The digital information was exchanged in a flash, and a second later, Dr. Helen Cho's name officially materialized in the exclusive group chat Rosh had set up.
The digital ink wasn't even dry before a notification exploded onto the screen.
Wade: A new member?! Dr. Cho?! Ha! I knew it! I knew my flawless skin presentation would pull you into the dark side! Welcome to the cult, doc!
Rosh stared blankly at his glowing phone screen. 'Seriously? Does this absolute maniac just sit in a dark room hovering over his notifications 24/7 like an over-caffeinated teenager, or does he actually have a job?'
Meanwhile, Helen handled the immediate burst of text-chaos with her signature high-society grace.
Helen: Mr. Wade, thank you for the colorful welcome. I look forward to your valuable guidance as I navigate these new abilities in the future.
Rosh couldn't help but smile at how cleanly she sidestepped Wade's energy. He quickly tapped out his own welcome message.
Rosh: Welcome to the Devil Fruit Family, Dr. Cho. Glad to have you on board.
After a few more quick text exchanges, Helen slid her phone into her designer purse and looked up, gesturing lightly toward the porcelain saucer in her hand containing the remaining half of the Heal-Heal Fruit.
"Well then, Mr. Rosh, I won't take up any more of your valuable business hours," she said, her voice warm and smooth. She lifted the fruit slightly, a questioning look in her eyes. "I am perfectly clear to take the rest of this Devil Fruit with me, correct?"
"Of course," Rosh nodded, flashing a polite, professional smile. "You bought the asset, Doctor. It's officially your property to do with as you please."
"Wonderful." A look of genuine, deep satisfaction settled across Helen's face. "Goodbye for now, then, Mr. Rosh. It was an absolute pleasure."
"Goodbye, Dr. Cho. Safe travels." Rosh paused right as she reached the door, adding a playful, teasing wink. "And hey, don't forget to send a few of your wealthy, high-society colleagues my way if they're looking for a genetic upgrade."
An elegant, faint smile touched her lips. "I'll certainly see what I can do."
With a final polite nod, she turned and stepped out of the boutique, her high heels clicking softly against the floorboards as the front doorbell gave a gentle, cheerful chime behind her.
The moment the glass door clicked shut, Rosh completely collapsed back into his leather office chair, letting out a massive, deeply satisfied breath.
"Wow," he muttered to the empty room. "That actually went surprisingly well."
An unstoppable, triumphant grin spread across his face. To be completely honest, when Helen Cho had first marched into his shop, he had been bracing himself for a grueling, multi-hour battle filled with rigid scientific arguments, stubborn skepticism, and medical cynicism. Instead, he had successfully closed a multi-million-dollar deal with zero casualties.
And the best part? It happened a mere twenty-four hours after his very first sale to Deadpool. Compared to the soul-crushing, month-long drought he had just suffered through, this was an absolute rocket launch of momentum.
"Four more," Rosh muttered, lightly tapping a rhythmic beat against the wooden counter. "Just four more official sales to clear the next system milestone."
In theory, the objective sounded incredibly simple. In practice, he knew it was still going to be a massive, uphill climb. But his overall confidence had grown exponentially.
Plus, Helen Cho was a completely different caliber of client compared to Wade Wilson. Wade was a loose-cannon mercenary who hung out in sketchy back-alley bars; Helen operated in the absolute upper echelons of global society. She was highly influential, financially well-off, and connected to the architects of the modern world. People like Tony Stark weren't just abstract celebrities to her; they were colleagues she casually texted on weekends.
If Helen were genuinely willing to drop his store's name with her elite circle of associates, the sheer quality of his future walk-ins would skyrocket.
"I've got some seriously high hopes for you, Dr. Cho," Rosh whispered to himself.
Right on cue, his pocket violently vibrated again. Rosh pulled out his phone, and his left eyelid gave a heavy, involuntary twitch.
