— — — — — —
In the blink of an eye, three months had passed.
"Phew! Finally got the frawork for RNZO Group set up! I'm wiped out!"
Collapsing into his office chair, Renzo let out a long breath as he gazed out the floor-to-ceiling window at the cityscape beyond.
These past few months had really run him ragged.
Buying and renovating a skyscraper, registering the company, hiring employees... and slipping in so light brainwashing while he was at it.
On top of that, he had to build a secret underground lab and remodel his seaside villa.
The trickiest part? He couldn't be too flashy. Drawing too much attention could bring unnecessary trouble. So he had to keep things low-key.
Of course, that didn't an he made it through completely hassle-free.
First, Nick Fury had paid him a visit. What exactly they discussed was a mystery only the two of them knew.
That said, they did finalize a deal for wine.
From now on, S.H.I.E.L.D. would trade rare materials, technologies, and mysterious artifacts for Renzo's wine.
Clearly, three months had been more than enough for them to test the effects of the stuff—and their attempts to replicate it had already flopped.
So now S.H.I.E.L.D. was basically working for him. Pretty sweet deal.
As for Hydra? Predictably, they'd tried to cause trouble too.
But Renzo shut that down without breaking a sweat.
He personally brainwashed Alexander Pierce and Crossbones, along with a few other key Hydra mbers.
Then he went ahead and absorbed their influence and resources into his own operation.
An international organization added to his toolbox.
After that, most of his problems pretty much vanished.
And anything that did pop up quietly disappeared thanks to Hydra working in the background.
Still, to avoid exposing Hydra prematurely, Renzo had ordered Pierce to scale back their activities and scrap any unnecessary operations or risky sches.
He had no intention of letting a perfectly good world-class spy organization go down like it did in the original tiline. That would be such a waste.
Honestly, Renzo didn't care whether it was Hydra or S.H.I.E.L.D.—to him, they were basically the sa thing.
"Hm... looks like it's ti to take a trip to Wakanda."
With that thought, Renzo stood up and gave a quick order to Red Queen.
"Red Queen, I'm leaving the company in your hands for now."
"Yes, Master," the Red Queen responded, projecting a holographic image in front of him.
You couldn't run a company without an AI like Red Queen—she made things so much easier.
"Alright! Let's go!"
He locked onto a spatial coordinate in Africa, and in the next mont, vanished from the top floor of the RNZO skyscraper.
...
In the blink of an eye, he was standing in Africa.
"Let's see... where exactly is it again?"
Muttering to himself, he spread out his ntal senses, scanning the area for Wakanda.
"I really need to set up that satellite network soon. Otherwise, I'll have to do everything manually like this, and that's just a pain."
In a high-tech world like this, having an advanced danger-detection and intelligence-gathering system was absolutely essential.
It would seriously boost how much real-ti info he could access across different regions.
"Got it!"
Two minutes later, Renzo retracted his psychic scan, smirked, and waved his hand to open a space portal—then stepped right through.
He reappeared in a massive underground facility.
A mining base, to be exact.
"Whoa... that's a lot of vibranium. No wonder Wakanda's so wasteful with the stuff—building houses and making cars out of it like it's nothing. Guess they really do have more than they know what to do with."
"But that's a terrible habit, honestly. Waste is shaful. I, your kind-hearted savior, will help lighten your load and fix your bad habits!"
With that hypocritical thought, Renzo vanished again—this ti into a temporary pocket domain he created.
He began moving through the mineral-rich zone, and everywhere he passed, the raw vibranium ore vanished—replaced by ordinary stone and soil.
In just a few minutes, he had collected about 90% of the vibranium ore and stored it inside his spatial wristband.
"Nice! That's a huge haul. I really am a good guy! Not only did I correct their bad behavior, I even left them with just enough vibranium to get by. I bet T'Challa and the others would cry tears of joy if they knew. Heh!"
Grinning to himself, Renzo disappeared from the vibranium mine and made a quick detour through Wakanda.
While he was there, he copied all their advanced tech—and even managed to analyze one of their heart-shaped herbs—before finally heading back to the RNZO Tower.
"Welco back, Master. All done?" Red Queen's projection greeted him the mont he returned.
"Yep." He nodded. "Who do you think you're talking to? Of course I'm done. Next step—ti to refine that vibranium ore."
"The tallurgy workshop is prepped and ready, right?"
"Yes," Red Queen confird, nodding. "All systems in the underground base have been fully tested. You can access any lab or factory at your convenience."
"Perfect. Let's get started."
Renzo nodded in satisfaction. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he pulled out a hard drive and sent it straight to the control center of the underground base. As it slotted into a data port, he added, "This has all the tech data I collected from Wakanda. Go ahead and process it—sort it all and upload it into the database."
"Yes, Master."
Just then, his phone rang.
"Yo~ Ree! What've you been up to? You've been completely off the grid lately. Weren't we supposed to work on so research together? Don't tell that was just talk?" Tony Stark's voice ca through, full of sass and mock-accusation.
"Oh, co on," Renzo rolled his eyes. "Like you don't know what I've been up to? I've been working my ass off, man! And you didn't even lift a finger to help! So friend you are."
"Hey, hey, hey!" Tony shot back. "How is this my fault? You never asked for help! Whatever, cut the crap. You free right now? Co over, let's catch up a bit. Also, Thor's here. Couldn't find you, so he showed up at my place instead."
"He brought so Uru tal with him!"
"And let tell you, that stuff is insane—crazy strong, amazing conductivity... Listen, buddy, can you spare a bit of it?"
Tony shalessly asked, practically drooling at the thought.
Uru tal's properties were just too good. Even a small amount would let him upgrade his Iron Man suit several levels.
"You little leech. We'll talk about it when I get there."
Renzo rolled his eyes again—and in the very next second, he appeared right in front of Tony.
"Holy—!"
Tony nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Can you not do that? You're gonna give soone a heart attack!" he complained, scowling, though the envy in his tone was hard to miss.
That kind of teleportation ability? He'd kill to have it.
"You're just jealous. If you had the sa power, you'd be doing it nonstop too. Don't pretend I don't know you."
Renzo gave him a disdainful look, then walked over to Thor, who had just stood up.
He gave the Asgardian a quick hug and patted his shoulder. "Welco back to Earth, big guy! Looks like the Bifrost is back in business?"
"Haha! Yeah! All thanks to the Tesseract!" Thor laughed heartily, then added, "I brought the Uru tal we traded for the wine last ti—actually, I brought three tis as much! So... how about another 3,000 jars of wine, brother?"
Thor looked at him eagerly, practically begging.
Renzo chuckled. "Sounds like you guys finally realized how valuable that wine really is, huh?"
"No kidding!" Thor nodded seriously. "It's not just good for —even my father said it's helping him recover his strength."
"Oh?" Renzo raised an eyebrow. "Even Odin is impressed? No wonder you're so eager. Alright, I'll give you 3,000 jars. But next ti, I'm gonna need sothing other than Uru tal if you want a good price."
Having too much of one thing wasn't useful for him.
Truthfully, after that first batch, he'd already analyzed the properties of Uru tal. He could recreate it himself now.
"I get it. No problem—next ti I'll bring you a list of rare materials and a sample or two. You can give a quote then. But just so you know, Asgard's going to need a long-term supply of your wine."
Thor nodded without argunt.
It wasn't just useful for him—having Asgard's soldiers drink it regularly brought huge benefits. That was the real reason they were so invested.
Off to the side, Tony was watching the whole exchange with envy plastered all over his face.
In that mont, he couldn't help but feel like the inferior guy in the room. It was the first ti he felt he was poor.
Thor? Thor was the real rich kid.
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