self-destruct mechanism—or snapping an irrepceable microscopic component—was too high.

  The analysis crawled at a snail’s pace out of pure fear of losing the artifact, so I made a pragmatic decision: wait until the sonic weapons Ats had negotiated with HYDRA and the army arrived, so I’d have more test samples.

  Second: the fifteen Kryptonian Alloy Fragments. This was an absolute physical wall. The metal wasn’t just hard—it was a scientific anomaly. When I tried to analyze it, I realized I was dealing with an alien version of Earth’s densest metals, possibly superior even to Wakandan Vibranium.

  I didn’t have furnaces capable of reaching the temperature required to melt it, nor sers powerful enough to cut it. For now, they were indestructible cosmic paperweights, patiently waiting for my terrestrial technology to catch up.

  And third, Stark’s Legacy: the Arc Reactor and the Mark 1 blueprints. Ironically, what should’ve been the most advanced and complex ended up being the most accessible.

  The reason was simple: Tony Stark. Or rather, the psychological torture I put him through in the desert. By forcing him to draw “idiot-proof” pns so a mediocre scientist (Hammer’s) could understand them, Tony had done all the heavy lifting for me.

  I didn’t have to guess the alloys. I didn’t have to deduce the energy flows. The greatest genius in the world had left me—driven by desperation—a step-by-step instruction manual.

  "Thank you, Tony," I whispered, spreading the blueprints across my workbench. "Time to build the future."

  I set aside the sonic weapon’s intricate puzzle and the impenetrable alien metals. My absolute, obsessive priority became replicating and understanding two things: the infinite power source, and the armor that would change modern warfare—the Mark 1.

  And yet, peace was an illusion.

  Even inside my private sanctuary at Ats—surrounded by reinforced alloy walls and protected by cutting-edge security systems—I didn’t feel safe. During my breaks, my eyes instinctively swept the dark corners, searching for invisible threats.

  My paranoia was still there, pounding hard at the base of my neck like a second heart. And instead of trying to suppress it, I embraced it. It wasn’t a weakness; it was the survival reflex that had kept me alive on the streets—and that now kept me alive at the top.

  I went through my circles of trust in my head, making sure the firewalls between my identities were still airtight.

  No one outside my inner circle could know that "El Fantasma" had ties to Ats’s Board of Directors—much less that both were, in truth, the same person behind "L"’s synthetic voice.

  But the nuclear secret—the one no one, absolutely no one, knew—was that beneath all those polymer masks and holograms there was only Leo Barrera: an orphan with a terrifying intellect and far too much ambition.

  The only ones who knew the Fantasma–Ats connection, or Fantasma–"L," were my four pilrs: Ophelia, Marcus, Vargas, and Harley.

  Well, technically there was one exception: the remnants of my old Board of Directors. They knew the Fantasma–Ats link, but they lived with an invisible noose around their necks.

  The explicit threat of torturing their families—and publicly exposing their most depraved secrets—guaranteed their absolute silence. And the recent “accidental death” of the two most arrogant members served as a brutal reminder to the rest.

  I didn’t expect immediate trouble from them; their fear was genuine. But my paranoia doesn’t leave loose ends long-term: I already had a gradual purge scheduled on my calendar. Within five years—so as not to raise statistical suspicion—each of them would suffer a tragic, fatal accident during an overseas vacation.

  With Vargas and Marcus, I slept easy. Their loyalty was a perfect mix of reverential fear, professional respect, and an unpayable life debt. I’d given them purpose, power, and wealth they’d never imagined.

  But in case gratitude ever failed, both of them knew I had the exact location of their weak points: Marcus’s daughter in college, and Vargas’s young son. It was a cruel life insurance policy, I admit—but necessary. If they betrayed me, they knew hell wouldn’t wait for them to die; it would visit their homes that very night.

  Harleen was loyal, but unstable. She was still a rough diamond—packed with potential chaos—that needed meticulous polishing before she could carry critical responsibilities.

  The real problem wasn’t Harleen, or the board, or the gangs. It was Ophelia.

  The System swore she was loyal. The numbers didn’t lie… but the numbers also didn’t see the fine print.

  Her loyalty was professional. And professional loyalty is a tool: it works as long as the contract stays profitable.

  Ophelia carried out my orders with precision, without a word of protest. But HYDRA doesn’t let go of its own—it trains them to obey, lie, and wait. Her “base programming” was still there, buried under yers of discipline.

  My System detected direct hostility: a spike, an intent, an impulse to betray. But it didn’t detect parallel loyalties if they weren’t aimed at my throat. It didn’t warn me if someone could serve me today… and serve someone else tomorrow, with the same efficiency.

  That was the gap. The crack an entire empire can slip through. Rival companies, S.H.I.E.L.D., or even A.R.G.U.S. could exploit that weakness.

  And until recently, I could live with the doubt.

  But HYDRA started moving strangely.

  And when HYDRA moves weird, it isn’t an accident. It’s a signal.

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