Material Wholesaler

While Alice enjoyed her new campus life, the Wakanda affair finally came to an end as well.

Wakanda opened up part of its technology to other countries and put Vibranium resources on the market. Although the price was still relatively steep, it was no longer quite so difficult to obtain.

The United Nations also returned Wakanda's prince, T'Challa, and lifted its economic and resource blockade against Wakanda. Major media outlets began helping Wakanda repair its public image, so its international reputation was no longer quite so universally reviled. Even so, plenty of people still held no goodwill toward Wakanda.

"After all that trouble, I still can't buy any!"

Kraft slammed his fist onto the table. Besides being unable to stand what Wakanda had done, the more important reason he had exposed them was to gain a channel for purchasing their Vibranium.

Now that Wakanda had opened Vibranium sales, they were still only dealing with nations and major conglomerates. He had no way to get involved. Even Martin was not qualified to purchase Vibranium through official channels. The only private forces in America qualified to join the Vibranium trade were probably Stark Industries and the Osborn Group.

However, being unable to get Vibranium through official channels did not mean other channels were impossible. Since Wakanda's information had been exposed, large numbers of mercenaries and smuggling groups had flooded into Africa. Along with ambitious local figures, they could get their hands on not only Vibranium but even small amounts of Wakandan technology through the black market, provided they had the money.

That was also why Kraft had blown the matter wide open. Once the floodgates opened, many things were no longer within Wakanda's control.

Once he realized official channels were impossible, Kraft went with Plan B—asking Martin Lee for help. With Mr. Negative, the underworld boss, handling it, he did not have to worry about getting double-crossed.

"Just ten grams is enough?"

Martin Lee naturally agreed to Kraft's request without hesitation. After learning about his adopted son's research abilities, there was no way he would obstruct Kraft's work. If anything, he felt Kraft was asking for too little.

"What can you research with ten grams of metal? I'll do my best to get you more!"

Martin Lee declared grandly. Although a single gram of Vibranium cost ten thousand us dollars, was Martin Lee someone short on money? Even Kraft himself had enough money to buy Vibranium.

Kraft said nothing. He silently took a pistol-shaped flashlight from his backpack, then pulled the trigger at Bear, the little black cat beside him.

Under the flashlight's beam, Bear, who had been less than half a meter long, rapidly expanded into a giant cat several times larger than a lion, scattering the surrounding furniture in every direction.

"Meow?"

Bear had been peacefully lying on the couch grooming herself. She stared blankly as everything around her rapidly shrank, even forgetting to pull back the tongue she had extended to lick her fur.

"That's amazing! Big bro, I want it too!"

When Quinn saw Bear grow larger, his first thought was that his only advantage—his size—was gone. He put his front paws on Kraft's leg and wagged his tail furiously.

"Go away, go away. Why do you want everything?"

Kraft pushed Quinn's dog head aside, pressed another button on the flashlight, and pulled the trigger at Bear again.

Bear had been curiously watching the shrunken furniture around her, her huge paws itching to move. In an instant, she shrank back to her original size.

Martin Lee's mouth fell open, and it took him a long while to close it.

"How... how did you do that?!"

"Like I said, I'm not entirely sure myself." Kraft shrugged. "I just figured it should work if I did it this way, and then I made it."

He had never expected Dr. Senbei Norimaki, that short, fat, sleazy-looking man from his dreams, to be capable of creating such an outrageous device!

This completely ignored the physical law of conservation of energy. Anything hit by the Variable Flashlight was merely enlarged in appearance; the size and arrangement of its internal molecules remained exactly the same. In other words, it created a huge quantity of identical, stable matter out of thin air, and...

There was no time limit!

Even more unscientifically, when he shone the light, it only enlarged the target he wanted to enlarge. Any other objects caught in the beam would not react at all as long as Kraft had no intention of enlarging them.

In short, it was far more useful than Gnomech's Shrink Ray and the World Amplifier.

After obtaining this Variable Flashlight, Kraft's first thought was that he could save a great deal of time and money on manufacturing materials in the future.

"All right... then ten grams really is enough..."

Martin Lee swallowed. He had been shocked by Kraft's inventions again and again, to the point where he was almost used to it.

"I'll get the Vibranium to you as soon as possible."

"But..." After calming down, Martin pointed helplessly at the wrecked living room. "Couldn't you have used something smaller as an example?"

"Ahahaha... I just thought using a living creature would make it more impressive."

Kraft rubbed the back of his head with an awkward laugh.

"Mm, it certainly was impressive." Martin Lee nodded in agreement. "So remember to clean up the living room."

"Uh... got it..."

Kraft answered dejectedly and began cleaning up the living room Bear had wrecked. Fortunately, Alice helped him, and the two quickly finished tidying everything.

Martin Lee—or rather, the Demon Gang—was highly efficient. Ten grams of Vibranium soon arrived in Kraft's hands.

With the Variable Flashlight, as long as he had even a tiny amount of raw material, Kraft no longer had to worry about consumption. So after testing Vibranium's properties, he replaced the materials in all his equipment, as well as Alice's and Haro's equipment.

Of course, not every metal was suitable for replacement with Vibranium. But using Vibranium as a raw material and the technology from his dreams as support, Kraft created quite a few alloys with special properties. They not only strengthened his own equipment, but also unlocked many engineering blueprints that had been stalled due to material limitations.

While Kraft was immersed in tinkering with Vibranium, a major event occurred in the outside world.

The boss of Stark Industries, the renowned scientist, billionaire, arms manufacturer, playboy, and media darling, Mr. Tony Stark, was attacked by terrorists while demonstrating weapons in the Middle East. His whereabouts were currently unknown.

The media, which had still been feeding on the scraps of the Wakanda incident, immediately found a new hot topic. Outside Stark Tower, seven out of every ten people were reporters, while another two were security guards maintaining order.

"Missing?"

Kraft clicked his tongue regretfully. Though he did not particularly like Tony Stark as a person, he deeply admired his scientific achievements.

And ever since he had sent Angela and Haro to bully that artificial intelligence called J.A.R.V.I.S. at Stark's place last time, Stark had occasionally upgraded J.A.R.V.I.S. before taking it online to fight Angela.

But once artificial intelligence reached the level of Angela and J.A.R.V.I.S., so-called upgrades basically only meant increasing computing capacity and processing speed.

Kraft had no idea how much hardware that rich man Stark had thrown at J.A.R.V.I.S. After several cyber battles, Kraft had been forced to add two more Umbrella-version supercomputers to serve as Angela's backup.

Still, Kraft had gained something as well. Hardware upgrades increased computing power and processing speed, but clashes between the two artificial intelligences allowed them to optimize their own behavioral logic. At the very least, Angela was far more lifelike now than she had been at the beginning.

That was why Kraft had accepted Stark's provocations before, and why he felt regretful now.

Kraft had no interest in rescuing Tony Stark over his disappearance in the Middle East. Besides, it was not his place to worry about such a thing. At most, he regretted that Angela might have one less opponent in the future.