Li Ritian

Four days later, at sunset on Friday, inside the garage of Li Si's home.

It could no longer be called a garage; he had converted it into a workshop, and it was now stocked with almost every common tool imaginable.

What was even more eye-catching was the massive steel frame welded in the center of the garage, supporting an enormous robot.

However, the robot was clearly unfinished. Dense clusters of wires were exposed, the lower legs were nowhere to be seen, and the head was not attached to the neck but had been tossed aside on the floor next to the frame.

This was the result of Li Si's work over the past few days.

The parts he had ordered had been arriving one after another, and he had used his spare time to assemble them.

But there were still many things missing: the lower limb components, the titanium alloy shell, the head's processor and multispectral lens, the materials for the graphene batteries, and even the pre-planned thermal weapons—none of these were in his possession.

To make matters worse, his savings had been completely wiped out, yet the remaining items were becoming increasingly expensive.

Graphene batteries were not available on the market, so he had to make them himself, and the primary material—graphene—was still in the experimental stage on this Marvel Earth, making it several times more expensive than gold.

It wasn't that he lacked the manufacturing technology, but he simply didn't have the conditions to produce it; he had no choice but to buy it.

Not to mention the miniaturized, high-performance processors and multispectral lenses, which were items almost entirely monopolized by others.

He had gritted his teeth and bought a small portion of graphene, spending every last cent he had just to make two large-capacity graphene batteries. As for the rest, he was truly at a dead end.

"Am I really going to have to blackmail Norman Osborn ahead of schedule?"

Looking at his list of required materials, Li Si frowned deeply.

He did have a way to make money. The Osborn family suffered from a hereditary retroviral hyperplasia, and the only reason Norman Osborn was investing regardless of cost into the gene-fusion experiments of Curt Connors and Richard Parker was to cure his own genetic disease.

The current Norman Osborn should be nearing death. If Li Si could produce a bottle of modified serum, he could definitely extort a significant amount of benefits.

However, this conflicted with his plans.

The ideal trader in his mind was Norman's son, Harry Osborn. Only by waiting until Norman died and Harry Osborn was deeply traumatized could he maximize his profits; at that point, Harry Osborn would surely give him whatever he asked for.

Moreover, Norman Osborn was an old fox. Even now, lying on his deathbed, he could remotely control Oscorp and keep the covetous shareholders firmly in check. If he were cured, it would be disastrous, and it would be fatal to Li Si's subsequent plans.

"Forget it, let me think of other ways."

After weighing the pros and cons, Li Si decisively pushed the thought to the back of his mind.

Oscorp was the most important link in his upcoming plans. Rather than letting a stumbling block like Norman Osborn live, he would rather work hard and take on more network assistance jobs on the dark web's black market.

Feeling annoyed by the overthinking, Li Si simply stopped. He organized his things, pulled down the garage's rolling shutter, returned to his room, and collapsed into bed.

"Let me in, I'm an employee here!"

"Is there no justice left? You're calling security? You want to throw hands? Do you believe I can take on ten of you at once!"

"Don't... don't come over here, I know kung fu! I'll dismantle you!"

The next morning, it was Li Si's first day of work at Oscorp.

In high spirits, Li Si woke up early, dressed himself up, put on a formal suit, and arrived at Oscorp Tower with great enthusiasm.

To his surprise, he witnessed a farce at the reception desk the moment he entered the building.

"Sir, I have already made it very clear: you work for Osby Industries, we are Oscorp."

The white woman behind the reception desk, who had received Li Si last time, was explaining with a look of helplessness to a chubby young man being held by two black security guards.

Yet this yellow-skinned chubby man was a stubborn fool; he wouldn't listen to a word, and even while being held by the two large men, he was red-faced, cursing and kicking his legs.

What truly caught Li Si's attention, however, were the bright green characters floating above his head—"Hao Bruce Player".

The suffix already explained everything.

Names and identity suffixes were displayed by default to help players distinguish each other, though they could be turned off. Li Si had already turned his off; he had no interest in running around with a green light over his head.

This player clearly hadn't noticed that the feature could be disabled. After all, the game had no beginner tutorial, and everything had to be figured out through trial and error.

It was rare to run into a player in this situation.

The current Earth OL did not have the popularity it would later enjoy. In fact, at this stage, Earth OL had a very poor reputation among the player base, and there were likely only a little over a hundred thousand people truly committed to playing the game.

Moreover, the current players didn't know the importance of New York. Although players would gradually deduce that New York was the main stage for the main storyline as the game progressed, that wouldn't happen for another year or so.

Most players who entered now were scattered across the world based on their own preferences. A population of a hundred thousand was less than a drop in the ocean compared to the Earth's seven or eight billion people, so one could imagine the odds of running into each other.

And even more coincidentally, Li Si recognized this person.

"I never expected Li Ritian to look like this, tsk tsk!"

Seeing the chubby man whose facial features were nothing if not sleazy, Li Si almost burst out laughing.

Before his rebirth, "Hao Bruce" was a well-known figure, nicknamed "Li Ritian" in the community—a nickname Li Si himself had given him.

Li Ritian was very famous before his rebirth, though not for his strength, but for a player news program he ran called Haotian Daily, which players jokingly referred to as the "Ritian Ridi Daily."

This guy was a loud-mouthed casual player who loved to show off and act cool. It was rumored that his real-world identity was the pampered son of a major internet company, with a large team of internet trolls helping him scrub his reputation and attack others on the forums.

At first, this guy just liked to troll on forums, but eventually, he attracted a lot of popularity and started a web video program, which actually became quite successful.

However, this guy had a foul mouth. In addition to the daily group-bashing on Haotian Daily, he also created a player ranking list, and every player on the list was given some ridiculous, pit-digging nickname by him.

Before his rebirth, Li Si had relied on the Hulk bloodline to crush other players and naturally made the list. He had been given the nickname "Prairie Hero" by this guy, which had almost made him explode with rage.

Yet, he couldn't do anything about him. Li Ritian had offended quite a few people with his trolling, and some had even dug up his real-world identity. But instead of being afraid, this shameless man was delighted; he bribed a large group of people to replace all his leaked photos with those of a famous male celebrity and claimed to be a handsome man. He was so shameless that people were left speechless.