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The HIV/AIDS Cure Formula Adrian had received from the starter draw cost two billion dollars in the Super Technology Store.
Even an ordinary cold medicine formula cost fifty million.
Most drug formulas were priced in the hundreds of millions, and the further down the catalog he looked, the more expensive they became.
Formulas were only the beginning.
The store also sold machinery, stand-alone production units, linked production lines, and fully automated intelligent manufacturing platforms.
Those were the truly expensive assets.
They were also where money disappeared the fastest.
Even the cheapest production line cost several hundred million.
As for the rest of the catalog, most of it was so far beyond his current reach that he could only set it aside for later.
“I don’t know how these prices compare with real-world equipment,” he murmured, “but the formulas are definitely cheap by comparison.”
He had no clear sense of what high-end machinery should cost, but he understood pharmaceutical research well enough.
A serious project could burn through hundreds of millions, even billions, before producing anything usable.
Compared with that, the store’s formulas were almost a bargain.
He made a quiet promise to himself.
Once the money was there, he would build out every part of the system he needed.
Then he opened the military category.
Compared with the medical section, the military catalog was much more direct.
There were samples and manufacturing systems for firearms of every purpose, specialized weapons, and items that made even him pause.
The t-Virus.
The G-Virus.
The Progenitor Virus.
Just seeing those names was enough to chill the blood.
Used properly, though, they would be invaluable for some of his future plans.
The final category, Miscellaneous Products, was a catchall for precision machine tools, intelligent production platforms, computer technology, and countless other systems.
The prices, unfortunately, were brutal.
For the moment, buying any of them was out of the question.
First, he had to solve the immediate crisis.
Adrian did not consider himself especially ambitious.
He would start with a modest goal: build Umbrella into something like the Umbrella Group from his previous life.
If anyone else heard that, they would probably call him insane for saying it with a straight face.
If that did not count as ambition, what did?
Before the system appeared, Umbrella’s biggest problem had been simple: it had no competitive product strong enough to carry the rest of its catalog.
Now, that problem was gone.
An HIV/AIDS cure formula.
What could possibly compete with that?
As long as he freed up one production line, wrote a basic automation program, and secured enough raw materials, Umbrella could begin manufacturing the cure.
HIV/AIDS was one of the world’s deadliest medical problems.
For a full course of treatment, even tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars would not sound excessive.
With more than forty million people affected worldwide, even reaching one percent of that market would be enough to drag Umbrella back from the brink and fill its accounts.
From there, he could accumulate capital, launch other products, and push toward becoming the world’s leading pharmaceutical company.
Half an hour later, he arrived at Umbrella Biopharmaceuticals on the outskirts of New Harbor.
The company was registered in New Harbor, but the facility itself sat near the border between the city and Lake Province.
For reasons he did not know, his parents had chosen a site with almost no surrounding development.
Calling it deserted would not be much of an exaggeration.
“Mr.
Cross,” the guard at the gate said, hurrying out of the booth with a furious look, “Secretary Shaw asked me to tell you that the people from Oli Medical Technology are here again.”
“Oli?” Adrian frowned.
“Didn’t I say that if anyone from their company showed up again, you were to throw them out?”
Oli Medical was supposedly a medical-device company.
It was not even licensed to manufacture drugs.
After seeing the potential of the medical sector, it had grown dissatisfied with being a device manufacturer and wanted a foothold in the broader industry.
Some time ago, its people had approached him and used Umbrella’s two-billion-dollar debt as an excuse to offer a pathetic one hundred million for the entire company.
It was laughable.
The fixed assets alone, plus the patents and licenses Umbrella had purchased, were worth far more than that.
Did they really think a difficult situation meant they could buy it for scraps?
What disgusted him most was that after making such an insulting offer, they had tried to threaten him, openly and otherwise.
He knew Oli Medical had dirty methods.
Its rise had been built on things that could not stand daylight.
But he was not afraid of them.
Even in its current state, a family that had built a company like Umbrella was not without resources.
That was why he had already ordered security to turn Oli Medical away on sight.
Seeing the guard’s embarrassed expression, Adrian’s face darkened.
“Who let them in?”
It seemed Umbrella’s situation had made certain people eager to sell out their employer.
Without help from senior management, no gate guard would have dared ignore his order and let Oli Medical inside.
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