Raj returned to the Aethelgard Tower not as a boy who had survived a dangerous meeting, but as a conqueror returning to his capital. Anya greeted him in the private hangar on the rooftop, her expression tense with anxiety.
"What happened?" she asked, her voice a hushed whisper.
"They made an offer," Raj said, stepping out of the jet and walking towards the elevator. "I made a counter-offer."
He recounted the events in the Geneva suite with dispassionate clarity. He told her about their secrets, their shattered composure, and his final declaration. By the time they reached his office, Anya was staring at him with an expression of pure, unadulterated awe. He had faced down the secret rulers of the world and had not flinched. He had made them fear him.
As if to confirm his victory, a priority notification pinged on her secure datapad. It was another message from the Meridian Council. She read it aloud, her voice filled with disbelief.
We acknowledge the new dynamics at play. We wish to open a dialogue regarding a pact of mutual non-interference and understanding. Your terms will be given every consideration.
The message reeked of fear. The lions were asking the dragon not to burn down their forest.
"What are your instructions, Mr. R?" Anya asked.
"Ignore it," Raj said, waving a dismissive hand. "Let them sweat. Our focus is no longer on them." He gestured for her to follow him to the grand holographic display dominating his office. The web of corporations he had fought so hard to acquire seemed small to him now.
"This was never the true goal, Anya," he said. "Conquering my father's petty empire, intimidating a few old men who hide in the shadows... it was just a prelude. We're no longer interested in taking pieces off the board. We are going to build an entirely new one."
His eyes burned with an intensity she had never seen before. "Instruct R-Corp to begin acquiring controlling stakes in the aerospace, advanced materials, and robotics sectors. I want the best minds and the most advanced technology on the planet under our banner. The old world of finance and logistics is ours. Now, we build the future."
As Anya rushed off to execute his new vision, Raj turned to the System for his daily reward, sensing a fundamental shift in the game.
[ Daily Check-in Complete. ]
[ Reward Received: Blueprint - 'Helios' Compact Fusion Reactor ]
[ New Skill Unlocked: Technological Intuition ]
Raj's breath hitched. This was it. This was the key.
[ Skill: Technological Intuition (Passive) - The host possesses an innate and intuitive understanding of all technology, allowing for its effortless improvement, modification, and novel application. ]
He immediately summoned Anya to his private workshop, a vast, sterile-white lab he had constructed on one of the upper floors. On a central holographic projector, he displayed the blueprint for the Helios reactor.
Anya, with her background in science and data, gasped. Her mind raced, processing the implications. It was a design for a small, hyper-efficient fusion reactor, capable of producing limitless, clean energy from a thimbleful of water. It was a technology that would end pollution, poverty, and wars over resources. It would change humanity forever. It was, without question, the single most valuable object on Earth.
"This..." she whispered, "this will change the world."
"The world is just the first step," Raj said. He stepped up to the glowing blue blueprint. Activating his new Technological Intuition, he looked at the "perfect" design, and his mind was flooded with insights. He saw a thousand ways to improve it—to make it smaller, more stable, more powerful.
He reached out and, with simple hand gestures, began to manipulate the complex schematic. He collapsed redundant systems, redesigned the magnetic containment field, and rerouted energy pathways with a speed and confidence that was utterly inhuman.
Anya watched, mesmerized, as he effortlessly redesigned the future in a matter of minutes. She finally understood. His ambition wasn't to conquer the world his parents had lived in. It was to build a new one they couldn't even imagine.
"What is your goal?" she asked, her voice filled with awe. "What do you do with this kind of power?"
Raj paused, turning from the now-perfected blueprint to look out the window, his gaze fixed on the stars beyond the sky.
"The trillion-dollar valuation? That's just the entry fee," he said, a new, far grander ambition lighting up his eyes. "The real game isn't on this planet."