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Initially, Rosh's master plan had revolved entirely around high-stakes auctions.
It had made perfect sense at the time. A grand, exclusive auction would allow him to liquidate multiple high-tier fruits in a single night while instantly cementing the Home of the Devil Fruits as an elite, untouchable establishment for the world's topmost one percent. It was supposed to be the fastest, most efficient shortcut to smashing through his system sales quotas, reaping those sweet milestone rewards, and exponentially boosting his own personal strength.
But plans rarely keep pace with a reality as lucrative as his had become.
With the absolute, borderline-religious frenzy currently surrounding the Devil Fruits, Rosh could hit his sales quotas lying down with his eyes closed. It was a total cakewalk. In raw economic terms, he was presiding over a seller's market in its purest, most absolute form. Under these flawless conditions, the dramatic flair and the exhausting logistics of an auction were no longer necessary.
And with the system's newly introduced settlement method, Rosh's horizons had naturally broadened.
Compared to individuals possessing what the system defined as "Special Value," the general public, no matter how many billions of dollars they flaunted, naturally slipped right down his priority list. After all, from those blessed with Special Value, Rosh could extract metaphysical treasures far more precious than mere glittering piles of gold.
Case in point: Captain America, who had just been located by Bruce Banner.
If you looked at it strictly in terms of raw physical strength, Steve Rogers was nothing special. In fact, standing in front of Rosh's current cosmic power, the super-soldier was practically a speck of dust. Yet, the Captain possessed one crucial, invisible attribute that ordinary billionaires could never hope to match in a thousand lifetimes.
Fate.
Steve Rogers was an absolute anchor of the universe, a true, foundational protagonist of this world's narrative arc. How could the inherent "Luck" or "Karma" of a living legend be anything less than staggering? Rosh knew that his rarest, highest-tier fruits weren't meant for mundane politicians; they were meant for people who could alter the fabric of history.
Then there was Stephen Strange, who had recently walked through his doors. He was another cornerstone of this universe's destiny. His innate "Fate" was undoubtedly massive even now, and down the line, he was fated to become a master of the mystic arts. Rosh had a choice to make there: he could harvest Strange's raw Fate right now, or he could play the long game, waiting until the man officially became the Sorcerer Supreme to claim his highly refined Magic.
No matter how he calculated it, these were the "Premium Clients" he needed to ruthlessly focus on from here on out.
As for the rest of the world?
Well, they would just have to be patient, wait in line, and pick through whatever leftovers he deemed ordinary enough to put on the public shelves.
It sounded inherently brutal and unfair, but then again, when had the world ever been a level playing field? Besides, Rosh was under no illusions about his role in this universe. He wasn't a saint, and he certainly wasn't trying to be anyone's savior. His goal was beautifully simple: to use the system to make himself as completely and utterly powerful as possible. The general plight of the masses wasn't his burden to bear.
"It's settled, then," Rosh murmured, a cold clarity settling over him.
He spent a little more time navigating the newly upgraded interface, testing the sub-menus, and ensuring he had a flawless, muscle-memory grasp on the new mechanics before finally commanding the holographic screen to fade away.
'So, what day-to-day adjustments do I actually need to make to align with this update?' Rosh pondered, tapping his fingers rhythmically against the armrest of his chair.
But after turning the logistics over in his mind, he realized that very little about his public business model actually had to change. For his ordinary, run-of-the-mill clientele, this system upgrade had absolutely nothing to do with them. They didn't need to know about the cosmic shifts behind the curtain; they just needed to keep showing up with their pallets of gold, business as usual.
But for those rare individuals blessed with "Special Value"?
Rosh decided right then and there that he would handle those high-profile sales strictly behind closed doors. Most people had absolutely no idea that intangible, metaphysical concepts like "Fate," "Divine Energy," or "Lifespan" could be bartered like currency, and he had zero intention of making that knowledge public.
If word got out to the media that you could trade a piece of your soul or a fraction of your destiny for god-like power, every desperate, power-hungry person on Earth would be banging down his doors. It was much cleaner to keep the true nature of his "VIP room" a secret and hand-pick his targets himself.
Everything else on the surface would remain a perfectly normal, high-end corporate operation.
"Elizabeth," Rosh called out, his voice cutting through the quiet office.
The door opened seamlessly, and his assistant stepped inside. Rosh instructed her to officially launch the multi-billion-dollar membership program on the Home of the Devil Fruits main website and to update the public Devil Fruit encyclopedia with the newly unclassified, high-tier Devil Fruits.
