Greed God chapter 62

January 17th 2016 Palace of Debauchery 5:00 PM EDT

Cherry  had Katharsis and Bleak Michael under control with whatever her  relation to them was, so dismissing them was easy enough once she was  mine. I didn't keep them, because they were associated with Knightfall. I  handed them both a wad of cash and told them to get the hell out of  Gotham, my mask preventing them from learning my identity of course.  Then Cherry disposed of her costume and I took her back to the palace.

Once  we got there I sat her down to hash out details. "Ok, a few things  Cherry, first off, you'll be transferring all your assets to me. I'll  also need to know anything you can tell me about the various political  mechanisms you have in place and what I can use them for. Your search  for Trevor you can leave to me." I'd contacted The Calculator about  tracking the guy down, using the email he'd reached me with before, and  I'd gotten lucky since apparently I could hire him without going to see  him in person now. I guess he believed I was good for it.

She  nodded happily. "Of course daddy, I trust you to find him. My assets  are easily transferred, I own most of Cherry Hill at this point, and  with the massive majority of the land and the money I have on hand  you're as good as in charge of this place now!" She sat down at the  computer I'd brought her to and started emptying back accounts. In just a  few short minutes I went from barely a millionaire to have fifteen  million in the bank, and with a quick check I noted my points jump from  twenty to thirty thousand.

Going  through a listing she'd written up I saw that aside from twenty H rank  manors, I also got dozens of I rank houses and several G rank estates.  Combined with some valuables in the houses Cherry had liberated from  previous tenants, I ended up with ten thousand more points. That  was...easier than expected. Cherry had severed all connection to  Knightfall, the minions were gone, Barbie would have to let things go  and I could nudge her a bit if she didn't, now I needed to get in touch  with dad and tell him my mission was a success.

But  the victory rang...hollow. It was just so easy. Granted I'd done a ton  of prep work, but it was still just a matter of fucking some girl and  branding her. It rang false. In fact, the whole Checkmate keys to the  kingdom deal sounded...boring. It was all boring. It always had been,  I'd gotten excited about the system and had forgotten how banal I found  everything, but that sense of ennui was coming back...and I hated it. I  didn't want to go back, didn't want to become some empty loser  scrabbling for power.

If  I went to Checkmate I'd only ever be Maxwell Lord's son. I'd be  following in his footsteps, living in his shadow, and I would be  pointless. Just a knock off, a second rate copy. I didn't want to be  Maxwell Lord's son. I wanted HIM to be Nick Lord's father. I wanted  people to know my name, BOTH my names. My mind cleared, and for the  first time since I got the system I found a purpose. I'd wanted to build  my power before, to conquer and get points, but I hadn't had a  direction. Now I did.

I  grinned down at Cherry. "I've come to a decision. I'm done with this  nonsense. Done with playing in other people's game. The Shadows,  Checkmate, The League, forget them. I wanted to build and army of super  criminals to combat them, and I still can, but I was missing the  obvious. I'm not just Mammon. I'm Nick too. This identity is an asset.  I'm going to create my own company. I'm going to surpass Lord  Consolidated, LuthorCorp, and Wayne Enterprises. I was going to take  over the fucking world TWICE, and none of those assholes would be able  to stop me.

For  the first time since I'd started all this I felt like I was moving  forward, like I was genuinely beginning to see my path forward. Money  was nothing to me, sure, but it let me BUY things that were. It gave me  options and access and status. All of those things I could use. Cherry's  eyes were shining happily as she hurled herself into my arms. "Oh daddy  that's amazing! I'll help! We can get all your permits on order through  back channels and take care of any management issues too. My father's  graft mechanisms will make it a snap to smooth over legal hurdles."

I  grinned and pulled her into my lap, palming one of those perky tits as I  kissed her, enjoying her moaning and wiggling against me before I  pulled away. She gave me a pout but I ignored it. I'd been going down  the wrong path all this time. The system even told me as much at the  start. It had straight up stated that things other people get me aren't  mine and don't count. The resources from Checkmate would have been  worthless to me.

I emailed my old  man, telling him about my decision. I got the weird impression he would  be proud of me for this, but that didn't really matter. I had a  direction, now I just needed to figure out where to go with it. I needed  something for my new company to do. I had cash and connections, I could  go into smuggling or transport, but in the end if I wanted to compete  with the giants I needed a claim to fame. I needed something specific to  me that no one else could make.