Wade: Rosh! Spill the tea, boss man! How'd the face-to-face with the doc go?!
A literal second later, before Rosh could even clear the notification, another paragraph popped up.
Wade: She's absolutely gorgeous in person, right? See?! I told you I wasn't exaggerating! My scouting reports are 100% accurate!
Wade: @Dr. Cho Hey doc, now that you're cured of your scientific blindness, what do you think of our ridiculously handsome shopkeeper? Be honest: on a scale of 1 to 10, how hard are you crushing right now?
Rosh aggressively rubbed his hand over his face, letting out a deeply exhausted groan. 'This total idiot... Had he seriously decided to retire from the mercenary business just to become a full-time, toxic internet matchmaker?' Rosh genuinely couldn't comprehend the bizarre, chaotic pathways of Wade Wilson's brain.
And unfortunately, Deadpool was nowhere near finished. Because Helen was still actively lurking in the group chat, Rosh wisely chose to keep his thumbs completely still, refusing to take the bait.
Thankfully, Helen handled the digital harassment like an absolute professional.
Helen: Mr. Wade, Mr. Rosh is an exceptionally charming, intelligent individual, and he commands my utmost professional respect. However, that is the absolute extent of our interaction. Please do not let your imagination run wild.
It was a perfectly drawn, elegant boundary line. A normal human being would have read that text, taken a step back, and talked about something else.
But Wade Wilson was not a normal human being. Boundaries were just a personal challenge to him.
Wade: Oh please, doc! "Respect" is literally chapter one of every single great romance novel ever written!
Wade: Come on, let's do a quick deep-dive into your psyche for science. What's your exact type? Tall guys? Intellectuals? Total heartthrobs with mysterious pasts?
Wade: Because hypothetically speaking, if a certain boutique Devil Fruit vendor checked every single one of those boxes... I'm just saying, the shipping manifest writes itself. Asking for a friend. The friend is science.
Rosh just stared at the screen in absolute, horrified disbelief. The man had completely and fundamentally abandoned every shred of human shame. He wasn't even attempting to be subtle about it; he was just straight-up bulldozing the chat.
After dropping a few polite, brief emojis to stay diplomatic, Helen clearly decided she had better things to do with her day and went completely radio silent.
A regular person would have gotten the hint that the conversation was dead. Wade? Wade just kept right on typing. Thirty minutes later, he was still actively holding a full monologue with himself.
Wade: Wow, okay, everyone went ghost mode real quick.
Wade: The group chat metrics are plummeting. I blame the structural decay of modern society.
Wade: Nobody knows how to genuinely communicate anymore. Everyone's just trapped in their little bubbles. Back in my day, we actually stayed online and argued with strangers until 4 AM...
Slowly, Rosh lowered his phone, setting it face down on the counter. A highly dangerous, incredibly tempting thought began to take root in his mind.
'Should I just hit the mute button on this guy?'
The urge was becoming almost impossible to fight. Think about it: there were currently a grand total of three human beings in this entire group chat. Three. And Wade was already generating enough continuous text-spam to completely flood a high-traffic community server.
What was going to happen once the shop expanded? What happens when there are ten members? Twenty? A hundred? The sheer, terrifying mental image of Deadpool spamming a group chat full of elite Avengers and high-tier supervillains was enough to give Rosh a literal migraine.
After a brief internal struggle with his own corporate ethics, Rosh let out a long, defeated sigh.
"Forget it," he muttered, tossing the phone onto a stool across the room. "Let him talk to his own reflection. Out of sight, out of mind."
Closing the digital door on Wade's ongoing text-storm, Rosh decided he needed a serious mental break. He pulled his tablet out from under the counter and tapped a highly familiar, sleek game logo on the screen.
Honor of Kings.
Rosh blinked, a slight, surreal smile touching his lips as the flashing loading screen illuminated his face. Even after a full month of living in this reality, he still found it completely mind-blowing. Of all the corporate entities, apps, and pop culture staples that could have crossed over into this Marvel universe... Tencent had somehow managed to claw its way through the multiverse to capture the mobile gaming market here, too.