The moment she nodded and left the room to execute his orders, Rosh leaned his head back against his chair. He closed his eyes, took a slow breath, and unleashed his Observation Haki.
His consciousness surged outward from the Vanderbilt Building like a silent, invisible shockwave. It expanded with terrifying, logic-defying speed, rippling across Manhattan, tearing past the borders of the United States, and instantly blanketing the entire globe. At his current, staggering level of power, monitoring the heartbeat of the planet was completely effortless.
One by one, like bright, burning beacons in a vast ocean of darkness, Rosh began locking onto the unique spiritual signatures of those possessing "Special Value."
The first beacon to lock into his grid was Captain America.
Through the lens of his Haki, Rosh saw Steve Rogers sitting in a quiet, sterile room inside a high-end nursing home. The legendary super-soldier was resting beside a frail, silver-haired Peggy Carter, watching over her with a heartbreaking tenderness as if she might slip away into the afterlife at any given moment. He was the first major piece on Rosh's radar.
But his gaze didn't stop there. Beyond the Captain, other brilliant lights began to ignite across his mental map of the globe.
In a high-tech operating room, Stephen Strange was currently performing a flawless, microscopic neurosurgery. The arrogant, brilliant doctor was nodding along to a lively pop soundtrack while effortlessly playing music trivia games with his nursing staff, the literal picture of untouchable genius.
Miles away, behind the reinforced bars of a state penitentiary, Scott Lang, the future Ant-Man, was sitting on a bunk, sharing a laugh and swapping idle, ridiculous stories with his cellmate and buddy, Luis.
Over in the war-torn, shadowed streets of Sokovia, the Maximoff twins, Wanda and Pietro, were living the brutal, hand-to-mouth life of refugees, huddled together in a cold room, just trying to figure out where their next meal would come from.
Further down, Peter Parker was still just a bright-eyed child, playing with toy blocks in a suburban home, entirely unaware of the tragedy that would soon take his parents away.
In another corner of the world, a brilliant young scientist named Jane Foster was huddled over glowing monitors, drowning in astronomical data alongside her intern, Darcy Lewis, utterly spellbound by the mysteries of the cosmos.
And somewhere out in the bustling matrix of San Francisco, Eddie Brock, the hard-nosed, cynical reporter, was diligently chasing down a lead for his next big story, still a long, dark road away from his fateful, symbiotic encounter with Venom.
In a single, quiet heartbeat, every single figure of cosmic significance was perfectly mapped out in Rosh's mind. He knew exactly who they were, where they were hiding, and what they were doing.
Admittedly, while some of these targets were ripe for an immediate transaction, others were like unripened fruit; they needed time to mature.
For someone like the young Peter Parker, even when he eventually became Spider-Man, his raw physical strength would be practically useless to Rosh. The real, priceless treasure there was his sheer, narrative Fate. The exact same rule applied to Ant-Man and Eddie Brock. Captain America fell into a remarkably similar category.
But for someone like Wanda Maximoff? Rosh didn't give a damn about her destiny. He was far more interested in harvesting her innate, raw Chaos Magic. And for a prize that massive, he would gladly be patient.
After carefully weighing the cosmic scales, Rosh formulated a precise master plan for cultivating and eventually harvesting these premium crops.
"Well then..." Rosh whispered, his eyes snapping open as the global map faded from his mind. "Let's start our harvest with Captain America."
But just as he finalized his decision, the sharp buzz of his smartphone shattered the silence of the office. He glanced at the encrypted ID. It was Nick Fury.
"Manager Rosh," the Director's gravelly, no-nonsense voice crackled through the receiver before Rosh could even say hello. "I want SHIELD in on that VIP membership program. One metric ton of physical gold, correct? I have it in stock, fully vetted and ready to move. Should I have Agent Coulson drop it off at your new Manhattan building right now?"
Rosh couldn't help but chuckle. The sly old spy certainly didn't waste a single second when it came to securing an edge.
But still... a whole ton of gold? To have a massive, multi-billion-dollar stockpile of untraceable bullion sitting in a vault, ready to be mobilized at a moment's notice?
Even Rosh was secretly, deeply impressed. The Director must have been aggressively hoarding every scrap of gold SHIELD could lay its hands on, the very second he caught wind of a potential membership tier, just patiently waiting for the day Rosh finally opened the floodgates.
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Next Chapter: The Soldier's Anchor and the Agent's Duty
Next Next Chapter: Reversing Time by Twelve Years
Next Next Next Chapter: The Immortal Agent and the Tree from Home
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