The Sefirah Castle fell silent, the vast hall returning to its primordial slumber. Tony, T'Challa, and Wanda were gone, their souls snapped back into the physical shells waiting for them in the world of matter. Only Aryan remained, the gray fog swirling around the base of the throne like a loyal hound.
He leaned back against the cold stone, feeling the immense weight of the "Authority" he now held. It was time to settle his own accounts, to claim the tithe of a god. He summoned the System interface with a thought.
[ABILITY CONFIRMED: MAGNETISM — OMEGA CLASS]
PRICE: $20,000,000,000
This was sovereignty over the electromagnetic spectrum, the fundamental force that holds atoms together. Light, radiation, and the very pulse of planets were now within his grasp.
[ABILITY CONFIRMED: PRECOGNITION — OMEGA CLASS]
PRICE: $15,000,000,000
The map of all possible futures unfolded before him. He saw every branch, every dead end, every hidden trapdoor, and every shortcut across the multiverse.
[PURCHASE CONFIRMED: RED QUEEN AI — ABSOLUTE LOYALTY]
PRICE: $1,000,000,000
A digital goddess to manage his empire, her core logic rewritten to ensure her soul belonged to him alone.
[PROMOTIONAL PRICING APPLIED FOR MEMBERS:]
Bullet Time (Alpha): Real Price $10,000,000 - Member Price $100,000,000 (Beta)
Eye Boy (Gamma): Real Price $1,000,000 - Member Price $10,000,000 (Delta)
High-Speed Regeneration (Beta): Real Price $100,000,000 - Member Price $1,000,000,000 (Gamma)
Eye Boy (Gamma Level) fused with Magnetism (Omega Level). His vision expanded violently beyond the visible light spectrum into the very fabric of electromagnetism. He saw the magnetic flux lines of the Castle, the invisible currents of the void, and the radio-frequency whispers of distant stars.
With a flick of his wrist, he manipulated the Lorentz force to restructure the air around him into a localized field. He could feel the spin of every electron within miles. He was the master of the force that defines solid matter.
Then, his mind accelerated. Bullet Time (Alpha Level) provided the neural processing speed, but Precognition (Omega Level) gave that speed a terrifying purpose.
The "Now" vanished. In its place was a branching tree of causality. He saw ten thousand years of futures as clearly as if they were memories. He saw the fall of empires, the birth of stars, and the exact moment Tony Stark would first fire his repulsors in a cave halfway across the world. Because his perception was no longer linear, he could stand still for a century in his mind, calculating every variable of the upcoming Umbrella Gala, while his physical body hadn't even finished a single breath.
"Time is a suggestion," he whispered to the void, his voice echoing with power. "And the world is just a set of rules I've finally learned to rewrite."
He spent what felt like years within that single second of "Castle Time," mastering the nuances of the Omega-level fields and the shifting tides of the future. By the time he decided to return to reality, he was the fixed point around which the rest of the world would now revolve.
With a final thought, he authorized the transfer of the "packages" to Tony and T'Challa. He ensured both received the Apex Survivor Suite, granting them High-Speed Regeneration (Gamma Level) for biological immortality, Bullet Time (Beta Level) for neural combat acceleration, and Eye Boy (Delta Level) for full-spectrum sensory perception.
He imposed a strict ten-meter domain limit on Tony's Alpha level Magnetism and anchored a Beta-level echo of Precognition to T'Challa's consciousness.
He stepped out of the void.
———
Tony Stark snapped back to reality in the center of his Malibu workshop. For a heartbeat, there was only the familiar scent of ionized ozone and aerosolized machine oil. Then, the "unboxing" initiated, and the sensory input recalibrated his entire neurological baseline in a microsecond.
Eye Boy shifted his perception into a multi-spectral overlay. Tony stumbled, his breath hitching as the workshop walls lost their opacity. His optic nerves began processing the high frequency hum of copper wiring inside the walls as a visible current, while the structural steel beams within the concrete foundation glowed with high-density signatures.
"JARVIS... confirm my occipital lobe isn't misfiring," Tony whispered, staring through his own skin to the calcium-dense structure of his carpals. "Because I'm currently looking at my own skeletal system in real-time X-ray backscatter."
"Sir, your biometrics are... statistically impossible," the AI replied, its voice tinged with digital bewilderment.
Then, the Regeneration protocol surged. In his disorientation, Tony swiped his forearm against a jagged shard of high-carbon scrap metal on his workbench. A deep laceration opened, exposing dermal layers, but the expected inflammatory response never arrived. Instead, he watched with clinical fascination as the wound "hissed," a rapid-onset cellular mitogenesis. The edges of the gash knit together via a silver-white bioluminescent lattice, the tissue achieving full structural closure and re-epithelialization in under five seconds.
"Okay." Tony laughed, his voice ragged with adrenaline. "That's a localized acceleration of the Hayflick limit. Absolute biological efficiency."
Finally, he felt the Magnetism anchor. Within a ten-meter radius, the workshop was a localized domain under his kinetic authority. He sensed the specific magnetic flux and paramagnetic properties of every alloy in the room.
He raised a hand, and a heavy chrome-vanadium wrench ascended from the bench, locked in a frictionless gyroscopic loop. He flicked his fingers, manipulating the internal Lorentz forces of a nearby steel plate until the metal folded with the mathematical precision of origami, overcoming its own tensile strength without a single mechanical press.
"JARVIS, purge the last six hundred seconds of internal surveillance. De authorize Obadiah's credentials. Total administrative lockout. Now."