Granted, this specific international localized version felt a bit weird compared to the meta he remembered from his past life. A few of his favorite hero models had completely different designs, some skill cooldowns had been heavily rebalanced, and the overall map pacing felt a little clunky.
But at the end of the day? A competitive grind was still a competitive grind.
A few high-intensity matches later, the stress of Wade's matchmaking entirely melted away, replaced by the familiar, comforting focus of a casual gamer.
"Seriously," Rosh laughed out loud, shaking his head in absolute amusement as he successfully locked in his favorite character for the next round. "Tencent really is an unstoppable force."
With his mind completely cleared and his spirits high, he clicked the matchmaking button and queued right back up for another round.
⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘
The rest of the evening passed exactly the way Rosh expected.
While a steady stream of window shoppers drifted through the front door, attracted by the flashy neon sign and the weirdly beautiful merchandise, none of them actually pulled out a wallet.
Let's be real: when every single item on your shelves costs anywhere from hundreds of thousands to several million dollars, you aren't going to make impulse sales to casual pedestrians.
Still, Rosh wasn't losing any sleep over it.
He had already closed a deal with Wade Wilson and secured a multi-million-dollar transaction with Dr. Helen Cho, all in the span of twenty-four hours. Compared to the total ghost town his shop had been for the past month, this was monumental, earth-shattering progress.
When closing time finally rolled around, Rosh flipped the sign to 'Closed' and locked the front door. As for the priceless, reality-bending Devil Fruits left on display? He didn't worry about high-tech security systems or back-alley burglars for even a second.
Before walking out, he simply opened his system and transferred every single remaining piece of fruit straight into his secure System Inventory. Within seconds, the store displays were completely bare, leaving behind an empty shell that would deeply confuse any midnight thief.
After grabbing a quick, cheap street dinner, Rosh hailed a yellow taxi and directed the driver far away from the bright lights of the city, heading straight toward the coastline.
A short while later, he was standing alone on a deserted beach, staring out at the vast, dark Atlantic Ocean as the waves crashed against the shore. He looked at the endless black water and silently sent a prayer up into the cosmos.
'Please, whatever cosmic entity is running this show... let Seastone and the sea curse be absent from this universe.'
That specific question was the entire reason he had dragged himself out here in the middle of the night.
In the original One Piece world, seawater and a rare mineral called Seastone were the absolute, ultimate vulnerabilities of any Devil Fruit user. The moment a user was submerged in the sea, their supernatural powers were completely locked away, leaving them completely paralyzed and helpless.
But this wasn't the Grand Line. This was Marvel.
Whether that crippling, biological weakness actually carried over into this entirely different reality was a massive, terrifying mystery. Even his own System interface had given him the digital equivalent of a shrug when he'd tried to ask about it. Until he had actually rolled a superpower of his own, he had no way of checking the parameters. Now that the light of an Admiral was humming in his veins, it was time to find out if he had a fatal flaw.
Taking the Plunge
Kicking off his shoes and tossing his jacket onto the dry sand, Rosh took a deep breath and stepped toward the shoreline.
The first wave of icy, dark seawater rushed over his bare feet. He froze, hyper-analyzing his own internal energy.
Nothing happened. The light inside him didn't flicker.
Encouraged by the lack of immediate paralysis, Rosh took a few more deliberate steps into the surf.
The water rose to his calves: Still no dip in energy.
It reached his knees: He felt perfectly fine.
It hit his waist, then his chest: His muscles felt completely light and responsive.
Eventually, the freezing ocean water rose all the way up to his neck. A few yards away, a small group of late-night tourists was splashing around and laughing, completely oblivious to the fact that a high-stakes, superhuman experiment was taking place right next to them in the dark.
