Several heavily armed figures appeared abruptly on screen.
Glancing at the leader, Morris recognized him instantly.
Crossbones Brock Rumlow, right-hand man to Alexander Pierce and commander of SHIELD’s Special Assault Team.
Most of his team members came from Hydra!
They surveyed the area and whipped out advanced-looking scanners to sweep the surroundings.
Eventually, guided by the device’s readouts, they actually started following the exact path Morris had taken when he left.
Morris watched in disbelief!
Could that scanner already track and pinpoint him?
Fortunately, the group halted right where Morris had cast Slow Fall and Ice Armor.
Good thing Morris had taken precautions.
Slow Fall functioned like a levitation spell to avoid leaving footprints, while Ice Armor eliminated body odor—both excellent anti-tracking abilities.
Da Mi was smart too, following the squad and recording them until Rumlow waved his hand to pull out, after which the group left the area.
Morris saw how they departed—luckily, not in the cloaked Quinjets seen in the Avengers, just ordinary vehicles.
He wondered if Hydra-SHIELD had already developed stealth Quinjets.
Morris was quite intrigued by these black technologies; once his strength grew a bit more, he might go investigate.
As for now, it was better to keep a low profile.
Although Morris was no longer weak, there was still plenty of room to grow in the real world, so there was no rush to be reckless.
Patting Da Mi, he took the cat into the game, fed it some Level 65 food, and quickly logged out, letting Da Mi off to play on its own.
Luckily, pets could be fed inside the game; otherwise, Morris would be nursing a massive headache right now.
Feeding twelve massive pets in the real world would be quite an expense!
Morris felt a bit annoyed.
The very first time he caused a scene, he drew the attention of Hydra-SHIELD.
These guys really bled into every crack.
He was curious how they detected empowered individuals in the first place.
You could barely find a single CCTV camera around Hell’s Kitchen!
“Could it be satellites?
The kind equipped with energy sensors?” Daisy asked at that moment.
“Is technology really that advanced right now?” Morris asked back in disbelief.
“Of course!
Devices like that have existed for a while.
Howard Stark had research results on energy detection thirty years ago!
No wonder your grades stayed stuck in third place—you pay way too little attention to science!”
Daisy answered with an insufferably smug air, leaving Morris speechless. Find the original chapter at g.com.
Well, this was Marvel, home to a pair of genius father-and-son Starks—and those two were just the high-profile ones.
Marvel had plenty of other geniuses who weren’t widely known.
The black tech here was impossibly sci-fi and constantly emerging.
The older generation included Howard Stark, Dr.
Hawkins who created the Super Soldier Serum, Dr.
Zola of Hydra, and Dr.
Pym who invented Pym Particles.
Among the current generation, setting Tony Stark aside, there was Bruce Banner with his seven PhDs—though due to the Hulk, he hadn’t produced many tech breakthroughs.
Dr.
Helen Cho, creator of the Cradle of Tissue Regeneration; his high school classmate Reed Richards, who might become Mister Fantastic in the future; the genius girl of Wakanda; and so on…
“Let me hope they don’t trace it to us.
We’ll have to keep an even lower profile from now on.
By the way, Daisy, how do we make this money legitimate?”
Morris suddenly realized this issue.
After all, even with offshore transfers and complex laundering, a high school graduate suddenly coming into that much wealth was a huge red flag that couldn’t be explained.
“That’s not hard—just take a trip to an overseas casino!
I heard Macau’s casinos in China aren’t far from Hong Kong.
Morris, should we do another pre-college trip?”
As Daisy spoke, a new idea sparked.
Clearly, she was very keen on traveling abroad.
“That works.
But isn’t a pre-college trip right now a bit too early?”
Morris wanted to go too, but bringing it up to his parents was tricky.
It was only late July, more than a month before school started.
Calling it a pre-college trip wasn’t impossible, but traveling to Hong Kong on his own…
his parents likely wouldn’t agree.
“No problem, I’ll talk to them.
Worse comes to worst, we bring Mom and Dad along!”
Daisy waved her hand dismissively, sounding completely confident.
Morris thought it over and grunted in agreement, consenting to Daisy’s plan.
He definitely needed to visit China to secure a retreat for his family.
New York was fine for now, but once Iron Man emerged, this city would become far too dangerous.
the safety of Morris’s parents was something he had to plan for.
*I must prepare well in advance over the next few years and get the business in China up and running!
Later on, Mom and Dad can retire over there!*
Morris quickly refined his plan in his head.
First, he needed to find the right people.
After all, he had to start college once summer break ended; someone would need to manage the operations in China.
After discussing it with Daisy, they ultimately decided to scout talent once they reached Hong Kong.
Having a local handle matters would make processing paperwork much easier.
With the initial plan mapped out, the three went about their own tasks.
As for the game, having no pressing needs for now, the three only logged in before sleep to do daily quests, barely bothering with raid dungeons.
The payout was too low, and their needs were minimal.
After all, gear from the game couldn’t be brought into reality—as long as it was good enough, that sufficed.
Their main focus shifted to collecting crafting blueprints, which might be craftable in the real world.
At present, given Morris’s financial standing, he could only acquire ordinary materials, managing at most to craft a few Level 30 silk cloth items.
Weapons and accessories were even worse off.
Copper, iron, and tin were manageable, but as for Truesilver Bars and Gold Bars later on—he didn’t know where to get the former, and the latter was prohibitively expensive!
He tried fusing one of the gold bars seized from Tanaka and discovered that a single Gold Bar in the game weighed a whole kilogram!
Good grief—one kilogram of gold for just a single Gold Bar.
The cost of crafting a single weapon was simply something he couldn’t afford right now.
Besides, weapons made like this were merely transitional gear anyway, so Morris gave up entirely.
In reality, the three settled for crafting a few Level 20–30 green items to get by.
Morris spent a full day gathering information and even visited the Chinese Embassy.
Daisy barely left the apartment, sitting at her computer all day, while Jessica didn’t care about any of this at all.
She worked her temp job in the morning and spent the afternoon in the game by herself.
When Morris logged in that night and asked what she had been up to, he learned that she had been clearing questlines across Outland’s maps.
According to her, completing quests brought in gold at a decent pace, and she was almost done saving up for her epic flying mount!
Hearing this, Morris checked his own gold balance—good grief, she was richer than he was…
The only one who didn’t envy her was Daisy.
She was the first to hit Level 70 and had bought her epic flyer two or three days ago.
Now she only earned gold to pay for game time, having no other goals left.