"Yes sir, but the metallic objects in the room are manifesting anomalous gravitational…"
"It's not gravity, JARVIS. It's a field-level realignment," Tony corrected, a predatory grin forming as he watched a floating screwdriver align perfectly with the Earth's magnetic North.
———-
In the quiet sanctity of the royal chambers, T'Challa stood before his father, the very atmosphere of Wakanda feeling fundamentally altered. The Bullet Time enhancement had recalibrated his synaptic firing rate. He watched the wings of a sunbird outside the window, its rapid oscillations now as distinct as the slow stroke of a distant drum, and the dust motes in the air hung like fixed constellations.
Then, the Precognition surged. A temporal ghost of T'Chaka materialized in his mind's eye, stepping forward to speak a truth yet unspoken. Two seconds later, the reality merged with the vision.
"You will be looking after Wakanda soon," T'Chaka said, his voice a perfect acoustic mirror of the precognitive echo. "I am tired."
Through the Eye Boy multi spectral overlay, T'Challa saw the pathology of leadership. He traced the microscopic arterial stresses and the calcification of the king's joints, weariness that was invisible to the naked eye but laid bare in infrared and X-ray. He felt his own Regeneration humming in the background, a cellular resilience that made him feel as immovable as the vibranium foundations of the city itself.
"Baba," T'Challa said, his voice steady. "Walk with me. We must speak of the future, and the shields we must build."
As the vibranium doors hissed shut, T'Chaka looked at his son, his eyes narrowing. "Your stride is different. The air around you... it has settled. Have you acquired any supernatural powers as well?"
"I have, Baba," T'Challa replied honestly. "The Castle has provided a suite of survival protocols. I see the world now as a series of probabilities and spectrums. I saw your words before you spoke them."
T'Chaka paced the length of the room, his hands behind his back. "Being King is not merely about strength, T'Challa. It is about continuity. I am ready to hand you the mantle, but the world is growing louder. If this Sefirah Castle truly offers such 'Authority,' we must be strategic. What else can we pull from that fog to make our nation an island that no tide can wash away?"
"We need more than just individual power," T'Challa said, his mind already calculating the next tier of the Castle's offerings. "I have seen a path toward Precognition at an Omega level. If the throne can see the shadow of every threat before it crosses our border, we would never need to shed a drop of Wakandan blood. And Stark... he is pursuing Magnetism. If we can secure similar fundamental authorities, we can weave those powers into our vibranium tech."
T'Chaka stopped, looking deeply at his son. "You speak of turning the King into a god of the state."
"I speak of making the King a guarantee," T'Challa corrected. "The world thinks we are an agricultural nation, a secret to be kept. But the secrets are being found out. I intend to use the Castle to buy Wakanda the one thing no army can conquer, Certainty."
T'Chaka nodded, a grim satisfaction on his face. "Then we shall not be cautious with our gold. If the merchants of that Castle sell the power to preserve our people, we will buy every drop they have."
———
When Aryan opened his eyes, the world rushed back in a golden tide, and he found Wanda's gaze meeting his at that very moment, as if our souls had shared the same rhythmic return from the infinite. Time had lingered for them allowing a fleeting second where the rest of the universe simply ceased to be.
"Have the others truly departed?" she whispered, her eyes fluttering like a bird seeking its nest as she adjusted to the quiet intimacy of the room.
"Indeed," Aryan replied, a soft smile playing on his lips. "It seems we are the solitary inhabitants of this hour."
She leaned back with a sigh that spoke of a mind heavy with wonders. "My thoughts are quite overwhelming. It is a profound weight to carry in a single sitting."
"I feel much the same," he murmured, leaning toward her. "As though I have studied for a great trial I never expected to face."
A playful spark lit her features. "And did you emerge victorious?"
"By a narrow margin," he confessed. "I have learned much of the world, Wanda... but even more of the things that truly matter."
They sat in a shared silence, the mundane sounds of the afternoon filtering through the windows like a distant memory. She tilted her head with a grace that caught his breath. "Tell me, have you neglected your midday meal?"
"I have," he admitted.
"You skipped it?" Her brows rose in gentle reproach.
"You are a fine one to chide me," he countered, his eyes lingering on hers. "Did you find the time to eat?"
She hesitated, a soft flush touching her cheeks. "Not... precisely."
"Unbelievable," he sighed, though his gaze was anything but stern. "You preach the virtues of responsibility, yet you ignore the very essence of your own well being."
She laughed, a sound like silver bells in the quiet hall. "I was occupied with our work."
"The work is grand," Aryan said, reaching out to close the distance between them. "But your health is far more precious to me than any labor. Especially yours."
The air grew still as she searched his eyes, her voice a mere breath. "Is it your job to look after me?"
"It is the only thing my heart is focused on," he answered.
"And what do you call this job?" she asked softly.
He rose and extended his hand, an invitation and a vow all at once. "The one where I lead you away from this exhaustion and toward a table set for two, before you faint from hunger."
She looked at his hand, then up at him, a smile of radiant amusement breaking across her face. As she placed her hand in his, the touch sent a jolt through the quiet air.
"Very well," she relented, rising to stand beside him. "But if the food is terrible, the fault lies entirely with you."
"A fair bargain," he whispered, drawing her hand toward his arm. "But if it is delicious, you must admit that I was right."
She laughed softly as they walked toward the door, her side pressing gently against his. "We shall see, sir. We shall see."