A little over half an hour later, Bakshi left the office with a complex expression. Although Russell had agreed to join HYDRA, he still felt that something was off. But he couldn't quite put his finger on what was wrong. Oh well! The organization's mission was completed, and the rest would naturally be handled by others.
Not long after Bakshi left, Russell also left the office and drove to the Continental Hotel.
Continental Hotel.
Tasting room.
"Mr. Bradley, good morning."
The impeccably dressed sommelier greeted Russell.
"Good morning!"
"What style would you like to taste this time, sir? We've received some new varieties recently. Are you interested in trying them?"
The sommelier put down the gun he was polishing and said slowly.
"Of course, I'm interested. Why else would I be here?" Russell said with a smile.
About ten minutes later, under the astonished gaze of the sommelier, he left the tasting room.
In the past, every time he visited the tasting room, he would only purchase a small number of weapons. It wasn't because he didn't need so many weapons, but rather, buying too many would be inconvenient to carry.
But things were different now.
It's now or never!
He bought every single weapon in the tasting room, leaving none behind.
With his system space in hand, he could be quite willful like this!
However, to avoid exposing the existence of his system space, he didn't activate it in the tasting room. Instead, he had the sommelier pack the weapons and send them to the office.
After finishing his shopping at the Continental Hotel, he drove back to the office.
Diana was on a business trip.
He didn't have any current assignments on hand either.
He had killed plenty of people during this period.
So, he began to contemplate whether he should take on a few detective assignments to pass the time.
However, plans are one thing, and reality is another.
Although he had some reputation in the detective field and was even a consultant at the NYPD, it didn't mean he would receive particularly interesting detective assignments.
Looking through the stack of detective requests that Peter had organized in the past few days, he sighed in resignation.
These requests either asked him to catch a cheating husband or find lost cats and dogs.
The only one that seemed somewhat acceptable was about locating a runaway underage girl.
After reading these requests, he decisively abandoned the idea of doing detective work to pass the time.
4:00 PM.
Peter, who had just finished school, came to the office with a cheerful expression.
The days after receiving his salary were always joyful.
Although Peter wasn't of legal age yet, he had already experienced the happiness of being a working adult.
"Sir, good afternoon!"
Peter greeted Russell with vigor.
Looking up from his console game, Russell glanced at Peter and said slowly, "Good afternoon."
"Sir, is there anything you need me to do today?"
Peter asked again.
Russell put down the game controller and motioned for Peter to sit in front of him. With a serious expression, he said, "The courses at school should be quite simple for you, right?"
"They're alright. I got all A's." Peter said somewhat shyly.
While he might not be a standout at school, one thing was undeniable: he was indeed an outstanding student.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to come up with gadgets like the web shooters and the high-performance, self-dissolving webbing.
When that fateful spider would finally decide to bite Peter, Russell couldn't say for sure.
But one thing he was certain of was that Peter had the potential to become a genius inventor.
That was the primary reason he had taken a particular interest in Peter.
"You're a clever kid, and you shouldn't waste your intelligence. I'm planning to establish a lab, and I hope you'll join."
After hearing Russell's words, Peter was momentarily surprised, then he slowly asked, "A lab? What kind of lab?"
"Military technology!"
"Military technology?"
Peter's confusion became more evident on his face.
"Yes! Military technology, just like Stark Industries and Hammer Industries' military technology!"
Although Russell had plans to enhance the Endosymbiotic Battle Armor with HYDRA's help, he wouldn't trust HYDRA's people too much until he became the master of HYDRA.
But it was different with young Peter.
Compared to HYDRA, Peter was more trustworthy.
Despite being only sixteen, if it came to researching something, he might not be any worse than HYDRA's scientists.
"But I've never studied anything related to military technology before."
Peter said somewhat lacking in confidence.
"It's alright. Just because you haven't learned it before doesn't mean you can't in the future. Tony Stark wasn't born knowing how to invent weapons either."
Russell continued to persuade Peter.
He didn't need Peter to invent various cutting-edge weapons like Tony Stark did.
As long as Peter could provide some enhancements to the Endosymbiotic Battle Armor, he would be satisfied.
"Alright then, when do I start?"
"It'll take a little time to set up the lab. Once it's ready, I'll let you know. Take this card for now, use it to buy some specialized books for your studies."
Russell took out a bank card from the drawer and handed it to Peter.
"The password is your birthday. If you run out of money, just let me know."
He had just arranged for this bank card today, and it had one million dollars in it, enough to cover Peter's initial learning needs.
Peter didn't refuse and accepted the bank card from Russell.
In the United States, textbooks for specialized subjects weren't cheap by any means.
University textbooks were a prime example of this.
The steep textbook prices made countless university freshmen realize that knowledge indeed equaled wealth.
In the United States, a college experience without buying secondhand textbooks from upperclassmen would be incomplete.
"Alright, let's leave it at that for the lab."
"Today, why don't you continue learning photography? Remember, a man who can't take photos isn't a good man!"
After sending Peter off to fiddle with cameras, Russell picked up his game controller again and played a blacksmithing game where a big red "death" word appeared above the character's head from time to time.
Although Russell had some natural talent for combat, something seemed to have gone wrong.
In the real world, he could easily conquer all, but in this blacksmithing game, he was getting brutally defeated, seeing the "death" word flashing above his character's head again and again.
Although Peter stayed at the office for about two hours toying with cameras, Russell sent him home afterwards.
Although he didn't mind Peter staying at the office longer, Russell directly sent him home.
This place was a Hell's Kitchen!
Peter might not be Spider-Man, but Hell's Kitchen at night was too dangerous for him.
For someone as young and tender as him, appearing in Hell's Kitchen at night was like a rabbit entering a pack of wolves.
After Peter returned home, Russell also put down his game controller.
This damn lion monkey of a game had been giving him a hard time for two hours, and he kept seeing the big red "death" word above the character's head over and over again.
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