The old MacBook felt heavy under my arm as I stepped back into the private lounge of the elevator.
The polished steel doors slid shut with a soft hiss, cutting off the subterranean graveyard of hypercars.
For a long moment, I just stared at my reflection in the mirrored walls.
Clean skin, sharp jawline, and the tired eyes of a sixteen-year-old kid who technically shouldn’t know a damn thing about the world.
Yet here I was, riding an elevator with two billion, eight hundred and fifty million dollars literally tucked under my armpit.
Hidden inside a rusted, thirty-year-old Toyota Corolla next to a Ferrari F40.
My father was either a paranoid financial mastermind or completely off his rocker.
Honestly, in the upper echelons of Marvel’s corporate food chain, the two usually went hand in hand.
The elevator hummed quietly, climbing through the levels of the three-story penthouse.
When the doors finally chimed open, I didn’t bust out into some unhinged, dramatic billionaire laugh.
There was no victory lap.
If my past life of counting every dollar taught me anything, it was that the quickest way to lose a fortune is to let people know you have it.
The next hour was a blur of pure, unadulterated paranoia.
I didn’t mess around with complicated coding or try to be a hacker.
I just copied everything.
Then I copied the copies.
Then I made backups of the backups, scattering duplicate files across three separate retail devices.
Then, just to be entirely safe from any digital nonsense down the line, I printed physical records of the account codes and tucked them into distinct, seamless crevices within the penthouse’s Calacatta marble and walnut panels.
If someone wanted this money, they were going to have to work for it.
Only when the traps were set did I finally collapse onto the massive silk sheets overlooking Manhattan.
The city was a sprawling grid of neon and headlights cutting through the autumn storm.
It looked like a giant, expensive headache.
Mechanically, my mind snapped back to business.
Time to see what the shop looks like.
I willed the interface open, and the translucent blue screen bled into my vision right over the panoramic view of Central Park.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ RIMURU EVOLUTION FRAMEWORK
Current Active Balance: $1,424,950,000 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I leaned back, a faint, humorless twitch hitting the corner of my lips.
“Alright, let’s see what kind of power a billion-dollar entry fee actually buys me.”
The system flickered in response.
Floating at the top of the ledger were Calculator and Analyst, pulsing with a soft amber hue—reminders of the six-month tutorial grace period I’d managed to secure.
“Analyst,” I thought.
“Filter and display all available purchases within my current active balance.”
The screen cascaded with crisp text instantly:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Available Intelligence Purchases]
Photographic Memory — $50M
Enhanced Focus — $100M
Knowledge Retention — $250M
Accelerated Learning — $500M
Multi-Tasking — $1B
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Available Physical Purchases]
Enhanced Strength — $50M
Enhanced Agility — $50M
Enhanced Endurance — $100M
Enhanced Reflexes — $250M
Superhuman Physique — $1B
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The physical tree was staring me right in the face.
Superhuman physique.
The raw, intoxicating capability to punch through concrete, move like a blur, and act like a budget super-soldier.
Every normal kid on Earth would have slammed the buy button on those traits without a second thought.
I stared it down for three seconds.
“No.”
“A stronger body helps me win a fistfight,” I murmured, standing up and walking toward the glass.
“But in a world crawling with gods, spy agencies, and armored tech geniuses, a stronger mind keeps me from getting into them in the first place.”
If Great Sage was locked behind a staggering hundred-trillion-dollar paywall, I couldn’t afford to grind like a meathead.
I needed a massive return on investment.
I needed to build a financial empire that could scale the ladder of this system’s hyper-inflated economy.
“Recommend an optimization path focused purely on cognitive efficiency and information processing.”
The system chimed smoothly:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Recommended Optimization Path]
Photographic Memory
Enhanced Focus
Accelerated Learning
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Total Capital Liquidation: $650,000,000 Remaining Balance: $774,950,000
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
It was a massive chunk of change.
Painful, considering I had only discovered the fortune an hour ago.
