"Are we supposed to roll out an upgraded version right away?"
Inside Primus, Dr. Connors asked with obvious concern.
In his view, in such a short amount of time, the odds of producing another solid invention were slim. And if they rushed out an upgraded self-healing serum just for an expo, the company would unquestionably lose a huge amount of money.
"Of course not." Bant shook his head.
Right now, even the initial version of the self-healing serum still couldn't meet production demand. If they revealed an upgraded version, the military and S.H.I.E.L.D., who had only paid deposits, might immediately breach the contract and demand to purchase the upgraded serum instead.
That would be a catastrophic loss for him.
"Just grab any invention and use it to muddle through," Bant said.
Originally, his plan had been to debut the initial version of the self-healing serum at the expo. But now that Norman was helping, Primus didn't need to advertise at the expo anymore.
At this point, he only had one goal.
Take down Hammer Industries.
He knew Justin Hammer would join forces with Ivan and produce a batch of Iron Legion suits.
In fact, over the past month, Ivan had already attacked Tony with his somewhat outdated gear, but he'd failed.
Now, even inside Primus, Bant's Superman-like hearing could pick up Hammer Industries working day and night, refitting that batch of iron armors.
"Perfect. I was going to build some robots to protect Queens anyway," Bant thought.
Justin Hammer had basically zero real R and D ability, but he was great at scamming funding. He knew exactly what the military would want after seeing Iron Man's suit, so from start to finish, he built toward wearable armor.
But Ivan wasn't that rigid.
He wanted to build a steel army, and that meant the machines had to be capable of remote control.
That happened to be exactly what Bant wanted too.
He'd already made up his mind. Once the machines were done being modified, he'd sneak over and tamper with them a little, so that that spendthrift idiot wouldn't blow all the robots up in one go!
"These are my assets!"
"What do you mean, your assets?"
Connors was teasing the lizard in his hands when Bant suddenly shouted, startling him. Then, as if he remembered something, Connors asked, "Speaking of assets, the company's already making money. Doesn't that mean we should change our work environment?"
"A tiny cultivation room can't raise many lizards, let alone other animals. At this rate, it'll take years to fulfill the current orders."
"And I can't keep my lab and my bedroom in the same place forever. That's unsanitary."
Connors rattled off a whole string of complaints. In summary, the company was too small, and he wanted to live in a big mansion.
"Relax, relax. You'll get your eco-park. You'll get your building," Bant said, looking toward Hammer Industries in the distance.
Then he started thinking about what product to bring to the expo. Honestly, after returning from Sakaar, he had plenty of tech concepts to draw from, but most of them were weapons.
And Bant didn't plan to make weapons.
Or rather, he didn't plan to make weapons and sell them to the damn Americans.
After thinking it over, he finally decided to build an anti-gravity car as the expo showcase piece.
"An anti-gravity system? You can really make that work?" Connors asked in shock.
Even though he was a biology PhD, he still knew enough about anti-gravity to understand what it meant.
Because that kind of thing was like a perpetual motion machine. There was a high chance it was just a scam.
"I remember that in the last century, Howard Stark had the concept for an anti-gravity car," Connors said. "Back then he was limited by the technology of his era. But even today, an anti-gravity system still hasn't been achieved."
Even Iron Man's armor flew using propulsion.
Connors gave Bant a strange look and said, "Forget inventing an anti-gravity device. If you can clearly explain the principle of an anti-gravity system and provide an implementable concept, you'd be the founder of a new physics."
"It's not that dramatic," Bant said.
The physics in Marvel and the physics in the real world weren't the same thing.
You think Marvel is sci-fi?
Wrong.
It's fantasy wearing a lab coat.
Besides…
"Anti-gravity isn't zero gravity, and it isn't altering gravity," Bant said. "I just need to provide an opposing force and balance it against gravity."
"Aren't you just playing word games?" Connors' eyes widened.
If that was all it meant, then Iron Man's armor already had the same "technology," and even the Green Goblin's glider, the cheap version, also hovered using a similar idea, didn't it?
"Just answer me. Is it anti or not?" Bant fired back immediately.
Of course, he couldn't just copy Iron Man's tech directly.
If he took Iron Man's technology to Stark's expo, that would be slapping Tony in the face.
Bant was even worried Tony would show up in armor, fly right up in front of Harry, and roar at him:
Potter, how dare you use my magic against me?!
"How about sonic levitation," Connors suggested, shrugging, "or airflow levitation?"
He made it clear he couldn't offer much useful advice.
