That's right, the entire Loki's Scepter glowed much brighter than the rest of the staff.
In fact, Luca had noticed earlier that the stone at the top of the scepter seemed a bit too bright.
But at first, Luca just thought it was the light emitted by the Loki's Scepter's original stone.
However, looking back at the description on the panel now, it seemed that wasn't the case.
'Could it be that the Mind Stone and Loki's Scepter are judged by the Golden Finger as two separate core components?'
'It doesn't seem impossible, does it?'
With the doubts in his heart, Luca directly reached out and touched the blue crystal at the top of the scepter, which encased the Mind Stone.
However, the panel that popped up this time was still the [yuri base vehicle] prompt.
'Uh, well, through this protective shell, it seems I can't trigger the Golden Finger panel prompt.'
But this immediately put Luca in a dilemma.
If he destroyed the crystal encasing the Mind Stone, it was very likely to cause the entire Loki's Scepter to be directly damaged.
If the Golden Finger simply judged the Mind Stone and Loki's Scepter as two separate core components, that would be fine.
Usually, when the Golden Finger synthesizes items, it leaves unrelated materials directly in place, and after the [yuri base vehicle] finishes synthesizing, Luca can still keep the Mind Stone and see what else it can synthesize.
But if the Golden Finger judged these two items as a whole, it's possible that after the Base Vehicle finishes synthesizing, the Mind Stone would also disappear along with it.
In that case, Luca might never know what the Mind Stone could synthesize in his entire life.
For a moment, Luca, uncharacteristically, fell into a dilemma.
'Do I want the Base Vehicle… or gamble on the Mind Stone?'
Just as Luca was hesitating, a commotion suddenly came from below the building, and even Luca, being on the top floor, could vaguely hear the noise downstairs.
Before Luca could even have Erha go to the window to check the situation, there was a rapid knock on the office door.
At the same time, the person knocking outside the door didn't wait for a reply from inside before quickly reporting.
"Baron, a large group of Novigrad citizens have gathered outside the Orange Building and are causing trouble, seemingly protesting… um, protesting Orange's entry into Sokovia!"
Inside the office, Luca frowned slightly upon hearing the HYDRA soldier's report from outside, and immediately stopped hesitating, handing the Loki's Scepter back to Erha.
He gave Strucker, who was still in a daze, a look and quietly ordered.
"Everything as usual, settle this first."
"Yes, Boss."
After Luca gave the order, not only Strucker, but also Rena and Dr. List returned to normal, as if they had truly just been discussing company cooperation matters in the office earlier.
And Strucker directly pushed open the office door and reprimanded the subordinate who came to report.
"Do I still need to teach you how to handle such a minor matter? Drive all those troublemakers away! And directly kill anyone who doesn't obey!"
"This…"
The HYDRA soldier immediately showed a troubled expression upon hearing this.
However, this was actually normal. Although all members of the Sokovia Base where Strucker was currently located belonged to HYDRA.
But many of the soldiers were originally recruited from local Sokovians.
His action of directly ordering the killing of civilians without a word, it was normal for this subordinate, who hadn't been brainwashed too deeply, to hesitate.
Even Luca hadn't expected that his instruction for Strucker to 'handle it as usual' would result in such a method.
Thinking that he was still planning to invest heavily in Sokovia later, under the guise of 'giving back to his hometown' to develop his own power, Luca quickly spoke up to stop the other party.
"Ahem, Baron, I actually think there's no need to be so violent. After all, our Orange Family family also originated from Sokovia. I imagine those citizens are unhappy with the company's entry because they are unaware of these things."
Since Luca had spoken, Strucker naturally wouldn't object.
After a moment of contemplation, he looked back at the soldier who had come to report.
"Let's go, take me to the scene to see what's going on!"
This time, it was the HYDRA soldier who was stunned in place, looking at his leader with wide eyes of surprise.
'Is the Baron really that easy to talk to?'
In fact, after that brief hesitation just now, he had already prepared himself to accept punishment.
He hadn't expected that with a light word from that young man from the United States, his leader's attitude would do a complete 180-degree turn.
However, seeing that Strucker had already stepped towards the elevator, he didn't dare to delay and immediately trotted to follow him.
However, Luca in the office did not go downstairs with Strucker, but just gave Dunshan and the others outside the room a look, indicating that they didn't need to worry, and then directly walked to the office window and looked down.
This look was significant.
At this moment, hundreds of Sokovian citizens had gathered below the Orange Building's office building.
Although most of these people were dressed simply, and some were even dressed like street vagrants.
But at this moment, they were all in high spirits, with fierce expressions.
Holding up banners and slogans, they furiously cursed and roared towards the Orange Building, their emotions agitated.
"Americans! Get out of our country!!"
"Get out! You are not welcome here!!"
"We want fairness! Not U.S. dollars!!"
Among these angry roars, although some were in English, more were slang mixed with the local Sokovian dialect.
Yes, Sokovia had its own language, but due to prolonged warlord conflicts and the invasion and disruption of external capital, even the official language had now become English.
It was only in such moments of extreme anger that people realized their mother tongue seemed to express their indignation better.
Fortunately, as a relatively traditional Sokovian family, although Luca was born in the United States, his mother Gina had lived in Sokovia before adulthood, so she had taught him Sokovian from a young age. At this moment, he could understand what those people downstairs were cursing about.
Uh, it seemed that understanding what others were cursing about him wasn't necessarily a good thing.
At this moment, those extremely angry protesters, seeing no response for a long time, had begun to gradually lose control and were preparing to storm the Orange Building.
If it weren't for the fact that all the security guards of this office building were soldiers dispatched from the HYDRA Base, it might not have been possible to stop these angry civilians.
However, even in such a chaotic scene.
Luca, looking down from the top floor, actually spotted a touch of… uh, White wrapped in red clothes among the crowd.