But others clearly wouldn't want to see this. Once Military Science shows its intentions, Dog Town will undoubtedly face big trouble.
So, if Military Science wants to use Mercer as a pawn, it must provide enough ammunition fee—more than just average.
Can't meet that? Then discuss it further.
After some casual conversations with Stout, Mercer dismissed her; she didn't have investment authority, so a simple chat sufficed.
Afterward, Mercer mingled at the party, talking to several councilors. The mayor of Night City and the NCPD director expressed their stance—they hoped Dog Town and Taiping Prefecture could return under Night City's control.
And they promised to have the council amend laws to facilitate Dog Town's current operations, but Mercer wasn't foolish enough to trust a bunch of politicians.
So, it was merely a delaying tactic, causing the NCPD director and mayor to leave in anger.
What a joke, expecting a warlord faction to lay down arms and act as a money bag for a bunch of elected politicians?
The only basis for cooperation would be priority legal establishment of privileges for Dog Town and Taiping Prefecture, which was clearly unacceptable to those politicians.
However, the interactions with other merchants were quite pleasant overall.
After a night of chatting, Mercer could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
At least for now, without talking about the future, the smuggling market can certainly continue.
Next, he will further repair the nuclear power engine of the cargo airship—this nuclear power engine's built-in reactor can directly provide electricity to Dog Town, and its special design structure is very reference-worthy.
Mercer already has some ideas, and if all goes well, perhaps soon he can have his own small nuclear power plant, and once electricity is unlimited, Dog Town's development will naturally advance further.
Regarding future expansion of business directions, Mercer also has basic ideas.
The primary business direction is Mercer's already established market advantage in single soldier weapons, whether it's single soldier armor or arms, proving ample development potential and future possibilities through combat.
These single soldier weapons not only can arm individuals, but the entire single soldier armor can be further developed into unmanned equipment.
In today's Cyber World, unmanned warfare is truly the future trend.
And to really unleash the capability of unmanned equipment, it involves the fields of unmanned equipment hardware, software, and AI intelligence.
Mercer's technical advantage in software and AI is evident, which is his only leverage against big companies. Even through high-cost smuggling raw material imports, self-assembly, and export trade methods, he can still capture high profits through technical prowess.
However, solely relying on arms business cannot satisfy Mercer's ambitions.
Thus, Mercer set sights on biotech companies.
The core business scope of biotech companies involves ethanol 2 wheat-based fuel refining technology.
In this regard, Mercer temporarily has no thoughts, as he lacks understanding of this magical crop that can refine fuel.
But other core businesses of biotech are within Mercer's interest.
Foremost is the nearly monopolized food trade market by biotech.
Biotech acquired the Quan Food Company, poisoning crops and livestock to raise other food costs on one hand.
On the other hand, bribing congressmen and manipulating public opinion to ban various real meat foods in Night City under the guise of bird flu, etc.
Then, through its advanced protein synthesis technology and highly productive protein farms, it produces cheap synthetic foods to monopolize the market.
This results in extremely high production costs for normal agricultural products, and other fast-food competitors cannot compete cost-wise against biotech, allowing Night City to be full of synthetic foods, with Quan Food Company taking a large share.
Coupled with the purified water crisis affecting Night City and the entire North American Continent, further raising food costs, it leads to everyday people struggling for meals, with someone like Mercer who enjoys eating, relying on smuggling to satisfy taste buds.
How absurd is that?
Mercer had long been determined to target biotech first when the time is ripe, and naturally, seize biotech's market first.
And now happens to be an excellent opportunity with favorable conditions aligning.
Firstly, Mercer received a piece of news from a Jefferson City councilman, which was considered good news for him—biotech almost decided to take action against the broad public.
Since last month, a few pathological reports appeared in San Dimingo District, warning City Hall of a risk of flu outbreak.
Since Mercer informed Congressman Jefferson about biotech possibly planning to poison Night City again, Jefferson had been actively monitoring similar incidents.
Therefore, leveraging the meeting at Gem Cyan's banquet, Jefferson reminded Mercer and hoped he could further investigate and gather evidence to see if Mercer's concerns were finally coming to fruition.
But Mercer doesn't need to investigate to guess that this matter is about to explode—because once Mercer provided the Adcardans with cheap special medicines, they would inevitably realize the Adcardans were seeking outside aid.
```