Bant didn't mind. He turned into Little Qibing and buried his head in research. Luckily, the armor he'd gotten from Tony and the Sakaar tech资料 could both inspire him.
Just then, Connors came over again with his little lizard, looking exactly like an old man taking his parrot for a walk.
"Oh right. Now that the company's growing, it can't just be the two of us…"
"And Harry," Bant said without looking up.
"Fine. Three…"
"Sorry, there's also me, Mr. Connors," Eunice cut in coldly.
Connors: …
"Alright, four then. But it's still too few. We need to hire more people, like cleaners, security guards, and someone who specializes in negotiating business," Connors said.
Right now, nearly all of Primus's orders were being handled by Harry and Norman.
A company this big, with Bant often absent, Connors sensitive in身份 and bad with words, meant he was fine for research, but completely outmatched in business talks against those old foxes.
After hearing him out, Bant started thinking too.
As the company grew, they really would need more employees to handle more tasks.
At first, he'd only thought about researchers, but a company couldn't be made of researchers alone.
Even Tony still needed a Pepper.
So Bant put down what he was holding. His frog-like horizontal pupils swept over as he asked, "Got any good candidates?"
The one who answered wasn't Connors, but Eunice.
"There are some, sir."
Then Eunice projected stacks of resumes into the air one by one, letting Bant and Connors review them.
"Although Primus Technology hasn't posted any recruitment information yet, after the self-healing serum went on sale, many applicants wanted a job here and submitted resumes to our website and email."
"Mm…"
Bant pinched his chin and looked like he was thinking.
The resumes Eunice selected were all excellent. Some of the backgrounds were impressive enough to be called shocking.
But Bant wasn't about to be fooled by words on paper.
No need to guess. Among these resumes, there were probably very few real job seekers. Most of them were spies trying to dig out the serum formula.
The biggest proof was that he spotted a "familiar face" in the list.
Natasha Romanoff.
A S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.
Ever since the last time Stark Tower had been occupied by Dong Wu, Natasha had already blown her cover, so she naturally couldn't keep working there.
Bant hadn't expected her to take a detour and send her resume to him instead.
"Are you interested in her background?" Eunice seemed to notice Bant's gaze lingering on Natasha, so she deliberately enlarged Natasha's personal information.
"She worked at Stark Industries too?" Connors said in surprise.
"If you're interested, Eunice will send an interview invitation," Eunice said.
"No. No!" Bant hurriedly cut her off.
His reaction made Connors feel something was off.
"Does she have a problem?"
"She has a lot of problems," Bant said, shaking his head. "That woman is not a good person."
"You're worried she's here to steal the serum formula? That shouldn't be the case, right? I don't think Stark would do something like that."
"Maybe Stark wouldn't," Bant said, sweeping his hand and clearing away all the floating resumes at once, "but who told you the person behind her is Stark?"
He didn't explain further to Connors. He only said, "Endure it for now, Doctor. We have too many secrets…"
He pointed at the shabby little watch on his wrist.
"It's too small here. If we hire people now, the watch's secret will be found out fast and exposed to the public. Then I'll be buried in trouble."
Connors understood.
"The technology inside that watch is too astonishing," he praised. "I don't know what kind of intelligence it takes to create something like it."
The ability to transform into aliens was somewhat similar to the lizard serum, but in reality, the gap between them was like heaven and earth.
Not to mention the other technology inside the watch.
And more importantly, the aliens inside the watch possessed terrifying destructive power.
Even if the watch hadn't been created as a weapon, humanity always had a talent for turning anything into one.
While Bant was researching the anti-gravity car, a plot targeting Spider-Man was quietly brewing in the shadows.
Hell's Kitchen.
Bullseye, as Kingpin's emissary, found one of the Hand's Five Fingers.
Madam Gao.
"Kingpin's man," Madam Gao said. "What do you want?"
She was a somewhat gaunt woman who looked around fifty, her gaze sharp as a blade.
She didn't welcome Bullseye's visit, but she didn't drive him out immediately either.
In the powder business, Kingpin and Madam Gao were both rivals and partners.
Before, their enemy had always been Daredevil. But more than a month ago, a guy called Spider-Man had burst onto the scene. Together with Daredevil, he dealt their operations a heavy blow.
And now, Spider-Man had become two.
Last night around 12:30, the AC repair guy finally came. He worked until nearly 2:00, and the AC still wasn't fixed. Good thing I bought a fan at the last minute, or I would've died from the heat…
/-\
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