But it was logical.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Execute purchase.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Transaction Confirmed] [Integrating Cognitive Architecture…]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Photographic Memory]
Description: Perfect storage and retrieval of all sensory information.
Effects:
• Never forgets information once properly perceived.
• Instant recall of memories.
• Perfect retention of books, conversations and visual data.
• Memory degradation eliminated.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Enhanced Focus]
Description: Eliminates mental distractions and increases concentration efficiency.
Effects:
• Increased attention span.
• Reduced mental fatigue.
• Improved resistance to distraction.
• Enhanced task completion efficiency.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Accelerated Learning]
Description: Improves information processing and skill acquisition speed.
Effects:
• Faster comprehension of new concepts.
• Improved pattern recognition during learning.
• Reduced training time.
• Increased adaptation speed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
There was no sudden surge of magical energy, no theatrical flashes of light.
Instead, it felt like somebody had cleaned a dirty window inside my head.
The sensory shift was immediate.
Thoughts became clearer.
Cleaner.
Faster.
Suddenly, sixteen years of Chris Sterling’s chaotic, fragmented memories didn’t feel like a messy pile of papers anymore.
They snapped into perfectly indexed, high-definition filing cabinets.
I could recall the exact cadence of my father’s voice during a private dinner years ago.
I could count the exact number of recessed LED grids on the garage ceiling from a single backward glance.
The wording of financial law articles Chris had lazily skimmed during private tutoring sessions surfaced with absolute, crystalline clarity.
It wasn’t that I suddenly became an omniscient wizard; it was just pure efficiency.
Like upgrading old hardware.
The processor wasn’t a different brain—it was simply faster.
I was still testing out the feeling when a sharp sound broke the quiet.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
I held back a sigh.
The universe really hated letting me enjoy a moment of peace.
“Come in.”
The heavy walnut door swung open.
An older man stepped onto the white silk rug, a stack of thick, leather-bound folders cradled under his arm.
Arthur Graves.
The Sterling family’s chief legal counsel.
He was a man who looked like he had been poured into a bespoke three-piece suit at birth and hadn’t wrinkled since.
“Mr. Sterling.”
“Arthur,” I replied, keeping my tone level.
Neither of us spoke for a brief moment.
Then, Arthur stepped forward and placed the first folder onto the dark desk.
“There is the pressing matter of your parents, Chris.”
Right.
The private jet crash over the Atlantic.
The dead billionaires.
“The funeral?” I asked.
“Yes,” Arthur said, adjusting his glasses.
“Several prominent members of the executive board have strongly suggested a televised, public memorial service at St. Patrick’s. To reassure the markets, given the volatility of Sterling Global stock.”
The folder stayed closed on the desk.
I didn’t even bother looking at the paperwork.
“No public circus. Keep it private. Immediate family and legacy associates only.”
Arthur blinked, a flicker of surprise crossing his face.
“No? The media presence might stabilize—”
“My father loathed public grandstanding, and my mother didn’t tolerate emotional displays for the cameras,” I interrupted, Chris’s deep-seated memories giving me the exact behavioral leverage I needed.
“A giant corporate spectacle would have offended both of them.”
Arthur paused, then slowly nodded.
“I understand.”
I looked back out the window.
Far below, the city lights cut through the rain.
Miles away, downtown, the massive skyscraper housing Sterling Global Resources stood against the skyline.
Somewhere in those offices, senior executives, analysts, and majority board members were currently pacing.
Vultures.
Circling the carcass of a forty-billion-dollar mining empire before the wreckage had even been pulled from the ocean.
Arthur closed the first folder.
Instead of leaving, however, he opened the second one.
The slight tightening of his jaw told me everything I needed to know.
Here it comes.
“There is another, more critical matter, Chris,” Arthur said, his tone dropping an octave.
“One that cannot wait for the mourning period to conclude.”
“There always is,” I murmured, leaning against the glass.
“Let’s hear it.”
“The executive committee recently finalized an accelerated internal audit of our offshore subsidiary holdings,” Arthur stated, his eyes locked onto mine.
