From the moment the Spalletta family was destroyed, the Hog Union officially took over Dock Street.
In three days, under the accountant's supervision, they basically inherited the Spalletta family's assets and recruited a wave of newcomers.
The Hog Union's numbers rose to fifty, and their territory more than doubled.
"Not bad. Expanding my own power really does increase my fortune," Hardy thought.
In the most luxurious villa on Dock Street, Hardy sat on the sofa, eyes closed in apparent meditation, but in reality, his attention was on his system panel.
When he first entered the DC world, the progress bar was at 17.3%. Over time, it slowly rose to 17.9%.
After taking over the Cole Gang, it shot up to 19.8% within two days.
It didn't seem like much, but the Cole Gang only controlled Hog Street, one of the most ordinary streets in Gotham's slums.
There were countless such streets in Gotham.
After wiping out the Spalletta family, it rose to 20.8%.
"I still need to proceed gradually. I can't move too fast, or I'll attract Batman's attention."
Hardy wasn't afraid of Batman, but he didn't want to get into a direct confrontation.
Even if Batman couldn't take him down, it would be easy for him to cause trouble and hinder his expansion.
Besides, the Hog Union needed time to digest the Spalletta family's assets, and the average quality of these people didn't meet Hardy's standards.
"In that case, I'll focus on learning for now, and also train these thugs. I don't expect them to match the regular army, but at least they should look like the elite of a major gang."
Hardy had never trained a team before, but he could simplify some of the techniques from ninja school that didn't require chakra and use them for training.
He could also combine them with regular military training methods from this world—he could ask Aman about that, or, if necessary, pay some retired officers to teach.
As for whether his men would be dissatisfied…
Hardy was confident they would succeed.
His own authority, established through black gold, was more than sufficient. When the time came, he could reward those who performed well with bonuses. The carrot and stick approach would be enough.
After paying a portion to the Penguin, more than $100,000 of the $700,000 left behind by the Zabaleta family was distributed as bonuses to his subordinates. The remaining $500,000, together with protection fees and commissions from the two streets, was enough to maintain the gang's training and daily operations. Any surplus would be saved for purchasing materials to upgrade the black gold in the future.
Thinking of this, Hardy picked up the book on mechanical engineering by Silas Stone from the table.
…
…
"Wind Release: Chaotic Air Dance!"
Currents of air swirled around the training ground of the puppet base, kicking up clouds of dust and sand.
Hardy had already mastered this ninjutsu, the Chaotic Air Dance.
"Very good. Next is the experiment: using the principle of Chaotic Air Dance to accelerate airflow into the pneumatic device, then using the principle of Gale Palm to increase the pressure."
Hardy manipulated the Formentor Puppet with both hands, operating it carefully.
He couldn't form hand seals at the moment, so he couldn't directly use ninjutsu to accelerate the compression of the gas.
But he didn't need to fully unleash the ninjutsu. It was enough to channel his wind-nature chakra through the chakra threads, roughly reproducing part of the effect of the two jutsu within a small area.
As long as the pneumatic device's charging speed and power improved even slightly, that would be a success.
The air currents rushed eagerly into the air pump, quickly compressed by the piston and wind-release chakra, and finally the air valve opened.
Under high pressure, internal energy was rapidly converted into mechanical energy, causing the Formentor Puppet's fist to shoot out in an instant, smashing into a huge boulder.
Fragments of rock scattered, dust billowed, and Sasori, in the room next door, paused his work and looked out the window.
"This guy's puppet brute-force ninjutsu just got stronger again."
Sasori watched Hardy for a while, then turned back to continue modifying Black Ant and Salamander.
"The gas aggregation speed has improved from 10.3 seconds per pneumatic pump to 7.4 seconds. The increase in power is unknown, but it should be significant. Next time, I should consider having my clone learn how to make a barometer, install one inside, and then I can use the pressure data in the formula to calculate the changes."
Hardy walked over to the Formentor Puppet, removed its arm, and examined it carefully.
"The cylinder has undergone slight deformation. Next time, I'll need to use better materials to make the cylinder. I'll also have to redesign the cylinder structure, using a multi-stage valve system to separate the chambers, change the pressure distribution, focus on strengthening the high-pressure chamber, and enable precise control of punching force at different levels…"
While inspecting, Hardy modified the design diagram on the control panel in real time.
After the modifications, the Formentor Puppet's rating didn't increase.
That was because the improvements only slightly enhanced the puppet's durability and controllability. The true upper limit wasn't determined by the puppet, but by Hardy, the puppeteer.
"The money for materials should be enough. There's still a bit left from before, and I also received a share from the last S-rank mission. I might as well upgrade the Little Boy puppet as well."
The next day.
The last day of the holiday.
Through the internal channels of the puppet corps, Hardy easily purchased the materials he needed from the warehouse and began upgrading both Formentor and Little Boy.
The modifications to Formentor proceeded step by step, while the upgrades to Little Boy were much simpler.
The design concept of this puppet was already extreme: aside from the necessary offensive mechanisms, all other points were invested in speed.
Therefore, deep modifications were actually very difficult, because Little Boy's main body was made from extremely lightweight materials, resulting in insufficient structural strength.
To upgrade it, he'd either have to completely overhaul it from the inside out—essentially making a new puppet—or make minor tweaks to the edges and corners, but further improvements would be hard.
However, Hardy came up with an idea.
Springs.
These are components widely used in industrial machinery, and are also found in some puppets, serving various mechanisms.
Hardy's goal was to install springs in the soles and leg joints of Little Boy. When manipulating the puppet, he would use chakra threads to make it move, thus storing energy in the springs.
Little Boy was light enough that there was no need to worry about the springs deforming and failing to recover due to long-term heavy loads.
The only requirement was that the metal chosen must combine both strength and toughness.
Fortunately, although Sunagakure was poor, the Land of Wind was rich in minerals, and with the Third Kazekage serving as a human ore detector, the puppet corps had plenty of metals that met the requirements in stock.