"Is this what you spent over ten million euros to create?"
Colonel Hanssen watched Mercer descend from the air, open the helmet visor, and rub the corner of his brow with a slightly fatigued look, as he questioned him expressionlessly.
Mercer merely responded with a casual "mm" and immediately turned to communicate with the technician beside him. "The compressed propulsion responsible for fine-tuning the limbs is a bit slow in response, maybe a separate processor is needed for quick control response..."
Watching Mercer start to communicate with the researchers, ignoring everything else, while the researchers listened intently to Mercer, Hanssen's brow furrowed slightly.
But Hanssen just watched quietly, waiting for Mercer to finish speaking with the researchers and step out of the armor, dressed only in a special hacker nanometer suit, before he continued questioning, "Is this also new equipment?"
"Yes, a new nanometer black customer service suit, combining the cooling of black customer service with the muscle enhancement of the nanometer battle suit, and adapting to my current new prosthetic. It even has slots for the cooling ports, and there is actually a matching cooling structure inside the mech as well."
Mercer casually explained a few more sentences and then turned to another researcher, asking, "What are the test results of the Electromagnetic Pulse Module?"
"The current experimental results are good, basically reaching our parameter targets within a 10-meter range."
The researcher nodded and then sighed, "This kind of miniature EMP device reaching a ten-meter range with this intensity is truly incredible..."
"Conduct a power test, and see if the efficiency of power decay meets expectations after running at full load for ten minutes..." Mercer methodically arranged subsequent work, and the other researchers hurriedly carried the armor back to continue testing.
Then Mercer turned around to smile at Hanssen, "Colonel Hanssen, is there anything else?"
"..." Hanssen didn't speak, just stared at Mercer. After a while, he directly said, "Before the equipment you developed is sold, funding won't be approved temporarily. I've shown your Octopus Arm information to the clients, and many are very interested.
You need to prepare a detailed promotional report later to make the product advantages clear to the clients, and also give me a reasonable quotation."
Mercer merely nodded, and Hanssen continued, "What about the Relic Chip?"
"Currently, the damaged chips can't be restored and will take time, mainly money." Mercer said bluntly, "I've already submitted the quotation to finance, but it hasn't been approved."
"I know you surely have some undamaged ones."
Hanssen stared at Mercer and said bluntly, "I've negotiated with the Cubans and Military Science; whether good or bad, the price is quite good. You should know, keeping those items is harmful and not beneficial to you. Selling them early can stop the Arasaka people from eyeing you."
"I know." Mercer nodded, but then said somewhat helplessly, "But they are indeed all damaged now. I couldn't possibly leave such things in the base. At the time, I thought the safest place was on us."
Of course, this was a lie to Hanssen. Mercer still had five intact Relic chips, but how could he sell those for money?
As for repair, that was also deceptive. Mercer never planned to repair them. Why bother having so many? The cost of repairing one is as high as tens of millions of euros, and it may not even work. Plus, the Relic he has is just a semi-finished product.
Rather than repairing it, Mercer would prefer to create a new one himself, maybe even better than the current Relic he's using.
It's just that he really doesn't have the time — he's a genius, but not a god. Even working eighteen hours a day, his energy is limited.
Despite the seeming production explosion in the stadium workshop, the truth is, he was able to quickly produce these items because he already had relevant design ideas and even blueprints beforehand.
The reason he could manufacture them at the stadium was for two main reasons: one, Hansen released the supply of raw materials and smuggling channels, helping Mercer acquire scarce materials.
Including now, the base cameras can perform thermal analysis of the Optical Camouflage because Mercer bowed to Hansen, who then released raw materials, providing the valuable advanced infrared thermal analysis component materials to achieve it.
And the second reason is more straightforward: money.
Apart from the enormous cost of million-euro prosthetics and armor, just these rapid production-boosting Octopus Arms cost several million euros, accounting for all of Mercer's team funds accumulated so far.
Developing equipment cannot be a guaranteed success. In fact, just during the development process of this series of equipment, Mercer incurred losses of ten million euros, and Hansen calculated the cost price for him; if Mercer were to buy it himself, this cost would double.
This has made Mercer aware that he can't hastily eliminate Hansen — though he always secretly disses this guy, Hansen's outstanding network and transaction skills inevitably made Mercer yield.
To establish a global smuggling network from scratch and find almost all material suppliers, this guy's capability is extraordinary.
Even facing the somewhat arrogant Mercer, Hansen can suppress his character flaws to use resources to the fullest; it's evident that this guy is truly a heroic figure capable of great deeds.