Griffin remained as reliable as ever.
That very evening, he took a team out with the list compiled by the scientists to purchase the equipment.
To transport all the required gear back in a single trip, Griffin drafted over a dozen Astra Militarum soldiers.
Driving three pickup trucks, they hurriedly departed the base.
Once the convoy vanished around the street corner, Ross Vance turned and walked back to his office, dropping heavily into his swivel chair.
He spread the intelligence reports Griffin had compiled before leaving across the desk.
The file sent by Murdock, combined with the scattered information his own men had gathered over the past few days, piled up to at least several dozen pages.
He flipped through them one by one, letting his black tea go from hot to cold as his fingers swiped across the tablet screen countless times.
Gradually, the situation regarding The Hand became clear in his mind.
The good news was that the upper echelon of The Hand—those ancient monsters who had lived for God knows how many centuries, like Alexandra and Madame Gao—had not yet noticed the disturbance in Hell’s Kitchen.
Their attention was currently occupied either by their affairs with Rand Enterprises or other, more critical territories.
The ones who were truly panicking were the middle management.
With the Mad Dog Gang wiped out, a massive gap had opened in The Hand’s supply chain.
The mid-level officers responsible for daily operations couldn’t sit still.
They had dispatched four genin to scout the area, only for them to vanish without a trace.
They were likely in a very awkward position right now.
They knew something had gone wrong, but they didn’t know who was behind it, let alone where the enemy had come from.
“Middle management is taking action, but the upper echelon hasn’t noticed…” he muttered to himself.
“Which means I still have time.”
And time was meant to be used for preparation.
The Hand was not some street-level gang of thugs like the Mad Dog Gang.
They had over a hundred chunin, along with several jonin who could be resurrected using their altars, three distinct strongholds, and at least three resurrection altars.
Dealing with such a repulsive organization required a single, fatal strike.
They could not be given any room to breathe.
Otherwise, once they reacted and scattered everywhere, his current forces would be stretched far too thin to hunt them down.
Ross Vance tossed the final intelligence report back onto the desk.
Leaning back in his chair with his hands cradled behind his head, he stared blankly at the ceiling for a while.
There was no immediate rush regarding The Hand.
The mid-level officers were jumping in frustration while the leadership remained oblivious.
He still had plenty of time to slowly pinpoint the locations of the altars.
The reconnaissance must continue without stopping, but there was no need to escalate it.
His current personnel were sufficient; adding more would only risk raising suspicions.
The issue currently giving him a real headache lay elsewhere.
Money.
Griffin and his men had run out of places to rob.
He found the thought absurd even as it crossed his mind.
A gang leader, actually worrying about not having anyone left to rob.
But that was the harsh reality.
The small gangs of Hell’s Kitchen had been thoroughly squeezed by Griffin’s men, time and time after.
By now, they had either gone bankrupt and disbanded, or they had hidden their remaining emergency funds so securely that not even a shadow of their money could be found.
More importantly, every minor gang had caught wind of the situation.
A terrifying new faction had arrived in Hell’s Kitchen, specifically targeting small gangs.
They were absurdly powerful, impossible to defeat, and impossible to track down.
Now, at the slightest sign of trouble, these gangs retreated entirely into their shells.
Even with Griffin’s formidable capabilities, he couldn’t wring another drop of blood from those stones.
Ross Vance sighed.
With his current funds, he couldn’t even set up a proper physics laboratory.
To say nothing of letting those seven scientists build ultimate weapons or starships.
The material costs alone for those projects would bankrupt him three hundred times over.
Yet those were the things he truly wanted.
Any single technology from the universe of Stellaris, if brought to Earth in the Marvel universe, would be something the people here could scarcely comprehend.
Every single one of them represented a dimensional strike.
Even the most basic technological achievements of the Human Federation would be considered black tech centuries ahead of its time on Marvel’s Earth.
The problem was, he couldn’t even afford the basic scientific equipment right now.
