Begging with a Golden Rice Bowl

Although Stark wanted to find the intruder, things never go as planned. Moreover, Kraft's original intention wasn't to invade Stark's database, but to test Angela and Haro's abilities. After breaching Stark's network, he didn't have Angela steal data. Instead, he shifted from offense to defense, testing their defensive capabilities.

"Mr. Stark, the other party doesn't seem hostile."

J.A.R.V.I.S. quickly noticed the intruder's unusual behavior. He promptly reported the situation to Tony Stark and offered his assessment.

"This is... they're testing us?"

Stark understood immediately and laughed in exasperation. However, realizing he had indeed lost to the other party, he shook his head helplessly and gave up on tracking them.

"Who are you?"

Stark, abandoning his resistance, sent a message to the other party.

Soon, a reply came.

"Red Queen."

"Red Queen? It's a girl?"

The network battle between the AIs had long ended. Tony Stark returned to his room. The cover girl had already left, but Stark paid her no mind. He took a new set of clothes from his wardrobe, put them on, and walked to the dining room with the coffee J.A.R.V.I.S. had brewed for him.

"What girl? Found a new target?"

Virginia Pepper Potts, nicknamed Little Pepper, was Tony Stark's personal assistant, spokesperson, nanny, therapist, and primary consort...

In short, she was indispensable in both Tony Stark's life and work.

Just like now, she had just seen off the cover girl who had stayed the night, and had prepared his favorite cheeseburger for breakfast.

"New target?"

Tony Stark paused, then nodded firmly and stated with conviction.

"That's right! She is indeed my new target!"

"She seems very special."

Pepper, who knew Tony Stark very well, felt a pang of jealousy. She had never seen Stark look so serious about any woman.

"Yes! Very special!"

Stark didn't notice his personal assistant's subtle emotions, his eyes shining as he replied.

"I'm completely captivated by her!"

"So, do you need me to prepare any gifts or book a restaurant?"

Pepper suppressed her jealousy and asked, following the usual routine.

"Gifts? A restaurant?"

It was only then that Stark realized they weren't on the same page.

"No, I don't need those," Stark said with a wry smile. "You can't 'chase' a girl with things like that."

"Oh really?" Tony Stark's misleading statement made Pepper unable to suppress her jealousy any longer. She started speaking sarcastically, "It seems our playboy is finally settling down and considering the important matters of his life?"

"Hey! Little Pepper! Are you jealous?"

Tony Stark happily continued to tease Pepper. He had been feeling a bit down after being defeated in the network battle, but now he had completely recovered.

Stark was quite resistant to marriage at the moment. Otherwise, even though he and Pepper were mutually in love, he wouldn't have dragged things out for so long without confirming their relationship. But seeing Pepper jealous over him, Tony Stark couldn't help but be happy.

"I'm just your personal assistant, what's there to be jealous about!"

Pepper felt wronged and angry. She shoved the breakfast she brought into Tony Stark's hands and turned to leave.

But Stark grabbed her.

"Alright, don't be angry."

Tony Stark wasn't an idiot. He wouldn't just let Pepper leave like that. Joking aside, if Pepper were to misunderstand and leave him in anger, Tony Stark would find it unacceptable.

He quickly explained what had happened, even bringing J.A.R.V.I.S. in as a witness to clear up the misunderstanding.

After hearing Tony Stark's explanation, Pepper secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Then, she angrily began to scold Stark.

"How can you be so reckless! What if your database had been compromised?! Do you know how much damage that would have caused the company?! You can't always do things based on your own preferences, Tony!"

Stark's computer contained a lot of Stark Industries data, as well as various design blueprints. If they had been leaked, the consequences would have been no less severe than his later announcement to shut down the weapons division.

"Okay, okay, I get it."

Tony Stark appeased Pepper's anger with a sheepish smile.

"Nothing happened, right? And given the strength of that AI, if she wanted to sneak into Stark Industries' data while I wasn't paying attention, J.A.R.V.I.S. wouldn't have been able to stop her."

At this point, Tony Stark's expression turned serious. He placed his hands on Pepper's shoulders.

"So, Little Pepper, for the next while, I need to upgrade J.A.R.V.I.S. properly. I'll leave all the company matters to you."

"I understand. Go ahead and do what you need to do, Tony."

When it came to serious matters, Pepper reverted to her decisive and efficient style.

Meanwhile, Kraft had no idea that his little test had driven the famous Tony Stark to despair. Of course, if he had known, he might have laughed heartily.

After testing Angela's abilities with J.A.R.V.I.S., Kraft assigned her two ongoing tasks.

One was to investigate the mastermind behind the Maggia's human experiments from years ago, and the other was to discover the source of Vibranium, the primary material used to make Captain America's shield.

After several days of intelligence gathering and sifting, there was still no lead regarding the Maggia. After all, the internet wasn't very developed seven years ago, so there was very little data stored on computers. Furthermore, the person behind it was extremely cautious, and related information had basically been wiped out physically.

As for information related to human experimentation, there was simply too much. Not only was America far ahead in this area, but other countries had also conducted similar experiments to varying degrees, mostly focusing on the path to creating super soldiers. It seemed the success of Captain America had a significant impact.

Therefore, it was practically impossible to start by investigating factions involved in human experimentation. Not counting other countries, America alone had a large number of official and unofficial factions that had secretly conducted human experiments, and the number within America was almost as much as the total of all other countries combined.

In contrast, news about Vibranium was quickly locked onto by Angela and Haro.

This peculiar metal, Vibranium, originated from a small country in northeastern Africa called Wakanda. There were two channels for acquiring it: one was the small amount occasionally sold by the government, and the other was smuggling. Consequently, the price of Vibranium had always been high, and it was more available in name than in reality, making it impossible to buy easily.

The exorbitant price wasn't a major issue for Kraft at the moment, but the problem was that even with money, he might not be able to buy it.

And...

Even though Wakanda possessed resources far superior to gold and diamonds, why was it still a poor, backward agricultural country relying on international aid?

Kraft had carefully calculated the total amount of Vibranium that had ever flowed out of Wakanda and its sales price. If even half of it had been used for its own development, Wakanda would definitely not still be a poverty-stricken nation.

Driven by curiosity, he had Angela and Haro conduct a more in-depth investigation into Wakanda.

Then, he was astonished.

This so-called backward agricultural country, Wakanda, actually possessed considerable network technology and even had its own intelligence agency, PRIDE. The main function of this agency was to block and delete information about Wakanda online. However, thanks to this intelligence agency, Angela had the opportunity to hack into Wakanda's internal network.

"This is truly... shamelessly audacious..."

Looking at the data Angela had collected, Kraft's face broke into a mocking smile.