Internally, I froze.
Thankfully, Arthur mistook my silence for composure.
“The findings are… problematic,” Arthur continued, sliding a sheet of financial line items toward the edge of the desk.
“The results indicate that approximately three billion dollars in liquid capital reserves have systematically vanished from company-controlled clearing accounts over the fiscal period of the last seven years.”
Three billion.
What a beautifully precise, familiar number.
“The majority shareholders and senior leadership are under the distinct impression that your father embezzled these funds to establish an unrecorded private reserve,” Arthur said carefully.
Great, I thought.
Rich people discovered theft, and their first conclusion was more rich people.
“The paper trail is substantial enough to warrant a federal investigation if leaked,” Arthur warned.
“The board has formulated a preliminary strategy to handle the fallout, but they require two things from you.”
I walked over to the desk, sliding into the leather chair.
“Lay out the options, Arthur.”
“First, they intend to suspend all legacy dividend distributions to the Sterling estate until the discrepancy is legally resolved or compensated.”
That would effectively freeze my standard cash flow.
Annoying, but entirely manageable given my actual hidden reserves.
“And the second condition?”
“They want your formal written endorsement,” Arthur folded his hands over the folders.
I narrowed my eyes.
“For what?”
“For a structural replacement of the executive leadership. Specifically, the appointment of a new Chief Executive Officer to fill your father’s vacancy, bypassing the standard hereditary transition protocol.”
It didn’t take a genius to see what they were doing.
They wanted a puppet.
“My endorsement? I’m sixteen, Arthur. I don’t hold a seat on the board yet.”
“You don’t,” Arthur agreed smoothly.
“But your parents collectively controlled sixty-five percent of the voting shares of Sterling Global Resources. Upon their legal confirmation of death, those shares transfer automatically into a managed trust.”
I leaned forward slightly.
“The trust my grandfather set up?”
“Yes.”
“And I get control when I turn seventeen?”
Arthur gave a precise nod.
“On your seventeenth birthday.”
Three weeks.
Exactly twenty-one days.
Arthur gave a grim, precise nod.
“The legal framework was locked in by your grandfather’s original estate charter. It cannot be altered by a board vote. In exactly three weeks, Chris… you legally become the controlling entity of a forty-billion-dollar multinational corporation.”
Silence settled over the penthouse room, heavy and absolute.
“The board is fully aware of the timeline,” Arthur added, delivering the real venom of the play.
“They know a seventeen-year-old is about to inherit total authority over their corporate livelihoods. They view the missing three billion as a lever. If you do not cooperate with their choice of leadership, they will hand the audit over to the SEC and the Department of Justice, effectively tying up the estate in federal litigation for the next decade.”
They thought they had me dead to rights.
Sign here or we’ll bury your inheritance in litigation.
That was exactly how billionaire corporate warfare worked.
To them, I probably looked like easy prey—a grieving teenager waiting for somebody else to pull the strings.
Arthur rose from his chair, adjusting his suit jacket one final time.
“The executive committee expects your formal response by the end of the week, Mr. Sterling. I strongly advise you to consider their terms.”
“I’ll give it all the attention it deserves, Arthur,” I said quietly.
The lawyer offered a polite, professional nod before turning on his heel.
The heavy doors clicked shut behind him, leaving me alone with the grey New York twilight.
I stared out at the city.
Three weeks.
Twenty-one days until I controlled sixty-five percent of a forty-billion-dollar corporation.
Twenty-one days until the board stopped seeing me as a grieving teenager and started seeing me as a problem.
Somewhere below, thousands of people were finishing their workday.
Executives.
Investors.
Lawyers.
Vultures.
They thought they were preparing for a corporate takeover.
They had no idea they were about to become the first obstacle on my path to godhood.
Author’s Note The board thinks they’re about to manipulate a seventeen-year-old heir.
Chris thinks they’re the first obstacle on his path to godhood.
Someone is about to have a very bad day.