“I need to make money,” Ross Vance said, sitting up straight in his chair.
“Legitimately.”
Since robbery was no longer a viable path, he had to take the straight road.
It was time to establish the company.
Murdock’s registration procedures should be wrapping up soon.
Once the license was issued, he would be the CEO of a legitimate weapons research and development corporation, not a gang boss.
With a company, he could take on legal contracts and earn clean money.
Weapons trading, security services, technology licensing—the possibilities were endless.
Of course, those were concerns for down the road.
For now, the priority was setting up the laboratory so the scientists could produce something marketable.
Even a battery technology just one generation ahead of the current market would net him enough licensing fees to live comfortably for years.
Ross Vance picked up his phone and sent a message to Murdock.
“How is the company registration coming along?”
Three seconds later, the phone vibrated.
“License next week.
No use rushing me, it’s a process.”
Ross Vance chuckled and tossed the phone back onto the desk.
Fine, next week it is.
In any case, the matter with The Hand wasn’t going to be decided in a day or two.
He rose from his chair and pushed the cold black tea aside.
“Rather than just sitting here theorizing, I might as well ask the scientists directly,” he muttered, pressing the call button on his desk.
A few seconds later, Cecilia pushed the door open and stepped in.
“My Lord, you called for me?”
“Inform the scientists that we’re having a meeting in the conference room in ten minutes.”
Ross Vance picked up his notebook, flipped through it, and closed it.
“I want to talk to them about what exactly we can build given our current conditions.”
“Understood.”
Cecilia turned and left.
Ross Vance tucked the notebook under his arm and stepped out of his office.
The corridor was well-heated, his footsteps muffled by the carpet.
As he passed the training area, Urian was leading several veterans in hand-to-hand combat sparring, the dull thuds of physical impacts echoing continuously.
Someone spotted Ross Vance passing by and prepared to stand at attention, but Ross Vance waved them down with a gesture.
“Keep training.”
He walked down the hall and pushed open the conference room door.
The long table was set up, with a few bottles of mineral water and a stack of blank paper laid out.
Griffin had previously had someone clean the room, though the whiteboard still bore the remnants of their last operational meeting’s territory map, mostly erased.
Ross Vance took the head seat, laid his notebook open to a fresh page, and wrote a few words at the top:
“What can we build?”
Then he leaned back in his chair, waiting for the scientists to arrive.
The scientists arrived sooner than he anticipated.
Within ten minutes, a clutter of footsteps and hushed discussions—or rather, arguments—echoed from the corridor.
“I believe we should start with materials science.
The alloy formulas of this world are far too primitive…”
“Materials science takes too long.
I think we should start with energy.
Even a micro-fusion reactor would be a start!”
“Can you two be realistic?
We don’t even have a single high-precision oscilloscope yet, and you’re talking about materials?”
The arguments flooded into the conference room along with the opening of the door.
Seven scientists in white and blue uniforms filed inside.
Upon seeing Ross Vance already seated, their voices instantly dropped by half.
The young man with glasses—whom Ross Vance recalled was named Lucas—walked at the front, clutching a data slate, his face still flushed from the heat of their debate.
“My Lord.”
The group took their seats along both sides of the long table, with Lucas sitting closest to Ross Vance.
Ross Vance scanned them, a slight smile playing on his lips.
“What were you all arguing about outside?
Let’s hear it.”
Lucas adjusted his glasses and coughed.
“My Lord, we were discussing our priority research directions.
We have some differing opinions.”
“Perfect.”
Ross Vance slid his notebook forward.
“I called you here today precisely because I want to hear what we can actually produce under our current conditions.”
He raised a single finger.
“And I mean right now.
The equipment hasn’t arrived, the lab is still just on paper, and all we have is this run-down warehouse and the few instruments you brought with you from the Federation.
Under these constraints, what can you make?”
The seven looked at one another, and for a moment, no one spoke.
Ultimately, it was Lucas who broke the silence.
He placed his data slate on the table, his tone considerably more grounded than before.