Rosh monitored every single heartbeat, ready to instantly dissolve into light particles and blink back to the shore the very millisecond he felt even a hint of sudden weakness. But his core energy remained completely steady.
"Alright," he muttered, shaking the water out of his hair. "Here goes nothing."
He pinched his nose and dove completely beneath the surface.
The chaotic noise of the world above instantly vanished, replaced by the heavy, cool silence of the deep ocean. Rosh opened his eyes underwater, counting the seconds as they ticked by in his head.
One second. Five seconds. Ten seconds.
And still, absolutely nothing happened.
There was no sudden, crushing exhaustion. No muscular paralysis. No terrifying drain on his core strength. The ocean water affected his physical body no differently than it would any ordinary baseline human being.
Rosh broke the surface a moment later, gasping for air as a massive, unstoppable look of pure excitement exploded across his face.
"It works!" he yelled into the empty night air, pumping a fist into the surf. "There's no sea curse in this world!"
The greatest, most devastating flaw of the Devil Fruit biology simply didn't exist under the physical laws of the Marvel universe. At least, not as far as his initial field tests could tell. That single, monumental piece of data alone made the entire late-night trip worth every single second.
With his biggest existential worry officially put to bed, a new, highly practical thought immediately took over his brain.
'Time to start training.'
Sure, the System offered ways to instantly maximize his power output, but those premium upgrades required Origin Points, and Origin Points meant grinding through incredibly difficult sales targets. Until he could build up a solid client base, his only option was good old-fashioned, hard work.
Possessing the raw genetic code of the Glint-Glint Fruit was one thing, but actually mastering the mechanics of light speed was a completely different story. Admiral Kizaru hadn't become a walking natural disaster overnight.
Early the next morning, Rosh caught a train far out of the metropolitan area, eventually hiking deep into a desolate, barren mountain range. The rugged terrain was completely deserted. No hikers, no park rangers, and absolutely zero satellite tracking. Perfect.
He scanned the rocky canyon one final time, nodding in satisfaction. "Nobody should be bothering me out here."
Pulling a thick piece of chalk from his pocket, Rosh walked up to a cluster of massive, towering boulders and drew a series of crude 'X' targets across their surfaces before stepping back a healthy distance.
The targets were locked. The real grind could finally begin.
Rosh raised his right hand, extending his index finger toward the furthest marked boulder.
Instantly, a swarm of blinding, golden particles rushed to the tip of his finger, condensing into a humming, hyper-pressurized sphere of raw energy. The very air around his hand began to warp and tremble from the heat.
Then—
*Pew!*
A brilliant, pencil-thin beam of concentrated light erupted from his hand. The marked boulder across the canyon violently exploded into a million tiny fragments, sending sharp shrapnel raining down across the mountain path like lethal confetti.
Rosh's eyes practically ignited with excitement. Without pausing to admire the damage, he whipped his hand toward the next target, his reflexes clicking into a smooth, rhythmic cadence.
*Pew!*
Another blinding flash. Another shattering explosion of solid rock.
*Pew! Pew! Pew!*
A rapid barrage of golden lasers tore through the valley one after another, moving far too fast for a human eye to track. Each photon blast struck with the force of an anti-tank missile, reducing ancient, solid rock structures to clouds of fine powder in a matter of seconds. The quiet wilderness echoed with the continuous, deafening thunder of his output.
And the craziest part? This was literally just the absolute, bare-minimum baseline application of his Logia fruit. Simple, straight-line photon spam. No advanced spatial shifting, no energy solidifying, nothing fancy at all. Yet, the pure kinetic destruction already outclassed almost every standard firearm and military explosive on the black market by an embarrassing margin.
Watching a final, massive boulder completely disintegrate into a cloud of smoking gray dust, Rosh let out a breathless, euphoric laugh.
"Seriously," he muttered, staring at his glowing, golden fingertips. "Devil Fruits really are the ultimate cosmic cheat codes."