Chapter 42 - Inner Symbiotic Battle Armor Arrives

600 million dollars!

　　To the average person, that is a staggering figure, a fortune beyond their wildest dreams.

　　But for Tony, there is nothing that can be solved with money.

　　Six hundred million dollars for your life back. That's a deal. It's a good deal.

　　Russell put the cashier's cheque back in the envelope, opened the drawer and dropped the envelope in.

　　That's 600 million dollars, a lot of money for him.

　　But not enough to shock him.

　　He had just put the envelope in a drawer when Peter, who had been belted out, returned to the office, his boyish face full of curiosity.

　　"Sir, was that Tony Stark?"

　　Peter asked in disbelief.

　　"Yes, what's up?"

　　"Is he here on business?"

　　Peter asked angrily.

　　"No, he came by to pay."

　　Russell replied to Peter as he pulled out his wallet and took out all the cash in it.

　　"You've been with the firm for a few days now, here's your pay cheque for the week."

　　He gestured to Peter to come forward and hand him all the cash in his hand.

　　The weekly pay system is widespread here in the United States of America.

　　Although Peter had been on the job for less than a week, Russell didn't mind paying him for the week in advance.

　　"Sir, no, I can't have that!"

　　Peter shook his head as he looked at the cash Russell was handing over.

　　The cash Russell was handing over wasn't small, a few thousand at first glance.

　　It was certainly a large sum for Peter, who usually had very little pocket money.

　　"Take it, you deserve it, if you don't like Lego, the Death Star and Millennium Falcon are out, get one".

　　"And by the way, get a new mobile phone for easy contact."

　　"As for the extra ones, you can give them to your aunt, you don't want her working so hard, do you?"

　　Russell ignored Peter's refusal and handed him the money.

　　As clever as Peter is, he is still too young to have any social experience at the moment.

　　Especially after hearing that it would save his aunt from having to work so hard, he, who had grown up knowing better, finally took the money Russell handed him.

　　"Thank you, sir!"

　　After taking the money, Peter said to Russell with a solemn face.

　　"You're welcome, like I said, you deserve it."

　　"Well, there's nothing more to do today, so you can go back."

　　Peter Jr. nodded, put the DSLR camera and lenses on the table and left the office with his duffel bag on his back.

　　After standing at the window watching Peter get on the bus, Russell turned the system on.

　　"Reward: Inner Symbiotic Battle Armour!"

　　"Will it arrive immediately?"

　　This was the fourth reward he had received, and the first of this type of equipment.

　　The first three rewards had been sent the first time he met the activation requirements, without even asking him if he wanted to receive them.

　　Without even thinking about it, he chose to receive it immediately.

  He had just made his choice when the system information floating in front of his eyes disappeared.

　　The next second, a silver-white barrel over a metre in diameter appeared out of nowhere in front of him.

　　This ...

　　Round barrel might be a bit inaccurate.

　　To be precise, it was a high-tech container of fully intelligent liquid metal containing the yet-to-be-transformed Inner Symbiotic Battle Armour.

　　Russell frowned slightly at the barrel-like container in front of him.

　　Previous rewards, whether it was Wonder Woman's Blessing or the Venom Symbiote, had directly transformed and strengthened his body without any need for storage.

　　But this Inner Symbiotic Battle Armour reward was different.

　　It wasn't a superhuman ability, but an actual high-tech steel battle suit.

　　The fully intelligent, liquid metal Inner Symbiotic Battle Armor is easy to wear, but no more than 24 hours a day.

　　More importantly, how to store the armour was also a problem.

　　Just as he was considering whether or not to send both the Inner Symbiotic Battle Armour and the container to his secret lair, the system sent another message.

　　"Equipment-type reward detected, system alien space opened!"

　　Amount ...

　　Are systems that cute now?

　　Looking at the message from the system, Russell froze.

　　Compared to his fellow travellers, his system was clearly a very high-strung fellow, and would never show up when there was nothing going on.

　　But now the high-flying system was showing its sweet side.

　　It didn't take him much work to figure out what was going on with the system's own alien space.

　　Simply put, this is a system that comes with a storage area.

　　As well as storing the various equipment that the system rewards, it can also be used to store other items.

　　The only downside is that you can't store living things.

　　After learning about the system room, Russell's gaze returned to the silver-white container in front of him.

　　Only when he raised his right hand and moved his mind did the fully intelligent liquid metal inside the container fly towards him.

　　In the blink of an eye, his right arm was covered in battle armour.

　　Looking at his right arm already covered in battle armour, Russell smiled with satisfaction.

　　Not bad for a brand-new armour made by evil Tony through his research on symbiotes, it's really quite different!

　　Feeling the armour on his right arm, he didn't hesitate to switch on his weak telepathy again and let the liquid metal in the container fly towards him.

　　The silver-white, fully intelligent liquid metal flew to his body like large and small tentacles, morphing according to a set programme.

　　It only took two or three seconds for him to put on the Inner Symbiotic Battle Armour.

　　Pulse cannon in the palm, cluster cannon in the chest.

　　The Inner Symbiotic Battle Armour now only has these two conventional weapon systems.

　　But the potential of liquid metal battle armour is far greater.

　　With the right engineers, the Endosymbiotic Battle Armour has the same considerable morphing capabilities, even if it's not a nanotech Mark 50 or Mark 85.

　　Just because Evil Tony in the comics doesn't have the armour morph into much of a weapon doesn't mean he's going to use the Inner Symbiotic Battle Armor exactly the way Evil Tony does.

　　While the Inner Symbiosis Battle Armour can be activated and manipulated by telepathy, it is still equipped with an artificial intelligence system.

　　Not Jarvis, not Friday!

　　Evil Tony didn't name the AI system of the Battle Armor.

　　After some thought, Russell names the Battle Armor's AI #3.

　　It's not a fancy name, it's just #3.

　　The reason for such a simple name was that the Inner Symbiotic Battle Armor reminded him of the Jedi Virus 3.0.

　　After getting used to the Inner Symbiotic Battle Armor, Russell returned the helmet, which had a transparent face and did not cover his hair, to its normal form.

　　He's not Evil Tony, the narcissist to the core.

　　Showing his face in public is not in keeping with his usual "low-key" style.