I  needed the system. I had to find a way to use it to make something  really unique that couldn't be copied, or rather, couldn't be copied  feasibly. I could do that. A pair of J rank items made an I rank item  that was high quality, if not world class. Buying a pair of trash  quality things and turning them into something good quality would be a  business plan no one would be able to keep up with. I could even offset  most of the cost of the merges with mass acquisition of J rank shit to  start with.

I  had a business plan that would essentially make money out of nothing,  but I needed to figure out what I was going to actually sell. It had to  be something I could get plenty of, but that would still be useful to  sell at bargain basement prices to get my name out. Since I would be  buying cheap or broken materials to use to start with even selling for  next to nothing would be valid for most items.

I  pulled up the internet and started a search for the flagship items for  Lexcorp and Wayne Enterprises. Laptops were out. Too big and complex,  and much to variable. I needed consistent products which meant a  consistent base, but then I froze. I was thinking if this wrong. I  needed a consistent base, but I could merge two items with one as the  primary. If I merged any J rank cell phone with, say a plain steel ring,  using the ring as the primary, it would come out the same way every  time even if the phone was different.

But  a ring with a phone in it wouldn't be feasible. It was a cute gimmick,  but without some kind of projection technology (which would NOT be I  ranked) I had zero chance of making that commercially viable because no  one would want a phone with a shitty ring sized screen. Still, it was  enough of a direction to brainstorm and that was all I needed. I started  looking for company locations in Metropolis (more money over there,  though we would incorporate in Gotham because of all the political  tricks we had) as I considered what I could do.

I  could do a restaurant, but I wouldn't make much, and couldn't compete  with good cooks anyway, at least not without spending more points than  was practical. I could do jewelry, but volume made that unfeasible. Tech  seemed like a great spot to make me entrance, but I would need to come  up with some combination of items using something I could get lots of,  which would be touch to manage. I'd also need something everyone needed  or wanted.

I  blinked. I liked the tech idea, and the ring thing wasn't viable, but  the phone combination would work with a bit of tweaking. Not a screen,  but something pretty much the opposite. Rather than make the screen  bigger, I would just make the field of view smaller. Computer glasses. I  could make a basic I ranked model, and then a flagship H rank by meging  them together to make something more powerful. A variety of cell phones  combined with a consistent make and model of glasses would produce  consistent results if the glasses were the primary focus.

I  ran to the room where I kept all my materials. The hardest part was  finding a J ranked phone to begin with, anything that was even remotely  viable was I ranked already which defeated the purpose. Finally I found a  shitty barely functional phone and a pair of wire rimmed glasses and I  activated my the merge, chipping ten points off my thirty thousand plus  total there was a flash of light, and Cherry gasped when she saw the  objects combine, causing me to briefly remember she didn't know about my  powers but I didn't care that much right now. I appraised the result.

[Appraisal  function activated. Treasure detected. Smart Glasses- I rank. A pair of  glasses with all the capabilities of cell phone. Voice commands can be  keyed to the user and will allow for internet access, phone connection  with the insertion of a sim card, and storeable media on micro SD cards  that can be slotted into the frame. Charges via micro usb.]

I  grinned. They. Were. Perfect. Ten points to make, and the materials  were worth maybe twenty bucks, but the upgrade to I rank raised the  quality of both aspects, and I could sell something like this for two  hundred dollars easily. The best part was that I could use that money to  get all the points back and then some, have enough to buy more  materials, and still be selling the things for a tenth of what a normal  lab would have to spend to actually produce them.

I  passed them to Cherry, instructing her on how to activate them, and  then enjoyed watching her geek out over the capabilities of the glasses  for a while. This was it. This was what I needed to get started, to  establish my foothold. I had the cash to spend on advertising too. I  could do this, could get started the right way, and I had the skills and  power to keep any corporate sharks from pushing me too hard early on.  My competitors would find themselves getting a visit from Waylon of  Bonebreaker if they pushed me.

Still,  I wasn't a business guru. I know some things, but I needed someone a  bit more versed in that kind of thing. I'd need to find a girl who could  be trusted to run my company. I could shop around. It would take a  while but I was ready to put in the work to do this. I was finally  excited about something. By the time I was done Lex Luthor would be a  nobody, as for The Reach. I'd leave them to League and only slip in to  profit a bit as Mammon. I finally found a small building in Metropolis  that I was pretty sure would work, and I put in a bid, winning the  auction easily and quickly and arranging a showing. Once that was done I  mulled over my next move. Advertising was key. I supposed it wouldn't  hurt to visit the Daily Planet.