Lord of the Sky City

Eternal City.

In the meeting room of Sigma Armor Corporation, Tom Sigma, the third-generation leader of the company, was furiously slamming his hand on the table as he roared.

"Why hasn't the Sixth-Generation Prototype Armor been manufactured yet!"

"What exactly are you doing!"

The roar echoed continuously in the meeting room, but in the face of his outburst, everyone sitting opposite Tom lowered their heads.

These individuals included executives and heads of research and development; in short, all were top-tier personnel within the company, yet none dared even breathe heavily in front of Tom.

In today's Armor Domain, there were two giants, Uranus Corporation and Sigma Corporation. These two dominated the field of Armor development, production, and sales, occupying nearly half of the market. In the Armor Domain, they were absolutely dominant, with no one able to compete against them.

As such a giant in the field, Sigma Corporation had naturally been working on the research and development of the new generation of Armor, the 6th Generation Armor, for several years. However, judging by Tom's current irritability, things were not going smoothly.

Indeed, the development of the 6th Generation Armor at Sigma Corporation was quite problematic.

The company had been working on the new generation of Armor for five years, and the initial progress was quite promising, having quickly established the concept and theoretical foundations of the new generation of Armor. However, when they attempted to put these theories into practice, difficulties arose, and the progress of development was repeatedly delayed. After five years had passed, not only had the Prototype Armor not been manufactured, but not even an Armor for experimental use had been produced.

Such results were intolerable for Tom as the leader of the company. Thus, almost every monthly routine meeting, he expressed dissatisfaction with the slow progress of the 6th Generation Armor, especially this time when Tom seemed exceptionally irritable.

"Your Excellency, please give us some more time..."

"How much time have I already given you!" Tom roared furiously, glaring at the head of research and development.

"Uranus Corporation has already manufactured the 6th Generation Prototype Armor, and you still ask for more time?"

Glaring fiercely at the head of research and development, Tom's gaze was murderous. His increased irritability wasn't without reason; it was because their rival, Uranus Corporation, who also occupied half of the Armor Domain, had already produced the 6th Generation Prototype Armor!

This meant that their biggest and only competitor had already achieved a significant breakthrough in the research and development of the 6th Generation Armor, while Sigma Corporation was completely falling behind.

This was a situation that Tom could not tolerate because the 6th Generation Armor was too important for the company.

Sigma Corporation was among the earliest Armor manufacturers, but it rose to prominence during the era of the Fourth Generation Armor when Sigma Corporation was the first among its competitors to develop the Fourth Generation Void Magic Armor, thereby seizing the majority of the market share. It was precisely because of this that the company stood out among numerous competitors and quickly became the leader in the Armor Domain.

However, after being the first to develop the Fourth Generation Armor, they made a critical mistake in the direction of their research for the Fifth Generation Armor, resulting in falling completely behind their competitor, Uranus Corporation, in the development of the Fifth Generation Armor.

The most advanced Fifth Generation Armor was first successfully developed by Uranus Corporation.

As a result, Tom Sigma, the third-generation leader of the company, had started the development of the Sixth Generation Armor early, hoping to regain an advantage with the 6th Generation Armor. However, even though they had acted earlier than their competitor, they were still lagging in development progress.

No wonder Tom was so furious today.

But facing his irascibility, the people in the company were at a loss for words; the head of research and development wanted to say something but merely opened his mouth without speaking.

Thus, the entire meeting room fell silent, leaving only Tom's heavy breathing.

After a long silence, a young woman sitting to Tom's left glanced at everyone, then pointed to the documents everyone was holding and gestured with her hands.

Seeing the woman's gesture, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and, following that, left all the documents they were prepared to report on the table and hurried out en masse.

Only after everyone had left did the woman who stayed in the conference room stand up and walk to each person's seat, gathering the documents they had left behind.

"Father."

Clutching a thick stack of documents, the woman returned to Tom's side and, while reviewing the documents, said, "Everyone is also anxious about the development of the Sixth-Generation Armor…"

"Hmph! Anxious? I didn't see that!"
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Tom replied grumpily and then stood up and walked over to the liquor cabinet to pour himself a drink.

"Father, you should know... it's because of financial constraints that the development department is progressing so slowly…"

Tam's daughter, Denise Sigma, looked at him with resignation and slowly conveyed the concerns that the research director had prepared but dared not voice, revealing them to her father.

"Financial constraints?"

Upon hearing this, Tom scoffed and then, sitting back down, looked at his daughter and asked, "Denise, do you know how much funding the research department has used up over these five years?"

"The funds they've used could have built a God City!"

"But what's the result?"

Tom's words might have been an exaggeration, but they were indeed true; the investment in the development of the 6th Generation Armor had reached astronomical figures.

As the development of the latest generation of armor, whether in terms of human resources, materials, or time, the investment was enormous, especially the financial aspect.

The funding required for the development of new armor couldn't be measured in numbers, and if one must describe it in words... probably only 'bottomless pit' would be most fitting. That is to say, the investment in new armor development is unlimited. It only ends when the research succeeds; otherwise, the investment must continue endlessly.

This is completely different from what Rocky and his team are doing, as they have also created a new generation of armor, but everything for them is ready-made.

The Mana Runes were developed by Wensel, and Orton and others only needed to learn them, saving a significant amount of investment. Similarly, the design foundation of the White Demon is based on the Fourth-Generation Armor and doesn't require any investment. Even the various technologies installed are mature and can be used after modifications. Even people like Orton don't need salaries.

When calculated this way, the investment in the White Demon Armor's development seems to have only included material and equipment costs, with everything else being ready-made, hence the lower funding needed. Yet, even so, it took over a million to produce just one set of White Demon Armor, and it is still in the testing phase.

However, the development of the 6th Generation Armor by Sigma Corporation is clearly not going to be as economical because it is, after all, the sixth-generation Armor!

The so-called new generation of armor means making a completely new breakthrough based on old armor, with no experience to follow, no example to draw upon, not even a direction; everything must start from scratch. What does this equate to? It's akin to asking Orton and his team to develop Mana Runes from nothing!

The investment in this is simply too great; therefore, just as Denise said, in the recent half year, the company's investment in the Sixth-Generation Armor has indeed been significantly less than before, because for such a bottomless consumption, Sigma Corporation is somewhat unable to bear it.

"Father, I think we should continue to increase the research funding. We have been conducting research for so long and invested so much; we cannot give up halfway through," Denise said, looking at Tom.

"Increase?" But hearing his daughter's words, Tom could only laugh helplessly, "Increase by how much? How much more money do I need to give these incompetents to get the results I want? I need results!"

Having spoken, Tom casually handed a document in front of him to his daughter.

"Take a look at this. If this continues, Sigma Corporation will be ruined by these incompetents!"